MelvinBlog

A blog that chronicles my journey on online marketing, blogging, social media, technology and life.

Blogging Experience

How ‘Not’ to Have a Successful a Guest Post

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I have already  seen many guides on making an effective guest posts so I thought I would create one that is quite completely the opposite. 🙂

Anyways you might have seen me do guest articles on some blogs related to this niche. And to tell you honestly, guest post is really a great way to reach out to newer audience and types of people, interactive with them and hopefully have them following your blog. As I have been doing guest posts since last year I have learned a lot of stuffs about it and today I want to share you what are the things that you should do if you want to have your guest post suck big time:

  1. Crappy grammar – Well I have had some problems before with this because usually I just type what’s on my mind spontaneously so grammars had become one of my problems before. If you are no-english native, that doesn’t mean you should write posts with grammatical errors. But still if you like ‘Not” to have a successful guest post, then do your crappy article!
  2. Don’t comment/interact – While I don’t really respond to all comments, I try to interact as much as I can especially with guest posts. There is no worse thing than when a reader asks something on that certain post w/o getting a response from the guest blogger. Responding and interacting with them is like giving them another reason to subscribe and follow your blog. But anyway don’t respond back especially if you don’t want your author bio link to be clicked.
  3. Be boring – Every blogger has his one tone and by trying to pretend you are somebody is a big ‘YES’ if you want to have an unsuccessful guest post. If you speak like ‘chow’ then so be it! If not, readers would surely get bored with your ‘professional-like, pretending’ tone.
  4. Self-Promo Bio box – It’s not wrong to say that you are a ’10 year old blogger who has some experience in blogging’. But saying stuffs in bio box like ‘a guy who is making six figures a month and by purchasing my book you can learn how to’ is a big no no! The bio box plays a crucial role because it gives a short overview of who you really are and what value they can get from you in case they want to visit your blog. The box is not for bragging and self-promo but still if you think it can help you go ahead. Congrats, because you are destined to have no clickers for your link. 😀
  5. Full of fluffs – I have to confess that during my early days of guest posting, I get a rate of 10% success in guest posting! 90% won’t even get passed the owners approval because of fluffs and some nonsense in the article. Remember blog owners expect articles that are even better than what they are writing, so they expect you to write ‘scholarly’. Put fluffs and prepare to be criticized!
  6. Direct them to your front page – Ok here’s an example. On normal days this blog gets 150-250 uniques a day. On days where my posts on some blogs are published, I get 250-350 uniques. A 100 increase isn’t that high eh? Yes it isn’t (or it is depending on who you are), but on normal days my blog gets 700-900 pageviews and on ‘guest posting’ days it gets over 1500-2000! Why? Simply because of the use of landing page. LP is simply a page where the visitors  land. Here’s my landing page for instance. The page simply contains an explanation w/what your blog gives and what your best/helpful posts are. To be honest when reading a new blog for the first time using their LP, I usually subscribe after getting to read their best posts! It can increase conversions up to 50% depending on how you carve out your own.

Over the past years I think I have improved a lot in terms of making a guest post. Guest posts are really beneficial in such a way that it can simply bring you a lot. I know some of you have also your own ups and downs with guest posts so feel free to share your thoughts (or critique!).

How Adsense Changed Everything (Ironic Way)

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One of the reasons why Google Adsense has become popular is because it has changed the lives of most people who started using it. For instance Jeremy Schoemaker get started because of his $100,000+ cheque from Adsense. Some of my close friends do also get started with Adsense. After getting their $100+ payments, they reinvested it and luckily grew their business. In that way Adsense has not just become a money-maker, but also sort like an “inspiration”.

For me it’s no different except that it goes completely the ironic way. As what you can read from my about page, I started blogging 2 years ago primarily because ‘we were told’ Adsense can make us rich. The truth is it didn’t! Because earning from adsense is so hard when you a have website that has 10 pageviews a day, I became so impatient that I started clicking my ads and telling everyone (indirectly) to do the same instead of focusing driving traffic . Ok, luckily I was able to get my first adsense payment after 4 months for $102. I thought that was the best back then!

So I continued being a douche and still clicked my ads (and told everyone too)  on computer shops and stuffs. I got two warnings then from Adsense about it but still continued. In the next 4 months I saw I have $140+ in my account, there’s every reason to be ecstatic for me (oh poor guy~!). Then the dreaded email from google telling me that I am banned from using them and they are going to reverse that $140 and blah blah. I pleaded my case to no avail. Of course why would I win the case if it’s obvious I was clicking it my own?

That had probably changed everything. That time I was really depressed not only with $ 140 but also expenses I have spent on renting comp.shops everyday just to pretend I’m a different people clicking my ads. It was all boggling my mind.  Back then I haven’t received any payments aside from Adsense! So what I did was start working on what’s their and not  on what isn’t there. I had accounts in Kontera, Moreniche, SponsoredReviews, PayPerPost, stuffs and stuffs. One common thing about it is I still haven’t reached the amount for minimum payout so I worked hard on it!

Long story short, I’m now here w/this blog that somehow people respect. I’m here with craploads of knowledge on affiliate marketing. Here, slowly but surely understanding the whole online business thing. That wouldn’t probably happen if not for Adsense banning me. Sure I’m not like other marketers who grew their business big time up to 6 figures but who cares? I’m far more happy w/where I am and how i’m doing things.

Every time I tell this story to people they were kinda wondering how I got lucky getting an Adsense payment while clicking the ads fraudulently. To be honest I don’t know either. Maybe i just really have done it patiently and carefully or Divine Intervention?LOL! But anyhow I’m far more happy w/how I got optimistic despite being banned and losing all the money I thought would be the money I could all make, how I became focused despite being a douche in an online world, and everything.

Sure its not the “better-hearing” story you could ever hear but it’s still nice story for me. How about you, any inspirational three-paragraph story to share? 😀

Driving Traffic With BlogCatalog

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Blogcatalog is one heck of a social community website with hundreds of thousands of users everyday. The best thing about the users there is they’re so active. In case you don’t know, blogcatalog is one of biggest traffic referrals on this blog when it was on its earlier stages. Traffic from there is really massive and its just the matter of how you are going to convert them into loyal subscribers.

Well everything started really well with me using blogcatalog until I abused them and I got banned eventually. Anyway right now I am going to share some really good tips to you on how you can get a share of the massive traffic on BG:

  1. Carve out your profile well – It’s funny that a lot of people after signing up don’t even look to edit their profile page. They immediately jump into discussions w/c is wrong. By having a nice written profile, you’re giving yourself a chance to really introduce who you are, what niche you are into and what are your blogs.
  2. Add Friends & Interact – Like any social community, blogcatalog allows you to add friends and grow your own community. The more friends you have the more traffic and readership you would get from it. So take some time to scan profiles there and hopefully interact with them the right way. Add me as your friend. 😉
  3. Discussions – The discussions page probably is the most trafficked part of it. This is a part where there is a free-flowing discussions of literally about everything. Make sure you blend well w/it. If utilized properly it can bring you hundred uniques a day. Don’t be spammy as people there easily remember who adds value and who adds crap! A bad rep is not good!
  4. Join Communities – By joining communities you are putting yourself in a larger scheme of people w/common goals. Examples of the communities there are the “stumble” community, the “make-money-online”, the technorati, the twitter community and a whole lot more.
  5. Paid Sponsorship – There are two options in this one, first is the premium sponsorship w/c costs $60 and the category position ad w/c costs $8 per month. I find the rates really cheap since what you’re getting by having your site there is just too much. I’ve tried the $8 per month on my other blogs and I would say it really converted well. If you have some budget to promote, then I would really recommend this option.

All in all blogcatalog is really a nice social community. You want traffic, you get the traffic! But getting traffic is not the end right? We, as bloggers or marketers have to find our own ways on how we can convert their curiosity to loyalty. How we can convert those first time visits, into returning readers. It’s not about the quantity of traffic, it’s about the quality of it.  What do you think?

Is Direct Ad Sponsorship Really Worth It?

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When the Google Adsense era came to oblivion (wtF!) or when most people realize that using AdSense isn’t really as lucrative as 123, they forget it and turned their head to what is known as Direct Ad Sales or Sponsorship. Well you might have read a ton of post about direct ad sales and I can’t argue that this could possibly be the highest form of income earner for a blog. What I can say here is that it isn’t really as easy as what it seems especially for newbies or for people on the more unorthodox niche and I know most people can testify for it.

So positive things with direct ad sales is of course, you’re cutting the middleman, then its better for blogs in this niche and for branding, it also makes a lot of income possible. The problem with it now is that, even though you’re on an Alexa of 100,000 and below it still cannot assure you that you can get out $100 on ad sales on a month. I know some people who are really on a situation like that. Another problem is that, because the value of almost everything is close to being a junk, advertisers are not lenient anymore to advertise for a month. They test for the first 5 days, if they want the results, they’ll continue if not they’ll take their ad again!

One more problem is when the blogger or publisher gets desperate because no one is advertising for their blog, they’ll do a firesale! They sell their ads for so cheap, which is not bad but is not good either because you’re making your income source  underachieve. In which if you put up a WidgetBucks Ad or maybe shoppingads you can likely get some more. Again, Im not degrading the value of Direct sales, its just that sometimes it’s not for everyone.

What other alternatives for unsponsored sidebar? A lot!  You can let CPM banners take that or you can run some affiliate products there or you can just remove the sidebar and optimize it contextually! The thing here is that you always want to get the highest income possible. If you’re on a debt niche, then Im pretty sure you’ll get no private ad deals w/c means no income, but when you run AdSense there,  more likely it will  generate you some income. If my memory serves me right I think ads related to it pay $1 up to $5 per click.  I guess thats it for today and let me know you’re strong voice.

Replying To Every Comments Is Silly!

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Interacting with your readers is one thing that makes a blog a tight community. As what has been said a thousand times, blogging is a two way process, providing something, and getting feedback. So in short, you cannot just provide good content and then take a nap. Your readers sure have their say, maybe they couldn’t understand something or want more clarifications. Either way, this is where replying to them takes place.

While I do reply to 15-35% of comments in this blog, I think replying to each and every comment is silly! Why? Simply it’s because you really don’t have to most of the times. I find it ridiculous when a blogger responds to all comments (including trivial comments). I read Neil Patel’s blog and to be frank I enjoy reading it. But I just don’t get why he needs to reply to all comments he receives. I also have done a guest post on Yan’s blog about reputation management. I was asked by him as well to reply to every comments, so I did (not all comments though). Anyway I know 60% wouldn’t agree on me but I just think I have these 4 reasons why I think it’s silly and here they are:

  1. Not all comments add value – Comments like “been here, nice blog” or “thanks for this informative post” are no way can be considered as useless comments. In fact, it always feels good when someone finds your article great. But, it doesn’t add value! I feel I could always go by not saying “you’re welcome”. Depends on my mood, though. 🙂
  2. 85% don’t even get back to your post – The truth about bloggers is that, they bounce so fast. I mean because they want to comment on as many blogs as they can, they don’t really pay much attention to the post and would just rather agree on it immediately or say thank you. So because of it, they wouldn’t even be able to read your reply. In this case, I always look whether someone is subscribed to the comments via email (always make sure it’s unchecked). In that way, I would know if the guy is really waiting for a reply or not.
  3. It inflates your no.of comments per post – In my previous post about whether comments could justify the success of the blog, I tackled that because some of the bloggers reply to every comments, it makes their blog’s community so huge. I’m not really against it but I think it can have a negative impact on a blog because the blogger may have been wasting his time replying to all comments instead of promoting his blog more.
  4. Face it, not all your posts can be liked! – Well in my blog’s case, I have a ton of personal posts rather than helpful posts. I understand that by posting something about my crush, or my school life, it would tune out some of the readers. You see, people always expect something from your blog. If they are into blogging and they think you could help them but suddenly they’ve read an affiliate marketing article, it’s very likely that they wouldn’t get it and won’t respond. Same with contest posts. They rack a hundred comments but that doesn’t justify the popularity of a blog.

Overall the number of comments is really a nice way to dress your blog up and have a nice community. It attracts readers, advertisers and so on. But I think it goes more than just that. If you could possibly work more on other important things that would benefit your blog then that would be nicer than just wasting your time replying to each and every comment, even though you know its just a spam. What do you think? Or maybe am I missing something?

Failures That I Implemented in This Blog…

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So you probably have read it everywhere. A lot of people are really open into sharing their mistakes and faults with their business. Why? Because it takes so much interest from the readers. Readers are usually interested about these things and so I think I need to create my list as well. 🙂

But with a twist. I think if I would put a general list then it would quickly grow up to over 200 major failures. And so I would limit it to this specific blog known as melvin blog. Here they are (no order):

  1. Putting a pop-up ad on this blog –> Not a lot of you might have noticed it but I actually did it about 2-3 months after I started. The pop-up geographically targets US, canada visitors so traffic outside those countries wouldn’t experience it. After 2 months it drew over $10 before I learned the company actually is on hiatus for about 1 year. sucks!
  2. Putting an incentives page –> The page was actually still active and is found on /incentives of the blog. The initial thought was I would present incentivizable offers and have people sign to it and get paid (like gpt sites). It’s only at the end that I learned that merchants were scrubbing most of the leads and actually bots taking over the chatbox. 🙁 In the end I’ve spent $20 and barely made $5.
  3. WidgetSucks Experiment –> Well I thought this one is gonna be successful but its not. I implemented it for 2 months and never barely made a dollar with it. I am getting the impressions but for some reasons its not matching with the Widgetbucks stats. Failed!
  4. Thinking this blog was popular –> When the blog was on its peak during September and October, I almost neglected it. I thought “oh wow, my blog is now popular like a rockstar!” I am getting great number of responses and sold out ad spots as well. It wasn’t until November that I realized I lost 2/4 of my readers (for not posting useful stuffs) and 3/4 advertisers…
  5. Selling the blog on DP –> I’ll tell you what, the reason I actually had thoughts of selling the blog was because I eagerly want to have macbook Air before january this year.. Because I am idiot I listed it in DP instead of Sitepoint. The maximum bid I got there is a lil over $100! wtf!
  6. Not Canonicalizing –> It wasn’t until last month that I found out my url isn’t canonicalized. Hmm, thats why my pr is 0!

Well they say you learn from mistakes and failures. But I say I enjoy mistakes and failures after I actually realized how pointless those mistakes are. Sure it could be fun but I guess sometimes we have to be wary because it could hurt us sometimes not just financially. How about you and your blog, maybe you can tell your own story as well!

I learned my lesson!

When Your Blog Runs Out Of Great Content

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A lot of blogs start out well. They post superb content, have nice interactions between visitors and simply they just provide good value. Results? They get the initial boost, the traction, the followers/subscribers.

Then fast-foward, the blog has now posting “not so-good” content, articles that obviously are just rehashed articles seen on forums. Don’t be surprised, its actually the trend of most blogs.

Most blogs really has a “life-cycle” like that and unfortunately if you look at your own blog, that may even be the case. Providing great content is really the key to traffic, fame and possibly income for your blog. What makes it difficult is the fact that we cannot produce superb content all the time. I remember one time I was subscribed (using my feedreader) to almost 150 sites/blogs that interest me. Sooner I found out 30% of them are no longer providing what I used to enjoy with them before.

That’s really the case. Even if you look at most blogs nowadays you’ll see the same trend. Zacjohnson used to be one of my daily reads with his nice post with PPC Marketing. Now most of his posts are just about an affiliate network, some tools and something not as useful as before. Carl Ocab used to have some nice tutorial tips on some basic stuffs as well as some advanced tips but if you look at his blog now, you’ll see a ton of guest post(that promotes their own blogs), some offtopic posts, and none that are really related to making money online (a brand his blog is promoting).

You can look no further by just looking at my blog. Do you think I have run out of good reads for you? Or my blog has never had a great content even before? LOL… Anyway, I think picking the niche of your blog and its goal plays a strong role on how you must distribute great content to your readers. Lots of people starting out say “ah, I would make a blog teaching people about fishing”, and in the end they just ran out of nice content for their niche. Stating clear your purpose and niche helps a lot in defining what your blog is really all about. It helps to the extent that you would understand how much effort, time you need to exert to fulfill that goal. If you are in the helpful niche of blogs, then I’m afraid to say you have to do 100% more work than normal bloggers.

Back to blogs that I mentioned earlier. So, they don’t produce the same great content they used to produce before, but do you see people leaving them? Do you see a decline of traffic in their part? Partly yes! But the truth is they still managed to gain that same attention from the blogosphere despite the fact they are posting less value. At the end it speaks about “not the greatness of content” after all. Content is great, but that doesn’t mean its anything. 🙂