Upon conducting the 24-hour RSS experiment, I promised that I would give away a free copy of Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger.  Using a process of random selection, the winner is…

Before we announce the winner, I would like to welcome all the new subscribers who participated in the experiment. I’m proud to announce that I managed to acquire 163 new RSS subscribers. Considering the current popularity of BlogaPro and the amount of time in which to conduct the experiment, I am quite proud of my achievements.

Enough drivel. The winner is Andrew Watson from Sydney, Australia.  Congratulations!  You will be receiving your free prize shortly.

For those of you who possibly thought I had recently passed away, you might just be pleased to know that I am alive and well.

What has been the reason for my departure away from BlogaPro? Let’s just say that work has kept me occupied - that’s putting it lightly.

For those of you who are not taken the time to read my short biography, I am a software engineer for a small company (Livewire Digital Ltd) that has been developing the Media Desk HD system for the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09, a system which is fitted on all eight participating yachts.  Further information about the system is available on the company’s website.

On the occasion when I haven’t been writing software, I have been traveling to the other side of the world. Most recently, I was in Cape Town on a 17-day trip to perform much-needed maintenance on all eight of the yachts after the first leg of the ocean race.

I can assure you that I will now be returning to my regular schedule of blog updates so stay tuned!

If you’re interested, I’ve left you all with two of my favorite videos from the race thus far which demonstrate our ‘crash button’ feature. This feature consists of a stern camera which maintains a 2-minute rolling buffer of video at any moment in time.  By pushing one of the buttons located above deck, the video is dumped to disk for later editing. Some great footage has been captured:

• Team Russia’s Chinese Gybe
• Delta Lloyd hit whale

I have recently received a few emails from individuals querying which sites BlogaPro is affiliated with.

Switching to third person…

1. The author of BlogaPro, Gavin Smith, is not ‘Gavin Smith the professional poker player’. Not only is is he incapable of bluffing, but he doesn’t have quite the same amount of money.  On the other hand, the blogger is a lot better looking than his poker-playing counterpart.
2. BlogaPro is not affiliated with any other blogs or sites unless they are publicly endorsed by the author via this blog.
3. The author maintains his own personal wiki at MyWikiBiz. Any other articles about either the blog or its author may be factually incorrect.

I do apologize if this is the first time that you have seen my ‘mug’ (aka “face”).  Hopefully, you’ll still pay a return visit.

Google has recently finished one if its much anticipated, quarterly PageRank updates.  You might recall that on the previous update which occurred back in July, BlogaPro was promoted to a PR value of 2 out of 10.

The latest results are in, and BlogaPro has received a 3 which is lower than my expected value of 4.  All in all, I’m not complaining.  It does show that the site is moving in the correct direction. On the plus side, I’m halfway to bringing the site’s PR in line with Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger.

PageRank starting to carry Value

Previous to this most recent update, I always felt that Google’s trademarked PageRank was merely a number, but my opinion is quickly changing.  Google employees have been hard at work bringing sites’ semantic values in line with their PageRank.

One example of this alignment is ProBlogger, statistically one of the most visited blogs in the world according to Alexa.  ProBlogger was recently demoted from 7 to a 6 out of 10.  While the layout or design of the site is aesthetically pleasing, there is more to a page than looks. Why do I believe Google’s latest valuation is fair?

1. ProBlogger’s ratio of HTML tags to content is atrocious.  The source code consists of ambiguous HTML code to unnecessary CSS and Javascript (which should be defined in another file).
2. Consider how many links are listed on the front page? Other than a brief synopsis of around 11 posts, the rest of the page consists of links - hardly semantically valuable.
3. There are numerous ads spread across the page.  Don’t get me wrong, my goal is to make money blogging, but they do detract from the value of a page.

Now please note that this assessment was conducted with only the front page in mind.

Frustrations with Google

I am of the firm opinion that Google is reshaping the web, and not for the better.  The Internet was initially designed as a fair playing field and this ethos is evident from every aspect from its network infrastructure to the registration of domain names to web site accessibility.  Now, Google is one of the few companies trying to change this.

Here are just three of many examples of Google’s attempt of to create an elitist web:

1. Google has recently deemed directories worthless that is unless you are the Open Directory Project (ODP).  This is Google’s attempt of preventing individuals from promoting their site by paying for inclusion into various web directories.  Prior to Google’s damning of directories, directories were my number one source for SEO (and I’m not talking about paid inclusion), but that has all changed.  Unfortunately, Google’s latest policy on directories really hurts the small fish in the pond.  After all, those individuals/organizations that pay for inclusion will likely focus their attention elsewhere, spending their money in a more effective manner.

2. Link exchanges are less as effective as they once were.  Webmasters now find themselves having to resort to one-way linking.  Unfortunately, this means having to resort to paying for one-way links.  Any of you going to give away one-way links on your blogs? Of course not, one-way links are not mutually beneficial. Again, only the big fish are likely to benefit from such a principal.  You might be inclined to jump on me and suggest that paying for links is against Google’s TOS.  True you are, but Google’s crawlers cannot detect any transactions that have occurred behind the scenes.

3. The search engine giant is now more selective on which types of pages are valuable. For example, it is clearly evident that an article from a news organization is more effective in a linking scheme than that of a random site’s ‘resource page’.  But which news organization is about to list BlogaPro in its front headlines? Exactly!

Let us hope that Google changes its ways; otherwise, I just might conduct my searches elsewhere.

I have recently being trying to publicize BlogaPro with considerable effort.  Although the blog has been continuously growing in popularity, it’s been a tedious, ongoing process.

If you have been following BlogaPro’s progress, you probably noticed the recent announcement of a ‘Make-Money-Blogging Wiki‘.  Unfortunately, the wiki hasn’t gone down too well. I have yet to have somebody commit a site to the directory.  My attempt at link-baiting went drastically wrong.  “Why the lack of participation?”, I hear you ask.

I like to think that it’s not down to the fact that the wiki lacks quality.  In fact, I’m of the opinion that the wiki is the most aesthetically pleasing feature of the whole site. Indeed, wikis are still a huge fad, but where have I gone wrong?

The problem lies in my readers.  No, I’m not referring to the ‘reading’ demographic but rather the mere number of readers that BlogaPro attracts.

Consider that the blog is only around 3 months old.  Figure that only around 1-2% of the visitors to a blog contribute either in the form of a comment or reply.  For every 100 visitors that BlogaPro receives maybe only 1 or 2 will share a comment on a post.  Now how many of those visitors will take the time to visit the wiki (never mind editing it)?

My experience should strike a pressing thought in the back of your mind.  If you are starting out blogging with your newest blog, consider how the number of readers to your site potentially impacts the addition of new features.

1. Provided all other variables remain constant, the number of visitors to a blog is directly proportional to those visitors that will contribute to the blog.
2. Those blogs which appear to attract little public attention or lack visitor participation will struggle to encourage new visitors to participate.

If you’re new to the blogging scene, you ought to consider the following recommendations before incorporating any additional features:

1. Start out small - start out simply blogging, and blogging only.
2. Stick to what works until the number of visitors to your site warrants the incorporation of additional features.
3. Establish a large reader-base before venturing into new waters.
4. Encourage reader participation so that new blog features are successful upon release.
5. Ask your readers what features they would like to see included.  Don’t just add new features because it offers the potential to increase earnings.  Remember your readers are the ones that will earn you your money. Give them what they want…

It might have only been a mere 3 months since BlogaPro started pushing out content on a consistent basis; nonetheless, this once small-site has emerged from underneath the growth rearing its head as something potentially more powerful.

As has been mentioned on a previous post, the RSS feed has now comfortably surpassed the 50 RSS subscribers mark and is nearing 100 per day - quite exciting.

The number of emails that I now receive on a daily basis is steadily increasing.  I now found myself struggling to find the time to respond in an adequate fashion.  Soon, I might find myself letting a few slip through the net.  I’m now hoping that I will start receiving more blog comments…

Up until now, BlogaPro’s earnings on a monthly basis have equated to nil, nothing, zero, nada…

It’s time to change that. Blogging for me has always been a hobby (and always will), yet there has always been the motivation to capitalize on the potential to supplement my income through advertising, and why not?

BlogaPro’s Costs

Part of the motiviation to include advertisments alongside content is to cover costs. While hosting alone costs around $110.00 per annum (excluding the $10.00 domain renewal charge), the most significant cost is time and effort.

Behind the Scenes

What most people don’t (and won’t) realize is the amount of work that goes into BlogaPro.  During several hours of the day, I can be found performing one of many tasks not limited to researching new content, publishing new content, reading related blogs, researching advertising, making HTML adjustments to layouts, answering emails, and locating links.

Consider that outside the realm of blogging, I work a minimum 40 hours per week.  As you probably imagine, the remainder of my “free” time is devoted solely to BlogaPro.

In fact, it’s around 11:20 pm at night (my bedtime), and I’m still attempting to complete this post…

Inclusion of Advertisments

Not too worry, you won’t be bombarded with advertisements.  Initially, only two 125×125 pixel banners will be included above the ‘About the Author’ section of the sidebar.  Hopefully, they won’t be too intrusive nor make you feel as if the advertisements are being shoved in your face.

How much will I earn via the advertisement? Most bloggers would be unwilling to inform their readers, but I’ll let the cat out of the bag.

The first advertisement will be from Bluehost, a web host provider. Bluehost pay an affiliate a credit if a referrer refers an individual who signs up to a hosting account. This is a stark contrast to a PPC or CTR model of advertising.

Bluehost pay the referrer $65.00 for every individual who signs up to a new hosting account. Yup, this probably sounds not only lucrative but remarkable, but consider how many page views will be required for a single signup? You would be surprised…

Upon logging into FeedBurner, I was slightly surprised after I noticed that the number of RSS subscribers to BlogaPro had suddenly decreased by a whopping 50%.  After all, my latest article discussing press release results has been the most popular thus far (according to Google Analytics).

After finding similar results for another corporate blog that I maintain, I think it’s fair to conclude that FeedBurner might be going “haywire”.  Perhaps this is an isolated incident?  Perhaps it’s only my user account?

I checked the official FeedBurner blog, but to no avail.  Any of you experiencing similar problems?

Although BlogaPro has only been running since early June, its progress has been quite remarkable.  I would take all the recognition, but I didn’t do anything too amazing.  My secret?  Press releases.

After discussing my secret on how to get listed in Google, I decided to conduct an experiment.  My goal was to deduce the amount of impact that a press release would have on a new blog.  If you haven’t read my previous articles, I suggest that you give them a quick look before continuing…

I spent a couple of hours creating two seperate articles, both of which were published as press releases through third-party sites.  One article was released through PRWeb while the other was published via PRUnderground.

The two articles shared similar content, but their wording made them unique.

In order that the articles appeared both professional and authentic, the articles’ release were separated by an interval of about five days.

You probably haven’t considered the reason why I circulated two articles?  In the first publication, I failed to include a link to BlogaPro in the main content of the article.  Remember, that the power of releases comes from the fact that articles are replicated across multiple sites. As a result, I lost out on an opportunity to receive several top quality links to BlogaPro.

The second release was an attempt to rectify my previous mistake.

Visit Google and enter the term, “BlogaPro Announces its Official Release“.  You will notice that both articles have been replicated across at least 344 different pages.  Admittedly, a large portion of these articles fail to include a link to BlogaPro.   Due to the fact that at least 30 new links were received, the time and effort was undoubtedly worthwhile.

The short term achievements are undoubtedly obvious, but the long-term benefits are profound.  Consider that a couple days following the publication of the second article, the number of RSS subscribers to BlogaPro sky-rocketed.  The number of subscribers tripled.

Unfortunately, the same results have not been seen in the number of page views I have since received.  While there was an increase in traffic, the increase has been linear instead of exponential.  This can be attributed to not only the competitive nature of “make money blogging” sites but the sheer number.  It goes without saying that while the number of page views has not been as impressive, the position of BlogaPro in terms of SEO has seen leaps and bounds.