11 Ways to Boost Your Site’s Effectiveness using MyBlogLog

Editor’s Note: When I asked MyBlogLog Community Manager, Robyn Tippins, last week to pen a post on how publishers can use MyBlogLog to drive traffic and keep their users engaged, she was on her way to the BlogHer conference in Chicago. So frantic was her schedule that I had little hope that I would actually see copy anytime soon. I needn’t have worried. Somehow, in between sessions, schmoozing, cocktail parties and late night runs to the 7-11 for more beer, she managed to bang out 11 useful and erudite tips you can use. Without further ado, let’s go straight to ‘em…

1. Make your Profile page deep
Don’t just fill in the basic information. Take time to make your profile page something that really communicates your personality. People are more likely to want to click through to your blog if they feel a connection to you.  MyBlogLog is full of bloggers and site owners who want to find great sites. They are interested in networking, learning from you and in really making a friend. Make sure your page lists basic things like your location and your bio, but don’t forget to add your names on all the other social sites. People who share common interests and common online hangouts with a site owner feel as if they already know them. Making friends with your readers starts with a full profile page.

2. Use the search function
Look for people who share your interests. Check out their blog and let them know that you too like to ride horses or restore classic cars. Look for blogs that are similar in topic and find a few that you love. Subscribe to their RSS feeds and comment on their blogs.  You’ll quickly realize that those people will usually come and bring the conversation back to your own blog.

3. Use your own picture on your avatar
While there’s something to be said for the safety of anonymity, readers seem to really like to see pictures of the authors they are reading.  It also makes the Recent Readers widget show off a real community of real people. There’s nothing more fun that seeing that widget reflect the real look of your readers. It feels more concrete, tangible, than pictures of celebs and photos with your site’s name on it. 

4. Stop posting your blankity-blank url
There’s no need to leave your url in any message on MyBlogLog. Your picture links back to your profile and if people are interested in what you have to say they’ll click through. People who send a URL in a message are often seen as “smarmy.”  If you are doing this now, it doesn’t mean you are really smarmy, but it does mean you need to stop shouting for attention. You get more notice from people if they think you don’t need their attention, but deserve it. (Editor’s Note: I feel so dirty ’cause I just did that last week. Ouch!)

5. Don’t spam or attempt to game the system
Sure, if you are a reasonably talented programmer, any system can be leveraged illegally.  However, people will rat you out with tags like Schmoe, with spam reports and by telling others of your behavior.  And, once banned, it is rare that we offer a second chance. Don’t risk having your url and your name banned for pity traffic.  Remember, when people visit your site and leave because it’s not a topic they are interested in, you gain absolutely no value. Spam traffic results in a larger load on your servers and no one caring long enough to read your content, much less pay attention to any advertising on your site.

6. Make your avatar attractive, hot even, but not racy
Due to a large outcry from our members, we’ve really cracked down on sexy avatars. Not only do you risk being banned if your image is outside of our image guidelines, you also run the risk of people clicking the red x themselves and banning you from appearing on their widget and on their pages.  When people put our widget on their page we deeply appreciate the valuable real estate that has been entrusted to us. We never want to put them in a position that our widget brings unwelcome content to their site, their home. Sexy is OK, but cleavage, bathing suits and images designed to make someone, er, “excited” are out of place on a family-friendly site.  Don’t make yourself invisible (i.e., get banned) on business blogs and family blogs just because you want attention. 

7. Take advantage of the tags
Tags have been searchable now for a few weeks and by making sure that your keywords are on your page, you increase your chances of ranking highly on MyBlogLog for your chosen search terms. Plus, by taking a gander at the tags that you interest you, and who else has been tagged the same term, you immediately make MyBlogLog smaller and more intimate for you. With one click you can find ‘business bloggers’ and ‘gamers’ and dive into people who’ll likely become instant friends (and readers).

8. Give back
Spend some time in the MyBlogLog Users Group.  Share your knowledge and gain instant credibility as a MyBlogLog expert.  You’ll gain friends, readers and people will appreciate your generosity.

9. Make sure your RSS feed is valid
At feedvalidator.org, you can check to see if your feed passes the test.  If it doesn’t, you may find that it doesn’t update properly on MyBlogLog.  Take the time to make sure it validates so the visitors to your profile will see what you are all about, rather than have them think you haven’t blogged in weeks. 

10. Apply to be a hot member
I’m tight with the person that picks hot members (grin) and I can put in a good word for you. However, you stand a much better chance at getting picked if you send me an email along with your picture (must be at least 2”x 3”) and what you are doing that is cool. Try to stand out from the crowd.  What are you doing that will knock my socks off? Here’s a rare time that a little bragging is a good thing. 

11. Watch what’s Hot in Your Communities
This list includes all the sites that you either write or read.  If you joined a community or own a community, that site is one of Your Communities.  The Hot part refers to the hot stories in all those communities.  To really see what is hot in your area of the blogosphere, keep an eye on that box.  It’s a great place for story ideas and inspiration for future series, and it is a brilliant way to know what resonates out there.

—Robyn Tippins, Community Manager, MyBlogLog. She blogs here and videologs here

You only need one Yahoo! Publisher Network account to serve multiple sites

E pluribus unum is Latin for “from many, one.” You may have noticed this motto on the backside of the coins in your pocket. Depending on how you look at it, this can mean “one stands out from the bunch” or “from a lot of little ones, you can make a great big one.”

Or it can mean that you only need one Yahoo! Publisher Network account to serve multiple websites… or something like that. Anyway, when you’re signing up for the beta program, we ask you to provide one web site URL on which you plan to display ads, which we’ll then check to ensure it complies with our editorial guidelines and terms and conditions.

It’s easy to see how some might think that you need a separate account for each web site. But you don’t. One account is all you need to manage ads on multiple web sites. You simply paste the selected ad code into the new site(s). Mind you, we do surf around periodically and check to see that the other sites you put our ad code on are also in compliance.

By the way, you can track ad performance by web site by adding each of your domains on the Reporting URLs page under the Reports tab.

Additionally, you can use ad targeting on multiple web sites. Just go the Ad Targeting page under the Ad Setup tab, add a new URL in the “Targeted URL” box, and select your categories. Each time you save a URL, it will appear in the “Manage Ad Categories” table below. From there you’ll be able to manage your categories for each of your targeted URLs.

For more, see our FAQs.

There you have it. Ipsa scientia potestas est.

—Michael Mattis, Blog Editor

“Cloning” Content is a Bad Practice

Okay. So I’m not that all that keen on Andrew Keen’s book, The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture.

But there’s one thing that Keen and I can agree on. We both hate it when we’ve discovered that publishers have obviously cut-and-pasted content from one site to another without at least citing where it came from—especially when it’s our content. 

It’s frustrating when you go searching for a piece of information and you find the same info, written in exactly the same way, on a hundred different sites. It is a bad experience that just doesn’t help.

In fact, we’re so uptight about it here at Yahoo! Publisher Network that one sure fire way to get kicked out is to “clone” someone else’s content. It’s not just cut-and-paste that gets us riled. Some folks think it’s okay to load up their sites with little games, time wasters and other digital bling that they’ve either copied illegally, or have bought from someone else. Either way, it’s just not cricket, at least not in this network.

Call it a network quality thing
Yahoo! Publisher Network is working toward being the highest quality ad network that we can be. We’ve got our standards, just like any young debutante. We want to give users a high quality experience, something more-or-less original that is both useful and entertaining.

True, some sites need more content than others—backgrounders, critical articles, product reviews, definitions, blog entries, essays, Flickr photos and so forth. But there’s a quality way to fill that need and avoid cloning. At Creative Commons you can search and find content under flexible copyright that you can use as long as you abide by the site’s terms and conditions and the author’s restrictions. 

—Michael Mattis, Clone Ranger

How Today’s Internet isn’t Killing our Culture

The main theme of Andrew Keen’s book, The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing our Culture, can be summed up in a few sentences. Unfortunately for Keen, these were uttered 46 years ago, and by someone else talking about an earlier media “threat” to our way of life.

“When television is good, nothing—not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers—nothing is better,” said FCC chairman Newton Minow in a now-famous 1961 speech. “But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there…until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.”

Keen’s book is a polemic that targets “today’s internet,” or Web 2.0., rather than television. His most pungent bile is reserved for user-generated social media, such as blogs, wikis and video-sharing sites. According to Keen, millions of preening, narcissistic, know-nothing “amateurs” are “perpetuating the cycle of misinformation and ignorance.”

Wikiality? 
Furthermore, Keen contends, Web 2.0 is threatening our legacy of trusted print and media professionalism, is damaging intellectual property rights, destroying musicians’ and journalists’ and writers’ livelihoods, eroding our faith in advertising (?!) and, predictably, stealing the innocence of our children.

Indeed. Wikiality is taking over the world, and the sky, it’s, you know, falling.

Today’s internet is certainly changing our culture. But killing it? Hardly. In fact, I’d argue that the Gutenberg press, which ushered in a new era of print media in the 15th century, was far more disruptive. Then, more efficient printing led to a more rapid dissemination of information that in turn spawned revolutions (social, religious, scientific) that we’re still feeling the effects of half a millennium later.

It’s possible that this little user-generated content revolution of ours will be as disruptive, but somehow I doubt it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yahoo! closes acquisition of Right Media, Inc.

Back in April of this year, Yahoo! announced plans to buy Right Media Inc.  As of today, the acquisition is official and we wanted to share the news with you.

So, how does an open ad exchange provide value for Yahoo! advertisers, publishers and ad networks?

Well, a little back story might help.

Right Media is the creator of a Direct Media Exchange, a self-service publisher product that allows publishers to sign up for, manage and optimize against multiple advertising networks through one interface. Yahoo! recognized the value of the Direct Media Exchange and knew that Right Media would be the “right fit” for its advertisers and publishers.

For advertisers, an open exchange will provide great inventory and audience options from all of participants in this marketplace. Advertisers will also have increased control and visibility into the buying process.

We believe this will provide great value to publishers as they will be given an opportunity to bundle their own ad inventory with inventory within the exchange.

Advertising networks benefit through the exchange by having the opportunity to compete with the largest players. The open exchange creates transparency and accountability, which should create a more level playing field for advertisers and publishers—all valuable assets that we can say “Right on!” to. 

–Roger Park, Y! Blogeratus

Yahoo! Contest Winners go to that Great Power Lunch in the Sky

You voted in the Yahoo! Ultimate Connection contest and three Yahoo! small business owners yesterday enjoyed a power lunch in the sky and a meeting with entrepreneur Ivanka Trump.

Crooked house builder, Glen Halliday, faerie lady, Melissa Balland, and type-o-phile, Mike Willner, also each got a $25,000 search marketing budget as well as other prizes. For more, check out our post on Yodel Anecdotal along with coverage here and here.

See their stories at the Ultimate Connection web site.

 Congrats to Melissa, Mike and Glen!

—The Team

Make the Most out of your Social Media Marketing Campaign

Editor’s Note: In the first installment of this series, Louise Rijk offered an overview of social media marketing, or SMM. In the second, she went deep into SMM, giving advice on how to start your own social media campaign designed to get more users and links to your site. In this, the third installment, Louise shows you how to optimize your content for social media.

Publishing for profit is a numbers game. You can’t just put up a site and hope people will find it and click on your contextual ads or affiliate links, or—if you sell online—make purchases. You have to market yourself and your site(s) aggressively. As far as contextual advertising goes, publishers often need 1,000 page views or more by highly qualified visitors to generate just $1 in revenue (though this is not a hard-and-fast formula).

Taking advantage of social media is one inexpensive (if sometimes labor intensive) way to help you get more visits and, hopefully, more clicks and/or sales. That’s why so many articles you read online these days—whether published by major newspapers or on an individual blog—have an RSS button or one or more links to social media sites like Digg, Reddit, Slashdot, MyYahoo!, or de.lico.us (like the one above).

Social Media Optimization
But there’s more to it than just offering a way for visitors to bookmark and tag your content. To get the best results, your content itself should be optimized to perform better in social media.

Social media optimization (SMO) is much like organic search engine optimization (SEO). Whereas SEO is designed to help leverage your content in organic search, SMO is designed to help achieve greater visibility on social media sites. Your content might be very original and provide high value for your target audience, but if it’s disorganized and you have not provided an easy way for visitors to pass it along the social web, it probably won’t be effective in your social media marketing campaign.

To implement SMO, you have to make changes to existing content, site usability, navigation and information architecture to make it easier for visitors to interact with your content and to help virally spread it through the social web.

SMO Tips
There are many ways that content can be optimized for social media distribution. Here are a handful of tips that you can use to implement social media optimization: 

Read the rest of this entry »

Putting spiders to work for you with Yahoo! Search Submit

We’ve talked about Yahoo! Search Submit in general terms before. It’s a fast and relatively cheap way to help your site get better exposure in Yahoo! “organic” search results. Today we offer a glimpse into how Search Submit works and how it can benefit certain publishers and e-commerce site owners.

Not-so-Creepy Crawlies
A Web spider is an automated script that methodically crawls the World Wide Web locating sites for display in search results. It would be virtually impossible to know what is on the Web moment-to-moment without this tool to scan for relevant sites. On the other hand, the extremely dynamic nature of the Web poses a problem for Web spiders, which slowly index the latest updates to the millions of sites on the Web.

Search Submit is for those seeking to increase their site’s chances of displaying in non-sponsored (algorithmic) search results. It also can help your most pertinent URLs get displayed in response to a search related to your site content. Search Submit comes in two flavors, Basic and Pro, with the Pro version offering the advantage of providing greater control over the way your listings are presented, helping to raise your “click appeal.”

Compare the standard Web spider search engine refresh rates of every two to six weeks with Search Submit’s search engine site updates of every 48 hours. Even if your site is updated infrequently, you may still want to think about Search Submit should any of the following apply to you:

• Your site is not optimized for Web spiders. Many Web spiders have difficulty indexing sites containing rich media or framed pages.
• Your site contains several pages detailing product or other inventory. A searcher entering keywords related to your products may not see your product pages in search results if the spider has not indexed your latest additions.
• Your site contains seasonal offers. Often these special offers need to be made available to searchers more frequently to take advantage of a particular timeframe.

—Stephanie Bilberry, Yahoo! Search Marketing Writer

News and notes from around the water cooler and beyond

MyBlogLog Enhanced
MyBlogLog, the social networking site and widgetizer that allows you to see who’s reading your site or blog and promote your own, has upgraded its messaging function. You can now send a message to your whole community with one quick step, instead of having to send messages one by one.

Those members of your community who have opted to receive email when they receive a message will be notified via email. Those who don’t will still see your message when they log into their accounts.

Try to use this feature sparingly, and only when you really have something important to say. Otherwise, your community may abandon you and you wouldn’t want that! For more information, visit the MyBlogLog Blog (say that five times fast).

Where’s the Winner?
A while back we mentioned that Yahoo! had been nominated in several categories in CNET’s Webware 100 2007 contest. You voted and Yahoo! Maps won best-in-show in its category. Visit the Yahoo! Maps blog for more.

Digg Those Pipes
Over at the Yahoo! Developer Network blog, our old pal Jeremy Zawodny calls our attention to a pretty impressive use of Yahoo! Pipes, the aggregator and manipulator that lets even semi-techies mash up their fave feeds for free. This Pipe lets you analyze Digg submissions and votes. For more, see Jeremy’s post.

Uncommonly Creative Carousing
Creative Commons, the Yahoo! content partner that allows you to search, use and distribute “open source” content, is throwing a rock-and-roll shindig up in Portland later this month during the Open Source Convention (OSCON). Both digerati and literati will be representing. Here are the deets:

When: July 25, 2007, 6:30 p.m.
Where: The Wonder Ballroom
Why: Because open source likes to open up

—Michael Mattis, Blogeratus