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.
Quick tip for today: get a free backlink with your favicon on Pimp My Favicon. They probably won’t be worth anything considering the page they’re on looks like a link farm, but why not? Mass links are always fun! Just enter your blogs URL and you get a free bonafide backlink!
After a Russian blogger decided to take inspiration from my post about marketing with homeless people and make his own inspired counter-post, I decided to check out his
blog and the Russian MMO niche as a whole.
FIRST THOUGHTS
Wait - Russians making money online? Are they allowed to do that? Don’t they distribute it equally amongst their comrades or something? Hopefully the KGB won’t come for me due to my comments (don’t worry, the fact that I’m Russian makes my blatant stereotyping okay).
Anywho:
LOTS OF RUSSIANS WANT TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE
ProfitHunter has ~1700 RSS subscribers which puts it at about the level of a B-list American MMO blog - not bad. In fact, after following a few links, I noticed there were many blogs with thousands more subsribers and fairly high Alexa rankings (though they seem to be judged unfairly, as my rank of 128,000 was the highest out of all of the Russian blogs I found, even though I’m quite sure I get less traffic). I still couldn’t find the “John Chow” of Russian MMO blogs, though.
YANDEX IS THE RUSSIAN GOOGLE. AND SO IS GOOGLE.
The posts I noticed covered statistics in both Yandex, Russia’s major search engine, as well as Google.
WORDPRESS IS THE WINNER
Plenty of Russian blogs seemed to be using Wordpress. Eat that, Blogger!
RUSSIAN MMO BLOGS AREN’T ALL THAT DIFFERENT FROM ENGLISH ONES
They have similar pillar posts: “Ten Habits Of A Successful Blogger,” “Making Money With [Insert Program Name Here],” “Five Innovative Ways To Market Your Site,” etc.
RUSSIAN COMMENTERS ARE CONSTRUCTIVE
Most people that comment on Russian posts add humour and fresh ideas. For example, my aforementioned post on using homeless people to advertise your website had the humorous suggestions of:
They were far more amusing than most of the comments I see on American blogs.
FINAL REVIEW
I’m going to have to give these blogs another look: they’re quite interesting. If you want to experience a bit of culture, check out some Russian blogs! A word of warning, though - Babelfish is an awful translator. I tried it for kicks and here’s what I got:
“Cries
Also good, true, not safest method. People can think that person, who yells “you go to [Vebmun] point RU and learn as to earn the money of on-line! ”, simply it descended from the mind“
StumbleUpon is a fickle beast - it can either lead to salvation (thousands of visitors) or the banhammer (ouch). You see, apparently you CAN’T thumbs up every single post you make: shocker, I know. Blog Badly learned this the hard way; on a scale of one to ten, my level of traffic from SU for the past month was about a none. I can only assume this is because I, uh, *ahem* perhaps reviewed one my own posts? I didn’t even get any traffic from about three other posts with no reviews whatsoever by me! One of them had 15+ thumbs up yet only received about 20 visitors.
But now, it seems that my bad karma has been lifted. After being a diligent user and stumbling/reviewing other sites, Blog Badly started getting hits from StumbleUpon again. I can only assume this was because I stopped stumbling Blog Badly and just decided to let it stew for a bit. Yesterday, I got 300+ visits from StumbleUpon on my latest post. That means that getting “unbanned” from StumbleUpon is as easy as being an active user with stuff other than site promotion on your mind. After all, those pictures of cats are pretty funny!
Does this mean I’ll stop thumbs upping my own site? Of course not! I’ll think about it. Still, it’s a relief to have such a good traffic source back with me again.
There often comes a time in your blog’s life where you simply abandon it. Whole essays can be written on why you leave your blog for dead, but I’ll sum it up for you in a few key words: boredom, laziness, lack of achievement, Grand Theft Auto IV. It is often sad to see a blog become abandoned, and your readers will generally hate you for it. You surely wouldn’t want these people that you’ve never met to be angry, right? Exactly.
And that’s why you should bring your blog back from the dead. Can’t think of a way to do it? No problem! Here are four ways to come back blogging strong.
The Angsty/Apologetic/Generally-Boring-Unless-You-Won-The
-Lottery-Or-Something Re-Introductory Post (now with gratuitous hyphen-usage!)
In this post, you simply lie explain to your readers that you’re very sorry for not posting, will now post regularly, had other
commitments, blah blah blah, please re-subscribe to my feed, et cetera. This post is generally hated by all people unless you are in the blog-about-my-life niche. Is anyone even still doing that? Hello?
Effectiveness Level: Trying to eat soup with a fork.
The Biggest Mistake You Can Make With This Post: Actually following through with this idea.
Your Readership Will… reluctantly accept the post while bitterly muttering to themselves.
The Normal Post
Pretend you never left your blog (if you don’t think about it, it never happened). Your readers will settle back into the norm and will hopefully dismiss your absence. After all, if you continue doing what you do best, what could go wrong?
Effectiveness Level: Killing a fly with a fly-swatter.
The Biggest Mistake You Can Make With This Post: Not proofreading your post. Your writing skills may have gotten a bit rusty during your absence.
Your Readership Will… be as content as they were before.
The Blog Rebirth
Change can be scary, and this rings true the most with this option. In short, this is when you go all-out and perform a switcharoo on your blog. Make a new custom design, develop a new writing style, and refocus. This is the riskiest option of all and it can win you some new readers while alienating some loyal fans. It’s important to weigh your possible benefits before following through with this: writing fun factor, niche popularity, and your knowledge on the topic are important to think about. If you have a good understanding of your readership and know how to strike the right chords with them, this option can be the best thing that can happen to your blog.
Effectiveness Level: Shooting at at a bullseye on an archery target.
The Biggest Mistake You Can Make With This Post: Too many to list - but don’t let that discourage you!
Your Readership Will… either go the way of the Hindenburg or skyrocket.
Do Nothing
This isn’t really a post idea - it’s the antithesis of one. Just don’t do anything. Leave your helpless blog alone, stranded in the vast expanse of the Internet, you awful person.
Effectiveness Level: Fighting a grizzly bear whilst blindfolded and hogtied.
The Biggest Mistake You Can Make With This Post: It’s not even a post. You’re dooming yourself by doing this.
Your Readership Will… leave you forever.
Can you guess which one I did?
