The Writers Coin

Day 10 of Building a Better Blog is here. We’re almost halfway there and today’s tip is to Declutter Your Sidebar. Clutter can accumulate over time all over a blog, so paying attention to specific areas like the Sidebar is very helpful.

Coincidentally, I just took a look at this last week when I made some adjustments based on my first-reader audit. I reevaluated what was in my sidebar and the order it was in, trying to create an “image-text-image” continuum, since colorful images seemed to draw my reader’s eye (and it makes sense, of course). So, in a sense, I’ve already done this and I seem to be doing it regularly too.

But if you, as a reader, think anything about the sidebar needs to change (like the new text color of the Google Ads), then by all means let me know. I love getting reader email!

• Do you think I should add a “subscribe via email” button for those that aren’t interested in RSS?
• Are the “Recent Movie” and “Currently Reading” links too much? I happen to like the color and refreshing change they bring about, though I haven’t been reading as much lately.
• Do you guys click on the Recent Posts links?
• What would you take out of the sidebar if you could? Put in?

Well, I’m back from getting married so it’s time for Day 9 of Building a Better Blog. This tip is essential for your blog if you have decided to run ads on it: Run an Ad Audit.

The idea here is to take a look at your existing ads and play with their placement, color, and so on to make it more “ad efficient.” The problem I have with some of the tips is that I don’t want to make the user experience a horrible one just to make some coin. Cheesy, I know, but still. I tried putting an inset ad along every blog post back in the day and while it would follow all the “rules” of an efficient ad, it looked horrible and I hated the way it made the blog look.

The challenge is to put together a blog that looks and reads great while getting as many ad dollars as possible from that great look. No compromises on that — you’ll never see a Kontera ad on this site, ever. This means that some of the tips here don’t apply to me, but that still leaves plenty of others I can use. And it’s nice to see that I’m already following some of them, like having content sandwiched between ads and blending the color in the ads to fit the site’s look.

One thing I haven’t tried (probably because it involves a fair amount of regular work) is rotating the colors regularly to combat blindness. That’s a really good idea because I’ve seen the site a ton and it’s true, you stop seeing these things. It also helps that I have my notes from my new reader audit, which lets me play with ads without interfering with that experience. I’ve changed to colors in my Google ads to orange,simply because it’s different, catchy, and I have a fair bit of it already on the site (ING link, duck’s feet, Feeds, etc.). It looks a little funky but I don’t know — does it work?

Either way, this is something that can only be improved by obsessive tracking, which I do with a lot of things but haven’t applied to the ads on the site. I need get a little crazy with how often I check these things instead of being excited every month that I earn over $2.

31 Days to a Better Blog Update: So I am almost a third of the way through and while I haven’t seen a huge influx of dollars, I can say that I had been at around 30 registered users with Feedburner and I now have jumped ten readers to around 40. This is awesome because I stalled at 30 for a LONG time so I think that all these tips are definitely having an effect. So far so good but I won’t take a look at the final numbers until I’m done!

Time for Day 8 of my Building a Better Blog series. Today’s tip is a classic that you’ll see just about everywhere in the blogosphere—Comment on a blog you’ve never commented on before. I’m a big believer in this one because you let your writing do the talking and based on that alone people will or won’t click on you and check out your site. If you’re just commenting to get the link, then it won’t do much for you. But if you really have something worthwhile to say, then it can drive a new reader or two in your direction.

In case you haven’t heard of her, there is a PF Blogger our there called Mrs. Micah and there is only one reason I know about her: she is the hardest working blogger out there. Every single blog I went to I would see a comment from her. She was everywhere! So I figured I should check out her blog to see what she was all about. I still check it out on a regular basis but I never would’ve found it if not for her tremendous comment output. It got other bloggers talking too.

The title of Problogger’s article makes you think that today’s homework is to just find one new blog to comment on. But read the article and you’ll see he wants you to find as many as possible. This tip, along with most of the ones in this series, is one of those that you should try to execute on a regular basis. It’s not easy to do unless you’re writing about it in a really exciting series of posts and you’re conscientious about it. I have 4–5 blogs I read every day and other than that I can go for weeks without reading a new blog. This is a crucial mistake. How am I going to discover new things, new ideas, new everything? By actively seeking out new blogs, that’s how.

One way to do this is by going to the blogs you already know and love and scanning their blogroll. If you like them and they like these other blogs, the odds are good you’ll find something entertaining in them too. It’s harder than it sounds because so many people out there don’t have anything interesting/new to say (sorry, it’s true). But keep at it and remember to only comment if you have something to say, even if it’s just “This was great, thanks!”

And as for linking back to an article on your blog, I don’t see a problem with it. Just make sure it’s correctly formatted so you don’t create a code problem for the other person’s site. I’ve done that twice already and it really makes you feel like a jerk. But only do it if it’s appropriate. I just found a post on how great libraries are so it was natural for me to link to this post. If you do it just to get a linkback, people will not care for it.

Happy commenting!

Day 7 of my Building a Better Blog series just happens to fall at the perfect time: I’m getting married on Sunday and today’s tip is to Plan Ahead. Since I have family coming in this week and I’ll be gone from Thursday to Thursday of next week, I have to plan ahead if I want there to be new stuff coming out on the Coin. This isn’t something totally new to me, I’ve been doing it since I realized it was possible to write and then have WordPress publish stories whenever you want it to.

This allows you stock up for the upcoming week (or next few days) and work ahead. If anything happens or you just can’t think of anything worthwhile to say on a given day, it’s ok. Maybe you’re tired or hung over — either way, you’re not getting any blogging done today. No problem. Your schedule is set and you can forget about it. The first time I heard about this was from Trent over at The Simple Dollar. I emailed him about something and he responded by saying he’s usually a week ahead of his schedule. So he could go a full week without touching his computer and content would still flow. That’s pretty cool when you think about it.

Another reason I like it is because it doesn’t tie me to the computer every day. I spend enough time as it is on it, so I like to just leave it off for a day and not feel like, “OK I gots to blog now.” I know M doesn’t like it and I understand because it feels kind of lame to be that attached to a computer.

The main reason I use it for now isn’t to be a “more responsible” blogger, but to make the time to write fiction. I get all my writing done in the mornings before going to work, so if I can get a couple of days ahead in my blogging, it opens up a full morning of writing fiction, which I’ve been meaning to pick up more and more. Right now my time is probably divided 80/20 with blogging taking up the most time and I want to get it to around 60/40 at the least. I won’t get any closer to publication if I’m not writing.

Anyway, this is a really good tip for anyone committed to blogging. It will help you become more efficient and it won’t tie you to a routine. You can even go ahead and get married, out of town if you want to, and your readers won’t have a clue. Unless you tell them, of course. Today, for example, I’m on my honeymoon and you can bet your ass I’m not on a computer.