Well, not quite. If you don’t have the luxury of time and you have to scoot after reading the next two sentences, the answer to the title is NO. Don’t. Never!

Unlike the examples of the product testing and free samples, the  Snap Preview Anywhere hardly gives you an idea of what the website you’re about to visit is about. Since the display appears on a really small panel, any text that could’ve helped in explaining what the site was about will be rendered unreadable. You might get a vague picture of the header or other huge images at the top of the page, but that’s about it. Unless your idea of a preview is visual inspection of a page’s color scheme, SPA definitely doesn’t do much for you or your readers. I know much has been said and written about this application, but I’m still shocked at the amount of blogs who continue to use the plugin.

If it’s lack of benefits still doesn’t make you believe that it’s high time to disable your SPA options, there are plenty of other reasons why you should reconsider. The most irritating out of all drawbacks is how one can set off the SPA application without meaning to avail of it. Since all active links are subject to the effects of the program, any accidental hovering of the mouse over a link can result to a lag caused by SPA. Unless you habitually put your cursor outside the main browser’s display box, chances are, your cursor will be caught by a rogue link as you’re scrolling and soon after, you’ll be irked out of your wits.

Admittedly, it really seemed nice on the superficial level in the beginning. But upon closer inspection, it really seems like a nuisance as far convenience and functionality go. It’s time to put this to pasture, people!

How does Quantcast come up with these numbers? Good question. That’s the exact same thing on my mind when I  first read about it. According to their FAQ page:

We collect our data through affiliations with partners, who include advertisers, publishers, ISPs and advertising networks. All the data we collect is anonymous and contains no personally-identifiable information.

Such a response further opens a whole new Pandora’s box regarding privacy issues and similar concerns. Is Big Brother truly watching. Either that or only a small number of the population is being watched – those with affiliate status or those who actually choose to take part and make the system more accurate.

Check out the Quantcast profile for NBA.com for example. The graphs on this page would show you that the site mainly attracts an African-American market with a bias to the 18 to 24 year old crowd. Is the sampling accurate? I wouldn’t bet on it, but one thing’s for sure, the statistics would become more accurate and precise once this service catches up with mainstream bloggers and mainstream users.

To show you the extent of information that Quantcast offers, the site even gives you a low-down of your readers’ educational attainment and other household related qualifiers. Is this the next step to analytics gold or is this just pushing the envelope a bit too far already?

Aside from the better known ranking sites that aim to seek out the most popular blogs in almost every niche known to the cyberman (or cyberwoman to all those feminists out there), there are also endless ways to influence your readers with the help of numbers.

Hit Counters

Yup, you heard it right. Though hit counters may come across as a bit tacky on some well-known websites, those who are slowly making a mark in the blogosphere may benefit from having a counter especially if the hits come in droves early on. Whether we like to accept it or not, hits translate to popularity and to a certain extent (but not always) authority. To generate a counter for your own blog, you may do any of the following:

• sign up for a free counter at Site Meter or Tiny Counter. The site will generate a code that you could then implement in you template. You may customize the color and style of your hits counter to suit your existing blog theme.
• if you own a self-hosted Wordpress blog, you may choose to download the Image Counter plugin.
• if you feel like showing off, write your own hits counter program! But come on, considering the alternatives, there’s no point in doing so. *Unless you want to show off and get more hits in the process. Haha

Users Online

Yes, that’s an actual counter from Who.Amung.Us. Thanks to this site, visitors may know how many other people are reading the same blog as they are. You have to admit, readers read what most people read. It’s a bandwagon and despite whatever non-conformist mantra that most people follow, seeing that other people find a certain article worthwhile can cause an affirming effect in their decision to read that particular article.

Installing Who.Amung.Us up is quite easy. The index page of the site provides the simple  and unique HTML code. Once you slap it in to your site, the site tracks the real-time number of readers as well as the maximum and minimum number of readers every hour. And you don’t even need to sign up!  Just like the aforementioned hit counters, the badges from Who.Amung.Us could be customized to be compatible with your existing blog themes.

If you find Who.Among.Us too proletariat for you, you may opt to sign up for Users Online to do the same things that the former does.

If you’ve been religiously following the two noble truths Blog Tutorials gospel – 1) Search Engine Optimization and 2) quality content — you will have no trouble getting traffic to your site. Now that you’re popular, why don’t you flaunt your hits and wear your stats on your sleeve?

There’s a multitude of stat tracking services, plugins and programs that are available over the internet. Some of them would require you to upload a php file to your root directory while some would track your statistics with embedded code that you add at the end of your footer.php file (or basically anywhere on your page).

What is the value of stat tracking? 

Well, aside from the ego boost that hundreds of daily unique hits give a blogger, it can also gauge the amount of success that you’ve been getting through the search engines that you’re trying to redirect to your site. The ratio of the incoming hits from search engine results pages compared to those coming from other websites will give you an idea on how to better streamline and customize your SEO strategy.

For future articles, I will be reviewing various websites and applications that allow you to track your statistics – from the no-frills to the totally loaded.

Online Image Editor lets you edit and enhance images at a fairly capable level when Adobe isn’t around to help you out. You may upload pictures from your computer or fetch already uploaded files on the internet via the site. Since this is a web-based application, the things that you could do to the picture – and the quality, obviously — may not be something to write home about, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers, right?

The application has the following features:

• file format conversion (PNG, GIF, JPG or BMP)
•  Resizing and cropping images. (This is easily the function that bloggers would use the most)
• advanced GIF options
• editing of colors (grayscale and sepia among others)
• creating borders and adding overlay images
• adding effects (they range from decent to just plain tacky)
• a help page.

And as if that wasn’t enough, the program actually allows you to save the image directly to Imageshack! With just one click, you’ll get the link to your Imageshack-hosted file and if you’re in a rush, it does save you a few seconds of your precious time. If you would prefer to save the file on your USB drive/work station, the application also allows you to do that.

It’s hardly the ideal photo editor, but if your back is up against a wall, it’s nice to have final-option applications such as this one.

As far as personal blogging goes, much emphasis is put on the person behind the blog. The blogger is the star in the personal blog. Running a personal blog is similar to running an official website for a celebrity with fans who are hungry for the latest tidbit and updates. If yours is a personal blog, it is important to zero in on your more likable aspects  such as your hobbies, work or other interests. Special talents may also help you stand out from the crowd and get you recognized as a bankable must-visit blog.

If you’re fortunate enough to be good looking, artistic, athletic or talented in whatever means that can be showcased online, then by all means, use it to your advantage. Remember, you are a brand and name recall is your best bet outside of the SEO wizardry that you can muster. If you can associate yourself with a strong logo, a signature layout or a memorable event, photo or activity, you will probably remain in the conscience of the blogosphere for the days and weeks to come. If you can follow up with worthwhile content, you might even earn a spot on their RSS feeds.

If you don’t have anything earth-shattering going for you, good-old-fashioned tell-all blogs have always been a good option. People gravitate towards sincerity, transparency and honesty as well.

Lastly, it’s all about the style and tone. Having a consistent tone and approach in writing may help in making your readers more in tune with your leanings. Aside from the visual things that you can leave as your mark on your blog, the way you convey your ideas (whether fiery and passionate or reserved and dignified) can also help your readers identify with you more and result to more return-visits and indirectly, ad clicks.

With everything that you do on your blog, remember, be consistent. You are a brand! 

The first part of this article is here.

There are two sides to the schools of thought when it comes to successful blogging. One side is more focused on the content part while the other side is more concerned with the behind-the-scenes machinations of SEO and similar strategies. Since SEO articles are dime a dozen on this blog, let me focus on the more visible and arguably achievable aspect – the content. People visit your site because of the following reasons:

1. They like your content. You blog about things that fall within the scheme of their interests.
2. They admire the way you write. Even if some of the things you write about alienate certain people, your writing style makes up for it by still making the topic palatable to all people regardless of background.
3. You have built a viable and vibrant community. The battle now is who can build a better and stronger online community. Blogs are no longer a personal diary – they’ve become an ongoing conversation between the author and the readers. This interaction can be a point of attraction as well even if it has nothing to do with the actual blog posts.
4. SEO wizardry

It doesn’t take a genius to see that a blog IS a product. It is more than just your thoughts and your ideas – it is your platform in making business over the internet. Now that we’ve discussed the principles of getting readers, part 2 will feature the nuances and strategies to keep readers coming back for more.

The first and last word in monetization is of course, Google AdSense. The concept is fairly simple. Google gives you a code that you could paste all over your site to enable you to display advertisements relevant to your blog’s content. Unfortunately, like what I said on a previous column, the Google AdSense system is only beneficial for bloggers who get heaps of hits a day or those who are thinking SEO 24/7. Not-so-established bloggers could gain from AdSense but it will be mere pennies compared to what the bigwigs get. If you’re a small fry, you would try to get more through albeit less palatable options.

Option two consists of placing linked anchor texts and product reviews in your posts in exchange for money. This somehow compromises your blogging philosophy by making you write about things that you wouldn’t think of discussing in the first place. I’ve seen it happen and trust me, it’s not pretty. You will be hemorrhaging fifty to one hundred word testimonials on products you haven’t even seen yet for a few dollars. It is the ultimate in selling  out. This practice is also frowned upon by a lot of major players like Google and Wordpress because of the way it disrupts the search algorithm of certain sites. The free Wordpress.com service has actually banned transactions involving PayPerPost on their blogs since a recent controversy surfaced.

After posting several ads on surgical procedures, obituaries and fireplaces, you just can’t help but feel that you’ve given up your identity as a blogger. It’s not worth it. Instead of opting for get-paid-quick schemes, work on improving your content, building your links and fine-tuning your SEO strategies. With a little bit of luck, you’ll get more hits and if the stars line up, maybe a few extra dollars on on your Google AdSense account.

Who clicks them anyway?! 

We can safely assume that people you personally know are less likely to click your advertisements. After all, your friends and family members are visiting your blog to check on you and not to check the things that are blinking on your side bar. Clearly, they are not the demographic who click your ads. While some unscrupulous individuals may ask their relatives or friends to click their ads for extra revenue, this sort of practice defeats the purpose of the system and may put the blogger at risk for possible sanctions.

The people who are more likely to click your ads are the ones who are looking for things other than you. They are probably strangers who are banging at the search engines for new information, products and services related to the niche you’re in. If you’ve been reading the comprehensive SEO write-ups of Philip and Ia, you would know by now that you can put yourself at a better position by making sure that your website comes up as one of the first few search results for the relevant key words in your blog. Needless to say, individuals who are trying to look for certain information and products are more likely to be more observant and keen towards advertisements related to their concerns. They are your demographic and that’s why SEO matters a lot if you really want to drive your AdSense profits through the roof.

The people you already know have little use for Google as far as finding your site goes – hell, they already know your URL! It’s one thing to be popular to the people you know, but being relevant even to people that you haven’t even met yet is a bigger factor when it comes to making sure you get your precious ad clicks. That being said, learn to play to the crowd that is more likely to click your ads while still keeping your baseline in check.

While playing to your clicking crowd, make sure that you follow Google’s policy to ensure that you won’t be sanctioned or barred from further participation. You may not encourage clicking and you may not deface or place images that may mislead the readers into thinking that the ads are a part of the actual layout of the site.

Now that you know who’s clicking, it will be easier to focus your efforts to a more efficient SEO strategy.

That’s all for now! See you next time!

Among all the content providers available in the internet, Youtube is clearly tops. Aside from being the repository of third-party videos, the site can also serve as a host for a user’s personal videos. These could in turn be used for a user’s personal blog or website. Though Youtube already gives out a pre-fabricated code for embedding the file, you may only use the code while on the “code editor” and once you revert to the “visual editor” the code will be distorted and unreadable. Not only will the code change, it will also cause the video to not appear.

Try it for yourselves. It’s a fair assumption that most Wordpress bloggers use the visual editor and since it is the “first” view that appears when trying to edit and entry, the code would’ve been altered by the mere act of clicking the edit button. One way to keep this from happening is disabling the visual editor under “Profile”.

If you’re unwilling to sacrifice the visual editor for the well-being of your Youtube codes, you may download Youtube Brackets. This plugin makes embedding Youtube videos easier by limiting the necessary coding to:

[youtube=videourl]

Just like that, your video will be embedded without the hassles of Wordpress altering the code the next time you edit it. If you’re fine with hard coding Youtube videos into your blogs the hard[er] way, be my guest. But if you’re one of those who would rather take the easy route in things like embedding videos, this plugin is exactly the one you need.