You know you blog too much if …

 bl0g  Comments Off on You know you blog too much if …
Mar 062012
 
  • You have the OCSCS (Obsessive-Compulsive Stats Check Syndrome) and you are quite … obsessive about it.
  • You have more than one niche blog/hub/lens/barrel.
  • You had a talk with your significant half/BF/GF/Just-Friends about you quitting blogging at least once.
  • You demanded more time for blogging regardless.
  • You actually won with dozens of arguments.
  • You use Creative Commons licensed pictures all the time
  • You license lot of your work under Creative Commons to encourage backlinks.
  • You know the significance of good backlinks.
  • You know what “rel=nofollow” means and don’t post there.
  • You use almost all Google tools. Almost.
  • You are member of ALL social networks.
  • You don’t use them for social contacts at all.
  • You have MANY contacts in the social networks (they are in  4 or 5 digits).
  • You can’t name any single one of them (of course) but use groups and circles instead.
  • You use “View page source” very often and know exactly where to look.
  • You can tell what blogging platform is a site using.
  • You can also tell the theme used in the blog without much thinking.
  • You can distil the essence of a blog post/article for less than a minute, regardless it is 7000 words long.
  • You can spin another article from it, but prefer not to do it.
  • You can pinpoint a SPAM post in comments for a fraction of the second.
  • You arranged blocking and banning of at least one SPAM site.
  • You arranged closing of at least one content scrapping site (or article).
  • You have at least one FAN mail.
  • You have at least one HATE mail.
  • You are quite good at SEO basics and don’t need a plugin anymore.
  • You can say what keyword  is most used in the article without using SEO tools.
  • You know exactly how much this keyword pays.
  • You can implement a repeating keyword in an article without making it look like pure spam.
  • You know your top 10 keywords and how they rank in Google.
  • You have so much tools attached to your browser’s toolbar, that you need 2 or 3 toolbars.
  • You can distinguish Commercial Blog with just a glimpse, even without disabling AD blocker.
  • You have more than 10 blog articles about blogging in your own blog.
  • You have RSS subscriptions to all major bloggers in you niche.
  • You know them by name.
  • You actually speak to them by name.
  • You cross-guest posted with at least half dozen of them.
  • You know your Google’s PUB-ID or at least its last 5 digits.
  • You manage to make blog topics while having conversation with your friends.
  • You sometimes even take notes while doing this 😀
  • You can make “10 bullets how to” article from a friends’ question.
  • You actually often do this just because you don’t  have anything interesting to blog about.
  • You already experience writer’s block on monthly basis.
  • You post at least 2 times per week, regardless of the block.
  • You know how a 500 words long and 1500 words long articles impact search results.
  • You actually understood everything I am bullet-listing and nod and smile all the time It matches your own style 😉
 Posted by at 11:53 am

HubPages, one alternative to blogging.

 bl0g  4 Responses »
Feb 172012
 

HubPages was one interesting surprise when I was looking for another source of passive online income.

At first I was very sceptical:

You start with a PageRank 0, because your HUB is placed in a sub domain of HubPages. And I know It takes quite a lot of work to make blog from scratch when you are just starting with it.

But I was in a need to create a long list herbal remedies, that I have collected in a big notepad, so I’ve decided to give it a chance. It is FREE after all.

It took me about 2 months of clever, non-spammy backlinking until my PageRank went to 3 and my work started to pay.

(my chosen niche for HubPages is quite well filled and explored, so it is normal not to have much traffic at first. Everyone knowing from where to copy and paste creates medicinal articles, because the ADs are a bit better paying.)

But never the less, the back linking and promotion I did in the bookmarking sites and my own blog paid off well in 2 months.

There are some important things you need to consider, when you subscribe to HubPages.

  • It will take writing at least 50 articles (HUBs) to start seeing some revenue.
  • It will take 1-2 months for Google to start taking you seriously and calculating your PageRank properly.
  • Don’t ignore the greeting members and try to follow people that are writing in the same niche you decide to focus on. The community is very good and you will find ideas for more articles in what your followers are writing.
  • Hop some hubs every day. Give frank opinion by voting or tagging interesting/useful/etc. By doing this, you help the moderating team to raise overall quality of the site and this will reflect on better AD revenues shared with you. Your opinion matters.
  • Don’t expect miracles. You still need to make some backlinks to your HUB if you need to have high authority in SERPs.
  • Link deep. Don’t just link your profile page. It will go UP naturally, and you need high page rank to pages that are loaded with ADs and Amazon/eBay links and offers.
  • Try to do some of the challenges, such as 30/30 or 100/30. You don’t get accolade, but you will feel better when you do.

HubPages Cons

  1. Writing a new hub can be a bit of a slow process with the builtin editor. It is very easy to use and powerful, but the JavaScript will be a bit slow on weaker computers. Huge articles (2000+ words) can be quite a challenge for a 2 GHz machine.
  2. Title tuner suggestions sometimes are complete nonsense. You better learn your own best SEO practices and ignore the suggestions.
  3. Sometimes your hubs may be flagged for moderation by people that don’t like your tone or your ideas. If you can’t stand criticism – better stick with private blog like this one.
  4. It was considered Content farm by Google once and severely punished. The site is still recovering (with fast pace) and the moderators are very careful if you upload copyrighted, spammy, low quality or duplicate content. If you are copy-paster HubPages is not for you.
  5. There is no possibility for 100% photo or video article (There is a minimum limit of words per picture). If you make such a hub, it is automatically marked as substandard and flagged for moderator review.
  6. Pictures used in your articles need to be 100% checked for Copyrights and with good quality or your hub may get unpublished until you fix the issue. (but you are motivated and pointed to free creative commons sites for finding quality images with allowance for commercial use).

HubPages Pros

  1. You have a title tuner, that helps you with search engines. The keywords in your article header is very important for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Whenever someone searches and lands on your articles, the keywords used will be provided to you, so you can optimize your header if needed. Sometimes it does help a lot to generate more traffic.
  2. You get some cash even from visits on your profile page (there is one medium AD unit below your details and accolades).
  3. If you are good writer, you will find loyal readers automatically from the ones that are “hopping” hubs of the other writers. With ordinary blog like this one,  this can take months.
  4. Monetization is very easy. You only need your own AdSense code. Other possible revenues come from Amazon affiliate sales, that are very easy to setup or eBay (HubPages will help you make eBay account).
  5. Layout is quite good and AdSense ADs are added automatically, you only need to take care for the Amazon and eBay if you decide to include them.
  6. You easily get between 5 and 6 EUR for 1000 visits, without doing much. Compared to my main blog (yes, this one) it is about 5 times more. I get lees than 1 Euro per 1000 visits (mixed AdSense and Chitika). This is because HubPages is quite big site and they can be on much better terms with Google, Amazon and eBay than the terms a single blogger like me can have.

So, why you don’t signup?

Disclaimer: All the links to HubPages in this article are affiliate links. (You lose nothing by clicking them, but I will get small bonus when you start writing and earning through HubPages)

 Posted by at 12:37 pm

Why is (was) mesothelioma such high-paying keyword?

 bl0g, h3alth  3 Responses »
Dec 152011
 
lungs

Lungs (Image source: Flickr)

What is mesothelioma?

It is also called Malignant mesothelioma, and is a terminal lung cancer. The main cause is prolonged exposing to asbestos fibers dust. The resulting asbestosis leads to shortness of breath because of the asbestos  irritating the lung. Asbestos cannot leave the lungs naturally and very often the disease is caught too late.

The main symptoms are a chest pain and shortness of breath on minimal exertion or even standing still, without doing anything in particular. You better visit a doctor, even if you are not exposed to asbestos fibers (anymore). The disease may take years to develop.

So what happens, when you are exposed far too long to asbestos and develop terminal cancer?

In all cases – You need to take care for the ones you will be leaving after your demise while punishing the employer that allowed you to work with hazardous materials without mask.

Anyway, to get to the point which most bloggers-for-money ask:

Why does it pay so much?

There were claims 2 years ago, that mesothelioma ADs are paying $200 per click. Nowadays, the black hat forums claim that the keyword pays “merely” $55 per click.

The question remains: Why so much!?

In a WikiPedia article, we see that in mid 1982, a retired employee named  James Cavett, won a lawsuit of $2.3 million for compensation and another $1.5 million in punitive damages.

This triggered even more lawsuits and led to a group of lawyers specialized in this category of terminal cancers.

Lawsuits in US only are to reach $270 billion in compensations and punitive damages. There are more than 8k defendants and 700k claimants.

Imagine how many Lawyers are actually giving their left kidney to be hired for such a lawsuit.

Simple math from statistics:

  • ~3 in every 1000 clicks will end in hiring the Lawyer for a mesothelioma case;
  • 1000 clicks will cost the lawyer $55 000;
  • 3 cases won will total in approximately $3 million in compensation (with $2.3 million being the record for a single case);

Imagine the lawyer’s tax in this process. It must be huge.  And because of the very high competition, the lawyers are paying A LOT to sites that publish their ADs.

As simple as that.

Why I say it WAS high paying keyword?

After the Google Panda update, the search engine algorithm has changed. High paying keywords are now targeted by a heuristic relevancy check and spammy sites that target the high paying keywords are now penalized.

You may still write an article filled with high paying keywords, but this article will never reach page 1 of SERPs. And even if it does, you have NO control if the relevant high paying ADs will be displayed to your article.

So, regardless you place the keywords, you article will probably NOT benefit from them for real. It will be another article farm designed for money, that will be marked by Google bot for analysis by heuristics. Later, when the page rank algorithm evaluates it, you may have your whole site penalized and even sand boxed.

Be smart. Help the big G clean the internet from nonsense and heavy AD packed sites. Write an article that answers questions and helps the others. Don’t try to benefit from dieing lung cancer sufferers.

I am not telling you to abandon SEO optimization. Just don’t target a profit from the misery of the others.

 Posted by at 2:28 pm
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