The Brief

Michael at GiveawayProject.com submitted his blog for a quick Blog Doctor health check.
One of his major concerns was about his graphics. He has good computer skills but not so confident on graphics. Another concern he has was in regards to the money making components of the site and whether or not they are distracting or placed correctly.
The ultimate concerns for him are how to increase his income without distracting and annoying the readers.

First Impressions

Straight away when I visit GiveawayProject.com I must admit I notice the limited graphic banner. The thing is I’m a designer so I notice these things anyway. But so does your average blog surfer. You’ve got a couple of seconds to catch their attention especially if you are a member of one of the blog exchanges. So you want your site to look nice if not eye catching so you aren’t losing any of the more shallow readers straight off the bat.

The next thing that draws my attention is… well nothing really and this is the second concern. The page doesn’t clearly define its regions and comes across as a bit of a whitewash of text.

Upon reading the material I immediately get what the site is about ‘getting free stuff from around the web’. The about section is blended in over on the side and on reading it it confirms the purpose of the site.

It is now that I turn my attention to the advertisements and these are fairly standard and I know what to expect which is all fine.

Suggestions

I’ll address my speciality which is the look and feel. Michael needs to make a statement with the design that he is indeed THE place to go for the give-aways etc. This means looking the part. And a more professional looking banner is an important place to start. Something Michael suggested in the briefing which is a really great idea is to try and get some aspiring designer to knock you something up for free or really cheap in exchange for the recognition or a link. It could be a good portfolio piece for them.

I may have a chat with Matt about the idea of a place on Blog About Your Blog for aspiring designers who want to pad their portfolios with blog designs or graphics to offer their services.

I had a quick stab at sketching a design based on the concept that Michael has already in place. Focusing on the piggy bank icon, changing the heading font and putting a slight pattern in the background.

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When you look at the image you’ll notice how I’ve separated the posts up with alternating colour and the piggy bank icon in keeping with the banner. I’ve also highlighted the about section so that people’s eyes are drawn to it. In doing this it also makes the advertising sections more clearly defined even without doing anything to them.

Michael may want to consider using an image every once and a while to break up the text and add interesting cues for readers. Take a look online for royalty free clip art and images.

As for the content I believe that trying to promote the subscriber aspect especially considering the content would be beneficial. Promote it as a way not to miss out on any of the great deals. Another thing worth mentioning might be to point out that the site is mainly for American audiences. A good place being in the About section.

All in all the content is pretty good and I must admit I’m not usually interested in these types of things but it’s compelling stuff and managed to get a couple of clicks from even my concrete heart!

Summary

Great content. Design needs a little graphic designer love. Sections need to be better defined. Try and promote the subscriber element more.

If you’d like a fresh look at your blog contact us via the contact form.

This is my first post under the new theme regime, and I’d like to say, it is a cool new home. Well done to Matt and Lee for taking a big and positive step. Ironically, they probably won’t find much of interest in this post, preaching to the converted and all that! (And I hope this isn’t too long a post!!)

They say, if you stand still in business, you die. A bit demoralising to think that you have to keep pushing and can’t rest on your laurels. Not that natural-born entrepreneurs ever think of resting easy. You have that ache in your stomach to tweak what you already have, dump what isn’t working, and invent the next big thing. And natural born bloggers are the same too, I suspect.

If it ain’t broke…

What sets the good business/blogger mind apart from the average, however, is the ability to “see” what is going on. It is one thing to want to be dynamic, it is another to be able to analyse what elements truly are in need of attention – or should be left well alone. How many companies have fizzled in apathy, or fallen to earth after a CEO broke something that wasn’t broke!

I’m no CEO, but I have ruined a few good things in my time, due to inertia and an over zealous desire to “progress”. I am responsible for a blog now, which one day may be a business, so I want to do the right thing. The pressure is killing!!

Plus ca ne change pas! or thomesing like that.

As the lord and master/mistress of a blog, what to tweak, dump or invent, is one part of the equation, but starting from the beginning, what to keep the same while the rest of the mix evolves, that is the biggest question!

At the end of this month, staring wide-eyed at stats, one part of me is tempted to relax into the cosiness of traffic that has tripled over the past 30 days. Yeehah. But the niggly feeling takes over. Should I leave everything as is? Should I keep the formula the same – keep posting, keep talking, keep having fun on-line? More of the same means a step backward, doesn’t it?

Luckily, I am too young in blog years, to go changing too much. I have loads of work to do to be the best, but to be realistic, for better or for worse, I am happy to leave the core of the blog well alone for now. (Also, my guilty restless side willingly accepts that continuing the blog in its current format is excusable this month, so no major new decisions to make just yet.)

Tweaking a good thing – the devil is in the detail

Fortunately, instead of relaxing, a little devil kicks me in the shin and sets me to wondering how to keep peripheral parts of the Pisstakers blog moving on a bit more. But which parts could do with a re-vamp?

As a starting point, I am happy to see I got 28000 page views in April. That is almost 1000 per day, blimey, but is it quality traffic? Are people reading, or are they speed reading, or simply accumulating hits for gummi bears on MyBlogLog Sunday? Yes, to all of the above! So which part of the Pisstakers “brand” do I tweak, because there is no such thing as unexplained coincidences in my world and something has been attracting this extra attention.

I usually go on gut feelings, but that isn’t always a good premise. (Ask SEO expert Shyflower about my gut instincts before I implemented some new keyword tactics that actually worked, and I was way off base with my ideas on Polliwog Pond’s traffic generating prowess.) I cant read stats well enough yet, but I am sure that MyBlogLog Sunday is an intrinsic part of the recent popularity of The Pisstakers. However, I am ignoring my gut instincts to make a change to the rules, for now. I am just going to keep telling new folks about it, and hope that at least half of the 10 blogs featured for a mini review on Sundays are new blood. That would keep the idea fun for new blogs, fun for me and fun for my readers. And if a possible “Best of past reviews” that I have in mind doesn’t get a result… I can’t abide not doing anything new!

Irresistible new feature

I admit I am a mischievous person by nature, but under the guise of a proactive entrepreneur, to sate my creative side this month, I was talking with my man in Milan about a drool-worthy new feature. Bonsai Studios have obliged in kind, and are preparing a little something new, coming soon to a sidebar near you.

Features can even tweak themselves!

I have also seen that if you sit tight and let an untried idea run for a while, it may evolve a life of its own. Comments Friday here is hitting top gear nowadays with early commenters setting the topics without being guided by Matt.

And sometimes a feature can produce a new feature!!! I got a post from Mr MyBlogLog programmer extraordinaire, SEO Solo who kindly left a recipe for a top referrer widget for MyBlogLog members. And then you start thinking, should I look at packaging the MBL Sunday feature, syndicating it, getting it adopted, plus a multitude of other ideas. Who wants to jeopardise that sort of feedback and thinking with a tweak in the wrong direction?!

How long do you go between blog tweaks? Got any do’s and don’ts?

All advertising comes down to cost. If you are paying too much for an ad spot, chances are you won’t purchase it again. You want the most cost efficient advertisement possible. Obviously nothing is better than free, but what if you are paying money?

Recently I posted about using Linkreferral to get traffic. I also mentioned I am now purchasing the #1 spot, per month, on LinkReferral under the section Miscellaneous. The price for that spot comes out to be 35$ per month.

At 35$ per month, you want to be getting your money’s worth. In the month of April (according to their stats) Blog about your Blog has received 1300 hits.

To figure out how much I am paying for each visitor is quite easy. All you have to do is divide the 35$ per month into how many visitors you are getting. That figure comes out to be about 2 or 3 cents per visitor.

As I mentioned there are other factors that you can add, but can’t really put a price on. At Linkreferral your traffic, is somewhat targetted, but it still is basically a modern traffic exchange. Some visitors are quality, but definitely not all. We’ve had several people participate on this blog that found us on Linkreferral.

The other factor to add in is that at LinkReferral, you also get website reviews. How much value is that? It’s hard to put a price on it, but I think its valuable. You get great input on what people see, think, and feel when they first visit your blog. Of course there are those reviews that will be “nice site”, but others can really give you an idea of what they think about your website or blog.

Finding your Cost Per Visitor (CPV) can be very helpful if you are trying to decide whether your advertisements are worth keeping. I like to keep our Google Adwords CPV down as well. I want as many people to read this blog as possible. We aren’t big time yet, where we can really target traffic (and pay more).

Which advertisers work for you? Are you also using these methods to find your CPV? Or does CPV not impact your advertising decisions?

Comment Friday has really taken off like I had hoped. It seems like a new kind of ‘meme’. If you are interested in hosting a comment friday, please feel free to use it. Just make sure to give the idea my credit, and link back to us. In turn, I will link to your comment friday post from ours.

With that said, I have chosen Windy’s Food Corner for our Comment Friday Blog of the Week. Windy was the second to comment, and brought up the lovely topic of hangovers. It definitely seemed to catch on with many sharing their own hangover experiences, and remedies.

If you stop by Windy’s Food Corner, you should definitely take a look at the Lemon Chicken recipe, and then make me some!

I want to thank everyone for your continued support, and participation in comment friday. Remember if there is anything you’d like to see, something you like or dislike, make sure to use our contact form and let us know. I am currently talking to a few new bloggers to blog on our site, so look for them soon.

Comment friday is a fun and simple idea. Leave us a comment about anything you want. By leaving a comment, you will have your blog visited by me, and you may even get a link out of it. I will select a blog from the comment list to be linked to and have their link on our blogroll, until next friday.

We have many of the same commentors participating weekly, we are getting some great and fun discussions. Not only am I visiting blogs, but other people are checking you out as well.

Last week we achieved our goal and got 30 comments. I am pretty excited as to what we can do today comments wise.

Last week John Murphy won from Invest Journal with a great comment, about commenting. This week it could be anyone.

Get commenting, thanks for stopping by!

We have received our blog review competition 7th entry. This time it comes from Theanand and you can read their review here.

The review competition has been slow, and will probably be ending soon, however whenever I say that, we get another entry. We are still aiming for 10 entries, but we may only get to 7.

Thanks all for participating, when the contest concludes everyone will get another link, and more linkbacks on other blogs (page rank 3’s and 4’s)

I see Link Referral as a modern website-directory. You list your website or blog in the desired category, as well as enter in a description. After that is done, what’s next? You want your website to rank as high as you can right? The higher the rank, the more visible it is, which means, more traffic!
Being on Page 1 is a lot better than being on page 200.

To rank your website higher, there are a few ways to do so.

First, you can visit up to 30 linkreferral websites per day, but thats only part of it. You can also review up to 5 websites per day. Each review you give and each website you visit will move your own website or blog higher in the ranking. Be careful though, you want to give quality reviews, because the link referral staff does grade them.

By doing these two things daily, you can be on page 1 or 2 in your category, having people looking at your own website, as well as reviewing it. So not only is Linkreferral getting you traffic, but it also giving you valuable reviews on about your website for free. You can get peoples first impressions, suggestions, likes and dislikes, all for free.

Isn’t it just a traffic exchange?

Yes and no. You are somewhat exchanging traffic, but it is a lot more targetted than a regular traffic exchange. You pick which websites you want to visit, based on their description. There are also several categories to fit your interest.

When I was using LinkReferral to promote Fantasy Football N’ Stuff I was mostly surfing the sports category. By doing so I found some great sports forums to promote my blog and talk sports.

Visiting 30 Websites and 5 Reviews a day seems like a lot.

It is a lot, and after a while I couldn’t keep up. Instead I purchased the #1 spot in the Miscellaneous category for Blog about your Blog.

Tomorrow I will reveal exactly how many hits we’ve received, and how much it is costing, as well as cost per visitor.

Is buying traffic worth it on Linkreferral.com? We will soon find out.