Monday, July 25, 2005

A WebKEW reader creates a blog

People have started sending in links to blogs and web sites that they are creating. They come to WebKEW, get inspired and get moving. They are excited about getting started.

Here is an example of such a web site -- in this case a blog called "Our Technological Future":The blog's first major post is called the Singularity FAQ for Dummies.

This is a very simple and straightforward beginning, and it is a good one for four reasons:
  1. This blog has something of value to say - The first post shows that the author is going to have something unique and valuable to say to a community of people. In this case, the author has created a FAQ that introduces people to "the singularity". Someone who wants to learn about the singularity can come to this blog and find something of value. If they like what they read, they will link to it or email it to friends.

  2. This blog already shows signs of life in Google - Even though this blog is only a few days old, it already shows signs of life in Google. If you type "singularity FAQ" (with quotes) as a search term in Google, this FAQ is there. That means the Google has found and indexed the blog, and is ranking it ahead of several other entries because it has value.

  3. The blog has an AdSense ad on it - This ad will provide the author with some daily stats that are very easy to access.

  4. There is a nice set of links - A reader who arrives at this blog from a search engine or link will be be able to find more information about the topic by clicking on the links. That provides the blog's readers with additional value.
There are dozens of minor tweaks that the author can make to the template. There is a valid question of whether entries like these belong in a blog or a site. And so on. Things like that will cause this blog to change over time, and that is great. The part that I think is important here is that the author has gotten in motion and is creating something of value for readers. That is 90% of the battle already won. It's a great start.

5 Comments:

At 10:07 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

When adding content to your site, must the content be in a hard coded page to be picked up by google? I run sql server based sites, but wonder if articles should not be stored as data to maximize search engine results.

 
At 11:34 AM, Blogger Jan-Willem Bats said...

Thanks for the link from your roboticnation.blogspot.com, and for this article referring to me, Marshall. The day isn't even over yet, and I'm already at 70 hits.

I've also helped myself out a bit by posting the link to the Singularity FAQ on sites that are already popular. Only where appropriate ofcourse, you don't want to set up a spam-reputation for yourself.

I've managed to get my FAQ posted as a pinned topic in the Singularity forum on www.imminst.org. I've also linked to myself from the reviews of www.singinst.org that you can find when you join stumbleupon.com. I read on www.singinst.org that this is a very valuable source of hits, and that www.singinst.org gets a lot of its traffic from there.

I added myself to www.wikipedia.com, one of the largest and most popular sites on the web.

I'm also playing on www.play4traffic.com. Another free way to increase traffic. Especially cool if you're already a fast typist.

And ofcourse, I've gotten you, Marshall, to write about me. All I had to do in order for that to happen, was to just be a nice guy and tell you you've inspired with me your enthusiastic writings.

So I'm really actively working on getting more and more hits here. I'm just gonna keep on researching how I can increase my hits, and undertake the action required to actually make it so. I'll bet I can turn this thing into a source of at least a few dozens of bucks per month, which would be totally cool.

I've made two and a half dollars so far. ;)

Just wait until something Singularity related comes in the news again (like Pearson's prediction about brain downloads by 2050), and it gets posted on slashdot. I'm gonna link to my own FAQ and, hopefully, be slashdotted. :D

Jay

 
At 6:35 AM, Blogger Jan-Willem Bats said...

I ended up with 246 hits yesterday. And my blog is only a few days old.

I also noticed I got payed more for the adclicks yesterday, than I did for the adclicks of days before yesterday.

I wonder if that has anything to do with increasing popularity?

 
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