What da’? I kinda feel like this kid…
I am amazed that my last post got absolutely no comments. I have 80 subscribers, and not one of you read the end of that last post? You know the post were I said if you posted a helpful comment, I would give you $5 dollars via PayPal and a $5 gift certificate to Amazon. I even said it straight up in the post title. I don’t know how much more obvious it could get.
So, I am moving that $5 dollars and Amazon gift card to this post. On top of that, I will give a thorough review of your blog, analyzing your content, design, and giving you some links to your posts. You can expect a few new readers to your blog which I know could help a lot of the bloggers that read this blog. How do you win?
Give me the best comment, advice, hate message, or argument to why I am not getting much in the way of comments? I am really trying to make this an active community, and I am attempting to lure you in with questions, but I’m lucky to get more than a few comments on any blog post. If one person leaves a comment that says, “Your blog sucks,” they win. So, leave a comment, hopefully a little better than that, but anything is fair game.
If no one comments, then I win and I will be reviewing my own blog. I’m serious. Punishment… HEHEHE.
I guess this kinda shows how passive the majority of what makes up “the internet” is. I don’t have the exact stats, but if I were to guess I’d say that something like 99% of the content on the internet is created by 1% of its users. In this case, it seems that even comments can be considered content, because even with the added incentive to post - no one did.
That, or no one had anything helpful to say, at least not $5 worth of helpful.
Me? I was waiting for the deal to get sweeter!
My site straddles the line between personal finance and information for entrepreneurs. I know both niches are over done in the blogosphere (I hate that word), but combined - I think I can create a viable community. So honestly I wasn’t waiting for the deal to get sweeter - I was coming up with silly names for my Facebook Group Officers.
LoL!!!
You already got your ad, I’m putting it up now! Now I have to do a review!!? Gah. Haha. We will see. I will give it more time for others and their crack to win this.
It’s like… 20 dollars in prizes people! Its free. It will take you 1 minute to type it. Please?
I love you? :’(. Oh! Happy Valentine’s Day!
Justin
I shouldn’t have commented. You doing a review for your own site to drive traffic but doing the review ON your site would have torn the space time continuum.
Oh, well. Hopefully someone comes and comments.
I understand how you feel. I am in the same position you are in but a fourth of the rss subscribers. It is a lot of hard work to be a blogger. I just stumbled on your blog so I cant say I have read it enough to give you input. The site does look nice with decent content.
Good luck and I hope you find the answer you are looking for.
Bud
http://www.budcalabrese.com
@Mr. P - Hahaha It just could happen.
@Bud - Woah. You and me have the same name (My middle name is Bud, but everyone calls me Bud, not Justin). That’s odd.
But I’m glad you found my blog. Starting up a blog is a crap load of work. I spent countless hours just preparing visuals for this blog and they still don’t work properly.
I’m glad to hear you are enjoying the content and hope to see you around here more often!
Justin (Bud) Dupre
Your blog sucks.
j/k j/k
Okay. So to win this epic giveaway, I’m going to give you a massively-upgraded Quick Critique!
**FLASH EDITION!! DUNDUNDUNDUNNNNN UNCENSORED**
1) Those two lime-green stripes at the top of your layout clash HORRIBLY.
2) You need a dark background in the areas which aren’t your content or sidebars. Just solid black would look nice. I think that’s only noticeable to widescreen resolution (1440×900) though.
3) This screenshot: http://i31.tinypic.com/27wzp0h.jpg (taken in IE)
Your tags/categories contain redundant names. You have “Making Money” and “Make Money”. There’s also “Blogs”, “Blogging”, “Writing”, “Blog Content”…and a lot of other redundancies.
a) Your email subscription button is fuxxed in Internet Explorer, but IE fucks up everything and I’ve seen that many times before. not too big a deal.
b) Your Adsense (Yahoo…Adsense? o.o) distracts from your content And clutters up your headline.
4) Your Entrecard widget is not above the fold, and based on your cost to advertise, you’re not using the system very much. Remember that it only gives back as much as you put in. Credits are also a good, cheap alternative to real cash money for contests and ads.
5) You are not personalizing your page. your posts are about you, and you have “how much money did I make online today”, but you haven’t put a face to the name. What do you look like? What’s your motivation? Do you have any background in internet business? Credentials? Readers gotta be able to personalize. No one is going to blindly trust some text and images on a screen.
6) Your Money made today/thismonth/thisyear doesn’t have any breakdown of your sources. People like to see how you’re getting that cash.
7) You need to add one more under your RSS button. It’s touching your FeedBurner count and it’s killing me.
9) Your BlogCatalog widget has more icons and it throws off the symmetry of the page. Fix that!
10) You have ten posts displayed per page, and no sidebar content to make up for it. People don’t want to scroll for thirty years. You could do the “Read more…” thing, but that can be annoying. Just cut down your posts per page.
11) As soon as someone loads your page, they’re assaulted by ads. Are you blogging for your readers or for the advertisers? Move the ads down and replace that spot with some of the personal detail.
12) The blog is about how much money YOU make, but in the top right it says “Subscribe to OUR RSS feeds”. Do you have Multiple Personality Disorder?
13) No Comment Luv plugin. It lets your readers know that you appreciate them.
14) No Top Commentators.
15) Your RSS button is BIG. Shrink it down some (or get a more modest, less flashy one) and it won’t feel so “in your face”.
16) What the hell does “the process of a blog” have to do with making money? Which leads me to…
17) Right now I’m confused as to whether your blog is about blogging, or making money. I didn’t even know it was about both until I read your blurb on your Entrecard profile. You need to make that more clear in either your title, your subtitle, or both. What does “Blogosis” mean to your readers? It sounds cool but it isn’t descriptive or helpful.
18) Your search bar is big and obnoxious.
19) Merge your “About” and “Contact Me” pages.
20) Monthly Contest. Contests create a lot of traffic but no content. Having a contest every month, especially a typical “Subscribe for X entries, Link for X entries, Blog about me for X entries” contest, will wear out your regulars and annoy the hell out of them when they keep seeing mentions of it in your posts. Either think of a more creative contest, a more creative prize, or find another source of traffic. The first rule is that people have to have a REASON to subscribe.
21) You need a comment link at the bottom of your posts as well. What’s going to happen when a reader gets through all of your post, then looks around for a comment link and doesn’t find one? They’ll explode all over the page!
22) Your posts all have an initial image, but no smaller images to break up the text in between. Wall of text = dead eyes.
23) Your posts are long! Figure out the bare bones of what you want to say and cut out the rest.
24) Your header feels squished. Why is the title only covering the upper half?
25) “RSS subscription” is lame. Find a more exciting title for that box!
Okay, I’m done. You owe me 10,000 credits, or 5$ and a 5$ Amazon gift certificate.
GG I WIN NO RE
HAHAHAHA. I didn’t realize my blog sucked so much.
As for design flaws in IE, I know that. Luckily about 90% of you are on Firefox, for the rest of you… sorry. haha.
Its not a custom theme, and I wouldn’t know jack squat about making one. As a student, I don’t have the money to be spending it on web themes. However, I am in talks with one of my clients about doing some work trading. He may develop a theme if I do some freelancing work for him. I do agree though, this blog design is shatty, and there are so many bugs with it. I’ve been looking for a similar option, but I can’t find too many I like.
I’ll move some of the yahoo ads around. They aren’t very good performers any who. I may use them to fill that whitespace in my side bar you are talking about.
I’ve got several blog entries where I try to give you a look into my life. Perhaps you’ve missed them?
Here are a couple:
http://www.blogosis.com/2008/02/06/the-first-video-on-the-blog/
http://www.blogosis.com/2008/01/19/get-to-know-the-blogger-answers-and-a-winner/
I’ll work on a few more for you though. If you want some pictures of me looking like an ass, go here: http://www.blogosis.com/2008/01/15/back-from-the-dead-me-vs-noob/
I think I’ve said several times that I make most of my money from freelancing. I also work on some other blogs of mine that make pennies, and I am also working with some directories and light, light affiliate marketing. I have also started to help a client create a web app/game that I will be working on for a while if the project follows through. That could bring in some nice residual income. Someone from my school wants me to design a web page for them and update it every month for about $250 dollars a month. Given I don’t know crap about web design, I probably shouldn’t take it, but there are too many free resources to help me do it, as well as outsourcing. I’ll talk about this kinda stuff a lot in my next blog post about diversification. I do summaries of where it came from exactly at the end of the month.
I realize my blog posts are long. I’ll add some pictures in to entertain you if it makes you smile, I’ve just been to lazy to format them inline with the text. I got the code memorized now though, so you will see it a bit more.
The monthly contest is just 1 of my many contests. This is a contest, and you probably just won it. Hehe
I’ll cut the posts per page down to 5.
I’ll keep entrecard below the fold, as it is free advertising and whether or not you click it or not doesn’t matter to me. I just put it on this blog as it is my highest traffic blog, and more traffic = more clicks = more credits to win for youzzzz.
Having an excessive amount of categories is okay, but I try to limit myself somewhat. There are far more different tags though, but the only place you can click those is on the post. Categories and my big ass search bar (came with the theme) are better for finding what you want.
I probably won’t be cutting my blog posts, but I will attempt to make them easier to scan. I like the way I write, and can’t see it changing. i don’t like to spend a shiat load of time editing either. When i take up blogging full time I will think about it though.
The Process of a Blog, is about making a blog, not making money online. This is not a make money online blog, and I’ve said that about 102 times. I will show you how you can monetize your blog, but mostly I stick to helping you improve skills that make can help make your blog better. I put the how much money I make online widget up for a marketing technique. In blogging, its all about numbers. Bigger numbers attract people. If you don’t have big numbers don’t show them off.
You want top commenters, then dammit I’ll give it to you. I’ll put the widget up soon.
RSS Subscription boring? How about Subscribe, BITCHES!!!110!1011!
The Our RSS subscription button in the top right came with the theme. I don’t think many people notice it though, as I got the huge ass one to get your attention in the sidebar
Better? lol.
So if no one else has anything better to say, I believe you get it. I’ll rip your blog to shreds in the review. Hehahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa. Evil laughs. Meow. Kitty.
Alright enough refuting my blog. I have class. Formal logic. Yum.
Justin
Some suggestions for increasing comments:
- Have a question at the end of the post. Readers like to answer if they’re asked.
- Write about something controversial. Stir the pot and you’ll get lots of responses, especially if it is something which tugs at the heart-strings (hey it’s Valentine’s).
Good luck!
Well, that whipped up a comment frenzy.
As a long term reader of this blog Justin, I have to say that your post quality has declined significantly in the last week. I think you might be a little overworked or overstressed or something.
To be honest, with the Process of a Blog theme, the last bunch of posts haven’t really added much to my blogging life/skills. And for the record, I think it should be called “The process of blogging” because that is what you write about - you aren’t writing specifically about the process *you* undergo on “a” blog. Maybe I’m splitting hairs, but do you see what I mean. (I guess grammatically processes relate to verbs not nouns, hence blogging not blog)
end rant
So as I have said previously in comments, take a break if you need one. I did and it did me wonders. I have been posting more, and better, since I returned, and my traffic has tripled (though my contest may have helped that a little
)
You say that you love blogging and I believe that you do, but I want to see that evidenced in your posts for the rest of the week.
(justin: “Yes, sir!”)
Get back on track and you will draw the response of your readers organically. 3 out of your last 5 posts have been complaining. Give us the content that made us subscribe in January (ok ok I subscribed for the contest, but the content followed and kept us) and we, your community will respond in kind. We are actually here because you are helpful and like any community, we support you.
Man, all these comments tonight qualify as guest posts!
And I should have been spending this time on my blog, writing! Oh well. Like I said, we are a community.
Okay I’ll stop now or I’ll repeat myself…
I know exactly what you are talking about, Andrew. The quality this week has been very poor. I just haven’t had the ideas I’ve been having. I do think it is because I am taking on a bigger workload, but I still want to stay with this blog because I really do like it. I don’t know. I have to find a balence between whether I should post these half-assed things, or just post 1 well thought out post a week. I’m betting it has just been my lack of sleep. I don’t know why, but lately I just can not sleep at all.
My next post is coming up soon. I think it is a little better that the crap I’ve written this week, but it is still crap. If you can understand it though, it is helpful. I’m going to go through and do one more revision run to make it look nice though.
Thank you Andrew, and keep sticking with me through this “crap.”
I appreciate it.
Justin
Did you hear your readers Justin? Go fix everything lol
Damn you, Bruce. Lol
So, the general consensus is - Blogosis is ugly.
But thats coming from people who blog, and have looked at 10,000+ CMS themes or actually care about that. Fuck them. Fuck bloggers and fuck their design critiques.
Now go and read that again but this time, replace the word “Fuck” with the words “Don’t cater to”. As designers/freelancers/entrepreneurs we see things differently then other people do. I can spend hours creating a pixel perfect piece of art and my design buddies will fawn over it the client though, doesn’t understand why his logo shouldn’t have a green line with pink hashes in it.
Do you see what I’m saying? Figure out who you’re writing for on Blogosis and make things easier for them to do. Example - I have a big ass subscribe button on my site. My design friends hate it, but the people who use my site love it; apparent in my spike in subscribers after its installation.
If your site is for bloggers - then listen to what bloggers have to say, but be careful - much of what bloggers say is regurgitated ChooMoney shit. If you site isn’t for bloggers, then fuck bloggers.
Not go read that last paragraph again, but this time replace the word “fuck” with “fuck”.
@C-Squared - OOOOOOOO ME NEXT !!
I know that you talk about yourself on this blog, but you don’t have a bio in your sidebar. A face to the blog makes a good first impression.
“The Process of a Blog, is about making a blog, not making money online. This is not a make money online blog, and I’ve said that about 102 times. I will show you how you can monetize your blog, but mostly I stick to helping you improve skills that make can help make your blog better. I put the how much money I make online widget up for a marketing technique. In blogging, its all about numbers. Bigger numbers attract people. If you don’t have big numbers don’t show them off.”
Then make that clearer. “The Process of a Blog” is a very ambiguous subtitle. You may have said that in your posts, but new visitors won’t be able to figure that out unless they go hunting.
Duh Duh Duhhhhhhh!!!!! C-Squared!! You figured out exactly what the slogan is for. It is ambiguous! Ambiguity is a leader in creating curiosity. People not knowing what something means either A). Pisses them off, or B)Intrigues them. Both will want to know what it is. So they come to the blog, and they find out. Then they subscribe. Wow! Yay, Kitties and Chocolate
[...] I been giving advice on how to make your blog better, which Andrew told me I hadn’t been in another post, but I still had a pissy, bitchy attitude, would you have listened to me? Chances are that you [...]
[...] I been giving advice on how to make your blog better, which Andrew told me I hadn’t been in another post, but I still had a pissy, bitchy attitude, would you have listened to me? Chances are that you [...]