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Dear BlogRush, Have You Forsaken Me?

Published at November 11, 2007 in Blogs and Blogging, Observations and Opinions and Random Ramblings. 25 Comments

When BlogRush went live several weeks ago, John Reese – the founder – promised that it would help small, young sites like mine generate more traffic. All you have to do is install a box or widget, which Mr. Reese said, would display targeted blogs’ latest post. For Free.

Free traffic? Music to my ears!

I was excited, so I signed up and installed the widget. I categorized my blog under “Personal Diary.” (The categories back then were limited.) I was one of the many people in the first batch, thanks to John Chow’s post.

I monitored my site’s stats on a regular basis, and checked whether BlogRush was true to its words because I didn’t want only traffic, I also wanted readership.

The first few weeks, I saw people coming to my site via BlogRush. I was happy. Some passers-by even commented on some of my posts. Some awesome bloggers like Vic Grace, Jeni Hill Ertmer, and Awannabe came from BlogRush. That was great. What’s marvelous was when I visited some sites, I saw my blog on their widgets! (In some cases, in mine, too!)

When BlogRush recently launched Phase II, it talked about more promises. But since then, my traffic and click through rates from BlogRush appear to be declining. From experience, I knew that if I leave my latest post on top for 3 or 4 days, it would be syndicated (or picked up by other widget-carrying blogs) at least 800-1000 times with 1 or 2 clicks. However, the last 3 weeks were really below par.

Below is a snapshot of the report since I installed the widget. The posts are arranged from oldest post to latest. You will see that the last 3 weeks, I only received a staggering 2 clicks!


BlogRush Report

This led me to thinking: Are bloggers already blinded by BlogRush? Do they still pay attention to the widget? Or does my title simply stink and doesn’t sound interesting? Is BlogRush a scam that many bloggers claim?

John Reese said that bloggers should put the widget on a higher location, to get more credits and clicks. I put mine a little higher. As a matter of fact, it is on the upper half of my sidebar, but I see no difference. So I don’t think location is the case here.

A quick query on Technorati, I have only read black and white stories about BlogRush: it’s either bloggers find it useful or useless. Nothing in between, unlike my story. A certain Rich from Ohio says he’s been “a booster of Blogrush eversince it went live”. On the other hand, Caroline Middlebrook was not thrilled with the 14 clicks she received despite thousands of impressions.

I was wondering if there are others who share the same sentiments as mine: huge traffic rush at the beginning that is now gradually trending down.

To end, I still want to thank BlogRush and still intend to use it. Somehow, it brought me fantastic bloggers whose blogs I also enjoy reading.

But the recent downward trend of blogrush click-rate has led me to ask: Dear BlogRush, have you forsaken me?

——–

If you wish to try BlogRush, get an account here to drive more traffic to your site.

To view more BlogRush stories in Technorati, click here.

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On Traffic Issues, RSS FeedBurner, Layout Change & More

Published at November 8, 2007 in Blogs and Blogging, Money and Money-making, Observations and Opinions and Simple Tips and How-To. 4 Comments

Change of Layout

If you’ve been reading PlanetSaedel for quite sometime now, you will notice that I’ve changed the posting layout of my page. Each single page now consists of 5 posts in FULL read, unlike before where you have to click “Continue Reading…” to read the rest of the topic. I know this will sound a little selfish but the reason for this is because I want my blog to be accepted by PayPerPost. One of their requirements is to have the post displayed on the page completely. If I get accepted, I only plan to write reviews related to my interests or niche. PayPerPost (PPP), in simple words, is a company that pays bloggers to write reviews. If you want to learn more about PPP, you can read my previous post here.

Traffic

In relation to to that, If you are a subscriber – either by RSS Reader or Email – my post will be delivered to you in Full Read as well. A lot of bloggers utilize RSS because it is extremely useful and time-saving. And that’s exactly the reason why I turned off the “Continue Reading…” feature. Most bloggers are busy but they want to keep updated to other blogs, so they subscribe to a lot of sites that offer RSS. I’ve read that the only time they visit the site to read the entire post is when the title and the first few paragraphs are interesting. So I figured, why not give them a chance to read the complete post via their reader before they completely skip my post?

Enabling FULL READ is a risk, as far as my traffic is concerned. As much as possible, I want readers to go to my relatively new site and give me a “hit”. But then I thought, one way to do it is to write insightful, useful, and interesting posts. So that’s what I’m going to do.

So how am I going to send traffic to my 9-week old site?

Enter the Feedburner.

RSS FeedBurner and its FeedFlare Feature

I use FeedBurner to burn my posts and deliver them to my readers. It has a feature called FeedFlare, which I found out allows interactivity to your site. If you have an RSS reader, you can check that I am able to show the following: How many Comments are there in my posts; Links to Technorati, Digg, StumbleUpon; and many more. For my non-technical readers, these simply mean a way to encourage the readers to click on my site to generate traffic, and to share my posts/articles to other social sites if they find them interesting and discussion-worthy.

How cool is that? :)

However, I am unsure if FeedFlare only works for WordPress or other blog software installed in bloggers’ OWN domain. Therefore, bloggers whose sites are hosted by blogspot.com and other similar free bloghosts, will have to verify on their own if they are able to avail of this service.

MORE

I’m thinking of a better site description to replace my current one. Right now, it reads: “Beginner’s guide to practical things and more“, but the more I write, the more the description becomes irrelevant. :P My girlfriend Andie, thought so, too. So if you have suggestions, kindly post them in the message box below; or if you are too shy, you can simply shoot me an email at: saedel@planetsaedel.com ( saedel[at]planetsaedel[dot]com ). All suggestions will be appreciated.

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Express yourself and Paint Freely: Use Art.com ArtPad

Published at November 4, 2007 in Online tools, School/Teaching, Simple Tips and How-To and Something Fun. 6 Comments

If you are a teacher, a grandparent, a parent, a brother or someone who takes care of antsy kids — then this post will help you keep them busy. What I’m about to tell you will make them stick to their seats like glue. A warning, though: you’ll enjoy it, too.

I stumbled upon a cool website where people, especially young kids, can enjoy making art using their mouse. Fun and addicting, you won’t even notice the time go by.

It is called Art.com ArtPad, a very simple, easy-to-use program. If you haven’t done any digital drawing before because you thought it’s complicated, this website will definitely change your mind.

The tools are easy to recognize because they are neatly arranged on the left side. The drawing pencil changes automatically to brush as you increase its size, and vice versa. The colors are not elaborate; very basic, yet, with the inclusion of opacity, you can make an outstanding effect of color combinations.

What I like about this is its useful file capabilities: For instance, you can PRINT your work right off the bat, which sends your design directly to the printer. It also has SAVE and SEND features — you can save your work and/or send it to others. You can also let art.com display your work. If you are running out of ideas, simply hit VIEW OTHER PAINTINGS to see other people’s work.

If you are like me who wants to explore every possibilities, then you are bound to make mistakes at some point. But don’t worry. ArtPad has an unlimited UNDO capability that rolls back your errors.

As a computer teacher, I will definitely use this tool with my classes to increase my students’ interest in technology and to help them discover their creative side without the pressure.

Screen shot of Art.com’s ArtPad
Art.com ArtPad
Read what others had to say about this awesome site: Stumbleupon Reviews of Art.com ArtPad

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Why You Should Not Avoid Negative People

Published at November 2, 2007 in Attitude, Motivation, Positive Thinking and Responsibility. 96 Comments

I’ve read somewhere that one of the steps to stay positive is to avoid being around negative people. Somehow, I am not buying it. Because if you do, you are not different than those you try to avoid.

To me, positive thinking is about perception: spinning harsh realities to discover a silver lining and to be productive. That’s why I consider positive people as stronger species – they don’t give up easily on negative situations. Some people have the qualities to be positive – either naturally or learned, and some don’t; and we have to accept it.

And that’s why for me, positive people have the responsibility to try influence the negative ones, and not avoid them. I view it as absurdity when positive people simply decide to walk away from them to protect their own feelings. Isn’t it much better if you try to direct them out of dark? Isn’t the correct strategy around negative people is to bring sunshine when rain is pouring?

I’m not against avoiding them, especially if your strategies are not working. And I understand if you would prefer to step away: at some point, we need to think of what’s best for ourselves, too. What I’m saying is, “leaving” should be the last resort. Try first to change the mood to something light, and do it sincerely and with the best of your ability before leaving them sulking. Display your strength and encourage them to whistle a happy tune. If you don’t, then you are showing that you are as weak as they are.

And this reminds me of a friend of mine, who we’ll call Christine. She had a rough time one day and was complaining about how underpaid she was considering the work she had been doing for the company we were working for. She went on and on, whining, and talking about how her supervisor didn’t take care of her when the latter missed giving her the salary increase that was due that month. I was just listening, and I treated her stories lightly. I was even smiling like it was no big deal.

When she was finally done, I told her: “count your blessings.” She was silent for a moment, speechless. She didn’t see it coming. She said, “I know, but…” and failed to continue. The next morning, I received a voicemail from her thanking me for my timely words the previous day. Imagine if I encouraged her to whine more or to support her negative thoughts? I would feel bad about it knowing I could change the situation. Instead, two souls felt better that morning.

I stumbled upon Edward Mills‘ detailed article about tips for staying positive around negative people. It was an excellent read. I can relate to some of his tips because I’ve been using them unconsciously. Although if I were him, I would clarify that “avoidance” should be the last option. In fact, I would say “STAY”, because it is the right thing to do; and because negative people are not always negative all the time.

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