Opinion

Bloggers are a diverse bunch. Those of us in North America rarely think twice about sharing our thoughts on everything under the sun. Political blogs are amongst the most popular of all blogs here. But, in other places, blogging about politics or government activities can get you jailed.

Abdul Kareem Nabil Suleiman, better known as Kareem Amer, was jailed for four years in Egypt in February for criticizing the Egyptian government and condemning radical Islam. A website has been set up to keep his voice alive: Free Kareem.

[Via CNN.]

Dear Blogger,

I have some things I’d like to share with you and get off my mind. I hope you’ll take the following pointers to heart so that we can both have a healthy relationship going forward:

1. There are a lot of things I have to do today. I subscribed to your blog because it is interesting, it is helpful, it is inspiring, or all of the above. Please don’t waste my time with uninteresting, unhelpful and uninspiring posts. If you really don’t have anything to post about, it’s probably better to not post anything.
2. Your posts are most interesting, inspiring and helpful when you don’t wander off the beaten path and ramble on about things that didn’t make me subscribe to your blog in the first place.
3. You only get so many chances to overpromise and underdeliver. If you promise something is going to change my life or be some “sure-fire” thing, please don’t disappoint me because, like I mentioned before, I have a lot of things to do today and I don’t have a lot of time to spend doing things I like, like reading great blogs.
4. I can spot a novice blogger from a mile away. They are always the ones with lots of badging on their site, an under- or un-developed About page, and Google ads pasted everywhere.
5. You may fool everyone else with your affiliate links but you don’t fool me. If you don’t label your links as affiliate links and I find out about it, you can be sure I will read your posts with caution and this may be the last time I visit your blog.
6. If I visited your site because some other blogger has called you out on something bad you did (like steal a design), it’s best to be forthcoming and remorseful. Because, like everywhere else in the world, nobody likes a bad person.
7. Don’t make me jump hoops in order to leave a helpful comment. It just makes me not want to comment.
8. Please don’t talk in the abstract. Please do give examples whenever possible. They help me to understand better and makes me believe you know what you are talking about.
9. Please don’t talk down to me. Use words like “you should” very carefully. How do you know I don’t know better?
10. It’s uncool to make a scene with your writing. When you accuse someone of something, there is a nice way to go about it and a not-so-nice way. I call the not-so-nice way verbal diarrhea and it reflects badly on you as much as the person you are accusing.
11. You shouldn’t pretend to know something when you really don’t. It is totally obvious.
12. If I can’t find your RSS feed or email subscription form at first glance on your blog, I’m going to assume you don’t really care about those things and I won’t look any further for them.

Sincerely,
Your Reader

You have a blog. You consider yourself a blogger–heck, a “pro-” blogger even. Do you consider yourself a journalist?

I like this definition of “journalist” from Wikipedia: “A journalist is a person who practices journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events, trends, issues and people.”

By that definition, a blogger who blogs regularly must be considered a journalist. Even a person who reports about nonsense (like the journalists for The Onion) are journalists by that definition. We can split hairs about whether a person who reports untruths or non-truths is really a journalist in the traditional sense but the fact is that even the blogger who takes a satirical position is influenced by current events, trends, issues and people in his or her blogging.

Having premised that a blogger as we traditionally understand him is also a journalist, how many of us actually study journalistic techniques and reporting? I’d gather not many.

Yes, blogging is a fluid medium influenced by the particular writing styles of the individual blogger. The blogger has his own voice, perspectives and experiences that he shares through his writing. But I think we can all work on the “dissemination” part of the definition of journalism above.

Studying journalism techniques allows us to learn writing styes that are particular to certain industries. The sports writer/blogger tries to convey action, the excitement of the moment, the emotional highs and lows of winning and losing. In contrast, the political blogger uses a lot of satire and opinion. Whereas, the technology blogger wants to convey feelings of anxious anticipation for a new product.

In my opinion (and of course you are all welcome to disagree), we bloggers focus too much on getting the latest scoop, generating the best linkbait, speaking our minds on everything under the sun. We spend too little time on the ways in which to communicate to our readers in order to best get our message across. Sometimes, telling a story is the best way to inspire your readers. Other times, absolute satire is the way to get a point across.

My proposal to you is that we should all study the journalistic techniques of various genres (sports, technology, politics, etc.). Maybe it helps to look at mainstream media blogs to see how their writers use words to convey emotion in their posts. Maybe we can visit the bookstore and pick up some genre-specific newspapers or magazines. Let’s think about how they write, how they blend words, how they conjure up images in our minds with their sentences. I’d gather there would be a lot we can learn.

Here’s a link to get you started: visit Poynter Online (a site dedicated to making better journalists) and study their tutorials. I guarantee we can all learn something from traditional journalistic techniques to improve our blogging.

Aaron Wall (of SEOBook.com) was kind enough to share his thoughts on my post about the Killer Four Column Layout Strategy. He asked me, “Do you think being that aggressive with ad placement hurts the ability of sites to gain inbound links?”

That question caught me off-guard because I didn’t think the KFCLS was aggressive at all. That got me thinking–at what point does an otherwise decent blog become too off-putting due to ad placement as to become “unlinkable“? From my point of view, I thought that the KFCLS was very manageable and well balanced the desire of the blog publisher to both create decent content and monetize his site through selling advertising space.

I didn’t think the KFCLS was any more aggressive than what I’m seeing nowadays with multiple Adsense placements above the fold. In fact, I thought the key for the alternating ad placement unique to the KFCLS was that it tracked how people naturally read on a page like that. For example, they start reading the post on the right then their eyes naturally move to the left box, which contains the ad. Then, ignoring the ad bar going the width of the middle two columns, their eyes go to the post on the bottom left and then to the box on the right, and so on. The ad bar isn’t such a big deal and can be removed without too much effect but I had put it in because we were allowed 3 ad units and that was a logical spot.

I posted the article because I wanted people to think about how design and layout can implicate ad earnings more than they realize–it isn’t just about placing ads “above the fold” and following other Adsense presentation dogma. Really think outside of the box by designing a truly unique one-of-a-kind site and then guestimating how readers might read a web page based on its layout.  Finally, put the ads “in front” of them at the right time when they are ready to click.

At the same time, Aaron’s warning about overdoing it and therefore making the site repulsive needs to be also kept in mind. But then again, I’m sure there are designers out there who can implement this layout (and others that optimize ad placement) in an elegant and useful manner so as not to insult the reader. And the ability to strike a balance between profitability and usefulness to the reader is the difference between a profitable, useful and linkable blog, and a made-for-Adsense website based on templates many Internet marketers are hawking.

I’ve been kicking myself for not getting into the bidding for The Blog Herald when it was for sale by Duncan Riley. At the time, blog sales were a new thing (and it still is) and I didn’t know how to value a blog. Also, the public price bidding war was up to $72,000 and there was no way I was going to pay that much for any blog. Eventually, the public bidding fell through and a private deal was negotiated.

The Blog Herald had some intangibles at the time that I really liked. It was well established but not yet top tier (i.e., not yet considered an “A”-list blogging site). There were many citations to the site but at the same time it was also essentially the mouthpiece of one man–Duncan Riley. Thus, there was room for improvement (e.g., by adding more writers).

Also, I thought The Blog Herald’s advertising space was not fully optimized nor had all advertising avenues been explored and implemented. Therefore, if one could acquire the site for a reasonable price, there was certainly opportunity for improvement and gaining a respectable or better return on investment.

It was with that background that I watched with interest the sale process of Aaron Brazell’s blog “Technosailor”. Until I had heard about the sale at Problogger, I had never visited Aaron’s site. But, I do know who Aaron is from his associations with B5 Media, and his writings and mentions in problogging websites.

I visited Technosailor and I must say it didn’t immediately strike me in the head what the site was about. The domain “Technosailor.com” didn’t give any clues except that maybe there was a technical slant to the site (though the tagline in my browser window did say “Technology, Blogging and New Media”). Also, the “About” description was kind of vague (it discussed the power of “people” and “communities”)

However, once I delved into the posts at the site, it was evident that the site was a problogging site (meaning that it was about blogging professionally) with a strong focus on blogging news and ideas. There was also a mix of technical posts (e.g., on changes to the Wordpress publishing system, etc.). Then there was a distinct tone of the posts there which I guess must be attributed to the author, Aaron.

Unfortunately, it looks like the sale of Technosailor has been cancelled. I’m disappointed for Aaron that there wasn’t a deal because the site had much potential. You can read about his reasons for canceling the sale in the previous link. And that brings me to the main point of this post: How much are blogs worth and what are the indicia of value in blogs for sale.

Various people have thrown around figures like 12-18 times monthly income as a measure of a blog’s worth. I don’t think that’s accurate in and of itself and is dangerous if taken too literally. A blog’s worth is a combination of many factors including:

1. Age - How long has the blog been in existence?
2. Quantity of posts - How many posts does the blog have?
3. Frequency of posts - How often is the blog updated?
4. Quality of posts - What is the relevance, currency and depth of the posts?
5. Design - How does the design relate to the content? Does the design convey the appropriate feelings for a visitor to the site? Is the design appropriate for the subject matter? Can the design be improved?
6. Monetization avenues - Has the site fully explored all monetization possibilities and revenue streams?
7. Personality - Does the content of the site convey a particular personality? Is that personality desirable and/or congruent with the future direction of the site?
8. Subscriber quantity - How many subscribers does the site have?
9. Subscriber loyalty - How likely are the subscribers going to continue after a change in ownership?
10. Subscriber growth - How likely am I able to grow the subscriber base after a change in ownership?
11. Cult of personality - How many of the subscribers are subscribers because of the person who is writing the blog posts and what are the costs should that person leave?
12. Statistics - What are the sources of the traffic the site receives?
13. Number of authors - How many writers are there for the blog? What are the opportunities for growing the blog by adding more authors after a sale?
14. Real costs - What are the current and future anticipated costs of running the blog?
15. Intangible costs - What are the non-out of pocket and opportunity costs you expect to incur to implement the above improvements? For example, what is your sweat equity worth?
16. Transferability of revenue streams - Are the revenue streams transferable to the new owner or do they go with the seller?
17. ROI timeframe - How fast do you expect a return on your investment?
18. Current revenue - How much does the blog take in on a monthly basis now?

You should notice that I list current revenue last. That’s because it is the least relevant of all the considerations. To properly value a blog, you need to consider each of the points above and to see if it is a detriment or an advantage to you–whether you can improve on each one to bring in more revenue, how long it will take you to improve and how much it will cost you to do so.

After you’ve done all that, it’s simply a matter of determining what your acceptable level of return is and what the required purchase price is and seeing if the return on investment is acceptable for your time frame–those of you with a business background would do a net present value test of expected future cashflows at this stage.

If I were selling a blog, I would take a hard look at the points listed above and try to remove as many roadblocks as possible to a smooth sale. For example, if the blog has a voice that is centered primarily around me, then before I sell, I would have other authors/writers make posts for a consistent time in order to let my regular readers get used to other writers and to remove my personality from the mix and alleviate a buyer’s fears that the site will go down in value after I leave.

I would appreciate any thoughts on the above. Chris Garrett also has an interesting posting about his thoughts on blog sales.  As does Lorelle at The Blog Herald. Please DO comment if you have any additional thoughts/ideas.

I was thinking about who I envisioned the audience of this site to be (of course I thought, “It’s the problogger”) and it occurred to me that there could be multiple definitions of what a problogger is.

What exactly is a “problogger”? The first time I heard the term was when I happened across Darren Rowse’s blog a couple of years back and when he only had a few hundred subscribers. Darren was a one man operation back in the day with 20-something blogs and him updating all of them! Can you believe that?!

Darren was very efficient even though he worked 18 hours a day. He was also able to generate $50,000 a year from blogging (later he was well on his way to $500,000+ a year). Before Darren went “galactic” as a “problogger”, he and I even traded links to our cell phone blogs that to this day is still there on each of our sites.

When I think about what a problogger is, I think about the qualities that Darren Rowse exhibits since I’ve followed him and his blog for a few years now, and because he has become so successful. So what, exactly, is a “problogger”? Below I’ve listed some qualities I think probloggers share.

A problogger is:

1. A free agent, meaning that he is not an employee though he may be contracted to blog professionally.
2. Well read, meaning that he stays focussed on breaking news for the niches he covers in his blogs.
3. Persistent, meaning that he blogs regularly and with a plan.
4. Connected, meaning that he leaves comments and regularly participates in blog conversations.
5. Funny, because humor is a very important trait of anyone who blogs for a living.
6. Balanced, meaning that he makes time for other things besides blogging because problogging can be very lonely otherwise.
7. Analytical, meaning that he carefully considers stats, revenue streams and other signals that makes his blog a viable business because problogging is about making money after all.
8. Has a plan, meaning that he is blogging for a purpose and that purpose is to make a living off of his blogging.
9. Focussed, because blogs that are not focussed are called “online diaries” and don’t make money.
10. Not easily discouraged, because it can take a while before a problogger really becomes successful enough to just be a problogger.

Why did I make this post? Because it is easy to lose focus, get frustrated and quit too early from being a problogger, but hopefully a list of qualities of successful probloggers can bring back the focus needed to carrry on. I’d be interested to read about what others think a problogger is.

I’ve been reading some reviews of AGLOCO by some high profile probloggers and I’m disturbed by the implications. Am I misinformed or does the AGLOCO toolbar they are promoting sound like “scumware” (i.e., a program that steals legitimate ad revenue from the website owner)?

I went to the AGLOCO website (www.agloco.com) and tried to find information but I can’t seem to find too much. Then I went over to JohnChow.com and read John’s AGLOCO review but that didn’t answer my concerns either. Then I read some more reviews by doing a search on Google.

I think this is how it works:

1. You sign up as a member and install a toolbar on your computer.
2. You are paid to surf for some undisclosed amount to be paid in either cash or stock or both.
3. From time to time, ads pop up based on what you what you are surfing and you click those ads to be taken to an advertiser’s site for purchases.
4. If you click on a toolbar ad, AGLOCO makes money and you get a percentage as well.
5. Which ads pop up depend on what you are surfing at the time–i.e., the ads are contextual ads like Google Adsense.
6. Finally, you get a percentage of the revenue every person you refer who installs the toolbar generates–ah, classic MLM.

Well if that’s how it works, I think I’ll take a pass. Here’s my concern: if I’m the website owner, I spent a lot of time creating and maintaining the content on my site. I have advertisers, affiliate links and Google Adsense to make money and create great content. Then someone comes to my site with the AGLOCO toolbar installed and AGLOCO basically “steals” my commissions and advertising dollars because the visitor decides to click on the AGLOCO pop up ad rather than an ad on my website page.

Gee, sounds like a great deal to me the website owner (not)! Sounds like classic scumware. I need a plugin to block out this type of crap. Any entrepreneurial Wordpress plugin developers out there? I’m sure it would become a really popular plugin for webmasters and probloggers.

Also, the founders of AGLOCO say they are seeking listing on the London Stock Exchange and that everyone who signs up will get shares so that the company is 100% owned by its members. I wonder if they checked up on their securities laws–sounds like an illegal offering to the public of stock in every jurisdiction they are operating in (USA, Canada, U.K.). Very, very bad (finger shaking…)! Maybe the Securities and Exchange Commission would be interested in all this.

I’d be interested in hearing some alternate opinions. Please let me know if I’m off base here.

UPDATE (2/21/06, 2:43 a.m. Eastern time): I’ve asked AGLOCO to respond to my blog post but they haven’t gotten back to me in 24 hours yet. If you want to ask them yourself, their email is aglocoinfo@agloco.com.

UPDATE (2/22/07): Still no response.

UPDATE (2/26/07): Nada, nothing, niltch… Are they going to be like this when you go looking to get paid?

There is still an intense focus on search engine results pages (”SERPs”) for all sites, including blogs, and not enough focus, in my opinion, on converting casual visitors (e.g., visitors from search engine referrals) into repeat and loyal RSS and/or email subscribers.  I, for one, have become intensely focussed on converting casual visitors.  I really believe that those websites with the most loyal subscribers/repeat customers will be the only ones left standing when the search engines decide that there isn’t enough room in their indices for everyone.

Only a fool can reasonably believe that things will continue the way they are now–that search engines will have eternal and unlimited capacity to index every web page ever to be created.  At some point, if we haven’t already reached it, Google and friends will decide to only index certain pages and not index a much greater majority.

How are the search engines going to decide who gets on the first, second, third pages?  After all, there are only 10 positions per page and billions of web pages to rank.  While I don’t think they are doing it yet, at some point I believe the search engines will start to incorporate feed data into their ranking algorithms. 

What could be a more natural vote of confidence in an authority website than to have thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of subscribers?  RSS subscriber count is arguably even more robust than link quantity and Page Rank in defending against black-hat search engine optimization techniques such as link spamming bots, made-for-Adsense pages and page/directory generators.

Having a loyal roster of subscribers also makes your site less dependent or even completely independent of search engines.  Your site is no longer at the whim of re-ranking algorithms that have devastated web businesses (e.g., the “Florida Update” of November 2003) in years past.  After all, with a roster of subscribers, you can communicate directly with them.

Converting casual visitors into repeat subscribers will be a big focus of this blog and I invite you all to join me in this discussion.