Sebbie on the Webbie

Archive for the ‘promotion’ Category

I’ve been ignoring SEO for years. I felt that it can’t make that much difference and the only thing you should really focus on is to not to get banned from the search engines. So, I did pretty good job at staying hidden! A couple of weeks ago I found this great website that instructs you step by step on what to do and in what order. I’ve used the tools recommended there to track my keywords and I can see clear improvement on the site I’m working on – I haven’t done a thing with this blog yet so don’t look at the Google Rank here and go “Oh it’s not working!”

So, I don’t need to tell you anything about SEO, except that here’s a very helpful SEO guide that will tell you most anything you need to know about search engines.

I have been an advertiser on the Project Wonderful for quite some time, always relying on the square 125×125 standard advert, out of sheer laziness, really. I had one created for EntreCard and thought to stick one on Project Wonderful too. (Not much to loose, you know.) Then I started thinking… There are probably a lot of people like me, and the other ad boxes that must be out there go virtually unused… AND unpaid. So, I decided to create a version of my ad in all available sizes. The ad design is very similar, and the variation in textual message is minimal regardless of the size of the ad.

I realised that the standard 125×125 advert will cost me more to run, because the competition is higher, but on the flip side there’s a lot more sites to advertise on, so I kept it in the game anyway. (Besides, with PW rates, who cares?) To my surprise, the smallest of ads, the button, performed best. How odd is that? The button, based on my results, brings in 1/3 more visitors compared to the square 125×125 ad, maybe because it’s so small it doesn’t look like a paid ad but something the page author recommends. (I remember reading a blog entry along these same lines saying the same about the button ad, but to the life of me I can’t find it anymore to link to it.)

As an experiment, I spent 6 dollars on Project Wonderful and 6 dollars on Facebook advertising. Even though I created a highly targeted campaign on Facebook, the cost per click is as high as $0.16 (again using a version of the same ad showing only to people who mention “Barbie” on their profile or are fans of an official Barbie collectors page). On Project Wonderful, I ran a very untargeted campaign, showing the ads where ever I could get them for 0.01 dollars, and as a result I got about double the clicks and paid on average from $0.001 to $0.02 per click depending on the size of the ad. (The cheapest being the massive rectangle ad, and the most expensive a shared position between the 125 square and the full banner.)

Of course, there might be a situation where Project Wonderful simply doesn’t work for you because your genre isn’t on the whole network. I have found only one other site running PW ads that is about Barbie, but I am lucky in a way that my topic is a fashion icon, and everyone knows her already. I can also run the ad on craft sites, and chances are there’s a Barbie collector there who sees the ad. Also, I know that people who are into crafts can be curious about Barbie, so even if they’re not collectors yet, my site might coax them into it..! I know similar things have happened when I’ve been interviewed on the telly or magazines about Barbie stuff, and someone, who hadn’t even THOUGHT about collecting before got inspired to see what it was all about and are now active members of the community. That is why you don’t always want to put in highly targeted ads to people who may already have a routine in the niche, they might have their favourite blogging tips site that they visit every day and they don’t have the need for your tips.

Then, once the clicks are in, it’s up to you to keep them coming back. Make sure they know instantly what your site is about… And don’t do it like I did with broken links on the front page!!

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As bloggers, we’re constantly being told that we should be keeping a keen eye on our Google Page rank as well as Alexa ranking. While it is very fulfilling to see your site ranks go up, there’s more to the story than that. As you know, both of these ranks compare your site to Every Single Website On The Web. It is hard to even comprehend how many websites that is. Even if you knew the exact number of different websites on the planet, it would still be hard to understand. It’s like knowing that Australia is a bloody big country, but you don’t really get HOW BIG until you fly over it and realise that just because you just passed Darwin doesn’t mean you’ll be home in Hobart any time soon.

It would be a lot better if there was a way to compare your site’s popularity In Your Niche, but there isn’t, at the moment anyway. That is to say that your site’s influence where it counts has little to do with your page ranks. I must give my husband’s blog as an example. He writes a blog for people who use exergaming in professional health and fitness purposes. Professional exergamers, that is. (I bet you didn’t even know there were such thing as a professional exergamer!) His blog, Exergaming Australia has a modest page rank of 2 (oh, he’s gone up!) and his Alexa ranking is around 4,600,000. Not too impressive if you just look at the numbers. However, everyone who is anyone in the field of exergaming knows who he is and what he does and his influence in the field is world wide and instant. When you google “exergaming” his blog comes up as the second result, right after Wikipedia and Nintendo Wii doesn’t even make the first page! This is because his niche is so small, that even though EVERYONE of any importance knows him, the vast majority of the web is quite unaware of what a brilliant blog he runs.

On the other hand, I run a Barbie community site, as you know, with a page rank of 4 and Alexa ranking of about 476,000, which is pretty impressive for any site, BUT, I make no money (or very little) and the English speaking world is pretty much unaware that my site exists. Put “Barbie” on Google and you won’t see my site anywhere near the top of the results, I quit searching after page 6. And that is because there are a gazillion Barbie sites out there, collectors, articles written about the doll and so forth and so forth, and not even refining the search to “Barbie community” help me much. Yes, I am bad at SEO, but my husband there is even worse.

I checked a few Barbie-sites that I know of and who are very well known amongst collectors, to see how they rank. I kicked their butt so bad, I couldn’t find an unofficial Barbie-site (non-Mattel) that would have had better rankings than I have, not even my biggest direct competitor. How much good does the rankings do for me? Not much, other than I get to pat myself in the back for beating the other sites in the numbers game, but that’s it.

So what to do? Make sure you introduce yourself to all the right people and get the word out. Do the best you can do to produce high quality content and people who do find your site may spread the word where it counts. Focusing on your page ranks is not going to bring your fame and fortune they are there just to report to you how much you’ve improved, not where you should be.

Does that make sense to you?

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If you are running an active community online, you might have considered writing a regular newsletter, then debunked the idea thinking “Everyone is here already, what possible reason would I have for a newsletter?” Check out your statistics. How many of your members have logged in since they first found your site? Quite a chunk, I would imagine. Life happens, sites are found and sites are forgotten. A newsletter is a great way to remind your non-readers that you and your community exist.

I started writing a newsletter for my community site theBdoll.com at the beginning this year. First I thought I would just write a normal email and be done with it, but a silly thing happened – I run a bilingual site, so I would need to write in two languages and the other would have to scroll down to read the email in their language. That is when I decided to make two pdf’s, one in each language. And while I was doing the pdf, I thought why not put a couple more pages into it, and ended up writing a full blown e-newsletter, as in a little magazine. My members LOVED IT. They went absolutely ballistic over it, and I was blown away by the reactions. I got email from people who hadn’t visited the site for a while saying what a great idea that was and a lot of people raised their hands saying they’d like to help me with the newsletter in the future.

The whole project has brought the community closer together and as close knit as we were, the newsletter has made us even closer – I feel.

In each of the issues I introduce two of my members. Hopefully that will make all of us look more approachable as well as interesting to the non-returners – there is a lot of different types to go around, and I’m sure eventually everyone will find someone they’ll relate to and feel safe with if they’re more quiet type. In addition to that, the newsletter, or ezine rather, contains news, the latest hot stuff and a humorous gossip column of or members dolls – we’re Barbie collectors.

Of course, not all sites have topics that allow quite that elaborate ezines, and on the other hand, your topic might be even more open to ideas, I know that each issue I’ve made has brought in another idea. Have a look at our newsletter to get ideas for yours! http://www.thebdoll.com

I am currently experimenting few ad networks, even EntreCard is back on the menu as they recently did some changes I wanted to check out. CMF ads visited my sidebar again, but as there still was no advertisers I took it down again. – I don’t think you should ask for advertisers on the ad networks forum to get people advertising, especially as it seems we’re supposed to buy ads of each other which makes little sense to me.

Project Wonderful has been hanging on for a while, even though the few pennies I earn doesn’t really ad up, but it has a good ad campaigning system so everything that I earn I’ll pretty much put back in.

The network I’m now going for is Adgitize. The reason for this is that the network, that seems to be in early days and quite amateurish in look still, is run by a guy who seems very dedicated to his thing and who is making eager effort to make his network flourish. The sad thing is that since the network is lacking in looks, I think it is hard to take seriously. It attracts second grade… Or shall we even say third grade blogs as publishers, often beginners and those who will add any gadget out there on their blog just because they learned the art of “copy paste”. Not only that, they are the ones who will add 3×3 -ad code to their site. In my opinion it shouldn’t even be offered. 3 ad boxes is more than enough and often that is too much on the same network (lowers the price paid for each ad box as there’s more room).

Anyway, Adgitize is good for small and medium sized blogs because you can earn in multiple ways on their system. It’s not only how many ads you show, or how many is clicked, it also has to do with you clicking on others adds, how many ads you show (this shouldn’t be rewarded imho), it even rewards you for posting content onto your own blog! There are a lot of things this network could do to improve, but it has such a flying start that I wish more serious bloggers who have more self control on advertising and understanding of quality would get into it as well.

If you are serious about your online presence or otherwise just everywhere and want people to recognise you outside your normal circles, avatar is the best way to do this. Online world relies heavily on written word and images. Images, I think we all agree, draw our attention more efficiently than text. This means, that when people are reading your words, they won’t necessarily spend time memorising your name but they will probably at least take a glance at your avatar. In addition, your user name might not be always available for every website you want to join, but your avatar will be. That is why you should have a bit of a think about your avatar. What do you want people to remember you by? There are some types of avatars that tend to give a negative impression of you at first glance:

Baby photo on man’s avatar. Probably the last time any woman told him he was cute.

Baby photo on woman’s avatar. A stay at home mother who has nothing else to talk about apart from her kids. (Probably uses a screen name such as “MomOf2″.)

Just the eye. Seeks a deep contact with people while trying to remain anonymous and appear soulful. Kind of works but is quite unoriginal and thus utterly forgettable.

Popular cartoon character – A male who is trying the “boyish charm” angle although it has never worked for anyone. We’ve seen enough of Vinnie the Pooh and friends already! Original cartoon characters by the man/woman behind the avatar, such as Tony’s are encouraged though!

Disproportioned photo - An avatar of a casual Internet user who hasn’t yet found the delights of Photoshopping. (Has uploaded a photo straight from the camera, without shaping it into a square first.)

Logo – impersonal. Is here to sell me something.

The vast majority of people prefer the picture of a person in an avatar over a logo or other graphic. People want to speak to people. If your avatar is listed amongst several others (like recent visitors list), the likelihood that you’ll get a click is higher if it’s your face in there. But, sometimes you need to put that logo up there. Another thing is, that if you’re using your photo, it gets boring after a while, and intolerable to you when you get a better photo of yourself. But the problem arises, that people get confused if you change your avatar. They won’t remember who you are for a while, until you say something really characteristic to yourself. I believe I found a solution to both of these problems. You are not likely to change your logo too often, right? So why not use that together with your photograph?

Here are some of my recent avatars:

See what I mean? There are elements in the avatar that stay constant while I get bored with the rest of it – me. :p This of course requires some Photoshop skills, but nothing too complicated. What do you think? If you decide to give it a go, please post a comment after uploading your new avatar to SezWho, or to Gravatar if you don’t use SezWho. (SezWho will override Gravatar on my blog.)