Why would people vlog? Video blogging is becoming increasingly popular, especially with such popular SEO/internet marketing bloggers as Darren Rowse of Problogger adopting the highly ineffective format. I mean, come on, what’s the point? Vlogging, if you’re a good conversational writer (HINT HINT [point at self]) is just as if you had taken your post and started reading it. BORING. Your reader can do that by themself. The only way to engage your reader moreso is if you’re either highly attractive, extremely funny, or have lots of cool stuff to show off in your video… but lets not turn this into a description of myself. It’s about vlogging, remember?

Ahh… so let me briefly summarize why you shouldn’t vlog. First off, you can’t optimize the content of a video for Google – just the page it’s found on. That means no keyword stuffing or any insidious strategies like that. Inevitably, video posts are going to get you less traffic than text ones. Second, you can’t present information concisely in a video post. You can write a post on most vlogs in ten bullet points or so. Third, video posts take longer to develop. It’s harder to memorize and write out a script to read (unless you’re a master at improvisation  – in which case, congratulations!).

Then again, vlogging does have its uses. I suppose it could mix things up for your readers. Maybe you’re an amiable character and it’ll just make your readers like you more. It also helps build yourself as your own brand image – people can associate your blog with you if they’ve seen you talking, acting, and moving as opposed to just your face.

Overall, you can’t really do much in a video that you can’t do in a post in the SEO/MMO niche – at least not in a video that’s simply you talking. If it were an instructional screen capture on how to use Wordpress, then a video tutorial would perhaps be the best option. Screenshots and post would still work too, though, and optimize better for search engines. It all depends on knowing what your reader wants.

Posted by Max Miroff | No Comments »

A valid question indeed. Lack of posts, messed up sidebar, a void in your life that needs to be filled… yes, you may be asking yourself just what’s going on.

In short, hosting problems. BlueHost decided to kick my account off of its shared hosting after suspending it for a while for reasons I’ll elaborate in a later post. Now, we’re back (with HostGator) and still trying to move everything. Currently, it all seems fine except for the lacking sidebar (as you can see, it’s filled with the default Wordpress junk - who uses that stuff anyone) and the fact that every link on my top bar leads to my homepage. Also, my subscriber count is dangerously low (one problem you can fix by subscribing right here :] ).

This would be changed by now if not for the fact that the new installation of Wordpress confuzzles me. Yes, the problogger Max Miroff had been living in the dark ages before the big UI update of WP and now finally has the newfangled edition all you youngster are using. That makes my “hip” and/or “rad,” right?

Anywho, expect business as usual shortly - after all these problems are resolved. In the meantime, you can try such things as exploring the outdoors (it exists!), reading a good book, or watching this hilarious video that makes me laugh every time I see it. Meanwhile, I’ll be slaving over my blog and trying to fix all the issues.

Posted by Max Miroff | 6 Comments »

1. YOUR READERS
They love you. And not in the creepy internet stalker kind of way (hopefully, at least). If you stop writing for your blog, you’re letting your readers down. You’re bound to have at least one regular readers who simply loves your content and would hate to have it suddenly disappear - trust me. Another upside of readers is the comments you get. Since they love you, as we’ve established before, they’re also going to be leaving positive comments for you (them and the spambots that just say “good post mate, visit myviagrasite.com”) - and everyone loves positive feedback!

2. IT’LL ONLY GET BETTER
The more posts you write, the more content you have. The more content you have, the more search engine visitors you’ll get. Additional content also has the benefit of giving you the chance for more links from other sites. All of this translates into more traffic, backlinks, fame, and RSS subscribers. The worst thing you can do to your blog is to stop writing on it - it completely stagnates all of your growth. The best possible outcome of not writing on your blog is to maintain the status quo, and that’s looking optimistically. If you really want to know what happens to your blog after you stop writing for it, read this.

3. BECOME SMARTER!
Let’s talk about blogging as if it were one of those miracle pills you often see on TV: Blogging is an excellent mental exercise that encompasses creativity, writing skill, social know-how, reading comprehension, market prediction (gotta know whats coming up in your niche), marketing, and finances. Now, I may not be a real doctor, but I do think I have the credentials to say that those things are all good to know. Blogging will help you in life in some way or another.

4. MAD MONEYZ
It probably won’t make you a millionaire, I’m sorry to say, but there are plenty of ways to make money blogging. Even if it’s just a measly ten dollars a month, that’s enough to buy yourself a pizza. And pizza is delicious. Making money with a blog goes back to the second point about consistency: if you write more, you’ll get more visitors which in turn will click on more of your ads. No longer will you have to tell your friends to click on that Adsense banner of yours!

5. PORTFOLIO
If you ever need to bulk up your resume, just write that you’re a marketer, SEO, and problogger.

IN SHORT, there’s no good reason not to keep blogging. You’re only hurting yourself if you stop so strap yourself in and keep on bloggin’.

Posted by Max Miroff | 13 Comments »

A classy cartoon explosion, complete with one of those completely unprofessional StockPhoto watermarks in the middle. Curse you, non-free awesome images!

It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for all your life - the return of Blog Badly. That is, if the moment you’ve been waiting for all your life was the moment that some guy named Max with a funny blog about marketing and SEO decided to come back to writing on it after a four month (well-deserved?) vacation. And if that’s true, then you’re really weird (but awesomely so).

If you haven’t noticed yet, you should look at the title of this post and note my usage of alliteration. That’s right, FIVE B’s. It practically took me SECONDS to think of that. I think that warrants some applause, so I’ll just wait here while you go and do that.

Done yet?

Keep clapping.

Almost there.

Alright! Let’s continue on discussing this exuberant event. Now, what does the return of Blog Badly mean to you? It means that you’ll be getting tips on how to get visitors to your website and become filthy stinking rich as many times as I feel like diverting my time from the other wholly important stuff I do (sleeping, Facebook) per week. That number will probably be around two or three, by the way.

Now this isn’t the first time I’ve risen my blog from the dead, nor will it be the last time I depart you all only to come back again with a clever post about leaving your blog unattended. I really don’t know where I was going with that thought, but I do know that I can now cram two internal links into this post and crank out more pageviews from you guys, my loyal readers. See, I’m already getting back into the game!

So now you know what that gaping hole in your life has been for the past few months - a lack of Blog Badly. Now, all you have to do to fill it subscribe to my RSS feed (all the cool kids are doing it) or just visit Blog Badly every day. Either way, you’ll be getting the most interesting information about the blogging world since August 20th.

Posted by Max Miroff | 15 Comments »

Most bloggers nowadays use Feedburner to monitor their feed statistics. While the tracking their is extremely useful by itself, a few enterprising web developers have used the Feed Awareness API to add even new functions to Feedburner. The one program that stands out from the rest is BlogPerfume’s Feed Analysis.

WHAT DOES IT DO?
It makes lots of fancy charts. No, really, that’s pretty much it. Still, those charts are exceedingly useful for seeing how your subscriber count has risen over time. It also predicts your subscribers after 3/6/12 months if you keep expanding at your current rate, and it’s fun to look at approximately where you’ll be in the future (apparently, I’ll have 2.5k readers within a year. Remember that the metric for determining blog popularity is whether your RSS count can be expressed in “k.” If you can, then you are automatically a top blogger).

My description doesn’t do it justice, so I’ll let these pictures do the talking:

Even if you’re not a stat junkie, you need to check Feed Analysis out.

Posted by Max Miroff | 31 Comments »

Performancing Ads is a new ad network that sets itself apart from all of the others in a lazy yet brilliant way: it exclusively focuses on the sales of 125×125 ad boxes on blogs. Instead of confusing people with such complicated things as 486×60 and CTR and whatnot, all it offers are those cool little square buttons that are the hottest thing on the web since, well, 468×60.

But don’t let my seemingly mocking introduction fool you - the concept really is nice. Most blogs have space for 125×125 ads and lots of people want to sell them, and making a dedicated marketplace for the format is a nice move by Performancing.

SO HOW DOES PERFORMANCING ADS WORK?
After signing up for an account and submitting a blog that you want to display ads on, you install the Performancing Ads plugin and add a piece of code to your blog. The process is fairly straightforward (although installing a plugin takes more work than the far-easier variant of putting javascript/HTML to display the ad) and shouldn’t take too long. You then set a weekly price for each square you add and wait for the money to start flowing in.

Well, kinda. I haven’t had a single booking yet for my test period (only two days, but at four bucks per week it’s a steal compared to my normal pricing) and all of the other sites that I’ve seen using it are filled with the default ads. This would be all fine and dandy if the backup ads actually made me money, though, or if I could at least CHANGE them. Not so. Having useless affiliate ads on my blog is not something I’m partial too, so Performancing needs to get its act together.

Despite this huge shortcoming, Performancing Ads is still worth checking out because it’s the first ad program of it’s kind.

Posted by Max Miroff | 21 Comments »

Posted by Max Miroff | 37 Comments »

It’s innovative, fresh, new, and another generic-sounding word describing something innovative, fresh, and new.

It’s Firef.ly.

Since it’d be easier to simply show you what it is first, click on the slider above to open it up (please hop on over to this page, RSS readers). An overlay will appear on Blog Badly and you’ll be able to type anywhere on it. If there is another reader here that’s using the app, you’ll be able to talk with them. I’ll be here for the next hour or so checking back on it, so you can talk to the famed owner of this prestigious blog

SO WHAT IS FIREFLY, EXACTLY?
One could describe it as a fancy pants chat client (because that’s basically what it is), but lets get into the nitty gritty: it’s a chat application that you install on your site/blog using a simple piece of code that allows for easy reader-to-reader-to-owner interaction. This takes place in a simple overlay that allows you to type messages and view what others using Firef.ly on the site are doing in real-time. This is a killer app because it’s

• simple
• easy-to-implement
• user-friendly

There is, of course, one problem: you need to have quite a few willing users for it to work, and a good amount of traffic. I’m counting on you guys to provide your feedback, whether in the comments section of this post or just by typing it into the app (it saves chat history too - and I can ban you troublemakers [even more cool features]).

Posted by Max Miroff | 13 Comments »

I envy contest bloggers. They can automatically join any cool blog contest they can find and their readers don’t hate them for it (because it’s their niche). They get prizes just for blogging about their topic. Their style of writing isn’t challenging at all and yet they reap all the rewards.

Why couldn’t I be a contest blogger?

Posted by Max Miroff | 18 Comments »

Posted by Max Miroff | 10 Comments »