Rarely is the most important metric the one on the surface.

Your Facebook likes don’t mean much. Neither do your Twitter followers.

You already know how I feel about impressions. They’re an incomplete business metric, at best.

Views are NOT your most important YouTube Metric. One million views don’t mean anything if those people are clicking to start watching your video and closing the window after 20 seconds of boredom and/or frustration.

But if views are not the most important metric, what is? Let’s take that journey.

First find the “show video statistics” button on the bottom right next to your views:

That button brings up additional metrics including demographic and location information. Pay attention to these, but we’re still not there. Click the “view more statistics button.”

Now we’re getting pretty close. On the left-hand column under “view reports” you’ll find, “audience retention.” Click that.

That delivers this valuable little diddy:

You see, it doesn’t matter if you have 12,000 Twitter followers if none of them read your tweets, and it doesn’t matter if you have 100,000 YouTube views if all those views aren’t leading to sales, more subscribers, more affinity for your brand, et al. That’s why it’s crucial to know how many people are watching ALL of your video.

The chart above tells me that 82% of viewers were still watching after 45 seconds, 69% after 1:30, and about 60% made it through the duration of the video. It’s not great, but it’s better than most of the videos I’ve done thus far. Video isn’t my expertise, and I’m still learning. Watch Ze Frank’s return to see a master at work.

What could I have done differently to retain more viewers throughout the entire video?

Here’s some things to keep in mind:

• Err on the shorter side with videos. I’d aim for 2:00 minutes, 3:00 maximum (unless it’s a more informative how-to tutorial).
• Get to the main point of your video as quickly as possible.
• Consider using calls-to-action before the end of the video.

What else should we be considering? Here’s your chance to teach me in the comments!

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In short, yes.

But I’m not that Ryan Stephens.

Judging by my recent traffic, someone with my namesake is pedaling some “work from home and make millions of dollars” nonsense.

Stop wasting your time. I assure you that it’s a scam.

Here’s the rub. If you’re one of those people looking to get rich quick exerting minimal effort and working in your pajamas then you landed on the wrong blog. I’m not rich and neither is the clown trying to convince to throw away $97 dollars.

I have news for you. If it sounds too good to be true… IT IS!

Look I get it. I really do.

You would love to pay off your debt. You hate your job and fantasize about being your own boss. You want spend more time with your family. Maybe you just want to supplement your income.

Most people have been there at some point in their lives. I assure you that the Adam Baker’s, and the Ashley Ambirge’s of the world exist. They did it.

But guess what!?

They worked their asses off.

I know a lot of people that make a full time living online. And I’d be happy to link you to their blog(s) or even introduce you to one of them if you’re serious about learning.

But if not — if you’re just trying to get rich quick with some online home career bullshit, then kindly hit back and don’t come back to this blog.

I have a full-time job that I love for an organization I believe in.

I make a little beer money on the side helping people with the following:

• Creating integrated digital strategies that drive revenue.
• Establishing a relationship between social media metrics and business metrics
• Facilitating intelligent growth for online communities
• Leveraging social technologies to scale external marketing efforts and an internal culture of sharing

Beyond that I’m particularly interested in extending the internet/web/mobile disruption we’ve seen in media to other industries like education and healthcare in order to address the challenging economic and social issues of our time.

I also read a lot of business books and bitch about education in America.

If any of those things tickle your fancy then by all means, let’s connect. Or if I can help you achieve your goals (or connect you with someone else who can help you), I’d love to hear from you.

But to reiterate, if you stumbled across this blog because you were looking to get rich quick and start a career working online from home you’re shit out of luck.

Stop waiting for hand outs and start grinding.

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Haven’t shot any videos lately, but in an effort to pump out some more content and get some things off my chest I’ve decided to try a new segment on Fridays. We’ll just call them “Ryan’s Rants” for now. Please check it out and let me know what you think in the comments.

This video stems from me being tired of seeing impressions, page views, Facebook Likes and other such counting numbers being considered valuable business metrics by organizations and consultants everywhere. And from nodding along to everything Olivier Blanchard writes.

What do you think? Is this rant warranted? Who should we point the finger at? What steps can we take to closing the loop and showing the impact of impressions and page views on more important business metrics? I’d love to hear your feedback.

Tweet This: (Copy & Paste into Twitter):
[Video]: Impressions Are A Garbage Business Metric –> http://ow.ly/8ZvoA

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Disclaimer: The following post is self-indulgent. Most end of the year round-up posts are. Despite that fact, I felt like this was a good way to pay respect to the work that went into this year and to provide a review of content you may have missed (or have never seen before). Should you decide to keep reading, I hope that it will give you a foundation for where we’re headed in 2012.

Last January I wrote that I wanted 2011 to be about you. It wasn’t.

I wrote that I wanted to read 52 books. I read 27. I only reviewed 3.

I wanted to write more posts and ship a couple of projects. I wrote 47 posts this year, and only 5 after after July. I didn’t ship either project.

And yet 2011 was one of the best years of my life. It was *easily* the best of my professional career.

• I fell more in love with a job that affords me the opportunity to leverage social technologies and my knowledge of integrated digital strategies to market the nation’s #1 ranked cancer hospital while simultaneously broadening my overall marketing knowledge and picking up skills like video editing along the way.
• I spent a lot of time with my buddies drinking cold beers, listening to live music, hanging out by the pool, grilling, dancing, and watching sports.
• I visited with my family. At least one of my parents every day. I grew even closer to my sister. I absorbed lots of wisdom from my grandparents.
• I found an incredible woman who somehow puts up with me despite my desire to frequently say and do things that are “in the box.” (Notice where the post volume started dropping off…)
• I spoke at a really cool online conference to some very intelligent people.
• I stimulated my mind and body almost daily. (Which included running my first half marathon with no competition, just for fun in 1:49).
• I started saying “no” more often and I stopped doing things I wasn’t intensely passionate about.

What You May Have Missed in 2011:
22 Key Mentoring Messages – Mentorship is a great way of growing and progressing your career. This post features some awesome insights from my organization’s C-suite the basics of mentorship, embedding it into your organization’s culture, approachability and more.

Reasons Your Employees Are Running for the Door – It amazes me how many organizations don’t “get” why their turnover is so high. Here’s 8 reasons that shouldn’t surprise you. And here’s me angrily ranting after a I read a tweet an executive sent about all her employees getting poached.

American Education: You Deserve Better – One of my favorite posts from 2011. I genuinely believe that modern day education is severely broken and this post details the change I’d like to see. Some people smarter than me chimed in as well. And here are some resources that initially sparked the discussion.

Carving Your Own Path – Carving your own path isn’t easy. You will have to think for yourself. You will invariably call attention to yourself. People will hate you if you’re successful. This is why most people yearn to be led. This is why most people spend their entire lives following.

Forget Social Media – There’s significantly more noise than ever before. Trying to keep up with all of it and be everything to everyone is a waste of time. It’s just fear manifesting itself through excuses and procrastination and we’re all guilty of it.

Why Being a Thought Leader is Boring – This post totally contradicts the predominant advice that you should try to be an expert in one, narrow niche. While many people successfully employ this strategy, I think it’s boring as hell and this post attempts to explain why I’d rather be well-versed on a variety of topics.

I Probably Un-Friended You Last Night – There’s so much noise, so many things to keep us utterly distracted from the things that really matter why do we insist on validating ourselves with excess “friends” who’s status updates we’re totally indifferent to? It’s time to de-friend those that no longer add value to your lives.

3 Things the C-Level Still Doesn’t Get About Social Media – This title is pretty self explanatory. And 6 months later I think all of these still hold true at most organizations.

Life is Adversarial Enough… – Don’t test people just to display your authority. Most of us (young professionals) inherently know that in the scheme of things we’ve accomplished jack shit. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want to. That doesn’t mean that it’s not really hard to balance our desire to climb with the gentle reminder that patience is a virtue.

The Easiest Way to Evaluate Most Tasks – Time, not money, is my most coveted resource; therefore, I get really annoyed when my time is wasted. Here’s the strategy I employ to ensure I’m balancing the execution of a project vs. the resources (time + money) used.

Forget the Dream Job, Take the Money & Run – I don’t necessarily believe this (as evidenced by my career path), but the notion certainly challenges the status quo and I think it’s an idea that warrants some thought, especially if you’re still in college.

Creating Higher Quality Stimuli – Reading things that challenge the status quo and/or oppose my own core values/belief system/internal dialogue require me to re-evaluate where I stand on these issues. More importantly instead of just saying “That’s outlandish,” or nodding my head in quiet agreement, I’m forced into the process of absorbing a multitude of information, evaluating that information, and then evaluating what I think based on that information. I recommend you start doing the same more often.

Disruptive Social Technologies: How Your Organization is Missing the Boat – I wrote a lot about topics that go far beyond business/marketing/social media this year, but here’s one that doesn’t. I think it serves as a good reminder that more organizations need to use social technologies for tasks such as cross functional information sharing and internal networking.

If you’re a glutton for punishment here’s My Top 10 Posts of 2010.

I haven’t thought too much about where this blog is headed in 2012, but I encourage you to:

Subscribe to receive future updates or connect with me via Twitter or LinkedIn

Or…

The following is a guest post from Mitch O’Connor.

The Internet has often been described as the “wild west” of technology – it’s exciting, constantly changing, and there are loads of opportunities. But there’s the complicated side of the wild west as well – vague regulations, little enforcement, and morally questionable practices. A divisive issue that’s at the heart of this metaphor is Internet anonymity. Proponents claim that the Internet is one of the last places where people can express truly unfiltered freedom of speech. Opposers of Internet anonymity claim that it can lead to crime and deception, and indeed, people do tend to lie more on the Internet than in person.

Social media is changing the game of course, and a lot of discussion is going to be had about Internet anonymity in the coming years. However, proponent or not, one thing is clear – anonymity removes accountability, which can lead to dirty sales practices. You might think you can get away with these tactics because people can never trace them back to you personally – and you’d be right for the most part. But the image of your company or website will suffer, and the temporary increase in sales caused by those dirty tactics won’t make up for the long-term damage that they can do.

#1 – False Reviews

This might be the easiest dirty sales tactic to succumb to. It’s incredibly simple to create a review of a product yourself and post that review as somebody else. People have been known to do this on sites such as Amazon, ConsumerSearch, CitySearch, Yelp, Epinions, Customer Lobby, TripAdvisor, and any other site that allows users to post their own reviews of products or services. Certain sites make this process even more attractive. For example, you could probably go on Fiverr or Craigslist right now and see an ad for a writer willing to create a positive review of your product for a small fee. Again, Internet anonymity will allow you to get away with this.

However, people are becoming more and more aware of bad reviews and fake customer testimonials. Reviews that sound overly salesy or that stick out (i.e. one ecstatic review among hundreds of bad ones) will be a red flag for any discerning Internet user. Researchers at Cornell University have even developed software for developing fake reviews. Not only will you lose the trust of your customers, but if you live in the E.U., you could eventually face legal action.

#2 – Bait and Switch

Remember how annoying being Rickrolled was? Maybe this never happened to you – basically somebody would send you a link to a video, telling you that it was something important. Then the link pointed to the YouTube clip for singer Rick Astely’s 1987 “hit” Never Gonna Give You Up. Sadly, some companies do this to their customers – promise them one thing then give them something else.

For example, consider a possible affiliate link like this:

Infant costumes at Halloween express

An affiliate would probably host this link because they realized that “infant Halloween costumes” was a popular keyword phrase. However, if he or she decides to use that popularity to point the user to other things, they’ve just pulled a bait and switch. If this link led to adult costumes, Halloween decorations, or something completely unrelated, ask yourself – would you consider buying from Halloween Express or its affiliates? Your visitors won’t either. Not to mention, certain types of bait and switch can get you in trouble with the FTC.

#3 – Excessive Popups

This tactic isn’t necessarily “dirty,” but you’ll definitely lose some credibility if you use too many popups. While it’s true that popups can be very useful for getting email subscribers, they’re undoubtedly annoying when excessively used as a sales technique. In fact, the Psychology Department at North Carolina State University once conducted a study where over half of the participating college students quickly closed popups regardless of what they say. Also, don’t forget the fact that you can’t place Google ads on sites that have more than three popups. And don’t even think about using popups as a bait and switch.

#4 – Deceptive Banners

In an effort to fight against “banner blindness,” some webmasters like to place flashy banner ads next to their affiliate advertisements. The problem here is that they look spammy and untrustworthy – probably because the majority of them are. Banners that claim visitors are the “one millionth!” or that look like Windows alerts completing a download are often blatantly false advertising. A rarely used (but just as damaging) technique involves using banners that look like links to popular sites such as YouTube or Facebook. If you’re doing this, you’re essentially creating something along these lines:

#5 – Bad Emails

Call it “unsolicited bulk email” if you will, but spam is still widely used as a sales technique. In order to avoid possible violations of your ISP regulations, fraud allegations, and a bad reputation in general, just avoid this practice altogether. Generating an organic, targeted email list takes time, but it’s not impossible. Forgo the quick tricks to get real customers.

Another aspect of the “bad email” game involves the overuse of auto-responders. Even if you have a dedicated email list, you don’t want to send your customers a barrage of auto-sent offers. This depersonalizes your business and is generally annoying.

About the Author: Mitch O’Conner is an online marketer and writer. When he’s not building sites, generating traffic or writing content, he enjoys spending time with his wife and kids, watching TV, playing games and camping.

The following post was written by Zach Heller of www.zachhellermarketing.com. Zach is a marketer and marketing consultant who recently released his first book, The Fundamentals of Email Marketing: 7 Things You Need to Know to Achieve Success.

Let’s be honest. The average consumer uses email more now than ever before. They use email to communicate with friends, coworkers, and companies. So if your company relies on email marketing campaigns to attract new customers and increase sales from existing customers, you need to know how to make your email stand out from the tens, hundreds, or thousands of others that wind up in our inboxes every single day.

“247 billion emails were sent each day in 2009. That’s an email every 0.00000035 seconds.” – e-Dialog “Manifesto for E-mail Marketers: Consumers Demand Relevance” (2010)

But in a world with so much email, how is standing out even possible? A combination of good timing and strong messaging is a great start.

Timing

The time your email goes out may be dependent on a specific deal or deadline that is approaching. But if you can spare a day or even a few hours here and there, you may be able to avoid “peak” times and overly crowded inboxes.

Since the majority of people you’re marketing to will either work full time or attend school, weekends are generally lower on the list of busy email days. But steer clear of sending out marketing emails on weekends because most people are not checking email often and will most likely be unresponsive to any sales or promotional messages.

Mondays are busy days with lots of email for people to catch up on from the weekend, which means you’re fighting with more emails for attention. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are probably the best days to send marketing emails because people have had time to clean out their inbox and get readjusted to the week.

Time of day can also be important. Send your email too early and you’ll get put into a pile of unread emails first thing in the morning. Send it too late and people are wrapping up their days and will likely avoid your email unless it’s something they’re waiting for. Aim for the middle of the day, the hour or two before and after lunch, to get the most attentive readers.

Messaging

There are usually 2 pieces of your email which are seen first – and seen alongside those same 2 pieces of every other email in someone’s inbox. For that reason, they are the most important aspects of your email if you’re fighting for opens. Those are the Sender Name and Subject Line.

The Sender Name should clearly identify who you are. The name of your company, the name of the department in your company, or the name of the mailing list (as long as it’s descriptive and tells people why they are getting this email). Things like “NoReply” or “Info” will do nothing but look like spam and blend in with the crowd.

The Subject Line should clearly identify the reason for the email and why people should open it in as few characters as possible. Be specific, but brief. If your subject line is too long it will get cut off and lose all meaning. If it’s a special promotion, use numbers and percentages, as those will stand out. But be sure to avoid the word “Free” or Dollar Signs ($) as much as possible as spam filters are looking for those specifically in the subject line.

We are all so used to getting promotional emails from companies that our first instinct is to hit the delete button.  Your job, as a marketer, is to approach each email you send out thinking “What will make people not delete this?”

This is a guest post I did for Lewis Howes’ Sports Networker. I am re-posting it here for your convenience, and so that it can be archived with my other content. If you’re interested in sports networking Lewis is a great person to know. You can find him on Twitter @LewisHowes

Sports companies and brands have traditionally been slow at adopting web 2.0 and social media strategies. This is unfortunate because fans are all over the web having conversations about your brands without you. Joining this space, and potentially becoming a prevalent figure in this space will give your sports company the added advantage of gaining valuable insight into your fans’ culture and conversations. It is not crazy to think that you could leverage the knowledge you gain in this space to increase revenue for your company or your team. People like Lewis are helping lead this movement.

Today, I want to discuss various ways you can use Twitter, an extremely hot social networking and micro-blogging service that lets you broadcast a 140 character message to your followers, to start embracing this movement and promoting your sports company.

I would not encourage diving into uncharted Twitter territory headfirst. People that use the platform to only promote their own work will quickly lose respect of others that are contributing to relevant communities, be it sports, social media or both. First, I would suggest reading up on some of Twitter’s best practices. Then, once you have a general feel for how to add value, consider following prevalent sports figures currently on Twitter.

Here’s a couple to get you started:

@LewisHowes
@BrianGainor
@JasonPeck

Following and learning from other sports marketers, networkers, and social media enthusiasts enables you to see how they are using Twitter and gives you some indication as to how you should approach your own Twitter strategy. Reach out, add value to their networks, and connect so that you can learn new things from each of them. In addition, if all of us that are passionate about helping lead sports into web 2.0 start collaborating chances are we can all benefit one another and the sports industry.

Once you have got the basics down and started connecting with other prevalent sports figures, you can promote your sports company (or brand, etc.) by pointing consumers, fans and advocates to your content. When I write a blog post that I am proud of and I think it will genuinely add value to the lives of my followers I send out a tweet with the link. It’s no coincidence that on these days, my blog receives the most amount of traffic.

Let me reiterate that you should refrain from tweeting everything you produce. Here are a couple of tips for promoting your content via Twitter:

a.) Make sure that it is some of your best work or something that you are pretty certain is unique, helpful, and/or will benefit your followers.
b.) Promote your work about a 1/5th of the time you promote the work of others. I would even say for every 1 item of your own, you should share 10-12 links to others’ work. (More on this later.)

If you follow these two rules you are ensuring that people realize that you are there to help them (and that is what they care about) and that you produce great work (because they are essentially getting a sample of what should be your best stuff).

If you have an upcoming event you can promote it on Twitter. You can do this by posting updates as the event grows near, announcing speakers of the event, and engaging others in content relevant to your event.

Let’s say I was one of the people in charge of the Princeton Sports Symposium. Here are some things I would definitely consider tweeting about:

a.) Announce the date, time and location of the event
b.) The keynote speaker and a link to a bio
c.) Announce a different topic to be discussed at the conference each day leading up to the conference with a link to a relevant discussion or blog post.
d.) Have a poll over twitter and give away a free ticket to one of the people that participates in the poll.
e.) Ask who is going to be in attendance and make plans to attend an after party, lunch the next day, meet up in the airport, etc.

These are just a couple of examples; be rest assured that I did not even scratch the surface as there are probably hundreds of other things you could do to promote an event using Twitter.

One of the most compelling things about people, companies and brands is the stories that we identify with, the stories that define a company and what it means to us as consumers. Twitter is a very humanizing tool in that it allows you to participate in the stories being told about your company. It makes your company more approachable and connected, and if you are using it correctly it can give you an authentic and transparent voice.

I could care less (and so will everyone else) if your PR team has a twitter account under your company’s name is shilling everything you do and produce. But if you are a real person and let us see into your company it becomes easier to identify with you and your company. By now, most of you know that Shaq is on Twitter. It is easy, if you are at all familiar with Shaq, to realize that it is really him. He’s incredibly authentic and funny; Twitter is providing a new way to connect with a mega superstar. Be unique and transparent and your story, your company immediately becomes more interesting.

I saved this one for last because it is the one that is most important to me, and the one that most people and companies mess up. In fact, I would not promote any of my own stuff until I had promoted the work of others, especially in the sports community. Why is this?

First and foremost you need to show your followers that you value what they want to read, and certainly sometimes this is your content, but it is ridiculous to think your content is always more valuable than the thousands and thousands of other blogs out there. Most of the time someone has already said it better than you ever could, in which case you should link to them.

Also, if our goal as sports marketers and networkers is to increase adoption of social media and web 2.0 in the sports industry we should be advocating this change and shift collectively as a whole. It means more business, more connections, more shared knowledge, more innovation, and so forth and so on for all of us within the sports world.

Utilizing the talent of Henry Alex Rubin, who also did the company’s “Schooled” promotion and Burger King’s “Whopper Freakout,” OfficeMax recently released penny pranks.

I will be the first to admit that these videos are relatively entertaining and definitely have the potential to become quite viral. I am certainly not a viral video expert, but I was discussing these videos with a colleague and we both thought that had great potential but that they should’ve refrained from the blatant advertising at the end of the videos. I just think that consumers would be more prone to passing the videos around if they were less of an advertisement. The Whopper Freakout didn’t end with saying, “Go to your nearest Whataburger and buy a Whopper,” which is essentially what OfficeMax is doing in my honest opinion. I just think they could have shown that it was OfficeMax in a more subtle manner.Some people tend to agree with me (all comments from YouTube comments):

“I got duped maxed – this isnt about pennies – its an Advertisement”

“what the hell? For office max? It was funny until the school supplies came in.”

“THIS IS AN AD FOR OFFICE MAX!!”

“So now that I was misled into watching your **** AD **** masquerading as a ‘hilarious prank’ I just want you to know that my company office spending just shifted to Office Depot or Staples. I usually can spot an ad but this one had me fooled.
–So what you just did is made a fool out of your customer—“

“I went to office max and paid for $40 with pennies. They wouldn’t take it.”

But they’re also getting the types of responses they want:

“They’re like 2 dollars at Target. You can get 200 glue bottles for the same price at Office Max.”

“wow im going to office max. 1 cent glue? and all that stuff? Nice”

“I’ve watched all of his pranks like this. They’re hilarious!!!! And guess what??? I’m going to office max!!!”

“…best…commercial…ever?”

“I don’t care that it’s a commercial. it’s freakin hilarious!”

I guess at the end of the day it boils down to simple economics. Does the fact that they have the blatant advertisements at the end of the videos entice more people into the store (of those that watch the video)? Would more people watch and pass around the videos without the advertisements at the end (probably)? But would enough of those extra people know it was OfficeMax and go into the store? (I think so, the consumer is more intelligent than most companies give them credit for these days).

Please weigh in. What do you think? A viral success? Would the videos be improved, more viral, etc. without the advertisements at the end of them? Any opinions I get via Twitter (in the next 24 hours or so) will added to this post in tomorrow evening’s revision.

So I was watching Jason Moffat’s first web TV show last night and someone asked what was the best way to get quality joint ventures, particularly for a newbie?

I thought Jason answered the question very well eventhough he had indulged on a few Mirror Pond’s (Can you blame him? It was his show’s sponsor, well that and Goji Juice).

Jason said that it was pretty simple. The main thing you had to do was be someone that people wanted to know and be friends’ with. It makes sense doesn’t it? Jason is a perfect example. The guy is successful, but he’d rather strum on the guitar, catch some waves, and have a few cold brews. There’s a little bit of all of us that would like to be successful enough to spend most of our time having fun, and so we can certainly relate to that.

The bottom line is that if you are a cool person and make a lot of friends, then a lot more opportunities are going to start presenting themselves. Nobody wants someone bugging them — especially if they don’t think that you have something of value to offer them. But guess what? If you have something of value (don’t overlook that part) and you are their friend, I’m willing to bet they would love to work with you.

So how do you start making these friends in order to get quality JVs?
1.) Become friends with other people that have a wide network.
2.) Expand your current network of people.
3.) Read my post about Social Arbitrage

Illustrate to the person you want to JV with what you can do for them. Let me repeat that, what you can do for them. If they can see the benefit that you bring to the table, and you’re a likeable person then chances are you are on the cusp of having a good JV.

Now, there’s lots of actual things you can say and do when approaching someone for a JV, but I’m not going to go into in this post. I’ll just say that you should make friends first, and then when it’s evident that you both have something of value that would help each other’s business it will come together.

How do you like the new blog design?

Ryan “It’s Good to be Back” Stephens

P.S. If you’re bored check out some of my friends:
Jenn Dize’s Project WAHM
Eric Louviere’s Warrior Events
Steve Iser
Mitch Mauldin (Might have to view in firefox)

Those of you who have read this blog long enough realize that I am all about helping people regardless of whether or not I get anything in return. I wish this was the disposition of more online marketers. I genuinely feel like if I help people that what goes around will come around and I will benefit from those contacts in the future. Here’s two examples of people I feel like I helped last night:

—————————

Kowgirl: I have 9 blogs and I try to update them every day. I have noticed that some of the blogs that I visit haven’t been updated for a week or more. This may be the reason they are not making any money with them. As well as not having a good rating with the search engines. How often do you think a blog should be updated? Is your blog up to date?

My Response:

The customary response you’re going to get is at least once a week with new content from the author of the blog. That said, that usually means that you have an RSS stream or something that is updated your content for you from other sites periodically to keep the blog fresh.

It is important to ping your blog once you’ve updated it so that the search engines know there is new content. That helps keep it ranked higher in the search engines. Also, keywording, the title of the blog, and how many competitors there are in that specific niche determine how well the blog is going to be ranked.

Even a great ranked blog might not make any money unless you’re somehow sending targeted traffic to that blog. People are just randomly going to show up and say, WOW, let me check this out everyday.

Think about the ways in which you learned about the blogs you frequently attend and then try to put your blog in a position that is similar so that people will come to your blog, then do your best to provide solid content to those blogs so that people will keep coming back for more. Always under promise and over deliver. That’s the key!

Best of luck to you!

How About Another?

Girlgonefishing: I’m thinking about changing my article I submitted to Associated Content a bit and then submitting it to Helium. I’m not a Helium member yet. Should I bother?

My Response: I can’t fathom why you would want to switch from AC to Helium. First of all AC pays you upfront for many of the articles you write, and your articles typically get more exposure than those on Helium do. They both offer a decent bonus based on how many people are reading your articles and clicking the aligned ads, but on Helium you really need to get lucky (or maybe it’s skill for you) and hit a hot article to get paid as well as you would on AC.

The key thing to remember with Associated Content is that you have to write articles that are tightly focussed that provide information that someone is looking for. That’s why boring product reviews do better than most op/ed pieces. You need to have a solid title, good keyword density, and a bit of a buzz around the article. If all these things are in place and the article aligns well with AC’s ad alignment you can definitely make a solid amount of money via AC.

I had one article last week (in only 5 days) earn my over $10.00 just from the performance bonus. In that instance, I hit the nail on the head and each aspect of the formula was all there.

Best of luck with your decision. I wish you all the best with your decision and hope my insight was helpful.