My Format for Blog Reviews

By admin

At some point in the next couple days I will be posting my first blog review, and today I’m going to present the format in which I will do it. This is so that you will know how I will do it in the future, in case you want to buy one. This will be my first blog review on MOS and so I’m going to follow a very specific format. I guarantee all of my blog reviews will be over 1,000 words at least, because I will cover every aspect of your site. I will have different sections concerning all the aspect of your site that I can observe. All of these reviews will be 100% honest. I’m not going to beat around the bush, and tell you I love your stuff because you’re paying me to. I’m going to tell you my honest opinion about it, and hopefully be able to give you constructive criticism, if it needs work.

I have been studying different blog reviews on other sites, seeing what works, and what doesn’t. And mainly, what people like, and what people don’t like. I’ve been reading a lot about what all the different parties want to see in a review, including the reader, the writer, and the one being reviewed, so hopefully I’ve covered everything. Here is the format I will use.

At the beginning of every blog review, I will post a screenshot of the blog, with the author’s name, and a link to his site using the keyword of their choice. I will use at least two links to the site in every review, one at the beginning and one at the end, with the anchor text of their choice, following the Yes or No answer.

The different sections I will include are, Blog Template/Theme, Navigation through Site, Any pages they have such as Contact/About/Advertise… The Quality of the Content, Their Use of Ads, I will also try to include testimonials from other bloggers who know the site, Or have an objective opinions about it, that way you won’t always just be receiving my opinion but others as well. Finally I will talk about their current success by sharing their stats, and talk about Their use of Widgets.

I will wrap up with any practical suggestions I can come up with. And a final judgment on whether the site’s stats really reflect the site’s worth or not. Then finally the drum roll question, is this site worth visiting, Yes or No. I will give a one word answer, and then explain it as much as I can. Hopefully I will never have to say No, but it will happen. If I settle with a Yes, then I will also include a link to subscribe to their RSS feed. And links to three of their top posts, picked by the person who asked for the review.

Because the purpose of my reviewing your site, is to help you develop it, I will be giving a large discount for return reviewers. It will have to be at least a month later, but the purpose would be for followup. Hopefully, you will have fixed some of the problems that I pointed out in the first review, and thus you can have a chance to get a better rating.

My wish would be that this could follow somewhat of the same format as the Reader Blog Critique, on Blogging Tips, so that commentators would give constructive reviews as well. Any comments that I think are constructive, I will add in the post, with a link from the person.

If there’s anything that you think I should add to this format, please comment, and I will consider adding it to my list.

If you look in the sidebar I’ve added an advertise page. Right now it only includes the option of getting blog reviews, but starting this January I will be offering private ads. Check out the page now, if you’re interested in saving a spot in the first batch of ad sales.

Making your Blog Succeed

By admin

The key to succeeding on the internet, is to not have to high expectations starting off. Most bloggers have not quit their jobs, and are not relying solely on their blogs, unless they are already making a lot of money from it. Most of us, are doing this for a hobby on the side, and hoping that we might pick up a few bucks here and there along the way. If that is your mindset, then you will definitely succeed. However, if you are doing this working yourself crazy trying to make 1,000$ a day like John Chow and Steve Pavlina, you’ll… well… drive yourself crazy… There are very few bloggers who actually make that much money, and yet everybody talks about it, like it’s so easy. You need to be Very patience and have an inexhaustible niche to be writing in. All of those success stories, blogged for years. Yet, now we have all these people who think they can make a million bucks in a month or two. Statistics say 90% of blogs don’t last longer then two months, if you last longer then that, then just think about the possibilities. That means your site will be in the 10% left in competing in search engines, social sites, for traffic… If you are expecting right off, to make a bunch of money, and get a lot of traffic, it just won’t work. Patience is key, as well as knowledge and insight. You have to have the ability to find a popular niche, but not one that is overcrowded, and then be able to give new insight on that topic. In most niches, you’ll all be writing about the same things as everybody else, but you need to be able to analyze it in a different way, and to twist it to give it new meaning.

My #1 advice for you in blogging is this, have low goals starting off. Have high ambition, and a good work ethic, post as much as you can, but if your goal starting off, is to get 100 visits in one day, that’s fine. 100 is not very much, but if you start small, and let the success of your blog determine your goals then you’ll never get frustrated, because your blog will never be underachieving. But then once you get those 100 visits, move it up to 150, or 200. These last couple weeks I was getting more and more frustrated as mastersofseo didn’t perform as well as I’d hoped. Then I realized, that I was seeking an unobtainable goal at this stage. Maybe in a year I can have those same expectations, but not after only a month. So don’t get frustrated with your blog if it’s not doing as well as you wanted to, keep writing, keep researching, keep searching for new ways to market yourself, and don’t let other people influence your goals. Start small, and let it grow. 

Let me show you an example using my site. When I first started, here were my goals, for my first month.

1. 100 visits in a single day,
2. 1000 visits in a month,
3. 1$ in money

Those were all very obtainable goals, and I surpassed them in about two weeks, so I made them a little big larger.

1. 250 visits in a single day,
2. 3000 visits in a month,
3. 5$ in money

Again, pretty easy goals, are you noticing a trend here? All along the way, I was very excited about my blog, because it was always performing better then I expected. Since then of course, I have moved on to much more lofty goals, but I still follow the same format of start small, and let it surprise me or not, but either way I am not disappointed.

Now you maybe saying, but I did set low goals, and I still didn’t match them, what do I do!?!? Then just remember what I said earlier, blogging is a slow ride, it’s a test of patience. If your not matching your goals at first, then make the goals lower and lower until you can match them. As long as your getting at least one hit a day, then you can always have goal. And if your not, then email me at mastersofseo@gmail.com lol because I can send you at least one hit a day. 

Hits or Readers

By admin

Hits or Readers?

This is a question that many of us have wondered about. What is more important to us? To have pretty stats of thousands of visits, or to have lots of comments on each post, and have people who actually read the blog. We all need to ask ourselves what our goal is, and it’s different for everybody. Theres are lots of people, who just want to have a ton of visits, but don’t really care about influencing or helping people with their blogs. But plenty of others who get 1-30 visits a day on their blog, but don’t even care because it’s all people who read the posts, and then they can relate with.

Well today I was realizing, one, if your trying to make money with your site, then unfortunately you need to have both. And two, my blog is unbalanced. I’ll let you decide which way.

So I was reading my google analytics, looking at where my traffic had come. I saw the depressing stats of entrecard, a good amount of traffic with 3,000 but the 38 second, and 43 second average stay.

Then I wasn’t surprised to see Blog catalog, with an average of over 2 minutes. I was quite happy with that, but then I saw the one underneath it and couldn’t believe it.

Blogger Choice Awards, had an average of over 4 and a half minutes. That’s really quite amazing, and considering there were over 500 visits from that site, the visitors were consistently staying that long to. I hadn’t checked out Blogger Choice Awards and went over to it.

For those of you who don’t know, Blogger Choice Awards is a blog competition site, where you vote for the winners. Here’s what they say on the front page. “Welcome to the Blogger’s Choice Awards, the most popular user-generated blog voting site on the planet!”

So I looked at my categories and saw that this blog was on the first page, both for Best Business Blog, and Best Blog about Blogging. The last blog on the first page admitted, but on the first page nonetheless. I was surprised, and impressed with both the volume of the reader’s it’s sent over, and how much they read. If you look at this graph you can see that they came in a consistent manner.

Well ok… consistent arguably, but that’s about as consistent as you get in the blogging world. 

But the point of this blog post was not to talk about my site but to tell you to check out Bloggers Choice Awards. Whether the purpose of your blog is Hits or Readers, you will profit from it.

How about you? What sites send you your most traffic? And which site sends the visitors that stay the longest?