Bush Mackel

Well this is certainly becoming quite a productive day.

So far I’ve managed to get some laundry done, hang out with the family, AND upgrade Wordpress.

I will say though -

The admin environment for 2.5 is certainly going to take some getting used to but I’m sure the updates to the codebase will win me over soon enough.

You kids out there like 2.5?

It’s not too often on here that I write posts about art or design, but maybe because of my latest efforts in that field or maybe just because I secretly like this stuff (which is odd for a programmer)…

I felt compelled to shed some light on teddY-risatioN’s new design!

Before he released it today, I really didn’t think that I could like it as much as I did his old theme, but he really surprised me when it was unveiled and it absolutely floored me!

So Many Things To Love!
It’s hard trying to comment on the design because there are so many good things about it (imo) but I’m going to try my best and see what I come with…

• The Colors - He uses blues very well in this design… And all of them combine very well in the background and in the header and in the teddY-risatioN text. Furthermore, where he uses lots of other colors (in the header nav) and in the sidebar, they go very well there too. In the header the colors on the nav are blended very nicely so they don’t seem out of place, but are still different enough from the background to standout. In the sidebar the colors are a bit more grabby, but it works really well in the white area me thinks.
• The Top Nav - On most sites, (like this one currently) the top nav is usually just text. But teddY went out of the way to make his special and you see that with the cool Chemistry like symbol buttons. Very fresh and creative plus it certainly draws your attention in because of its uniqueness forcing you to check out areas of the site that would probably otherwise go overlooked.
• Sidebar - The problem with a lot of sidebars is that they always have to that delicate dance of “how much content” vs “how long” but here it is done quite well and attractively using collapseable areas.

• Footer - I’m a big fan of having footers on your blog, (even though I haven’t done it here) and putting a lot of good information in it. teddY also does this one well by adding a lot of good information down here that regular readers will love to see, but making sure not to have anything in there that’s WAY too precious (imo).

Again, well done teddY and I hope next redesign on here I can come up with something half as good as what you have!

I was reading a couple of posts on ProBlogger yesterday, namely about how he became a professional blogger and what he thought of the professional blogging industry.

They posts make for interesting reads so I won’t summarize them, but after reading’em I got to thinking about the big professional bloggers - John Chow, Darren Rowse and Jeremy Shoemaker and in particular started to ponder how all of them were able to become professional bloggers.

Thought 1 - How Did They Get So Many People to Frequent Their Blog?
On the subject of making money from your blog, this was the first thing that popped into my head because obviously, the more people that come to your site, the more value ads have for advertisers, the more money you can charge. So naturally I said, “So to go PRO, you gotta get those people to your blog right? Well why would people do that?”

Thought 2 - Why Would People WANT to Frequent Their Blog?
I wish I could remember where I first saw it but simply put, a user visits a site because it provides some kind of value. Maybe it’s humor, maybe it’s web development lessons, but whatever it is, it’s something. So then I thought, “Ok. So to go PRO, you gotta provide something of value to your readers… My blog is about technology, video games and blogging…”

Thought 3 - Am I providing substantial value on my subjects for my readers?
This was a hard one to think about because it’s never easy or fun to deal with your own faults. For me and this site, I again talk about three things… Technology, video games and blogging.

• Strike 1 - On the technology side, I think it’s fair to say that I rarely bring news or reviews of technology (aside from video games) to my readers. Nor do I share technological items with them.
• Strike 2 - On the video game side of things, there are sites that are better than mine. They do more comprehensive reviews, often review full games, and give games to their readers.
• Strike 3 - Out of the three things that I mainly talk about on here, I’m probably best qualified to speak about blogging and web development. But I rarely do so. Instead, I spend most of my time speculating on how to make money online which relative to others, I haven’t done yet.

Thought 4 - If I were ever to go PRO, something has to change.
You know that ol’ 20/80 rule right? Well I think if I honestly analyzed how things have been going on here, I’d probably be more “successful” at things if I decided to talk more about things that I have authority on such as web development and blogging. After all, most people who visit the big bloggers’ sites go there because they want to know WHAT TO DO… What WILL work. The biggest problem for me is that I think I’d get bored if I limited my topics like this.

Even if I just wrote about web development and blog tips, I’m too interested in web entrepreneurship not to bring it up. But I really don’t have much authority to speak about it which brings me to my final thought…

Thought 5 - To be an authority on making money online, I have to start making money online.
Going back to the big make money online bloggers, we all visit their sites because we consider them to be authorities on what they write about. They’re authorities because they’ve become successful making money online.

But did they make their first monies with the blogs we’re familiar with?

Probably not. And I guess that’s the thing we often forget about. I kind of think it like these guys have corporations. And the only part we see is their public front, kind of like their PR dept. But what started making them the money is their individual departments and subsidiaries that we tend to overlook (such as Darren’s photo blog or Shoemoney’s past experience in the ringtone market).

Now don’t worry, this post doesn’t mark a “midlife blog crisis” for me or anything but more a reminder for all of us that if we’re looking to go PRO with our online efforts it definitely doesn’t happen overnight, and often it comes from the sum of our various projects - Earning us not only money, but invaluable wisdom that we can share with others.

I really should have my WP plugins listed somewhere on my site (for all eternity) but seriously - I already have enough tabs at the top don’t I?

Maybe I’ll lump it into my About tab at some point, but until then I thought I’d share one of my favourite wordpress plugins - the Shylock AdSense plugin!

This is one plugin that has been serving me well for quite sometime now and I think it could do you kids a world of good too.

Why I Love the Shylock AdSense Plugin
Not too long ago, I was looking for a plugin to manage my AdSense ads. A lot of you were nice enough to recommend some, but on the whole I found them to either be a bit too simple for my purposes or a bit too unwieldy. So after a bit of searching on my own, I found the Shylock AdSense plugin.

In a nutshell, it allows you to easily put AdSense code into your posts and to have different code bases for various situations such as individual posts, main page or other situations like that. And of course you get to configure how you want these ads to be positioned and it really is easy as pie to setup - But this isn’t why I love this plugin.

Imho, the best part about the Shylock AdSense plugin is the ability to not have to use AdSense code. “Say what?” That’s right, you don’t have to use AdSense code with the plugin. For instance, you’ll notice that my 300×250 AdSense block has been replaced by an ad for Dual Monitor Babes. Not AdSense, but still taken care of through the Shylock plugin. Oh, and another thing you’ll notice is that the 300×250 ad cycles through 6 various ads how is that accomplished? I did it through a bit of JavaScript I put in the plugin’s option setting.

Final Thoughts on Shylock
This is just a great plugin. At this point, I don’t really hang my hat on my AdSense earnings, but I know some of you do. And with Shylock’s aggressive AdSense options, you might want to give it a look, especially to optimize some of your older posts.

One of the things I’ll never understand is why some people decide to start a money making blog, diligently write articles for said blog, but do NOTHING on the side of attracting new visitors.

I just don’t get it!

And in the event that YOU are one of these people who are wondering why your blog isn’t going anywhere keep reading…

I have your answer right here. And it couldn’t be easier.

If A Tree Falls in a Forest…
Chances are that writing good content alone is not enough to make your blog successful. Why? Because you need visitors coming to your blog. You need people reading your content. If you do nothing for your blog but write content, who’s going to find it? The answer is NO ONE. Well, maybe search engines. Maybe… After some time. And unless all your posts are absolutely loved by search engines, rank 1-30 on the SERPs, and kissed by the heavens you’re screwed.

Here’s another way to look at it : How many great posts do you have in you? When are you going to write these posts? Truth is, it could be today or it could be tomorrow. But how would you feel if you knew that the best post you would ever write has already been written by you, and no one was around to see it? My guess is you would feel like you wasted your talents. Don’t waste your talents.

What to Do About It?
Invite people to read your articles. Yes, it IS as simple as that. All you have to do is comment on other people’s blogs, showing that you have an interest in what THEY are writing, and they will often return the favor. And how long does this have to take?

Oh, 2 minutes.

In as little as 2 minutes a day, you could be inviting someone new to your blog and getting a reader for life. (Wait - This is beginning to sound like an infomercial (#);). If you were able to get 1 new person a day for a year, that’s 365 readers in one year’s time right? And who amongst us wouldn’t love to have 365 new readers every year?

Out With The Old and In with the New
So look - If you’re starting a new blog and you’re writing content, don’t have that new bloggers’ mentality. You know the one… “Well, before people I start having people come to the site, I want there to be a ton of articles on the site for them to read…” That’s just a rationalization to get you out of doing something extra for your site. On the early days of this site, things looked bad. I was talking about super random stuff and my writing style wasn’t all that money either. (It’s great now right?) But nevertheless, friends have seen this site change and evolve and become what it is today.

People love a journey so why not take them on yours?

Over the break, I did a little bit of guest blogging for my girl Casey over at News Notion.

In one of my posts, I wrote about double column vs single column sidebars.

At the time I wrote it, the whole thing was more of a fleeting thought than something I had completely committed to, but since that time ’till now I just can’t get the subject off my mind!

Here’s where I am with the whole topic…

This Site’s Sidebar Content

Recently, since I’ve been putting the screws to this site, I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of stuff that I used to get to you guys, no longer exists. Most notable to me is the ol’ recent comments. I really like that one because it’s a good way to keep you guys in the know about random conversations on random posts that you may not be aware of.

But there’s more stuff besides that, (and as the site stands now), putting all that content into my single sidebar would mean that it would extend forever. And unless I’ve written some unbelievable 3 page content, no chance you guys are going to scroll all the way down to make sure you didn’t miss something that I hid away in my sidebar. So what’s the solution?

Enter the Double Column Sidebar

In my old theme, I didn’t have the need for a double column sidebar because I had, two sidebars, one on each side of the content. But even looking back to that, my sidebars weren’t very efficient in regards to dispensing information because they were filled with a lot of crap including too many categories and unimportant content like the calendar. On a sidenote, I personally liked the calendar because it reminded me of how good I was doing with posting But anyway…

I think I need to go to the double column sidebar because even for the three or four things I CURRENTLY have in the sidebar, it’s just way too long. And I think if I just expanded its current width by 10 pixels that I’d be able to pull it off.

Who’s Doin’ it Well and Doin’ it Swell

Mike, Casey and Rhys are doing a pretty good job with their double column sidebars. At the very least they’re doing better than me who doesn’t quite have one yet. But if I had to pick the best amongst the blogs I visit often, I’d probably have to go for Brown Baron (though CI gets an honorable mention).

Brown’s sidebar just looks good. Not too wide and things are spaced great so everything doesn’t look like they run into each other.

So question : Anybody else have this sidebar dilemna? Or am I the only one who cares about how his sidebars look and perform?

Yesterday, I clued you in on where this site came from and what it has looked like at different points along the way.

Today we return to looking at bushmackel.com and try and figure out where the site is now and where it is going. In regards to both we’ll look at specific stats because I’m a firm believer of outlining goals using exact amounts.

And in doing so, we’ll also figure out a definition of “success” as it pertains to this site.

A Cash Money Millionaire, I Am Not
If you’ve been reading this site for any period of time, you have a fair idea of how much I make per month. If you’ve forgotten, feel free to check out my last 3 months earnings statement from previous posts but let’s say that on average I make anywhere between $50-$100 a month from this site. To some that may be satisfactory, but to me it simply is not. Add to that how much work I’ve been doing to earn that revenue (posting twice a day, and scores of sponsored reviews) and the figure is even more depressing. But more on that later.

People Stats
For someone who would always love to look good to an advertiser’s eye, I hope you guys can appreciate me disclosing this stuff (#);D … If we’re looking at averages, here’s how it all turns out…

• 45 uniques per day
• 94 pageviews/impressions per day
• 70 subscribers per day

For some of you reading this, you may think I’m sounding like a big ol’ spoiled brat at this time. You’re probably saying, “You know Bush, I would KILL for those stats right about now”. And depending on where you are with your blog, that’s fine. But for me, it’s not ok ’cause I know I can do better.

Success
Ok, enough with the stats, let’s cut to the chase. What do I want to accomplish with this site? Well, the last thing I want to do is turn this passion of mine into a job, so above all else, I want to keep the things going that I’ve come to love… Talking to people, meeting new friends, all that good stuff! And of course I want all of this to increase too! And I did say we’d pin down some exact numbers right? Well with this being a blog and such why don’t I just shoot for 500 rss subscribers? That sounds good right? I figure if I can do that, all the other people stats will increase too.

And on the money front, let’s keep this “factor 5″ thing going too… I’m making $100/mo now, so let’s bump that up to $500/mo too! How does that sound? How many of you would like to be making $500 with that little blog of yours? Well with any luck we’ll find out how we can all pull off this “miracle feat” in the last part of this little series tomorrow.

If you’re just joining us, welcome to my personal crusade to get my act together and get serious about a bunch of my projects that have yet to see what I’ll call “success”.

That said, I haven’t actually defined what “success” is for these projects but today, as we start looking at each of them in depth and one by one, I’ll tell you what I’ll define their “success” to be.

Because I’m a big believer that if you don’t know where you want to, you don’t have a good chance in making it there.

So what is this Bush Mackel.com?
The short answer is, this site. The longer answer is my technology and blogging blog where I cater the content to my techy side, and to all you crazy cats out there who share similar interests.

Originally, this site was my personal site. I published poems, art work, applications that I made and a gaggle of other things. But after a while, it became a pain trying to archive my previous updates to the site so on a whim I installed Wordpress… A couple hours later I found out that I was a blogger.

The Early Days
When I first started blogging, I really didn’t “know what I was doing” but I was instantly enamored with how easily and quickly I could update the site. At that time, I was still blogging Bush Mackel as my own personal site, which means I was writing stuff that was really all over the place…

My trip to San Diego and Mexico, my Man Crush on Steve Nash.. you get the gist. But around that time I “met” Pete Cullen who would come to be my first real friend in the blogosphere and that really changed everything for me in terms of how I viewed my website…

Where I had once seen this site as a way to just “get things off my chest”, it had suddenly become an avenue to meet new people with similar interests, who could have intelligent conversations and wouldn’t try to get me to their XXX sites *ahem myspace*. In previous lives, I have flocked to jobs of customer service… Blockbuster manager, Best Buy employee, Ledo’s server… All because I LOVE engaging people. Now please understand me, I’m not one of those odd people who you wish would disappear after a minute of me opening their mouths… I just love meeting new people and having a good time! This is probably why I quickly became smitten with blogging.

The Business of Blogging
After a little time learning the ins and outs of blogging, I started to realize that this was something that you could get paid to do! And if you take a step back from that, at the very least make a few extra side dollars. It was after this realization that I started getting into the more technical sides of blogging… Increasing revenue, attracting subscribers and all the like… And apart from so many other things I currently do, I truly enjoy blogging. So if I can, why not make some money at the same time? Which brings us to where I am now.

“Tomorrow” we’ll continue breaking down this site by analyzing the current state of bushmackel.com, looking at where I would like this site to go, and also defining what “success” for this site will be.

A week ago today, I told you about a relaunch of sorts for me and my projects…

The short of it is, they’re not where I need them to be and so today will be the first day of the rest of their lives.

And because you guys are coming along for the journey, you’ll first need to become aware of all the projects I currently have on the slate so we’re all on the same page Some projects I’ve told you about, and some may be quite new to you.

Bush Mackel

This is of course, this site. I’ve given a LOT of thought lately about the direction I want it to go in… Both revenue wise and more importantly content wise. Later on, we’ll look at this site more in depth and see where it’s both succeeding and failing.

Learn Stuff Online

As far as my online endeavors go, this was my first and remains the one nearest and dearest to my heart. It was originally slated to be a replacement to about.com, which I felt (and still believe) is a horrible site with bad content. In any event, while I learned a lot with my first go at it - Up ’till now it has been a big disappointment in a variety of places and I hope to turn it around.

Bethesda Web Design

Amongst all my projects, this one (imo) has the greatest potential to generate the most money in the shortest period of time. Unfortunately, around the time I started this, I also fell in love with blogging. And I’m sure you know how that ended.

Conclusion
So there you have it. Those are the big projects that I “currently have in the works” and the ones that I need to revamp and get rolling. I undoubtedly have more projects that I want to get going, but these are the big ones I want to focus on now. In the next week or so I’ll go into more detail with these projects so we can really start the fun. (#):)

If you’re a blogger who does sponsored posts, chances are you’re very familiar with Pay Per Post.

And you’re probably also familiar with Google and how they have been pummeling the Page Rank of sites that “sell PR”, by using specific anchor text to link to sites.

Obviously this site has already been hit which is why (as of this writing) your Google toolbar says this site has a PR of 0.

Thanks Google!

How I Feel About PR
Well as I’ve said before, I’m not mad with Google. All they’re doing is trying to make their search engine the best it can be and selling links using specific anchor text we are undermining their efforts is we don’t use nofollow in our tags. But as I’ve said before, the big problem I have with all of this is that Google has not officially ever said, “you can do this, you can’t do that” and with their Webmaster Tools, I don’t think they have a good excuse to not give an official word to all the webmasters who WOULD play by the rules if they knew what they were.

Introducing Real Rank
So getting back to Pay Per Post, they issue posting opportunities to its members based largely on Page Rank and Alexa Rank. When all of their members’ sites started going to PR 0, they (thankfully) did not change the Page Rank of their members’ stats, (likely because they would’ve had a freakin’ hard time trying to fill all their opportunities). So after all of this, it was really only a matter of time before a new ranking system appeared, and it looks like Real Rank is the first one to get its head above water. Here’s a snippet of the description from IZEA (parent company of PPP) :

…gathers REAL traffic information, much like your analytics platform and ranks users based on their standing within the network. The formula is relatively simple.

70% weighted towards visitors per day
20% weighted towards amount of ACTIVE inbound links per day
10% weighted towards pageviews per day…

Does Real Rank Fix the Problem?
I guess it depends on what you think the problem is and what side of the ball you’re on. The reason why I felt obliged to make this post was because of Court’s post on the subject, where for him it came down to the question,

Can You Survive Without Google?

In his opinion he said that “[.01% of bloggers don't care about Google]“. I would argue that it is probably much higher than that. I think there are a TON of people who have turned away from Google for whatever reason… AdSense doesn’t yield anything for them, and they’re not getting anything for G’s Serps. And I think for these people, Real Rank may provide what they need to make a buck from their site. Now I’m not saying that it will help them make 13K a month, but maybe the “few bucks” they’re looking for that helps them in their everyday lives.

What About For Me?
I don’t know. I’m kind of in the middle of all these things… I’m always working to improve my AdSense earnings, but while that’s going on, I love making some side cash with Pay Per Post. And as Courtney points out, I think it’s a fair bet that Google won’t stop on these penalties and will start banning/de-indexing sites all together. If THAT happens, there will obviously be a drop off for me on visitors, which of course impacts every other stat including my new Real Rank. Maybe this is a time that I should consider changing MY business plan for this site. Of course that would I’d have to have one first…

What about you? Do you care about Real Rank? Is it making you consider doing things differently with your sites?