My blog sucks and other musings

Yes, you heard me right, MY BLOG SUCKS, and I know what you're thinking, your're thinking, YES IT DOES. And your right it does, it absolutley stinks, you're also probably thinking, how have you only just realised this?


Well, actually I realised this a little while back, but I've just carried on sucking anyway regardless. Below is a list of reasons that I feel this blog sucks, please feel free to respond with others.

• Boring and unoriginal content
• Uninteresting to look at
• Poorley written posts
• Lack of imagination
• The only visitors I'm getting at the moment are from Entrecard
• The blog offers no discernable value

The biggest mistake I've made with this blog is starting it again, I'm getting less visitors and making less money now that I've started posting again than when I had left it for 10 months. Part of this is due to the changes in template and the domain name, this really killed my traffic from search engines. Prior to this I was getting 100 -150 visitors a day from search engines alone, now I barely get 70 - 80 total. I get the odd boost here and there when I've stumbled or dugg one of my own posts, but unless I constantly drop entrecards or promote on different social sites the number of visitors drops dramatically. Part of the reason why I've lost my search engine visitors is that I'm waiting for it to be reindexed after the change in domain name. The number of visitors I get is meaningless if they don't stop for long and read my posts.

The visitors I do get to the site don't stay long and very rarely comment, this just goes to show how unengaging my content is. This post isn't a bid for sympathy or for people to say that my blog doesn't suck, what I want is for this blog not to suck, what I need is feedback. I need readers of this post to let me know what would make this blog better, what kind of posts they want to read, if there are any positives at all about this blog that I can concentrate on and do more of. Without feedback this blog is going to fade away and eventually be trashed, another failed blog.

I look at all the new blogs that have now cropped up and the quality of them are amazing and the writing is brilliant, I'm not sure if I can compete with them. I'm not an especially creative person and I don't find writing all that easy, just this small piece has taken me hours to write and it's still not very good.

Please help me make this blog better, tell me what you want from this blog, is there a subject that I haven't covered here that you would like me to write about, then just let me know.

Photo by aromano

Building Interactivity into a Blog

I want to make this blog a bit more interactive, by that I mean more reader involvement, I want the readers of this blog to interact with it in some way, but I don't know what to do. I've added a weekly poll to the sidebar, this is pretty boring I know, but it was all I could think of, please do vote on this weeks question though even if it's to say "I don't care".

So, what else can I do? I'm going to ask for your help in this, what can I do to make this blog more interactive? If you have any suggestions please put them in a comment to this post, I'll even throw in 50 Entrecard Credits for the best suggestion. I know 50 credits isn't much with all these contests offering 1000s of credits around, but you don't have to write a post about this or subscribe to my feed, all I'm asking for are some suggestions.

Get those thinking caps on guys.

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Time for a Change

I recently wrote an article for Blog About Your Blog about how this blog still made money and increased the number of visitors to it while being inactive for a period of 10 months. Last night I realised that for all intents and purposes this blog is still inactive, since I started writing on here again last month I've written 7 posts, all of which are just filler. There is not 1 post written since I came back of any real value to anyone, this blog has become stale with no new content worth reading, even the old posts are out of date now.

Things have changed in the world of blogging and making money from blogs, there are hundred of new programs out there for bloggers to make money and there is no information about them here. I look at the likes of Mike and his blog and I realise how far behind I've fallen. Mike and I started blogging around about the same time, our weekly reports always coincided but Mike has kept going, he writes good quality posts every day and he's kept his blog fresh by giving it a new look and not using the standard templates. Even though we started at the same time we are worlds apart now, Mike has a successful and interesting blog, where as mine has become stale and boring. You only have to look at my stats to see that even though traffic has increased, nobody stays for long, they take a brief look and then there off to find something more interesting, the only saving grace is that quite often they click on ad on they're way out that makes me a few cents.

This may all sound like self pity, but it's not I have just come to the realization that if I really do want to make this blog successful and I really do want to make money from it, then I'm going to have to put some effort into it. So, what am I going to do about it? Well, the way I see it there are 4 areas that need attention, looks, content, advertising and promotion, not necessarily in that order though.

Looks

This blog needs a new look, it looks very dated, it wasn't exactly cutting edge when I started but when I look at some of the other blogs around at the moment, this blog really does look bad. So, I'm on the lookout for a new template. I've already started looking and I've even been trying a few templates out, I hope to choose one and implement it by the end of next week.

Content

The quality of posts on this blog lately has been really poor, this is something that I really need to work on. When I first started this blog I was always writing posts about the new things that I had tried to either get more visitors or some new money making scheme, I used to write posts that attempted at least to help others make money too. From now on I'm going to try and focus on writing better quality posts, I'm going to go back to writing about new affiliate programs and ways of building traffic again.

Advertising

I need to come up with a new advertising strategy, in the past I have just put any old advertising on this site with no real thought put into it. When I do the redesign of the site I'm also going to rethink things like the type of ads I'm going to display, ad placement, what products to promote and who I'm going to affiliate myself with. When I come up with a new strategy I will post it here.

Promotion

I need to start promoting this blog again, I'm not sure how yet, but I need to re-brand this blog first, it needs to be brought up to date so that when I come to promote it, new visitors won't be put off by what I have now. I need to attract visitors that are going to stay and read the content and that are going to come back time and again. I'm not going to do any promotion of this blog until it has been revamped. Again this is something that needs a strategy rather than just plowing into it without thought, like I said about advertising once I've come up with a strategy I will post it.

Watch out for the new My quest to make money on the internet coming soon to a web browser near you.

How to make $100 on the Internet Podcast

Last week I did an email interview with Troy Story owner of the blog How to make $100 on the Internet, the interview was about how I use this blog to make money. Troy used those emails and the services of a friend to create a podcast of the interview with his friend pretending to me and Troy interviewing him reading my answers. To listen to the podcast and the interview click here. I would like to thank troy for taking an interest in my blog and my quest, thanks Troy.

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100th Post

I can't believe it but this is my 100th post on this blog, it seems like no time at all since I started my quest and here I am 4 months later writing post #100. I would like to thank all my loyal readers for your continued support and I hope you continue to read for the next 100 posts.

Thanks
Martin

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Top 5 Resources for a Successful Blog

Listed here are my top 5 resources to help make your blog successful. Although they all contain great advice, there are no quick fixes here, you will still need to put in much time and effort for your blog to be successful. So be patient follow the advice on these sites and success can be yours.

1. ProBlogger - General advice covering most aspects of blogging, from use of adsense to increasing visitors.

2. Copyblogger - Quality advice on creating killer headlines and well written content that will increase traffic to your blog.

3. 21 Surefire Tips for a Successful Blog Launch - As the title says, here are 21 excellent tips to ensure a successful launch of a new blog, they are also useful for existing blogs too.

4. How to Make Money From Your Blog - From Steve Pavlina's site on personal development, this awesome article tells you all you need to know to make money from your blog.

5. Link Building Blog - This blog has a number of excellent articles about link marketing and techniques for building link relationships.

I hope the information contained in these sites is useful to you and I wish you all the best of luck with your own blogs.

Martin

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