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.

I’ve got some really sad news for everyone writing great content then expecting people to come and find it without marketing it - it’s not going to happen. In fact, finding a blog with amazing content is already harder than picking out a needle from a haystack (albeit less cliche). Without marketing, it’s nearly impossible.

Think about it - good content is, well, good - but how is anyone going to find it? Randomly typing in your URL? Keep dreaming. Even the best blogs require promotion through Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, and the likes. Search engine marketing is vital in this process as well - without optimizing your site and building backlinks, Google and Yahoo won’t even know your site exists.

MARKETING’S VICIOUS REIGN
It’s true that awesome content that is marketed well does better than crap content most of the time, but the key phrase here is most of the time. Through the magic of marketing, even the worst of bloggers can become popular.

Focus on writing amazing, original content but don’t hope on people finding it themselves. Guide them to it like moths to a flickering light and promote very aggressively.

Just try not to get a restraining order.

Posted by Max Miroff | 11 Comments »

Irrelevant pictures like these happen when I can’t find anything on the first page of Google images.

Does joining blog contests that require a post on your blog make you a sellout? I mean, there are all of those great prizes that you can win (in fact, blog contests were my main source of revenue in March [100 dollah! {what does a parenthesis symbol in brackets look like? I’m guessing it’s this, but I’m not really sure}]).

THE PROBLEM WITH CONTESTS
Of course, it’s not all fun and games (and winning some mad money and prizes [I really need to use less parentheses]). You don’t always win a blog contest and by the time a winner has been decided, you’ve already done these generic contest entry things:

• Subscribed to their blog (reading their content is optional)
• Dugg/Stumbled the post (isn’t advocating Diggs and Stumbles against ToS? I mean, not that it matters… after all, they don’t need to know about it)
• Wrote a post about their contest/blog (i.e. free sponsored review)
• Commented on their blog post (blog authors are generally to lazy to check what you did themselves)

In fact, it has been scientifically* proven that 95% of blog contests use this specific format.

FINAL THOUGHTS
What do you think of blog contests? Are they the bane of the blogging world, or are they a good way of getting some money and publicity?
Oh, by the way, I myself am entered in a blog competition and it’d be an honor for me to extort your votes. Just check out this post and vote for Blog Badly in the poll so that it can get a new theme. This’ll make Blog Badly easier to enjoy - and thus you’re really helping yourself by helping me win.

*the word scientifically is used loosely here.

Posted by Max Miroff | 9 Comments »

Phew, time sure flies by when you’re having fun blogging. In fact, it seems like just 30 days ago it was a month ago. Think about that statement for a while as I go and share the deepest, darkest secrets of Blog Badly’s growth (It’s alive!) and the expansion of my online empire (Proportionately to the rest of the world: about the size of my desk). Current stats in bold, last months stats (if I bothered to dig them up) in normal.

BLOG BADLY
Pageviews: 12,878 (1,142)
Uniques: 8,973 (762)
Subscribers: 43 (like 3?)
Alexa 3-Month Average: 305,659 (about 800,000)
Alexa Weekly Average:132,000 (???)
Google Pagerank: 3 (3)

I CAN HAS MONEYZ?
Blog Badly Income
The Rubicon Project: $97 ($0)
Winning Collin LaHay’s Contest: $100 (0$)
Other Funky Stuff: $20 (0$)

Miscellaneous Income
Triond: $65 ($15)

Total Income: 282/month, 9.4$/day. 940% increase.

AWARDS N’ STUFF
Most Creative Keyword (Sponsored by Google Analytics): “f6b3173f78c60b2383188f03e5310f85”
Most Popular Post: Top Ten Reasons This List Won’t Be Popular
Best Comment: “LOL thats funny.
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.”
Random Website I’m More Popular Than According To Alexa: Net Entrepreneur
Random Website I Should Be More Popular Than: Carl Ocab

ANALYSIS TIME
I’m still freaking poor. 9 bucks a day? That’s like working minimum wage for an hour and a half. Still, I suppose it’s adequate… for now. My goals will be to monetize Blog Badly better so that it earns at least 150 dollars in April, get 100 bucks from Triond, and get 100 bucks from other miscellaneous stuff.

Of course, talking about money first makes me seem like that’s all I’m concerned about. In fact, my ego inflates greatly when people read and comment on my work I believe that growing Blog Badly’s reach is, at the moment, more important than money. I’m hoping to break the Alexa top 100k within two weeks so that I can view their fancy graphs every day. Some more subscribers wouldn’t be too shabby either, hint hint.

Posted by Max Miroff | 8 Comments »

Posted by Max Miroff | 4 Comments »

You’d think a humorous parody blog would have something good cooked up for April Fools Day, eh? Well, you’re wrong. Seems I’ve jumbled it up a bit and forgot to think of something funny to post up on Blog Badly beforehand. I’m also too tired to put my “mad humour skillz”™ to use after waking up at 2AM, taking a shower, eating breakfast, and wondering why my schoolbus wasn’t here in a confused daze for a good ten minutes before realizing I was about four hours early. This picture of a stoned sleepy jester holding what looks like a dead baby flamingo (aren’t those things endangered? Someone call PETA!) will have to suffice for now.

Posted by Max Miroff | 5 Comments »