Instigator Blog

Who are you?

What do you do for a living?

Why should I care what you write?

I want to get to know YOU, not just your writing.

That’s why you need an ABOUT page. And a well-written one…with some details and thought.

Too many people ignore their ABOUT page. Awhile ago (can’t remember where I heard about this), there was a meme going around about doing searches on Technorati (I think) for all the default About pages that people never change from the WordPress theme setup. Funny, but sad…so sad…

Over the month of October, my About page received 302 unique visitors, with an Exit % of 33.7% (which means 66.3% of the people that visited the page went on to other pages of the blog.

Recently, I updated my About page using Laura Allen’s 15 Second Pitch. The goal was to get more people to contact me.

Specifically, I wrote:

Give me a call for a free 30 minute consultation to find out how I can help you build your business.

Since that’s gone up, 3 people have gotten in touch with me. They emailed (no calls yet!) and the dialogues have continued. One person asked me some advice on a business idea he had. That was a great honor for me, and it’s been uber-fun chatting with that person. The other two were looking for help/advice on their blogs…

I can’t be sure any of these people checked out my About page (I didn’t ask) but it makes me think that putting a call to action there has helped. It certainly doesn’t hurt!

The two biggest mistakes people make (short of not writing a proper About page at all) are that they don’t including contact information and they don’t update it. Even re-reading mine for the purpose of writing this blog post, I notice some tweaking that’s needed (although I’ve got plenty of contact information.)

Here’s what I know (from my research, testing and validation):

1. If you don’t have an About page you’re missing out on opportunities.
2. If you have a crappy About page you’re missing out on opportunities.
3. If you don’t update your About page regularly you’re missing out on opportunities.
4. If you don’t include your contact information on your About page you’re missing out on opportunities.

Go read your About page now. Please. Fix it up. Tell me who you are, what you’re about, why I should care, and how I can get in touch. Cause I will…and so will a ton of other people too.

This is the third part of a multi-part series on fine tuning your blog through research, testing and validation. The first part was Increasing RSS Feed Subscribers. The second part was Making Money From Your Blog.

How much time do you have?

Actually, instead of that please go listen to The Great Big Small Business Show podcast!

We’ve just released Episode 13 - The One Thing About Small Business, with segments from:

• Chris Brogan - It’s the Other Things That Make it Work
• Colleen Wainwright - How Long Will This Take?
• Ted Demopolous - You Can’t Live on Past Success
• Becky McCray - Surround Yourself with Mentors
• Jon Swanson - Is Your Thank You Speech Ready?

I’ve got a segment in there as well, titled, Somebody Has to Be the Marketer.

There’s a ton of great advice in the podcast, but more than that I think there’s support. Entrepreneurs (and people in general) need a helping hand once in awhile, they need a support system, a safety net, a guiding light. Call it what you like, I think The Great Big Small Business Show, with its collection of contributors provides that…and a chunk of inspiration as well.

Please go have a listen and let us know what you think!

And you can subscribe to the podcast feed right here:

Subscribe to the feed!

[tags]small business, entrepreneurship, mentoring, coaching, support, great big small business show, colleen wainwright, chris brogan, jon swanson, becky mccray, ted demopolous, podcast[/tags]

Very few of us will ever earn enough off our blogs to quit our day jobs. OK, but if we could earn a few extra bucks per month … why not, right? A little extra disposable income never hurt anyone.

Advertising on Instigator Blog

I’ve used a few services for advertising on Instigator Blog, including:

• Google AdSense
• Text Link Ads
• Performancing Partners

I’ve also gotten a sponsor, and talked to others about a few sponsorship-related ideas.

I haven’t done any affiliate marketing yet.

Click to continue →

No blog is perfect.

There’s always room for improvement, and you can continually improve your blog through research, testing and validation. Research doesn’t involve years of study with control groups, lab animals and six thousand page thesis papers. It can be anecdotal and trend-watching.

Recently, I’ve made some changes to Instigator Blog. Most are quite subtle, but I’m trying some things out to try and improve what I’ve got to offer. A few things I’m on-the-fence about; hopefully you’ll kick my arse to either side with your feedback!

I’m going to tackle one or two of these things per post to avoid overwhelming all of us, and hopefully to generate some focused dialogue…(hint, hint - please comment!)

Subscribing to Instigator Blog

This is done via the fairly prominent orange icon in the top right-hand corner (feel free to click it and subscribe!)

THE RESEARCH
The top right-hand corner just isn’t prime real estate on a web page (neither is the right sidebar.) Take a look at some heatmap studies, where they track people’s attention on a web page to determine what people look at the most. Here’s another example of a heatmap showing less-than-optimal placements for Google ads.

But, with the design I’ve got, the orange icon does stand out, so that’s where I’ve left it.

And the top right-hand corner is quite a common spot for subscription icons. Just take a look at some popular and well-designed blogs like copyblogger and Techcrunch.

So I’m fairly comfortable with the location of the subscribe icon, but what I’m not sure about is whether the pulldown that appears when you mouseover the icon is useful or effective. Try it and tell me.

Why did I put all those options? Again, I’m leaning on some anecdotal evidence and trend-watching. Quite a few popular blogs (see: Seth’s Blog and Steve Pavlina’s blog) are displaying multiple subscription icons/options. Plenty of less popular blogs are doing it as well, most probably experimenting like I am.

I also didn’t want a laundry list sucking up sidebar space. “Above the fold” is an important concept for all bloggers to understand. Simply put - your most important content needs to be visible without forcing a user to scroll. Plenty of people talk about this online, even spa operators (yes, there’s a blog about online marketing for spas, salons and massage therapists!)

THE TESTING
So to avoid using up my entire sidebar with subscription options I found a script that created the pulldown. I like it because it gives people lots of options, but I don’t like it because it gives people lots of options. Make sense?

I’ve never liked it because it requires 3 steps to subscribe - mouseover the icon, look at the pulldown, and click on the one of your choice. If I only had one option, it’d take 2 actions - mouseover and click. So am I making it harder for people to subscribe?

It’s hard to test. There are simply too many variables on the blog that dictate whether people subscribe or not (quality of content, whether a post gets voted up on a social media site, etc.)

I can look at some subscription data and see if that helps:

• 26% of subscribers use Bloglines
• 15% use Rojo
• 9% use NewsGator Online, and 8% use Firefox Live Bookmarks
• 41% use other readers (which includes well over 15 options)

Going with this, I might consider showing Bloglines, Rojo and NewsGator Online options (Firefox Live Bookmarks is a Firefox extension in the browser.) Some will be surprised by the % for Rojo which has never been as popular as other services.

The most recent change I’ve made is to add a “help” page related to subscribing. I’ve read a few times (I wish I remembered where!) that adding a bit of helpful information on what subscribing is all about and how someone might do it does encourage people to subscribe. So you’ll see a link directly underneath the orange button up top titled, Learn How To Subscribe.

THE VALIDATION
At this point it’s up to you. I can’t run ultra-controlled, scientifically sound experiments to validate my blog fine tuning, but I can go to you and ask for help:

1. Do you like the pulldown list of options? Do you find it easy to use?
2. Do you think providing many subscribe options is necessary, or should people stick with the orange icon?
3. Do you think the Learn How To Subscribe option will encourage people to subscribe?
4. Do you think the placement of the subscribe button makes sense? Does it catch your eye when you visit the page?

If you have any other suggestions, ideas or questions about RSS subscriptions, please comment!

Ultimately, I hope to get some discussion going and start to formulate some ideas on best practices when it comes to providing subscription options on your blog. By participating you can help the greater community of bloggers learn something and improve their own blogs!

You might decide one day to start a business. Great! Now what?

The decision itself is the biggest step, but before you open for business here’s what you’ll need to help secure success.

Click to continue →