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WritersNotes.Net: Helping Writers Follow Their Dreams Through Information, Inspiration, and Encouragement!
Conference Videos Available Free Online
Watch First Three Without Registering
If you weren't able to attend the International Freelancers Day Conference online last weekend, I have great news for you: You can still view the high-quality conference video presentations online completely free through October 31st. By visiting the following link, you'll be able to view three of the videos without even having to register: IFD Introductory Videos.
The introductory videos include the following:
Facebook Marketing Success Secrets for Solo Professionals, presented by the Queen of Facebook, Mari Smith
How to Trigger The Big 5 Subsconscious Buy-Buttons Without Feeling Like A Slick Idiot, presented by Jonathan Fields
How To Build Your Business By Creating Your Own Smarter, Faster, Cheaper Web TV Show, presented by David Siteman Garland
Register Free to Access All 24 Presentations
These three videos are but a small taste of the 24 incredibly informative sessions presented during the two-day conference, and once you've seen them, I'm sure you'll want to check out the other 21.You will, in fact, be able to view the rest (and even watch the first three again if you'd like) completely free by simply completing your free registration on the International Freelancers Day website where you watched the first three.
To give you an idea of the wealth of information in store in the other videos, the titles of all remaining videos are posted to the page on which you view the first three. You're sure to find many intriguing topics on that list, so why not stop by the site at the above link and take a look at it. I'm sure that once you read those titles, you'll realize how much value they can potentially add to your freelance business.
Videos Available Free for a Limited Time
Since these videos will only be available through October, and there are 24 of them, each containing a ton of valuable information, I'd like to encourage you not to wait too long to take advantage of the opportunity to access them. If you're serious about freelancing, you'll probably want to take notes as you watch -- particularly since you won't be able to refer back to them after the end of October. You may even decide to watch some of them more than once while you can. Each of these videos presents helpful strategies for freelance success, as well as links to numerous resources that can help make life easier for you as you run your freelance business.
If, like me, you realize you need all the help you can get to succeed as a freelancer, hurry over to the International Freelancers Day website, via the link in the first paragraph of this post, and take advantage of this great opportunity to learn all about freelancing from the experts -- completely free of charge.
It's a deal that's tough to beat!
To your freelance success,
Jeanne
September 25th 2010 00:14
This Freelancing Conference Is Excellent!
If you attended Day One of the First Annual International Freelancers Day Conference, you know how incredibly informative the sessions were. If you didn't (and you are a freelancer), you have no idea how much valuable information you missed. But, fear not! You still have time to sign up for tomorrow's sessions, and your registration will give you access to all conference videos after the conference ends. In practical terms, that means that even if you were to sign up and not view even one video on either day of the conference, it would still be well worth your while, since you'd be able to view them all later, at your convenience. It doesn't get much better than that.
Sign Up for Free Access Both During and After the Conference
Personally, I missed the first four videos, but I'm not worried since I can expect an e-mail from IFD sometime during the next week or so, which will provide a link (or links) to all the conference videos. At that point, not only will I be able to watch the videos I missed (which is great, because I'll be tuning in late tomorrow, as well), but I'll have the option of going back and reviewing those I did watch, refreshing my memory on all the fantastic hints, tips, and techniques they contain and filling in the blanks in my conference notes.
This Conference Will Both Motivate and Equip You to Succeed
Aside from all the great advice from freelancers who have "been there," this amazing collection of videos contains so many helpful resources, most of which are free -- and these alone are more than worth the time you spend viewing the sessions.
These excellent sessions challenge the freelancer to set more energetic goals, providing a vision of what success might look like and a road map for actually reaching it. I highly recommend that if you haven't yet, you avail yourself of this completely free body of freelancing wisdom. It will motivate you to make your own freelancing business more successful and provide many of the tools you need to do just that.
Just One Day Left: Make it Count for Your Career!
Don't miss out! Visit the official International Freelancers Day website and sign up for free access to all 24 informative freelancing videos. I haven't the slightest doubt that you'll be glad you did! In fact, if you'd like to see how enthusiastic other freelancers are about the conference, visit the International Freelancers Day Facebook page and read the comments of those who attended.
To your freelancing success!
Jeanne
We Love to Know Our Website Ranking
Whether we write a personal online journal, pen an authoritative niche blog, or run a thriving e-commerce website, most website and blog owners are at least a little curious about how our sites rank among the many other sites on the World Wide Web. That's why so many of us check our Technorati and Alexa rankings so often.
One More Place to Check Our Site's Popularity
Well, there's a new ranking site on the block, called ://URL Fan, which, though it has a slightly different focus--ranking sites based on their popularity in RSS feeds--is nevertheless one more helpful way to learn a bit more about where our site fits into the grand internet scheme.
What Is ://URL Fan All About?
://URL Fan describes itself this way:
://URLFAN is an evolving experiment designed to discover what websites the blogosphere is discussing all in real time. It does this by cultivating the content of thousands of RSS feeds and parsing billions of pieces of information.
The site also has this to say about what makes it different than other ranking websites:
Now every website owner can see who's talking about their site in real time and how they compare to every other site on the Internet. There are many sites designed to rank the "traffic" of a website, such as Alexa, however ://URLFAN is different. We rank sites according to their popularity in the fast moving and growing world of RSS feeds.
An Added Dimension to Our Sites' Stats
When I checked Writer's Notes on ://URL Fan today, it ranked 97,292 out of 1,515,000 websites, which places it in the top 7% of sites based on the amount of publicity it receives via RSS feed. (It's actually a little over 6.5%, but who's counting?) This is a stat that's helpful to know, because it adds one more dimension to a site owner's ability to assess a website's popularity, know where it stands among its peers, and determine whether or not s/he is doing something right in managing it.
According to this most recent check on ://URL Fan, Writer's Notes was mentioned in 9 unique RSS feeds. (A list of these feeds is also provided, along with excerpts from the content which relates to the site in question.) While I was quite happy with my blog's ranking, I was a bit surprised at the low number of RSS feeds that were abuzz about Writer's Notes, since I would have thought that a higher ranking would also indicate a higher number of RSS-feed mentions. But, I'll be keeping my eye on this metric in order to evaluate its significance over time.
A Site Worth Checking Out
Nevertheless, ://URL Fan is an informative site which you might just want to visit. I think it would be valuable to check it now and then to get a comparative picture of how your site's RSS popularity evolves over time. (For example, Writer's Notes' ranking has gone from 110,024 to 97,202 to its current 97,292 in less than a week--which is still good news--despite its slight drop today, since it's still in the top 100 K! It's also gone from being mentioned in 7 RSS feeds to 9 during that same period.)
Visit the ://URL Fan About Page to learn more about the site--and get ready to learn more about your own site, as well!
Happy stat-checking!
Jeanne
Did you enjoy this post? Know any other great stat-checking sites? Have any that are your particular favorites? We'd love to hear about them!
Google Crawl Cycle: An Important Metric
Would you like to know how often Google crawls your site? If not, why not? According to the folks at SEOmeter.com, "How often search engine [sic] visits and crawls website content is an often neglected, but important metric for search engine optimization." They explain that a site's Crawl Cycle, or CC, is an important indicator of how much the search engines "trust" a particular website. The shorter the website's CC, the more trusted the site.
Why Is Crawl Cycle Important?
The main reason you might want to pay attention to this metric is that the degree of trust your website enjoys with the search engines is directly reflected in your site's search engine ranking. SEOmeter offers a free tool (free at least for your top-level domain and/or sub-domain) which will help you track your own site's Google Crawl Cycle. (If you'd like to track internal URLs using this tool, however, there is an annual payment.) The SEOmeter site has been in operation for about a month, so far. To read more about the site and the SEOmeter tool, visit the site's blog.
SEO Meter's Widgets
Here are examples of some of the nifty widget styles you may choose when you use SEOmeter on your website:
80 x 15 pixel button:
120 x 60 pixel button:
120 x 90 pixel button:
125 x 125 pixel button:
Other SEO Meter Features
Another neat thing about this site is that you can compare the Crawl Cycle of different websites, which are broken down into categories, with the top 20 in each category conveniently listed on the Top-20 Most Crawled Sites on the Web page.
You can also display the Crawl Cycle of your site and two others on a line graph, if you'd like to see a visual of the comparative CCs of the three sites to find out where your site ranks in relation to others in your niche.
Ease of Use/Benefits
The SEOmeter and other handy features of this website are easy--and even fun--to use and can help you keep track of your site's popularity with the search engines, since any attention your website or blog receives from Google is likely to be reflected in Yahoo! and other search engines, as well.
What could be easier than placing the SEOmeter tool on your site and simply watching it continuously recalculate your website's Crawl Cycle? Though I've only had mine for a few days, I have a feeling that, as I continually monitor it, I can expect to learn a lot.
Want to do the same?
Jeanne
NOTE: The only thing I had trouble figuring out was why all four of the widgets used as examples above weren't displaying the same Crawl Cycle. I'd wondered whether this indicated inaccuracy in the tool or something else. After e-mailing SEOmeter, I received the following explanation from Peter:
To reduce our server load, we do not calculate the statistics on the widget for each page refresh on your blog, but store (cache) the previously calculated stats somewhere in our server, and show it on the widget. And this caching thing happens for each size of widgets independently. So in this case, 1.9 was an outdated number, which was previously cached.
I just tried clearing the stat cache on your widgets, and they are now corrected. The stats on the widget get updated once every 24 hours, so even if you see an outdated/mismatching number, dont worry about it. It will be self corrected within the next 24 hours.
I certainly appreciated that explanation! Thanks, Peter!
Did you enjoy this post? Have any thoughts or any other handy SEO tools of your own to share? We'd love to hear from you!
Free Online Resources That Are Worth Resurrecting
Over the past several months, I've provided my readers with numerous free online resources, written about in various posts, all of which have done the inevitable disappearing act that happens when blog posts move down the page and out of sight into the darkest depths of the archival abyss. Today, I'd like to resurrect some of these posts, so you can more easily access the helpful and/or fun tools, tests, and resources that can make your writing/blogging life much, much easier and a whole lot brighter.
So, without further ado, here are the links to these posts, divided into three helpful categories, for your convenience:
Resources
One Look Dictionary Search: Your One-Stop Word Shop
The Free Library: Your Online Literary and Information Portal
Bibliomania: The Modern Way to Read the Classics
GCF LearnFree.Org: Free Online Computer Training and More
Need Ideas? Let the New York Times Help!
Tools
Write Engaging Headlines: Use the Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer
Check the Viability of Your Site with Website Grader
OpenOffice.Org: Free Alternatives to Popular Brand Name Software
Rate Your Blog: Handy Blog Rating Tool
Keyword Density: Your Key to Better Search Engine Ranking
Tests
Test Your Online Identity With Career Distinction’s Online Identity Calculator
If You Like Tests, You’ll Find Plenty at Tickle.Com
Test Your Skills: Take the Blogger Spelling and Grammar Test
Hope they help!
Jeanne
This is not a sponsored post.
Did you enjoy this post? Was it helpful? Which tool/resource do you especially like? Please feel free to comment!
Blog Day 2007: Celebrating New Blogs Worldwide
Today is Blog Day 2007: A day to celebrate new blogs all over the world! In honor of Blog Day, bloggers have been asked to list, describe, and link to five new blogs--preferably representing a different country, culture, or focus than our own.
Here's what the Blog Day website has to say:
BlogDay was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. On that day Bloggers will recommend other blogs to their blog visitors.
After writing our Blog Day posts, we are also asked to notify the bloggers we've chosen, which I plan to do via a comment on each one's blog.
Five Great New Blogs You Should Definitely Visit
Here are my choices (in no particular order) for five of the best new blogs from different parts of the U.S. and around the world. (Well...only one is currently outside the U.S: Confident Writing, which comes to us from Scotland; though one will soon be moving to Germany: Content Done Better. Yet, for some of you, the U.S. is on the other side of the world!) All these blogs are either only several months old or under new ownership.
I will let the bloggers who create the magic of the written word on their blogs speak for themselves, via quotes from their About pages and blog posts.
Pro Blog Design
Pro Blog Design. Michael Martin has this to say about his very helpful blog and also about blog post formatting:
I have been designing websites for a few years now, and enjoying every minute of it.
Over time, I’ve learnt a lot about working with blogs, and through Pro Blog Design I hope to share that knowledge with others. Content on a blog is of course, King, but does the King get the attention he deserves when draped in ragged garments? Of course not! In the same way that the grandeur of the King is crucial to his success, your blog’s design is crucial to yours. (from Michael's About page)
As bloggers, we write pages upon pages of content each week. We spend hours promoting the articles, choosing the right words and trying to get our point across as clearly as possible. How can formatting be used to further improve our posts?
There are a few basic tools that you will have heard mention of time and time again, such as bolding words. The first section re-explains their purpose, and the second will explain how to perfect your usage of them to achieve optimal formatting. (from Format Blog Posts for Readability and Legibility)
Confident Writing
Confident Writing. Joanna Young says the following about her quality site and about why she writes:
Hello I'm Joanna Young, The Confident Writing Coach...My aim is to get people writing with confidence. To realise the power of their words. How we work is partly up to you - but my approach is based on a blend of coaching, teaching, editing and writing - tailor made to your needs. (from Joanna's Welcome and Work With Me sections)
(Post Title: Why Do You Write?.) For me, it's something to do with the power of connection: the connections we can make with other people, the connections we develop between our own ideas, making sense of our experience, pulling together spaghetti strands of random thoughts and creating something new, connecting back to our roots and our selves and coming out with a stronger sense of who we are.
But then again maybe it's that thing I call realising: the sweet, slow dawning of realisation. Recognising the things that you always knew to be true. Recognising - with a jolt - your self in your words. Realising the power of your words, and taking responsibility for their power and impact: on yourself, on other people, on the world. Grounding yourself with the specificity of words. Validating your experience with words which are not real - but can make us feel that our experiences are. Allowing ourselves to be changed by the words that we write. (from Why Do You Write?)
ChrisBlogging
ChrisBlogging. Chris Bibey describes himself and his insightful blog and shares a few words of wisdom on freelancing:
For more than three years I have been earning a full-time income online. My main sources of income include a wide range of freelance writing projects, and of course, blogging.
But although I do not know the first thing about web design or coding, I still earn three times as much as I did as a corporate slave.
The goal of Chrisblogging.com is to show you how I make money, how you can join me, and much more! (from Chris's About page)
There is no denying that a few big jobs make up a large part of my monthly freelance writing income. But guess what? I also believe that smaller jobs are every bit as important. Sure, I would love to work on high paying jobs only, who wouldn’t? But the reality of the freelance writing industry (at least for me) is that this is not always possible. For this reason, I always think twice before I turn down any small jobs that I am offered. (from Don't Always Turn Down the Small Jobs)
ProBloggers Matrix
ProBloggers Matrix. Mark gives us this inviting welcome to his blog, and some great info about blogging (taken from one of his excellent posts):
Hello, I’m Mark.
Welcome to ProBloggers Matrix. I’ll be sharing blogging tips. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to post them in the comments. (from Mark's About page)
If you’re like me, you love to write, you love to publish great articles on your authoritative blog and you also enjoy reading excellent articles in many fantastic blogs. That can be very time-intensive, but you need to get out and exercise! Get the blood flowing! Get into The Zone! (from How to Stay in the Zone and Keep Wowing Your Readers with Spectacular Articles)
Content Done Better
Content Done Better. Michi Beck's blog has an intimate, inviting atmosphere, due to her personal, engaging writing style. Her Under New Ownership section tells us this about her background, followed by an apt quote from one of her posts:
During her career she has written many informative articles on various subjects including economics, technology, local happenings, and human interest stories.
In addition to the newspaper and Internet work, Michi has had poems published and is currently working on her first novel, of which the first draft is nearing completion. She enjoys both fiction and non-fiction writing, and often takes the time to write about the smaller things in life, as she believes those things have lessons behind them that most people do not realize. It is not only the big things that are important in our daily lives, and since she is often reminded of that it appears frequently in her particular style of writing. (from Michi's Under New Ownership page.)
(Post Title: When It Rains, It Pours.) Have you ever noticed that? You could be in a â€dry spell’ in your work life and then all of a sudden things go crazy, and you’re left shaking your head and wondering how you’re going to get it all done.
I mention this because it happened to me, rather recently. I’m not sure whether to be overwhelmed and annoyed that everything showed up at once or happy because of the work and income. Hmmm…..I think I’ll go with “happy because of the work and income.” (from When It Rains, It Pours)
Five Great Blogs to Bookmark and Visit Again and Again!
Be sure to visit the above blogs soon--and often! And don't forget to give these hard-working and insightful bloggers a little link love! It will be more than worth your while, as you continually enjoy their latest words of writing wisdom.
Congratulations go out to these five new bloggers for making their blogs places where we can go to pick up the best info, tips, techniques, and advice, to make us all better, more responsive, and more productive bloggers!
Happy Blog Day!
Jeanne
Technorati Tag: Blog Day 2007
P.S. I realize I posted this a little late in the day--particularly for those of you on the opposite side of the world to the U.S., where I live! My apologies. But, I believe I did manage to post it in time--though barely! If I missed the deadline in anyone's time zone, Happy Belated Blog Day!
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A Hi-Tech Tool to Test Website Viability/Blog Vitality
I've recently learned about a couple of fairly comprehensive diagnostic tools that can help you determine the viability of your website or the vitality of your blog. (Thanks go out to K-IntheHouse at ShanKri-la, for the info, passed along in a guest post at Blog About Your Blog. A link to the post is provided below.) I wanted to pass along this info to my readers, in the hope that you'll be able to use it to make your website/blog better and more successful.
In this post, I'll cover the first of these two great online diagnostic tools: Website Grader. A great deal has already been written about these tools, so I'll limit the info I include in this post, providing a few links to other great content on the subject. Should you be interested in finding more info than these sources provide, I suggest a Google Search, which will generate many more links related to this topic. (I know; I checked.)
Website Grader
Website Grader gives your site an overall rating (so many points out of 100), which boils down to a percentage (e.g., 85/100 = 85%). Website Grader allows you to either diagnose your own site's condition exclusively or compare it to a couple of your most competitive website rivals, which is an interesting feature for those who want to know how they rank within their niche.
Some things you'll learn from Website Grader:
-Website Grade
-Google Page Rank
-Alexa Rank
-Technorati Rank
-Google Inbound Links
-Yahoo Inbound Links
-Delicious Saved Count
-Google Indexed Pages
Of course, many of the above are facts you already know about your site; however the others can certainly be helpful to learn, and even more helpful are the explanations which follow the chart listing the above data. That's where you'll find all your site's specific problems clearly spelled out for you--as well as all its positive points, using "alert" icons, consisting of either a yellow lightbulb or purple exclamation point, along with yellow or red highlighting of each of these problem sections. Blue "i" icons are used to indicate the non-problem portions of your site.
A Comprehensive Report on Your Site
The report generated by this tool is worth much more than the price of admission! (It would have to be--because it's free!) But, seriously, the report is very comprehensive. In fact, Website Grader will even e-mail you a link to the report so you can go back and look at it again later. (However, I would recommend copying and pasting it into Word [or whatever other word processing program you use].) Word will retain the formatting of the grading chart, in case you'd like to reproduce it on your blog or elsewhere, or even print it out.)
The original post from which I learned about Website Grader, as I mentioned earlier, was written by K-IntheHouse as a guest post at Blog About Your Blog. This post gives more great info about the tool. Here's the link: 2 Great Ways to Check Your Blog Health
The Website Grader report generates far more detailed information than I have mentioned here. So why not check it out for yourself and learn what's good about your website and what isn't. It will give you a great starting point for revamping your site to make it the best it can be. You'll then be able to measure how much progress you've made by plugging your site's URL into Website Grader again, as recommended by Wild Bill at Passionate Blogger, in his post, Does Your Blog Get a Failing Grade? How to Get an A+!
Happy diagnosing!
Jeanne
Did you enjoy this post? Was it helpful? Any questions? Feel free to comment!
Writer's Notes' Value Up By One-Third in 18 Days
I've just calculated the latest value for Writer's Notes at Dane Carlson's Business Opportunities, and my blog's value has increased from $37,824.18, on August 8th, to $49,679.52 today, August 26th. In a period of 18 days, its value has risen by $11,855.34, or about one-third. While this latest growth spurt is by no means as large as its last one, Writer's Notes' monetary value appears to be steadily increasing at an acceptable rate.
The Latest Calculations
The tool calculates the value of each link to our sites, using the same link-to-dollar ratio used in the AOL-Weblogs Inc deal; and while I have absolutely no idea how accurate it might be or whether such a perceived value could ever translate into any real monetary return down the road or deal in any currency other than the conversational kind, it's still an interesting exercise in growth.
The current value of Writer's Notes, as caclulated by the Dane Carlson-designed tool, is shown below:
Inbound Links Equal Value
Though my blog's overall value isn't nearly as high as that of many other bloggers who have been on the scene far longer than I have, I still find it fun and interesting to check it periodically. Doing so gives me a better idea of just how much of an effect those Technorati "Blog Reactions" (which represent inbound links to my site) actually have on my blog's worth. And, while we're speaking of Technorati, my Technorati ranking currently stands at 61,722, with 88 authority, and I'm OK with that--for now! At this point in my blogging career, a Technorati ranking of under 62,000 isn't bad at all. And neither is a blog value of nearly $50,000.
Till next time,
Jeanne
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A Virtual Trip Around the Blogosphere
In my latest travels around the blogosphere, I've uncovered some excellent content that can truly be a boon to any writer interested in a fresh approach, a new inspiration--in short, any writer seeking the motivation to write with renewed vigor and vitality.
Confident Writing: Posts to Both Inspire and Get You Thinking
Please check out Joanna Young's excellent post, When Writing Means Spirit Spilling, at Confident Writing. This piece explores the process of writing from the deepest parts of ourselves and, through quoting the wisdom of several knowledgeable bloggers, links out to other blogs you'll find most helpful in your quest to grow your own writing.
Two of Joanna's other pieces, The Ingredients of Confident Writing, and How to Learn from Your Writing, are also insightful looks into the components that help make our writing fresh and engaging. They also link to other related posts on her own blog and/or elsewhere in the blogosphere.
The Golden Pencil: Pieces on Perfectionism, Freelancing Dos and Don'ts, and Marketing Your Work Objectively
Anne Wayman, at The Golden Pencil, has written a succinct, yet very helpful post called, Don't Worry About Perfection--Go for Effective, reminding us that perfectionism is a trap and wisely counseling us to let it go.
Anne has also posted two guest pieces that offer practical guidance to help writers more effectively run their writing business. Top Dos and Don'ts for Freelancers, by Lori Widmer, offers 14 basic tips to help writers "make a go of freelancing," and Sending Out Ships, by Charlotte Rains Dixon, counsels us to write personally but submit our work objectively.
Passionate Blogger: Giving and Receiving Series to Help You Reap the Same Recognition You Sow, and How to Avoid Information Overload in Research
Wild Bill, at Passionate Blogger, has posted the first two parts of his excellent and informative multi-part series on giving and receiving: Give and Receive Series - Part 1 - Technorati Favorites and Give and Receive Series - Part 2 - StumbleUpon. These two posts explore the importance of giving lavish recognition to other writers/bloggers and letting the "getting" take care of itself, specifically covering how to do so through Technorati Favorites and StumbleUpon. The upcoming third post in the series will explore how to do this using Alexa.
Another excellent post on Wild Bill's site, about avoiding information overload when researching and writing blog posts (and which could also apply to other types of writing), is Stop Cramming for a Post! This insightful piece is an apt reminder that focusing on what we do know (known, in blogging, as our niche), can help us steer clear of excessive and unnecessary research, saving us valuable time and making us more productive.
A Writer's Words, An Editor's Eye: Customer Service and Productivity for Freelance Writers
Lillie Ammann, at A Writer's Words, An Editor's Eye, has written a brief but inspiring post, called The Simple Truths of Service: Will You Be a Johnny Today? that points us to a helpful video and serves to remind all freelance writers how important good "customer service" is to writer-client relations--despite the fact that, as freelancers, we have no "Customer Service Department." This piece--along with the video it introduces--tells us, in effect, that we must be our own "Customer Service Department."
A second great post, entitled How Do You Stack Up Against the Average Worker in America? asks us, as homeworkers/freelancers, to weigh our own productivity level against that of the average American working outside the home, providing an interesting comparison of the two, and hopefully providing writers with a little incentive to work on becoming more productive.
Four Great Blogs to Bookmark and Return to Again and Again!
It is my hope that the above posts will help you become more effective at both the craft, and the business, of writing. Why not bookmark these four great blogs, so you can return to them later to check out the other valuable content they are certain to post in the future! (You may also want to search their archives for buried treasure!)
Until next time,
Jeanne
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A Lot Can Happen in Two Weeks!
Two weeks ago--or two weeks and two days ago, to be precise--I checked my blog's value using the new Technorati-powered tool developed by Web guru Dane Carlson, of Dane Carlson's Business Opportunities, which calculates the value of each link to our sites, using the same link-to-dollar ratio used in the AOL-Weblogs Inc deal.
On that date, July 23rd, Carlson's little applet calculated my blog's value at $22,017.06. (See my post, How Much Is Your Blog Worth?)
Blog Value Recheck
Well, just for the fun of it, I decided to go back and check it again today, August 8th, to see how much it had changed. I figured that, since I've amassed a number of new inbound links during the past two plus weeks, and since my blog's Technorati authority and ranking have both been steadily rising--with my ranking finally breaking the 100K mark, to 83,970 as of the other day--my blog's value would surely follow that upward trend. And I was right.
The monetary value of the Writer's Notes blog, according to this handy dandy tool, has risen by over 70% in a little over two weeks, from $22,017.06 to $37,824.18. The current calculation is indicated below:
Is the Tool Accurate? Good Question!
Many don't put much stock in Mr. Carlson's little applet, and I must honestly say that I really have no idea how accurate its calculations may or may not be, since I am not very tech-savvy. But I do know that it's a great deal of fun to input my blog's URL and see what comes back--particularly when it's a decent value and, better still, when it shows a healthy growth over time.
Is the Tool Fun? You Bet!
So, I'll just enjoy my blog's performance--both past and present--and you can bet that, in the not too distant future, I'll be heading back over to Dane Carlson's Business Opportunities to do another blog value recheck!
If you'd like to do the same, simply click on the image above, and find out how much your blog is worth! The results may surprise you!
Happy evaluating!
Jeanne
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Darren Rowse, over at ProBlogger, is running a project, throughout the month of August, called 31 Days to Building a Better Blog - 2007. The project is, at its core, a resurrection of an earlier project of the same name which Darren ran back in August, 2005, with great success.
The current project will, however, be a bit different, containing two components: Darren's own Daily Blogging Tips (as in the first project) and a compilation of ProBlogger readers' own personal blogging tips, learned through each participating blogger's research or experience.
If the first group of submitted links is any indication, posts yet to be written during the next month promise to provide a veritable windfall of helpful information for improving your blog's quality, visibility, popularity, user-friendliness, SEO compatibility, profitability, page rank, searchability, and more.
Whether you participate by penning a post--or 30 (one posted tip per day per blogger is allowed during the month of August)--or take part in the project through one of the other methods Darren suggests, you're sure to find--and hopefully also contribute--many words of blogging wisdom.
So hurry on over to ProBlogger and check out a writing project that could just transform your blog--and your blogging--into an activity/enterprise that is not simply successful, but also beautiful to behold!
Happy posting!
Jeanne
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I visited my friend Laura Spencer's Writing Thoughts blog again today and decided to check out her new blog, OpinionMom, which she launched recently.
While I was there, I came across a post describing a handy blog rating tool that can be used to determine what sort of rating your blog would receive based on its content. Since I am very interested in producing a family-friendly blog, I decided to give it a try.
My blog came back with a G-rating, which is exactly what I'd hoped! (I couldn't be totally positive what my blog's rating would be, since the titles and posts of other Orble blogs are listed in the sidebar next to my own posts; so, needless to say, I was relieved to see that my blog had passed muster.)
Despite the fact that other bloggers' material does appear in my blog's sidebar, I do my very best to keep all other blog and post titles in an unobtrusive part of my blog, for the simple reason that any questionable material will be less likely to be noticed by those who visit my blog. I'm a firm believer that people should be allowed to decide for themselves whether or not they are interested in reading such content--before they are faced with it--rather than being accosted by it at every turn.
Orble has also recently asked its bloggers to use the "Mature Content" flag on any posts with titles that contain profanity, in order to prevent those titles from appearing in the "Popular Posts" list in the sidebar of all Orble blogs. (Thanks, Orble!) So this should help with some of the more blatant occurrences of profanity that had previously found their way into our blogs' sidebars.
Still, though, as I previously mentioned, I am not taking any chances. I have relegated the lists of other Orble blogs, as well as the "Popular Posts" and "Breaking Posts" lists, into the deepest reaches of my blog's sidebar, at the very end of a number of rather lengthy lists of other, more acceptable, material, to keep them well-hidden from casual and unintentional public view.
Here's the blog rating tool. Feel free to use it to check the rating of your own blog!
Thanks, Laura, for letting us know about this great tool!
Please be sure to visit Laura Spencer's Writing Thoughts blog for some great info and resources on the writing craft; and, if you're a mom, as well as a writer, you might just enjoy checking out her Opinion Mom blog, as well. (Links to both of Laura's blogs can be found in the opening paragraph of this post.)
Happy rating!
Jeanne
P.S. I hope it isn't infelicitous of me to use the above blog rating tool in this post--since it's offered by an online dating website! That does seem rather ironic. But, be that as it may, I felt the tool itself was valuable.
Note: Infelicitous was the Word of the Day for June 3rd on Melissa Garrett's blog, The Silver Tongue. Melissa challenges other bloggers to use her Words of the Day in their own blog posts; and, to be honest, I have been planning for quite a while to use this one. I love this word!
Did you enjoy this post? Don't leave me lonely--Please comment!
Freelancing Journey, a blog which refers to itself as "The Road to Business Success for Writers & Bloggers," is literally loaded with info, tips, links, leads, techniques, advice, and other resources that can help you, the freelance writer, make the most of your own website or blog. Covering many different aspects of the freelance writer's creative, professional, practical, and even personal development, this site has something for everyone interested in any type of freelance writing.
One post, "Page Rank, Back Links and Blogging," posted June 22nd, 2007, explains why page rank is important and provides tips on how to obtain quality backlinks to your blog. Another, more recent post, titled "Definitive List of Paid to Blog Services," dated June 28th, 2007, links to a very comprehensive discussion of the subject found in a post on another helpful blog. In addition, Freelancing Journey's "Roll of Honour" includes a long list of links to other blogs about writing--and blogging--as well as numerous other writing resources, markets, and marketing blogs.
Freelance writers are busy people, whose time is often severely limited. But taking a few minutes out of your busy schedule today to pick up some timely tips and advantageous advice could just save you a great deal of time and trouble over the long term.
So, check out Freelancing Journey, and see if you don't agree that this blog contains some helpful literary and marketing signposts to guide you along your freelance writing travels.
Bon Voyage!
Jeanne
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