You're going to want to subscribe to my RSS feed. It's the greatest thing since sliced bread - even better, in fact. You know you want to.

The Voxant Newsroom is an interesting service that gives you money for placing a text feed ($0.50cpm), image feed ($0.50cpm), movie feed ($3.50cpm, but only if they watch a video), or all three (if you’re the sellout type) on your website (gratuitous parentheses statement). If you’ve got a news blog and want an easy, professional solution to getting free content, Voxant is what you’re looking for. It even PAYS you to take it in on your blog. It’s kind of like making someone pay you for the ability to guest write on your blog - awesome for you and generally bad for the poster with absolutely no drawbacks.

YEAH, SO WHAT?
So what? This thing is as revolutionary as sliced something! If getting paid to put a shiny relatively Web 2.0 feed up on your blog doesn’t float your boat, it’s also RELEVANT. That’s right, Voxant lets you customize your feed in so many ways that it’s mind-boggling to list them all, but I’ll do it anyway. You can:

• Select your own keywords to use in feed selection
• Select keywords not to show in a feed
• Select phrases to use in feed selection
• Select which news providers you want to use and which you don’t
• Select local, national, or global news.
• Select just how relevant to your chosen keywords results must be - it’s got a SLIDER for this.
• Select the color of the feed (kinda. It only lets you choose between white or black for 160×600 sizes)
• Select the size of the feed.

If that’s not enough selections for you, then… well, don’t use it.

RECAP
Voxant Newsroom pays you to put images ($0.50cpm), text ($0.50cpm), and video ($3.50cpm, only counts when a visitor views the video) on your website. They offer a wide variety of ways to customize your news feeds and pay by Paypal or check. It looks quite professional and the actual news is decent.

Posted by Max Miroff | 5 Comments »

After yesterday’s post on young bloggers using their age as a stupid clever gimmick to get more readers, I decided to ask a few people what they thought about the issue (check here and here). It sparked much discussion (and plenty of visits back to Blog Badly AND a way to take a break from making a real post), but the consensus was unanimous: content should be judged on content. Sure, it might be cool to read lies like “12 year old makes millions selling shoeboxes on E-Bay,” but… seriously, shoeboxes?

WHAT PEOPLE THOUGHT
“I think it really depends on the context…. Blogging is unique because people who are slightly smarter than the average joe in any particular field are able to share that knowledge. In the end, it doesn’t matter how old or young you are, as long as you clearly know what you’re talking about.”

“Age shouldn’t have ANY factor in your opinions towards that particular blogger…. Take everything you read with a grain of salt, a reputable author will often have more cred, but age isn’t that determining factor. ”

“Young bloggers always attract me, no matter how suck they are! I admire young people with good insights, especially on the blogosphere.”

“Age is irrelevant to me, what matters most to me is logos, ethos, and pathos (Art of Rhetoric)? …those who flaunt their age as a means of drawing attention… bring about an aurora of arrogance.”

CONCLUSIONS
Most people seem to despise people who use age as a way of promotion and others just ignore it. Still, the fact remains - Carl Ocab is beating me and other talented bloggers in Alexa ranking. This injustice must be corrected! [insert righteous messages in a badly veiled attempt to get more traffic].

UPDATE: Another fourteen year old blogger is opposed to the age gimmick and thus has voiced his thoughts on it over at the Spokane Factor.

UPDATE #2: Yet another fourteen year old blogger voices his opinion at Germz!

Posted by Max Miroff | 5 Comments »

The most famous 14 year old blogger.

Why do people like reading stuff written by young people? Think about it - there are a bunch of blogs and books with the main selling point being the fact that they are written by kids. There are so many writing contests for elementary, middle, and high school students that let you submit your very own horrendous amazing pieces of literature. All of these contests accept every single piece of writing because they want parents to buy the book compilations. It’s a brilliant selling point, really - apparently, because a 12 year old did it, it makes a short lyric about his dog and a bone that much better.

YOUNG BLOGGER CARL OCAB
Carl Ocab was recently named the top under-21 blogger by RetireAt21. I’m not going to argue that - he’s got a big following - but why do people read his blog? His tag line is “Make Money Online With A 13-year-old.” His age is right there in the title and he enjoys riding that as if it makes his content better. Lets analyze his latest posts:

3 sponsored posts
5 posts he didn’t even write
2 posts full of other peoples content
1 vague post about groceries
1 post with a bunch of pictures of his schoolmates and him
1 post about a contest he won
0 beneficial, money-making posts out of 13.

Yet he still has a crapload of readers. I can only assume it’s because people think it’s amazing a 14 year old can blog. Cool.

Can you explain these phenomena? Do you read any blogs just because a young person writes them? Is it a valid selling point? If I tell you that I’m 14 (I am), will you be more inclined to subscribe to my RSS and read my blog? Please do tell me, because I’m baffled.

Posted by Max Miroff | 20 Comments »

Above is a chat widget from Digsby (If you’re an RSS subscriber, I’m not sure if you’ll see it. Why don’t you go directly to the post? It’ll be fun!). I’ll probably be on it for the next few hours so chat me up and witness my comedic genius - live! Or just talk about that funny picture of a cat you saw that time on that website. Whatever you want. But onto the main point:

DOES ANYONE ACTUALLY USE CHAT BOXES?
I often see a chat box on a blog even though the owner is never logged on. It’s kind of depressing to see the “User logged off” and not be able to chat - it’s just not fun. In addition, it clutters the sidebar and makes the blog look cheesy, much like a pizza or that thing you found in your couch.

THAT MAKES CHAT BOXES SOUND REALLY USELESS.
Well, they are. I mean seriously - what the hell, get AIM or something! It’s not all negative. Chat boxes allow you to better connect with your readers. I theorize it’ll bring me back more consistent return readers, and that’s why I’m going to put one up on Blog Badly for a bit - talk to me!

Posted by Max Miroff | 3 Comments »

Tilt your head a little to the left and be amazed!

After getting one commenter on my blog to tell me they reached it by searching for a keyword my blog doesn’t even come close to targeting (learn more here), I became intrigued as to how I could abuse utilize these obscure search terms to my advantage.

Take a look at the list of keywords to the left, for example. All of these searches have brought people to my blog, even though some of them don’t really make any sense. I’ve highlighted all of the keywords that I’ve never thought of targeting in a nice yellow brush so you can look at them.

Adrian Bryant? No idea who he is. I know for a fact Blog Badly doesn’t have a chatbox (and probably never will. I shall rue the day I put useless widgets in my sidebar). Combine and magician blog designs and themes? Nope.

I could go on and on explaining the lack of these keywords, but I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Not to imply that you guys are horses or anything.

HOW TO USE THE LONG TAIL
Acquiring the long tail is harder than just shooting a wild animal and chopping it off. Trying to target more specific niche terms (instead of “Long Tail,” try “Long Tail Search Terms And You - Create Blog Posts With Obscure And Specific Terms Like Pineapples And Skydiving To Get Google Traffic”) should be your main concern if you want to get more long tail visitors.

WAYS TO OPTIMIZE FOR THE LONG TAIL
Post titles in a blog are important for Google - it’s how it first figures out what a certain blog page is about. Making your titles more specific will rank you highly for your terms.

Using specific terms in blog posts can also attract more long tail traffic. Don’t just refer to it as “credit card refinancing” - call it “credit card refinancing for people who have terrible credit but can hop on one leg while spinning in circles and playing the harmonica.” That way, if some person has terrible credit and can hop on one leg while spinning in circles and playing the harmonica, he’ll be able to find your post.

You could also try to write about regional topics by adding locations to your posts.

THE BENEFITS OF THE LONG TAIL
There are quite a few major benefits of the long tail:

Long tail searchers know exactly what they’re looking for and thus will be more likely to buy.
There’s little competition for long tail search terms. You probably won’t be competing with too many people, although I’ve heard the “refinancing homes for Siberian tigers” niche has some pretty fierce competitors.
You’ll get more visitors. The lack of competition will rank you higher and if for some reason you write a post about “hanggliding off of my house” and it suddenly becomes the new fad, you’ll get mad traffic.

So, what are you waiting for? Grab a hold of Google by the long tail and make it do what you want to do. Well, most of the time.

Posted by Max Miroff | 1 Comment »

Thanks, Google

I’m still not sure what this signifies. I haven’t really written anything about that (won’t mention it or else it’ll have a good chance of reappearing!) and I don’t think my blog is about that kind of stuff. Then again, I phase out sometimes while posting so you guys are gonna have to tell me if I accidentally make any lewd comments ;).

IS THERE ARE GOOD SIDE TO THIS?
Well, maybe this new ad topic will boost my revenues. We’ll just have to see what my apparently mostly male audience (according to Quantcast) thinks about it.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO MY MAIN POINT - YOU GUYS!
Quantcast (I made a post about what it was before. Here it is) has now added detailed demographics to Blog Badly. Lets see what they have to say about my average readership:

So, do these statistics match you as if someone had been stalking you for your whole life or are they completely off? Leave a comment and tell me! We’ll put Quantcast to the test.

TESTIMONIALS - NEW!
Geology Joe said it well:

“so the majority of people who read this blog are Old, make no money and are neither white, black, Asian or Hispanic….
Those are some SOLID stats”

Jonathon is the kind of guy I thought my core audience was. Quantcast disagrees:

“I am male, Caucasian, 26 with a household income of between $60-100K. I guess that makes me kind of on the minority of your readership.”

Posted by Max Miroff | 7 Comments »

• This is a bulleted list, and no one likes it. It’s like numbered list’s ugly adopted brother.
• It tries to be funny but it isn’t. You see that attempted humour in the above bullet? Yeah. It wasn’t that funny, and that’s coming from the person that wrote it.
• This list isn’t new content. Seriously, top ten lists are everywhere - what makes this one different from all the others? It’s just the same old crap in different, shinier packaging.
• This list doesn’t have any images in it and thus looks pretty boring.
• It’s published on a fairly unknown site, and if it’s not a big-name blogger then why should you even bother reading this post?
• This list has a filler entry which really doesn’t contribute anything to the list except to add another entry.
• This list is built purely to get more traffic in social websites and doesn’t provide any real value to its readers.
• This list doesn’t elaborate on its points - it looks like it was put together in five minutes.
• This list only has nine reasons. Users of Digg and StumbleUpon hate this a lot and often leave comments telling this to the author.

When this list fails, I won’t be sad - I’ve predicted it! Monitor the unpopularity!

Posted by Max Miroff | 21 Comments »

Posted by Max Miroff | 3 Comments »

It’s… it’s beautiful… Atrociously so. Unfinished yet. Click to magically make big.

That’s right, I’ve decided to write an eBook (EBOOK? ebook? e-book? Which one is it?). It won’t be any ordinary e-book, though, because it won’t even pretend to give you information. I’ll just tell you outright that it’ll be funny, amusing, and guaranteed to make you smile or at least your face or something. Think “I Am America (And So Can You!)” but for an e-book about blogging and making money online. That’s right, Colbert, I’m referencing YOU!

PROGRESS?
It turns outs ebooks are kind of hard to write, though, so it’s only about 1/20th of the way there. Regardless, I needed a post idea and this was the only thing I could think of I believe early promotion is always a good thing.

WHAT WILL IT COST ME?
That depends. Perhaps it’ll be free, perhaps I’ll scam you out of your money charge a small fee. The only certain thing is that if you write a blog post about the E-Book, you’ll definitely get a free copy, a mention in an upcoming post, and my unrequited love a sincere thank you.

ONE MORE THING
Got something you want included in the ebook that relates to blogging, SEO, making money online? I’ll make it funny! I’m always looking for some great creative topics to parody, so comment here. I might even credit you in this soon-to-be-revolutionary ebook!

In addition to this e-book, Blog Badly might be getting a custom theme design from this custom theme design contest.

Posted by Max Miroff | 4 Comments »

No matter where you go for vacation, it is an obligation that you take some pictures of the area and what you did. How else could you remember all the fun you had scuba diving in that dark cave, getting lost, and almost drowning? Eh? Exactly.

OH, AND SINCE YOU HAVE THOSE PICTURES…
Blog about them. Because your readers care. If they say they’re not interested, it’s just because they’re jealous. Make sure you post an obligatory shot of you in front of your hotel, a picture of the surrounding scenery, a photo of a wild animal you encountered (it’s not just any typical bird - it’s a bird from MEXICO!), and a photo of you doing something exciting (swimming, skiing, diving, etc.).

IT JUST ISN’T A VACATION BLOG POST UNTIL YOU TELL SOME STORIES
Be sure to elaborate on each picture. You don’t want your readers thinking that the photo of the lizard is a lizard! I mean, come on, it isn’t just any ordinary lizard; you found him under a rock and he scared you which made you drop your drink. Stories like these are blogging (and StumbleUpon) gold.

Posted by Max Miroff | 2 Comments »