Swollen Pickles

Lately I've been having difficulty finding the time to update all my blogs on a regular basis. There have been a number of activities competing for my time, one of which is the whole regular exercise thing, which has left me less time to work on my blogs. Less time means that I have to learn to work smarter. This has led to me asking myself a question I'm sure many bloggers have asked themselves. What's more important, post frequency or post length?

Obviously there are pro's and con's with both options.

Posting shorter, yet more frequent posts, provides your audience with regular updates, and also means that you have more pages in the bank ready to be crawled and indexed by search engines. On the other hand, shorter posts generally do not provide as much detail, and could be viewed as of lesser value than longer more detailed posts. Do shorter posts give readers the impression of a lack of effort on behalf of the blogger?

Longer, less frequent posts can provide a lot more detail for readers, and get a lot more information across than shorter posts can. They lend themselves to lengthier 'how to' style articles, and could often be seen as more 'useful' or valuable to readers. The fact that they are longer means they also take longer to produce, which could impact on post frequency. Do longer posts give the impression of greater effort?

How important is post frequency? Frequent short posts, or infrequent long posts? Is less more, or more less? Does it make any difference at all?

Time for a poll. Vote well.

 Loading ...

This post is really nothing more than a miscellaneous collection of stuff, so prepare yourself...

If you're one of the people, like me, that found Alien vs. Predator 2 a joyful romp in the ongoing Alien/Predator love story, then this little clip will give you another opportunity to geek out like there's no tomorrow.

It's in German, and there are no subtitles, so I have absolutely no idea what they are saying, but then, that's part of the appeal.

Continuing the sci-fi geek theme, for some reason, this picture always makes me giggle like a school girl.

Thanks to Lee, the Quit Your Day Job guru, for "interviewing" me. It's a world first.

I also finally got around to opening my guitar effects forum the other day. Only a couple of members so far, but hopefully it builds quickly so I don't talk to myself.

In other news I started watching the new J.J. Abrams show Fringe the other night. I've seen the first three episodes so far. I really enjoyed the first pilot, but the second two episodes didn't quite grab me as much as the first. It still has my interest, but I'm hoping it can get back to the standard that the pilot episode showed that it could reach.

I finished reading Bullseye: Greatest Hits last night and wrote a quick review/summary on the Comicologist.

I have now officially made over $1,000 USD with PayPerPost. It's been quite a while since I took an opportunity on this site, largely in an effort to avoid the Google turkey slapping (which seems to have happened anyway), but I've been using it a little on a blog that I've basically just "whore'd" out to pay the bills. The irony being my "whore'd" blog got through the last page rank update unscathed, while this one took a bit of a dive.

I realised a long time ago that page rank is largely irrelevant, besides the warm fuzzy feeling you get when you see your sites page rank go up, the only other thing it's good for is that it means people are willing to pay more for a post or a text link. The idea of Google attempting to control what I do bugs me. Lets not kid ourselves, by penalising people for selling links, posts and advertising on their sites, Google are effectively attempting to control what you can and can't do. Worried about PageRank? Do what I do, switch of the little green bar in your browser and forget about it. Then carry on doing what you'd like.

Ranting aside, I thought I'd share this screen shot from my PayPerPost dashboard.

If you're scared of losing your PageRank, but want to take some paid posts either with PayPerPost or someone else like LinkWorth, I'd suggest setting up a blog that you aren't all that fussed about. Buy a cheap URL, install WordPress, and just start posting. Make it as interesting as possible, then start whacking in a few paid opportunities. Yes, most people would most probably consider it a shameful pimping of self, but unless those people can offer you a sweet $1K for very little output, then tell em' to get stuffed. If you do it right, a blog you pimp out can end up being a nice little cash cow that can help you fund a whole range of other web adventures. You've got to start somewhere.

Click here to go and join PayPerPost.

Click here to go and join LinkWorth.

Do you want to start a "Make Money Online" (MMO) blog? Yes? Well, let's be honest, you've missed the boat, that ship has sailed. The world wide web is now flooded with people trying to grab their slice of the pie. I remember hearing a saying once that "nothing original is ever created in a vacuum", and I think that saying can definitely be applied to the whole MMO niche. So with that in mind, here's the definitive list of tips you can follow to become a Make Money Online sheep.
(more...)

My recommendation is to quickly sign up to the PerformancingAds network and start spreading the word. They've just launched and from a publishers 'money making' perspective it often pays to get out there and be the "early adopter". WidgetBucks is a prime example for me as I was able to cash in early, and did quite well.

PerformancingAds looks like a winner for bloggers and they favour the 125x125 ad blocks that are increasingly popular, and easier to position on a page. They also pay via PayPal which is another major positive.

Here's the skinny:

Become an affiliate with PerformancingAds

How it works:

Earn $10 for each new publisher or advertiser you refer

Plus, earn 5% recurring revenue on all advertiser ad buys ... for life.

Massive Potential:

Let's say that you refer 2 new advertisers per month and each spends an average of $250 per month. Within 1 year, you'd be making a cool $300 per month in 100% passive income.

But wait. Let's say that you referred 5 new advertisers per month. Now you're talking over $750 per month after 1 year.

As you can see, the opportunities here are endless.

So sign-up to be an affiliate today.

Make Money With PerformancingAds

I'm excited

If you've wanted to sell ad spots on your blog but weren't sure where to start, stop worrying and check out Etology. Did I mention it's FREE?

It's quite commonplace these days to see blogs selling 125 x 125 pixel ad spaces in the sidebar. These ad spots can represent great value for advertisers looking to get the word out, as well as being a great source of additional revenue for bloggers. I'd been toying with the idea of selling ad spots here for a while, however the prospect always seemed a little to daunting for me. I didn't know how to manage the spots themselves, or the buying and selling process. It wasn't until I discovered Project Wonderful that I was able to start selling 125 x 125 banner spots. They handled all the hard work and it worked out fine.

Today I discovered a company that takes this concept one step further. Etology allow site owners sell their ad space directly to advertisers. Advertisers can place ads directly on sites. Etology serves text ads and banner ads in all types of standard ad units, including banners, skyscrapers and inline ads. They do all the work, all you need to do is add a couple of lines of code to your site where you'd like the ad units to appear.

Etology allows for the publisher to set their own price based on either a flat rate (daily, weekly and monthly), desired CPM or markup percentage. This allows for greater flexibility and for publishers to tailor their pricing based on what they think will work best in attracting potential advertisers. As you can see from the screenshot below, Etology offer a range of set up options as well as tracking statistics to help you identify what is working and what isn't.

Having started up with Etology early this morning, I can honestly say the whole process, sign up, to displaying an ad spot, took no more than five minutes. If you can cut and paste, you'll be able to get moving quickly. The biggest drama you'll have with Etology is figuring how much to charge for your ad spots!

Start selling your own ad spots now!

If you're looking for more information on setting your ad pricing, check out "Adspot Pricing For Blogs Exposed!". It's a great, well researched, article. Highly recommended.