I was just reading in the IOD magazine, that Officials at UEFA Euros 2008 are monitoring football fans for non-sponsorship logos and t-shirts, in a bullish crackdown on guerrilla marketing. Although 400 unofficial brands attempted to crack the last world Cup.
I think it is rather clever, perhaps a little heavy handed of the organisers.
What do you think?
First welcome to my new blog design.
What do I mean when I say bouncy, well pretty much as it sounds. Bounce rate is a term used in website traffic analyses. It happens when a visitors leaves your website after just landing on one webpage. How is that possible? I hear you ask. On that beautifully design website of yours. With all that information and well written blog posts. Well it’s easy. For the large part it comes down to design presuming that your blog posts are readable and interesting. (this is the test)
There is no agreed definition for what attributes a bounce some say it in the first 10 or 15 seconds that a user leaves your site other say it is failing to click on another page. My bounce rate I have to admit was too high. This is probably due to monetisation on the old site. I genuinely believe that monetisation offers extra services to users. Unfortunately it was probably too much so I will now have to seek a balance.
According to Avinash Kaushik:
“It is really hard to get a bounce rate under 20%, anything over 35% is cause for concern, 50% (above) is worrying
Now there is goal to go for! what are your bounce rates like?
I have just signed up for a website that promises to split its commission with the users.
Good or bad marketing?
What do you think of their email below?
Hi,
I’m a member of a great site called wepromiseto.co.uk.
wepromiseto.co.uk saves me money and I thought you might like to join too?
Every time I shop online from hundreds of retailers I get cashback. I also get cashback for registering with other sites, completing surveys and even essential items like insurance renewals.
By referring a friend using my special link below I get £5 too 🙂
If you join, don’t forget to use my special refer a friend link below:
http://www.wepromiseto.co.uk/r/10754
Thanks,
Leo
Not only is blogging addictive, blogging stats are addictive too… Blogging can be addictive. Checking blogging stats can be addictive too. Imagine you were fascinated with a video game. At first, it is hard to clear level one. Once you clear level one, you want to go to the next level. After that, to another level. Then to another level. Blogging game is similar but except there is no clear top level. You can keep on going for a long time – fascinated by the growth (or no growth) of the traffic on your blog. There are many things to be fascinated about blog traffic * where are the visitors coming from * what are they reading
This blog posts provides a sneak preview of what will be covered in the book. Of course, as you all know, the book will take a life of its own. I have a dream team of friends who have offered to help with all aspects of publishing the book. So I am quite excited. I would love to hear your ideas, thoughts, inputs related to the blog posts or the book. You can click on the email link on my blog and send me an email. Please mention whether you want to be notified about the progress of the book or when the book is published or both.
The links to the earlier posts in the same series are here
Here are ten more:
31. Not only is blogging addictive, blogging stats are addictive too…
Imagine you were fascinated with a video game. At first, it is hard to clear level one. Once you clear level one, you want to go to the next level. After that, to another level. Then to another level.
Blogging game is similar but except there is no clear top level. You can keep on going for a long time – fascinated by the growth (or no growth) of the traffic on your blog. There are many things to be fascinated about blog traffic
* where are the visitors coming from
* what are they reading
* where are they clicking through (as they go out)
* how are they finding your blog (search terms)
One clear reason you can be carried away with blogging stats is the “surprise” factor associated with it. Think about it –
* Which of your posts get popular?
* Which posts get linked most?
* Which posts get the most number of comments?
There is no way to predict the above or a dozen other questions. You can be pleasantly surprised or disappointed. Nothing is certain. The only way to find out is to keep watching the traffic 🙂
32. Barring exceptions, older posts are considered dead
I have been a big proponent of creating “timeless” content – meaning content that stays relevant for quite some time. That is only the first step. Just as you won’t go past a few pages of search results when you are searching something, don’t expect your audience to keep browsing back to the day you wrote the first blog post. Posts go dead faster than you think.
There is hope though. Think about what you can do creatively to ensure that some of your best posts stay alive. Here are a few ideas:
1. Create a section for the most popular posts and highlight them
2. Create categories to organize your posts
3. Create a series of posts and number them. If some posts in the series create an interest, chances are that readers will seek out other posts in the series.
4. Create lenses with a topic where you are an expert and link to all relevant posts on your blog.
5. Publish a manifesto on changethis.com with excerpts from your favorite posts for a topic.
Invent your own ways to keep the posts alive.
Fair warning: Don’t try to trick your readers by linking to posts that waste their time. Link back to high-quality posts only. Otherwise, it will hurt you more than it will help you.
33. Variety helps; too much variety hurts
You seek some variety.
On another extreme, imagine a speaker who, in the middle of his speech starts dancing and singing that have no connection to his speech. That won’t work either
Some variety is good. Too much variety (especially if it is incoherent) hurts.
Blogging is no different. When you blog, think that you are on a stage and talking to a set of people. They need variety. But not too much.
34. Blogging is personal
Look at the last few posts. Do they represent you – do they say who you are. If not, go back and add some emotions into them. Bring out your personality in each of you posts.
Consider the act of writing a blog post – it may take you only a few minutes from start to finish. Contrast this with the publication of a book. A decent effort with the book is at least an year-long affair. It goes through several rounds of changes and editing before the script is finalized.
Which one is more personal – you be the judge.
35. Traffic is not the only metric of success in blogging.
Here are some reasons why people are blogging:
* get more leads for their business
* to secure speaking engagements
* to promote their books
* to park their thoughts for future books
* to extend their personal brands
* to build new relationships
* to extend their company’s reach
* to share their expertise to the world
and so on.
Think about your own life goals and see how blogging fits in it. If it does not, but you are just trying to fit it in – because everyone around you are doing it, at least know that this is what you are doing 🙂
36. Name of your blog matters
For example, it is hard to write about anything other than Java if the name of your blog is “Java Only” or “Java Unleashed”. It would be out of place to write about training cats on a blog titled “All about Dogs”.
You can always change the name of the blog. However, it costs to make a name change (be it a company or a person or a blog) and you should be willing to pay that price. Rather than that, think carefully before you pick the name and the associated URL for your blog.
Here are two simple steps:
1. Assume that you won’t be changing the name of your blog for the rest of your life.
2. Once you decide on a name, think about what will people think when they hear the name of your blog.
Is this what you want? If not, go and re-visit the name again
If you already have a blog name but you are not happy about it, better change it today. The longer you operate a blog with a wrong name, harder it gets to change it.
37. Create tipping points for your blog
For the rest of us, we got to create our own tipping points for our blogs. In simple terms, the tipping points are those circumstances that will lead to the proverbial hockey stick growth for the blog.
Personally, for the first few months, my blog would get only a few hundred page views a day – most of them from my friends and family. Here are a few things that helped me take my blog to the next level (not in any order)
1. Publication of the book “Beyond Code” (foreword by Tom Peters)
2. Reviews of my book in online and offline outlets
3. Publishing a free eBook “When you can’t earn an MBA…” (downloaded more than 80,000 times)
4. Publishing a free eBook “Personal Branding for Technology Professionals” (downloaded more than 100,000 times)
5. Publishing a manifesto on ChangeThis – 25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself (one of the top 10 manifestos at ChangeThis)
6. Publishing a free eBook “Lasting Relationships”
7. Squidoo lens (especially: Blogging Starter Checklist)
8. Help from many many friends (too many to list) online and offline.
What could be the tipping points for your blog in the next few weeks or months?
38. You can get carried away sometimes
* You might want to start a separate blog for every area of your expertise
* You might want to start a separate blog for every book of yours
* You might want a separate audio-blog
* You might want a separate video-blog
You get the point. If you don’t play the full scenario – for the next few years, you might be setting yourself up for failure. Any new initiative takes time. And, blogging – it takes more time as you go along. If you are successful, it takes you more time than ever – as you have to live up to progressively higher standards that the marketplace sets for you.
So, before you get carried away on the multitude of blogging initiatives, think again!
39. Set time aside for your blog fans
Blogging is different. Some people are not comfortable writing comments on your blog. They may send you an email or two. Unless the request is unreasonable, you are expected to interact with them. If you don’t have time to respond, people will think you are a operating a broadcasting station rather than a blog.
All it requires is to add a small percentage of time that you are setting aside for your blogging activities. If you are spending 50 minutes in a week to blog, make it 60. If you are spending 300 minutes per week on your blog, make it 330.
40. You can join the discussion but you got have something original to say
Imagine giving free tickets to a movie you know is bad. You make the person feel good for sometime but if he knows that you knew the movie was bad, he or she won’t like you anymore.
Before you invite anyone to your blog, get your house in order. That way, you not only make a good first impression, you will get them to visit again soon.
When you add some original thought to the discussion and raise the level of thinking, you will get noticed. If you just say things like – “What a great post” or “You got to read this” you are not adding much to what is happening.
Remember, when someone “discovers” your blog by some means, it is only “relevant and remarkable” content that will bring them back.
What do you think is a best way to disappoint a customer? I’m sure you can come up with a big list, but right there at the top is promising something and not delivering. I arrived at the airport this morning nice and early because I knew they had free Wifi here, fired up my laptop … and no Wifi. It wasn’t all bad though, because when I tried 30 mins later the network was there, so it could well have been undergoing maintenance, but it did set me thinking all about promises and expectations. In the meantime, FlyBe announced that the earlier Gatwick flight had been delayed because of “technical issues” and that the flight to Birmingham and the flight I was on were delayed because of an “aircraft change”. Now don’t get me wrong, I do expect operational problems to creep in from time to time, but delaying three flights (out of the three on the board with that airline) is shocking!
Anyway, way to my Wifi incident. The reason I was upset was because something was promised to me (by way of a hanging advert and prior experience) and was not delivered. If there had been no prior expectation, I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it. It’s like like Wifi is so ubiquitous that you expect to find it everywhere (yet); so spending an hour waiting in a location without Wifi wouldn’t have been a problem for me. However, the expectation that something was supposed to be there and wasn’t was a totally different ball game.
I expect some industries are also harder to deal with than others. Airlines and trains in particular have a reputation for missing their schedules, but you can imagine that with all those moving parts, problem are bound to happen. I don’t envy companies who provide satellite internet services for example, as there are physical factors that can prevent proper delivery of their services. Wifi is another matter. Everyone with a wireless router at home will know that once it’s set up and running, it can run for months without needing any attention. That’s one reason why this morning was so “interesting”
Having just participated in a charity event over the weekend. I can say there is no better way to raise your company profile and do some good for community.
I was part of 4 man team that participated in a raft race to raise money for RNLI Most of the teams where made up by different companies on the Isle of Man. Here is a list of some of the companies that entered:
Steam packet – Did not show as they had a gearbox problem.
Central Software – Who sponsored and organised the event.
There were in total 21entries. We came in 6 after a good hard paddle. A good T-shirt design, loads of team spirit, and a good sporting performance and you are away. Some of other notable entrants were the Paragon Ninjas for costume and team idea. Thanks to every one for a great day.
Over the weekend I joined two clubs on face book. Both were the schools that I went to in my childhood. Now there is nothing amazing in that. There are lots of website where you can find a lost friends on the internet. But that is not the point of this post.
Some of my younger friends who are at university have over 3oo hundred plus friends in their face book profile. As the saying goes “school is the best time of your life”. I know that I had a particular good time when I was prep school. With out doubt I would relive it all again. My point is that people who are in education having the time of there life’s will now be able to stay in touch much easier, due to social networking groups. (Facebook, My space, etc) What will be the effect of this?
I remember when I had to change school. Of Course at school we all swore that we would stay in touch. Letter writing starts of well but after a year becomes less and less. I do think these social networking sites are going to make individual people very powerful indeed in the relationships they form and maintain. Giving people the exact choice of people to stay in touch with unparallel ease and comfort. It does have a downside too possible. People you may rather forgot will be able to find you easily. but with so many top friends will anyone notice. Enjoy enjoy I say.