Edubook.com Blog Review

Today I’m presenting to you edubook.com which is administered by Peter Chang.

In the words of Peter, edubook.com, is a collaborative article marketing blog which allows people to publish their hand written articles in order to promote their authorship online. The site allows any free-lance writers to publish articles on subjects ranging all the way from Education, to Arts, to Business, Home Improvement, Sports, and many others. The site encourages you to join them, to see the benefits of article marketing.

Blog Theme

The Blog theme of edubook is very impressive in my mind. The orange, black, and white color scheme, flows together very nicely. The site looks very professional, with the articles nicely placed in the center of the blog, and large titles explaining their topic. The site doesn’t look very cluttered at all, and has nicely placed RSS and email subscribe options, in the top right corner. I am very impressed with the site, especially considering how most sites and blogs look very cluttered, as people try to cram lots of excessive widgets onto the pages. The site almost looks too bare, but as far as websites go that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Final Grade

8/10

Jonathan’s Suggestions

Though the site looks very professional, I’d love to see some type of graphic in the header. Though just the words “EduBook” is a good header, you have lots of free space to the right of it. I’d love to see a picture of something related to the site, to make the site a little less bare.

Navigation Through Site

The site has a very large archives system set up on the left sidebar. Though some people could find this annoying, considering the purpose of this site is to advertise articles, I think this is a great way to keep the old posts relevant, and thus is justified. However, I do not think a blog would be able to get away with something that large. The different topics have nice, click-able scroll downs lists, which are great because you don’t need to go to any new page to see the various sub-categories. The site also features a useful little search box in the top left corner, that allows you to find specific articles. The site loads very fast, because there is no excessive flash options on it. All of the sub-pages load very quickly as well, which makes it nice to browse through.

Final Grade

7/10

Jonathan’s Suggestions:

N/A

Extra Pages

The site has three pages on it’s header, Home, Join Us, and Contact. Again it seems almost too bare, it includes only the basics. The contact page is simple and professional, it does it’s job. The Join Us page is very inviting, and encourages you to join their team. Nothing much to say here, just the very minimum, essential pages.

Final Grade

6/10

Jonathan’s Suggestions:

A Top or Recommended posts page needs to be added. If this site is focused on articles, and they’re trying to get new writers to join their group, showing some example work would be a great addition. We need some sample articles, to get us to want to read more, right now it’s just the most recent posts, which more often then not are related to what I like.

Quality of Content

According to websitegrader the site has a reading level of highschool, which is a good level, because elementry isn’t good, but you don’t want college level. Blog posts are supposed to be easy to read, and “highschool level” is a good middle ground, for a site devoted to articles. The posts average about 500 words each, which though that is a bit small, if they can adequately cover the topic then that is fine. The articles are good at not beating around the bush, and cover the topics nicely. You can tell they use grammar, and spelling check, and so these make the articles flow very well. The articles were not fascinating to me, because they aren’t related to my niche, but they are informative and easy to read.

Final Grade
6/10

Jonathan’s Suggestions:
I would like to see some list articles, instead of always just block print. Bloggers love lists, and they are much easier to read, then just paragraphs all the time. I’d love to see you switch it up every now and then.

The Use of Ads

This is the disaster of the site. This is a rare, seemingly obvious mistake by Edu Book. The homepage isn’t that awful, there’s only one adsense ad on the right sidebar. But this ad is incredibly distracting because it is Green and White! It completely contrasts the colors of the site, and needs to be removed immediately. If you click on a post it only gets worse. Now the posts are surrounded by ads, and the left and bottom bars are replaced by totally irrelevant ads. Relevant ads are bad enough, but these have to do with losing weight, and vacation deals.

Final Grade
2/10

Jonathan’s Suggestions:
Fortunately ads are something that can be easily fixed. It’s better to have a problem with this, then with content or theme issues. My suggestions would be to first change the ad on the home page to text only. Right now it’s image and text, and I tried those ads before. The only image ads are “SEO Malpractice Apogee,” which nobody will click on, and the colors are very disturbing, with almost all blog themes. If you Have to keep the ads for some reason, then I would suggest limiting it to one ad. Find which ad is giving you the best results and keep that one, and discard the rest. You aren’t getting enough traffic to make it worth it, and right now you just look desperate, and unprofessional.

Use of Widgets

What widgets, you’re probably asking? Edubook has a nice subscribe button, though it could be bigger, with the standard option for email as well. The Technorati authority link, and the add to blog favorites link, seem unnecessary and a waste of space. The impressive technorati ranking makes you expect more then what it gives, leaving you slightly disappointed with the result. The ads we already discussed… The links to Author Pages are good. Again they are a bit large, but for a guest blog, that is needed to keep all parties happy. The site is very bare of good widgets.

Final Grade
5/10

Jonathan’s Suggestions
I would recommend ditching the technorati links, and the ad. Some of the author’s have little descriptions under them, but not all of them, so get rid of these because it makes it unneat. Right now the site is seriously struggling from a dearth of comments. The site looks very weak with almost every post saying zero comments. I would recommend, adding a top commentator list, to encourage blog commenting. I would also recommend ditching the copyscape warning, if people are going to copy your work, a warning isn’t going to stop them. I would suggest adding a links to the PR of the site. A PR of 4 is very impressive, and helps give credibility to the site’s articles. I would also recommend taking off the amount of subscribers, until it’s a more flattering number. I would also recommend adding a Recommended posts, where you can showcase the top articles of the site.

Site Stats

Right now edubook has a respectable Alexa ranking of 233K and a Technorati of 51K. These are especially good numbers when you consider the site has only been around for shortly over a month. The site has a PR of 4 already, and it looks like these numbers will continue to grow. It has 92 subscribers, which is a great number for a month. If the site has this impressive stats already, I wouldn’t be surprised to see these numbers continue to grow over time.

Final Grade
8/10

Jonathan’s Suggestions:

Honestly I think these stats are pretty flattering. I wasn’t incredibly impressed with the content, and so to have these good stats after such a short time is phenomenal. The stats I think are largely due to the wide range of topics covered, and the incredible rate of which new posts are added.

Drum-roll Questions

Is this site worth visiting right now, Yes or No?

Sadly, right now I have to say No. The key reason for that, is because right now, edubook has no section of articles having do do with blogging. Considering mastersofseo.com is a blogging tips site, I’m not going to recommend a site that has nothing to do with blogging tips. However, with that said, if you want information on practically anything else, there’s a good chance it’ll have an article on it. But right now, it’s not related enough to the niche I post in, to make it worth the read.

Final Constructive Criticisms

I asked several bloggers, to give me their first impressions of edubook.com These are the opinions of Max Miroff from Blogbadly.com, and the team over at BloggingwithSuccess.net Here are their opinions.

Alright, here’s what I think:

The design is very clean and professional – orange, black, and white are solid colors that go well together. The posts seem scattered about a variety of topics which isn’t such a good thing if you want to build a consistent readership interested in one topic, but there are 127 subscribers so perhaps that’s working for them. I don’t like the fact that some of the top rated authors have small bios next to their names while others don’t – it looks out of place. Either require a short entry or don’t add anything. The “Viewed By” on each post should be removed – it’s useless and the numbers are fairly unflattering to the sites traffic (viewed by twenty readers, for example).

-Max Miroff, Blog Badly – Blogging Tips and Tricks.

Here are my first impressions:

The blog has got too much categories which may be a good or bad thing. Because of so much randomness, people will have to think twice before subscribing. Participation of readers seems to be low as last 3-4 articles have no comments. However, blog has good chances of success and you can get traffic if your article is nice enough. You get your profile page at the blog, so it will be useful in publicizing your blog. Also, clean homepage means user can focus on your content and follow to your blog.

-A Team blog dedicated to helping new blogs succeed – Blogging With Success

I want to make a point of reiterating one point that Max said, the number showing the amount of post views, is incredibly unflattering. Make that your first change. Also a lot of the inner posts, don’t have meta keywords, and meta descriptions. I would recommend adding the SEO All in One wordpress plugin. My final thoughts would be, this site is quickly growing, and with it’s good SEO, I can see it getting a lot of success. Right now it’s not worth a subscribe to me, but in a few weeks/months, this site could very easily become a site to be reckoned with.

This is was a paid review by Don Gilbert of mastersofseo. If you are interested in a paid review, check out my advertise page for more information. As you can see I cover all the aspects of your site. This is a great chance for you to get constructive criticism about your site.

Please comment below, if you have constructive criticisms to add. I’m sure Peter would like to hear your opinion as well.

Considering the success of my last post, on link strategies, I’ve decided to create a second post with more ways to get links. I listed 18 of the most popular a couple days ago, now I will post 18 more.

19.
Put up a Featured Post

This is a great way to allow your top blog post or posts, to continue being read long after it has been posted. If they really are your top posts, that means over time, they will continue to get links and comments. If you leave them out for everybody to see, new people visiting will see your best works, and if they like it will link to it.

20.
Be Controversial

Now I’d be careful about this, but if you want to risk it, this can be a great link builder. If your posts caused people to get riled up, then you will see links start flooding in. Start bashing a top blogger, and give several reasons. Like 100 Reason I Hate Garry Conn or something. Now Don’t do that because Gary is a really nice guy. But if you did something like that, and actually had legimate reasons, then you will be flooded with links. Choose wisely though, consider if it’s worth mutilating your reputation for the sake of links.

21.
Exchange Blog Reviews

Email another similar blog in your niche that you enjoy, and ask him if he’d want to exchange reviews, I bet you he’ll say yes. This can be a great way for both of you, to advertise your sites to new viewers.

22.
Buy Them

If you’re really desperate, you can buy links to the Yahoo Directory, 125×125 ads, text links ads, blog reviews… If you throw enough money at them, you can get people to do anything.

23.
Work on your Digg Account

This is using social media, but the key to social media, is social networking. If you have the time, you can create a killer digg account, that will allow you to reach the top pages on digg. In case you haven’t realized it yet, there’s an art to reaching the first page on digg. You don’t see random blogs making it up there, only the top sites make it, or ones with signifcant backers.  The sites that make it up there, are really popular ones, or, posts that have been marketed well. There are several top digg members, who can single handily make a post reach the first page, because of how many friends, and how much influence they have. If you have the time to create a reputation on digg, and get friends, thus making yourself one of these top diggers. You can create a digg account that will allow you to get your posts on top of digg. However, this takes way more time then I have. If you do though, you’ll be flooded with links.

24.
Offer Free Products

If you start marketing, that you’re offering weekly, or monthly products, people will start linking to it. You can make this even better by offering better prizes to subscribers, or people who have linked to it.

25.
Spread the Link Love Around

Now this one you have to be Really careful about. Just by linking to random sites, don’t expect links back. However, if they are similar sites, and you are saying something like “Great Blogs I Read,” then your chances will be greatly improved. However, don’t go overboard with this, it doesn’t seem to have a very high success rate.

26.
Email Popular Bloggers Asking them to Guest Post on Your Site

If you can get a popular blogger to write a guest post on your site, it will be a much bigger deal because of their reputation. You can get a lot of links this way, especially if it’s a good quality post.

27.
Report Breaking News

This is somewhat difficult to do, because you have to be Very quick. But say you flick on the tv and find Yahoo got sold, sprint to your computer and write a blog post saying “Yahoo Got Sold!!” Not only will you be flooded with Search Engine traffic as the news gets around, but if you submit to digg fast enough you might even get some diggs on there as well. But remember you literally have seconds, until it’s old news. But if you can do this, you’ll get Tons of links.

28.
Find Do-Follow Sites

I found this great site, that allows you to search for do follow sites. On these sites, comments count as links, so these are a great opportunity.

29.
Link from your Old Sites

Now this works best if they are relevant. But this way you get to choose the anchor text, which helps your SEO. Linking from your old sites, if they have a PR over 4 then it’s worth it. Under 4, it won’t make enough of a difference to be worth it, unless you have no other links on the page.

30.
Start a Forum

Forums give Tons of traffic, and links, if they are popular. The question is, how can you get a popular one? By doing something new!! Don’t waste people’s time with another pointless forum, find an original idea, and make it off of your related blog. You will receive Tons more traffic, just think how many visits a forum gets, and links if you can get a few hundred members on it.

31.
Create a Signature

Every-time you write an email, sign something, write a letter, work on a forum, comment on a blog… sign it with your name and your blog url, and the keyword phrase of your site.

Don Gilbert
How to Blog

http://www.mastersofseo.com

32.
Ask for Comments

You can do this is a good way, without sounding desperate. End your blog posts with something like this, “If you liked this blog post, and it was able to help you, please link to it from your blog, so others may be helped by it as well.” This is a nice way of asking, that let helping other people be the goal.

33.
Hire a Commentor

You probably don’t have the time to comment on tons of blogs, but I’m sure some intelligent kid you know does. Pay him like 10 cents a comment, which would be a great deal for both of you. Say he leaves 100 comments a day, that’s ten bucks from your pocket, but that’s probably 200 return visitors to your site at least, with probably lots more links and subscribers as well. Be careful who you choose, because he’s representing your name, but outsourcing can be cheap, easy, and very successful.

34.
Set up a YouTube Video

Youtube videos rank Really high in search engines, if you can create a good relevant one, that’s helpful, you can receive lots of links. Just begin and end by saying your name and the blog you’re from. If you don’t believe me about the incredible ranking of youtube videos, type in “how to blog” on google. There’s this stupid video by two perverts that has absolutely nothing to do with blogging. And yet it’s been on the first page at least since September, and who knows how long before that. Can you tell it frustrates me?

35.
Join Group Blogs

There are lots of blogs out there are are done by a group of people. If you have time, find a posting job, for a blog run by several people. Alot of these blogs become pretty popular, so if you can find a group of successful bloggers creating a group blog, try and jump in on it. Most likely, they’ll allow signature links after every post.

36.
Reply to Everything

Build a reputation for being responsive, and kind to your readers. Reply to all emails, comments, and messages. People respect this, and will link to show their appreciation.

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Everybody knows that links are the key to SEO. Links are also the key to selling advertising. Links are the key to Making Money Online. Links also are they key to traffic. Hmm did I miss anything? Links are the Key to everything! I’ve compiled a list of the top ways I generate links, hopefully some of these will be new for you.

1.

Make blogs posts that are lists. For some reason, the blogging world is addicted to these things. It used to be seeing the dollar symbol, but that is so overused now, when people say 35 ways to do so and so, then everybody wants to see the article. If it’s a good article as well, people will link to it. You can make a list either proving things, or even disproving. People like seeing posts on things that aren’t true for some reason, so you can make a list of myths and people will still link to it.

2.

Us Social Media sites. Twitter, Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicious… these are all great ways to get links. Ask people to publish your articles on these, and you will get links. Make sure your article is good, and do some self promotional, and this can give you tons of links.

3.

Ask questions. Lots of popular bloggers like to have Q and A times. For example dailyblogtips.com has a continual going one. All you have to do is ask a question, to get a link from a Very popular site. That’s a high PR link as well. These come along often, you could even good for them, I’m sure you could find a bunch. Make sure you ask good questions, but this is a great way to get that question answered, and get a link.

4.

Comment on Blogs. I won’t beat this already very Very dead horse again. You know the idea, commenting on blogs will greatly help your site, Why are you still not doing it?

5.

Write Guest Posts. This ways is an awesome way to get links, and traffic. Email top bloggers, and ask them if they’ll let you guest post. If they say no and try the big guys in your niche. Shoot for the top and work your way down. If you can write a good informative, helpful post on a popular site, you can get a lot of publicity for your site.

6.

Submit to Blog Directories. Don’t go crazy with this, as in the end I don’t think it’s more valuable then say four blog comments, which you could do in the same amount of time. But this can be nice for a quick high PR blog. Always try the DMOZ directory, that one is definitely worth a shot.

7.

Preform Studies and Surveys. People like it when you conduct several week studies. It gets them following your blog, and checking back for the updates. Also reading through the archives to find out what else you’ve said on the topic. So find original studies that people haven’t done before, and try them out. People will link if it’s done well.

8.

Steal off other Contests. Be like Eric Tan and offer part of the prizes from other people’s contests, in case you win. And in return ask for links… stumbles…. comments. I can’t believe this works, but apparently it does because he keeps doing it. And hey if it works, that’s a pretty awesome idea. This isn’t meant to bash Eric by any means.

9.

Blog Carnivals. These get your posts posted on a bunch of different sites, you should definitely try one of these. This is a great way to publicize your site, for free.

10.

Make a self updating list. Learn from the top 100 site of 45n5, and the top IM sites by Winning the Web. These are great ways to get links. If you are a good programmer these will get you TONS of links if you can advertise them right.

11.

Use Forums. Forums are great ways to get traffic, but make sure you are giving helpful advice first. Only use your posts when they are relevant, and don’t spam and get yourself kicked out. Forums can be a great source of traffic and links if you use it correctly.

12.

Publicize it on Wikipedia. If you have a fairly popular site, create a new page about it on wikipedia. If nothing else you can show it to other people, and brag about how popular you are. You can also publicize yourself on Google Groups, and Yahoo Answers.

13.

Create a Squidoo. These can be useful, as they are essentially like miniature websites, except they are only one page. Make one, write some original content, and then post a link to your site. Do some publicizing, and you can build up the PR of it. Squidoo lens get really high Search Engine rankings. So take advantage of this.

14.

Post Often. If you are posting often and originally, then links will come organically. You just need patience, and good self publicizing skills.

15.

Create a WordPress Plugin. These can give you a lot of links, if it’s a good one. I went to plugin recently that had 4300 trackbacks, on this on post alone, because it was that popular a plugin. I you can make a good one, the reward will be great.

16.

Create a WordPress Theme. There are lots of good ones already, so don’t expect to make too much money from this. However, offer them for free, and you’ll get lots more links that way. If you calculate it up, the more links may be worth more then the extra sales.

These last two, are the top linkbaiters in my mind. If done correctly these reap you great rewards.

17.

Hold a Contest. These are great linkbaiters, especially if you are offering great prizes. Everybody wants in on a great contest. So choose carefully, your sponsors, and the details. Don’t ruin this great opportunity. Yan is running a blog contest now, which has very unique prizes. If you notice there are no ECs, Ebooks, Advertising Spots, and only one blog review that is a very special one. The prizes are unique because they are off internet products, so they are worth a lot more. So don’t waste your time with a stupid contest, make sure it’s the best prizes you can get. And spend as much time as you can spare advertising it, because that is the way you’ll get links. If you give people a big bonsus for blogging about the contest, you’ll get a lot more links.

18.

Be a Sponsor. This is the top way to get links in my mind. It’s so easy to be a sponsor, all you need to do is offer 500 ECs and you can be given free links. Or a text link ad, or a 125×125. Think of the potential? Right now Tons of bloggers are running christmas contests, take advatage of this. Ask them all if you can be sponsors. I sponsored Five contest this past week, that’s five links alone. Now say each of them get’s linked to five times, (which is very little,) that’s 25 links. Now two of them were on fairly popular sites, so they’ll get at least 10-15 links. So with offering five different prizes, only one of which cost me any phyiscal money, I just generated 40-50 links. And that’s assuming these are small contests. Are you starting to realize the potential? Don’t miss this great opportunity, to get links.

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Well I’m sure that most of you have heard about how Jason is selling theuniversitykid. the auction is here at sitepoint. and some of you have probably also heard that Sly from slyvision. is selling his site as well, you can view his auction here. Now if you are going to buy either of these sites make sure you say I referred you, Jason is giving a tidy sum to the referrer

But anyways, so these two bloggers are selling their sites, after about a year of blogging, what’s the signifance? Huge! Anybody with any type of blog are watching these auctions with batted breath. These are two very popular sites. Theuniversitykid is certainly much larger then slyvisions, with 1100+ subscribers and about twice as much traffic and links. It’s almost exactly twice as good in every category. Theuniversitykid is one of the top internet marketing blogs out there. According to 45n5′s top 100 list, theuniversitykids is #6, right up there with shoemoney john chow, and problogger. This sale is Big! Because every blogger wants to know the value of a popular blog. Now most likely the site will just go to another blogger, but we’ll have to see. Right now the top bid is 4,500$ which isn’t very much at all. Jason himself said he sold a site he ran for only a month, for 4,000$, so if a site of this caliber were to sell for this low, it would be very bad for the blogging industry. He’s trying to get his BIN offer of 15,000$ but right now that is looking doubtful. But still even if he get’s that, 15,000 is not very much for the potential a site like this could have. Jason showed stats showing he’s making 1,000 easily with almost no effort. If somebody who was good at monetizing, got a hold of it, he could easily be making a couple thousands a month, and would very quickly start making money on his investment.

Slyvisions is currently at 1,000$ but there is still a week on his auction. The BIN price is 9,500, which is pretty high if you compare it’s stats with theuniversitykid. He’s making only about 300$ a month from it, but again the potential is great. Both these sites are only around a year old.

You may be wondering why do we even care? The prices these blogs sell for, will set the standard for how much blogs will sell for in the future. Start hoping they go for really high! If they do, that would increase the value of all of our blogs. So keep an eye on these auctions.

Both these sites are being sold through sitepoint.com, which seems like a great way to sell your site if you are interested, but it doesn’t seem like the blog auctions have very many bids, so there may be a better option out there.

We can learn a few lessons from them though.  Since these sites have annouced they are selling, both of their subscriber’s amount have dropped significantly. Slyvisions went from 450 to 400, and it has only been on the auction for a couple days. Theuniversitykid has dropped from 1150 to 750. Now I’ve heard a few people say that this is probably from feedburner forgetting to add the email subscribers, this is possible. But Jason’s subscribers have been decreasing for several days, yesterday they were at about 900. So he’s definitely losing some subscribers at least. So you may be asking what can we learn from this? Well two things, first if you are selling your site, don’t post about it until mid-way through the auction. Telling your readers you’re leaving causes panic, and your numbers will start dropping. This will greatly effect the sale of your site, I would suggest waiting as long as you can. Second, don’t sell, unless you are Really going to sell. Don’t try and come back afterwards, you’ve got to try and regain your credibility and all those subscribers. Since the site didn’t sell for as much as he wanted to, Jason is now trying to hire guest posters to keep the site alive. Unless he can get some really good guest posters, it sounds like this will be a long stranglizing death for theuniversitykid. So if you are going to sell your site, I might even recommend doing it completely secretly. Put it up for auction, and if it doesn’t give enough, then just keep blogging. But leaving, then coming back, is not a good idea.

Now with that said, I wish the best of luck to Jason and Sly. They have two awesome sites, and I read them both frequently. But I think we can all learn from what they did.

A couple posts ago, I talked about the importance of blog commenting. I talked about how successful it can be for getting traffic, links, and attracting new subscribers. I thought it would be a good idea to show you my schedule for commenting. Since I wrote that first article, my traffic has grown dramatically, and my links have improved as well, so I can definitely attest to it’s results.

First, I explained the steps about setting up a Google Reader.  Google Reader is a great way to subscribe to blogs. I don’t know about you, but  subscribing in emails annoy me. I like the RSS feed version much better. Typically people have the full feed option, and so you can read the whole post as well.

Currently I’m subscribed to about 20 sites on it, but that number is quickly growing. I check the reader multiple times a day, and each time there is a new post, I read the post in my feed, then visit the site and comment on it. This way I can get a good 10-20 comments in a day, which is a manageable amount for me, with the little time I have. Practically all of these sites are in my same niche, and I highly recommend you add such sites to yours as well. This is helpful for several reasons:

1. By commenting on all of their posts, I’m starting to build a relationship with them. We’re able to start helping each other out, through guest posting, contest sponsoring, comments, and linking to each other’s posts

2. I get a lot more comments, because typically they will return the favor.

3. I’m getting more publicity for my site, because other people are checking out my site, and they are interested in the guy who comments on every single one of their posts.

4. They are reading my posts, and so when they are looking for a post to link to a certain topic, they have mine in mind.

5. I’m learning a lot as well. Seeing what my niche is talking about, it gives me inspiration on what to write about. And also I learn new things as well.

I highly recommend you set up a system similar to this, because it is very productive. The only problem is if you miss several days, because you will come back and see 20-30 posts to comment on.  But at least for me, this has become a highlight of blogging, and I’m sure it will become such for you as well. If you need some blogs to add to your list, Ironblogger made a great list of 100 bloggers that will help your blog succeed.

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