Blotanical News

In order to learn how to be successful on Blotanical we must first define what SUCCESS is. I'm going to make the assumption that for most bloggers who submit their blog and feed the definition of success would be more readers. Sure, we'd all like to be popular on Blotanical as well but if we boiled it down to the most important goal I think we could all safely agree that more readers were the epitome of our time here.

Each blogger enjoys a "honeymoon" period while their blog remains in the Recent Posts from the 200 Newly Listed Blogs. Posts are picked, a few messages are shared and you may even get faved by other Blotanists. But, once it's replaced with some newer blogs it's relegated to the backlogs with thousands of other gardening blogs.

So, once the honeymoon is over how do you keep increasing your readership even when you're competing against some very established blogs?

Finding Successful Blogs

With a little time on my hands I spent a few hours crunching the numbers on the 111 blogs (with working feeds) that were accepted in March 2010. The idea was to track how these blogs fared once they had slipped out of the 200 Newest Blogs and whether they had gone on to increase their readership or not. I continued tracking them until August 2010 - which is Blotanical's quietest month due to northern hemisphereans basking in their sun-filled gardens or heading of on vacation.

From the eligible 111 blogs that I started with only 7 had increased their readership share*. The remainder had either maintained their level of readership share, lost readers or had stopped blogging completely. I then took these 7 Blotanists and researched some variables that I thought might have contributed to their success; messages, picks, faving other blogs and faving other members.

The Results

I won't share individual names but I shall give the data to help you form your own opinions of how these different aspects of Blotanical may increase your success rate.

Blog #1
Readership Share Increase: 61.59%
Blog Ranking: ~400

	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Total
Messages	41	38	6	20	5	10	120
FaveBlogs	15	5	3	2	1	3	29
FaveMembers	5	2	2	1	2	2	14
Picks	38	46	39	39	29	74	265

Blog #2
Readership Share Increase: 54.23%
Blog Ranking: ~250

	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Total
Messages	33	108	26	70	96	60	393
FaveBlogs	7	17	15	6	5	6	56
FaveMembers	2	9	3	2	3		19
Picks	6	162	378	334	441	391	1712

Blog #3
Readership Share Increase: 47.39%
Blog Ranking: ~100

	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Total
Messages	187	87	3		1		278
FaveBlogs	10	4					14
FaveMembers	14	6					20
Picks	602	524	21	17	141		1305

Blog #4
Readership Share Increase: 8.06%
Blog Ranking: ~550

	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Total
Messages	22	3		1	1		27
FaveBlogs	5	5	5	5	5	5	30
FaveMembers	1	1	1	1	1	1	6
Picks							0

Blog #5
Readership Share Increase: 14.06%
Blog Ranking: ~650

	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Total
Messages	4	13	9	7	4	2	39
FaveBlogs	8	3		1	6		18
FaveMembers	1						1
Picks	35	31	8	1	7	1	83

Blog #6
Readership Share Increase: 14.06%
Blog Ranking: ~1800

	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Total
Messages							0
FaveBlogs							0
FaveMembers							0
Picks							0

Conclusion

It's interesting to note that those with the best returns managed to maintain relatively consistent interactions over the six-month period. They picked posts, left messages, faved blogs and members in varying degrees.

While some bloggers seem to think that they can enjoy success by just submitting their blog to Blotanical yet it is apparent that those who contribute to the community and interact are the main beneficiaries. Engaging with Blotanists, whether they are bloggers or not, seems to increase the level of response to our posts.

If your blog has been losing readership, or the honeymoon period is over, then use some of your online time to communicate with Blotanists on a regular basis. Given a little time your readership should increase and the success of your blog on Blotanical will improve dramatically.


*(calculated by dividing the number of picks their blog received in April by the total number of picks in April and then comparing this to the number of picks their blog received in August by the total number of picks in August).

Posted by Stuart at 5:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

I must confess, I have a fetish for watching online properties being auctioned and sold. It's not that different to people who follow real estate but for some it may seem a little *cooky*.

Well... this morning when I tuned in to Sitepoint's Marketplace to see what was going on I noticed that a gardening site had been listed. I clicked the link and lo and behold it had already been sold. Upon checking the listing stats it became apparent that not only had it sold within an hour of listing (most usually take days) but it had sold for the Buy-It-Now (BIN) price of - $US1200.

For that kind of money you would expect to find a pretty amazing blog or website with tonnes of content and lots of backlinks through Google. Yet all it offered was #5 ranking on MSN for the keyword "Container Gardening" - it hasn't even made the first 100 for the term in Google.

What did it have going for it? Here are the stats;

• More than 2500 unique visitors per month
• Domain is over 12 months old - started Feb 17 2007
• Earning Adsense revenue of between $1-$4
• Currently earned $24.25 for the first 7 days of May
• 28 Pages indexed on Google
• 68% of its traffic comes from Google

So was it a good buy? Now there's a tough question. The rule of thumb in buying websites and blogs is calculating the monthly revenue by 20 and this should give you your buying price. In this case it should have been $2,706 ($24.25/7 = $3.46 x 30 days = $103.80 x 20 = $2076) so it seems like the buyer has bought an extraordinary good deal. However, as April and May are the biggest months for gardening revenues I'd be surprised if this sustained.

I wonder though, how much our blogs would be worth should we measure them against the backdrop of this site? If your blog is the same age - or older; gets as much traffic via Google and earns similar revenues through advertising then extracting similar dollars from a sale may be quite possible.

But, could you really sell your blog?

Posted by Stuart at 6:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

I've noticed that a few Blotanists have been sharing their email addresses via messages in their plot. It's a practice that I would highly recommend you don't do in the future especially as we start to open Blotanical up to the general gardening population.

The problem with listing your email address is twofold. Firstly, it's half of your login to Blotanical. Sure, it's not the most important part especially if you have a strong password but it does make it easier for wannabe hackers to get in and mess with your plot.

Also, sharing your email via this public forum is like showing a red rag to a bull when it relates to spammers. And we're all in no doubt that they exist. Sure, it may not be the person you're communicating with that will be the problem but you can't police who reads your messages. Before you know it everyone who's viewed your plot messages now has your email in their address book.

It's been asked before whether the messages can be kept private so only the owner can see them. This is possible but certainly not desirable. Part of the social aspect is being able to see how others are communicating with each other. It enables us to follow conversations, add thoughts and meet new members. This is what makes blogs so special and we would never think of just making our blog comments readable by ourselves.

Therefore, treat your Plot messages with some caution and discretion. And treat your personal information with a high level of confidentiality. It's all about being wise online.

Posted by Stuart at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adding an image to your blog may be just a click or two away but it can also leave you in hot water due tocopyright laws. Even if you provide the correct attribution you may find yourself on the wrong side of the law.

Apart from taking all your photos yourself, which limits what you can and can't discuss on your blog, there are other ways to source some great pics without the enormous fees. In fact, there are still ways to access high-quality images without it costing a brass razoo (I'm assuming that brass razoos are still free).

Mark Frauenfelder (Boing Boing Founder) from Rule the Web put me onto the MorgueFile after reading one of his recent posts. The MorgueFile is an archived photographic gallery containing a large quantity of images free for the taking. Even better, is the fact that you don't even need to ascribe attribution to the photographer as they're completely royalty-free.

openphoto.net is another source, although somewhat limited in the range of images available, and you will also need to check the required attribution via their licensing page.

For me, most of the images that I use on my blogs come from Flickr.com using the photos freely available with a Creative Commons licence. This allows me to use the photographs provided I link back to the original source.

So, the next time you want to adding a stunning illustration to enhance your blog post, search out the free image sources that are widely available and easy to access.

Posted by Stuart at 4:00 PM | Permalink

Imagine your blog is like the front door to your house. When the door is opened we expect to see a smiling face welcoming us in or at least willing to accommodate our query.

Now imagine that the front door is never opened and instead you talk to a voice through an intercom. From the tonal range you can guess whether the person on the other end is male or female but we're not given any clues as to their age, height, body language or facial features.

It has a similar feeling as talking to the priest in a confessional booth. Impersonal. Not relational.

When you're talking through an intercom your mind is trying hard to assemble a jigsaw picture of who you're talking to. And your mind can make some pretty large assumptions which are more often than not, completely devoid of the true picture.

I'm not sure about you, but I struggle to get past this barrier. If I stumble upon a blog that has no picture of the author I'm less likely to stay and strike up a conversation. I like to see who I'm talking to and being able to see a 'face' gives me some reassurance that a person is behind the content and not some automated process.

Furthermore, a picture on your blog can add a high level of branding. Why? Because in the blogging world - YOU are the brand.

How often in comments do you see a picture of someone and instantly recognise them as the author of [insert bog name here]? And, if you consistently see a picture turn up it will intrigue you to search out who this person is and what they're on about.

Photos of 'real' people is what propels social marketing tools like MyBlogLog because we crave connection with another human being.

On the flipside, if you don't have a photo of yourself on your blog, you're allowing your readers to make their own assumptions which in most cases won't be great. You become an 'intercom blog' that forces people to make their picture of you and often this will come out terribly wrong.

Do you agree? Or, do you think it doesn't matter if blogs have pictures or not? Do you have a picture on your blog and if so, why? If not, why not and do you plan to add one anytime soon?

I'd love to hear to your thoughts...

Posted by Stuart at 3:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

People often ask me which browser do I prefer to use when searching out garden blogs and anything else I do on the net. A few years ago, I would have answered Microsoft Internet Explorer. That was until a friend put me onto Mozilla's Firefox browser.

At first, the change was slight and I argued on Bill's behalf. And then, I started noticing a few major differences. Apart from the tabbed browsing (which IE now have included in version 7) the number of helpful plugins was extensive, and useful. [Lifehacker have a number of reviews for these].

Furthermore, IE doesn't even conform to W3 standards making life a headache for programmers trying to make their online software work across multiple platforms.

For example, here's a screenshot of what I (and other Firefox users) see when accessing the Garden Blog Directory...

IE users don't see this. So regular visitors wouldn't know if more blogs have been added since they last dropped in - unless of course they subscribed to this feed. Here's what IE users see...

And then there's the very frustrating legend at the bottom of each map which gives a colour code for "gardening Blogs", "Landscaping Blogs" and so on. This is how it looks in Firefox...

IE users just see a list of topics with no images that makes no sense.

So, when will Mr Gates get on board with the W3 specifications and make IE a better browser? Or, does he just enjoy annoying those who have to continue programming for his low-level Internet Explorer?

Well, consider this my silent protest Mr Gates. I shall never include any IE hacks in the code that runs this directory - on principle. If everyone else in the world can aim for best practice then so can Microsoft.

Posted by Stuart at 6:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)