The Computer Zone

Lately I haven’t been entering many Blog Contests, but today I decided that I would since I really really want to win the prize.  My Blog Contests are holding a contest to generate buzz about their new toolbar, which has the following features

Current Features :

• Direct Contests search from your toolbar
• Fresh Contests via our RSS Feed
• Chat with fellow readers (and of course with me) just via the Toolbar
• Quick Links to all the categories here at My Blog Contests
• Submit Contests / Contact me directly from the toolbar
• Other Cool Gadgets that will come in handy often

I personally haven’t tried it out yet but I’m going to install it soon.  The prize for this contest is an awesome little ring-type finger tip usb optical mouse.  It looks kind of like a gimmick but I really want to try it.  To see the details of the contest go here.

As you may or may not have noticed there has been a few changes here at The Computer Zone, the biggest of which is the 4 shiny 125×125 ad spaces on the left hand side. I’ve finally decided to try to monetize this site since I’ve put so much work in to it.

Currently there are a few different advertising options available and they all offer something a bit different. However, the first question advertisers often have is about the size of the audience their ad will appear to.

Links to the site: 1,765 (reported by Yahoo!)
Average number of Visitors: 4,000 / month
Average number of Pageviews: 6,500 / month
Average number of RSS subscribers: 46
Estimated PageRank: 4
Audience: Bloggers, Web Developers, Programmers

Site Wide Ad Block
The first advertising option is to purchase one of the 125 x 125 ad blocks on the left hand side of the blog. There are currently 4 spots available although more may be added in the future. Payment will be due prior to the ad being placed on the site. The ad will run for exactly one month starting from the beginning of next month (so if you buy in the middle of the month the actual time won’t start until the start of next month). You have to supply the image for this option.
Price: $20 per month

Sponsored Post
The next option available is to sponsor a post. A sponsored post will be at least 300 words in length and will become a permanent addition to the site’s content. The post will be exclusively about your chosen topic (your site, product, service, etc.) and discuss the features as well as my opinions and impressions. The review may not be a positive review of any site or product, however, I will guarantee that I give my honest opinion in each and every post, just like every other post that appears on this site. Advertisers can also choose up to three different links as well as the anchor text for those links. Sponsored posts will be completed no later than 7 days after receipt of payment.
Price: $50 per post (Have the price you’d pay from Sponsored Reviews)

Sidebar Links
The final option available is to get a link on the sidebar. These links will be located underneath the categories and will be site wide. Same as the ad blocks, these links will run for exactly one month starting from the beginning of next month (so if you buy in the middle of the month the actual time won’t start until the start of next month).
Price: $5 per month

The links will NOT include rel=”nofollow” tags. If you are interested in pursuing and of these advertising options, please send an email to adam[at]thecompzone.com. Please include the URL of the site or product you wish to advertise. I’ll get back to you as quickly as I can.

Recently I’ve talked about ways to encourage commenting on your blog, five things every blogger should keep near their desk, tips to increase your feed numbers and the key to a good post. Today I’m not going to talk about how you can improve your writing skills or give you a sure fire way to increase the number of comments you receive. Today I’m going to talk about when you should release your posts.

This may seem like a strange topic to some but I find it very interesting. When I was talking with Darren from Problogger during his impromptu video session I asked him when he released his posts and why. His answer was quite simple, he releases his best posts around 6:00 EST time and then subsequently releases his other posts later on in the day. But the main question I’d like to answer today is ‘When should YOU release your posts?’

Have a consistent posting time
One thing that I really enjoy from a lot of blogs that I subscribe to is their consistent posting schedule. A lot of blogs will pick a specific time during the day and release an article every day (or every few days) at that specific time. I think this helps your blog out in a number of ways. The first way is that if people know you post at a certain time every day, they’ll come visit your site in anticipation to that post.

The second way that posting consistently helps is that it’ll help you build your reputation as a blogger. If you post every day at noon people will know that you’re very serious about blogging. A quote from RomanceTracker “a bad blogging reputation can follow you around for years”. Posting consistently is almost a must if you want to grow your reputation.

So when should you post?
When you post is really up to you and your niche. If you’re trying to blog to business people you should release your best posts when you think they’ll read it. Lets say the average business person wakes up at 6am, turns on his computer and looks at his feeds by 6:30am and then leaves for work. You’re going to want to release your posts so that they’re awaiting that person when they wake up. Ben over at BloggingExperiment says that you should post when it’s ideal for your visitors. Release your posts when you think your audience is listening.

What if the posts aren’t ready?
I’ve seen a few people that have released posts a little quick and then gone later and edited them. I would have to say that this method is not a great one to follow. If you release a post that is only 70% done, your readers are going to see this and see that you don’t put 100% effort into everything you do. Make sure your posts are ready to be released before you release them. If you release them too early you could loose your readers and this isn’t what you want. It’s better to post a little later than normal and have the post 100% done than having the post only 70% done but staying consistent.

Final Thoughts
Choosing when to release your posts is really important in capturing your audience. Research the readers in your niche and figure out what time is best to post. If a really popular blog posts at a certain time, maybe you should too. Posting consistently is an excellent way to increase your readership and your reputation as a blogger, however, make sure to finish your work before you post. Release posts that aren’t totally complete is a great way to loose you’re readers.

If you guys have anything to add to this list or think a few of my points are waaay off feel free to spill your thoughts in the comments below.

One thing that separates probloggers from amateurs is the number of comments they get on their blogs. Last night Darren Rowse from Problogger.net held a short (2 hours) video session where bloggers got to ask him questions and he talked about blogging in general. One thing that Darren said was that Problogger.net received an average for 30 comments per post with some having over 100. Why should you even care about comments on your blog? How do you get people to comment more on your blog?

One of the best ways to find out if your blog is being read is to look at the level of comments. Are people interacting on your site? Are they participating with your content or are they just moving on? The comment level on this blog seems to depend heavily on the type of article, overall I’m fairly happy with the number of comments. However, if you’re not satisfied with the current number of comments on your blog, here are a few ways to Encourage Comments on your Blog.

1. Leave your posts unfinished

When Darren first mentioned this I was quite puzzled. I thought leaving a post unfinished meant writing half and then not finishing it. When Darren explained what he actually meant I saw how this would help. Leaving your posts unfinished doesn’t mean writing half and not actually writing the rest of it, it means not covering everything you possibly could.

Lets say you were writing a post about “What to do with your old computer“, if you were to list 100 things then there wouldn’t be much room for your readers to add something. Instead of writing such a full post leave some of the obvious answers out so your readers can put in their own responses.

2. Ask questions in your post

Asking questions in your post is a great way to get comments. If your readers have a response to one of your questions they’re more likely to comment. The questions don’t have to be meaningful or indepth they can even be as simple as “What do you think?” or “If I missed anything, let me know”. Asking questions is kind of like point #1, it gives your readers an easy way to comment on your blogs.

3. Reward your commentators

Every month Connor Wilson rewards his top commentators with a post that mentions each one of them and gives them a link back to their websites. If you’re readers know you do this then they’ll be more willing to comment because they get something out of it. As Ben from Blogging Experiment puts it “If there’s a benefit to the action, people are a lot more likely to do it.”

4. Respond to the comments

This one should be fairly straight forward. If someone leaves a comment on your blog respond to it. Thank them for their comment, respond to any questions they might have and continue on the discussion. If they disagree with of your points you could clarify your thoughts or, if their right, agree with them. A more selfish reason for responding to your readers comments is because it adds to your comment count. If you respond to everyones comment you’ve just doubled the number of comments on your blog. While some people don’t agree with this point it definitely can help get more comments.

While writing this I realized that I haven’t followed all of these points. My goal for the following weeks is to try and practice what I preach. From this month on I’m going to write a post at the end of the month thanking my top commentators. I’m also going to respond to comments and ask for them in my posts.

If you have any suggestions on to attract more comments, let me know in the comments below.

Whether your a professional blogger or just a guy talking about his pets, every blogger out there strives for one thing: success. Sometimes you find success by getting lucky, maybe one of your stories caught on and because of that you now receive thousands of visitors daily. Most likely however, is that you became successful because you write great content.

Writing articles and posts is fairly easy, you string together a bunch of words around a topic that you wish to write about and then you hit the “post” button and hope your readers like it. People who write great stuff (that other people read on a constant basis) try a lot harder when they release their articles. Here are five things that’ll help you turn your mediocre material into great material.

A Dictionary/Thesaurus
Yes I know, most text editors now come with a built in dictionary and some even come with a thesaurus so I’m sure your wondering why you need to lug around a heavy paper one. The reason for this is it gives you more credibility. If you’re quoting what certain words mean having a paper dictionary as a reference goes a lot further than an online one. People still trust paper references more than online references and it doesn’t look like its going to change. Besides, having one sitting on your desk makes you look smart to anyone that walks in.

A Book of Quotations
Did you know that Judith Krantz, a successful article writer and novelist, said that to be successful in journalism you need to “Work regular hours, as if you were being monitored by a time clock”. Having a book of quotations that relate to your niche can bring credibility to your writing. It makes you look like you know a lot even if you don’t. Writing quotes can also add words to your articles. I know that sounds bad but if you’re writing something and can’t seem to fill up the pages, adding a long quote can help fill the void.

A Computer
In todays digital world a computer is the main way you’re going to get your articles read. Back in the day you’d write the articles out by hand or type them up on a typewriter and hand them to an editor. Now you can publish your own articles to your website or another that you work for. If you’re into webdesign you might even want to have more than one computer. Darren over at Problogger told us about his blogger office earlier this year and its quite impressive. I personally use my laptop to write all of my articles.

Books About Writing Articles
One of the biggest resources that I use is a couple of books that I own about article writing. When I get stuck on an idea they help me out enormously. Having a few resources around the house that relate to article writing can never hurt. They can help you with your style of writing and they can help you with ideas for writing. One thing that all probloggers can do is write well. This comes with experience but I’m sure at one point or another all of them have looked at a book about writing. New bloggers, who don’t have a background in English, would benefit greatly from having a few books about writing articles laying around their house.

Blogging Business Cards
This one is going to sound a little strange but every blogger should have a set of business cards with their name and logo on it. Now I’m sure your wondering why and it’s fairly simple: advertising. Most bloggers only think about advertising their site on the internet, whether it be through commenting or paying for an ad space. Many bloggers however, do not realize that there’s a totally different market that’s not online. If you carry around a business card with you and hand it out every time you meet someone, its a great way to get your blog noticed. VistaPrint is currently giving away 250 free cards (all you have to pay is shipping), so I’d advise that you go over there and get your free blogger business cards.

These are a few of the things that every blogger should have near their desk. I feel that all of them can help you with your blog and most will help with your writing style. Online resources such as other blogs and other things can help you improve your blogging skills.

Every day my RSS numbers fluctuate plus or minus 10 readers every single day. On the weekends the numbers generally go down a lot but during the week it’s really anyones guess as to what the number will be. In general my number of readers is an upward trend but day to day it’s extremely hilly. The real question is, why are the changes in RSS numbers so drastic? Hopefully this article will explain it a little better.

Different type of readers
Feedburner tracks subscribers in two ways. The first are readers that directly access a feed from a standalone feed reader or a web-based feed reader. The second are readers that access feeds through email (if you’ve set it up). Feedburner can have an accurate count of how many direct feed accesses there were in a day but they have to rely solely on numbers reported by various web-based readers as to how many of their users subscribe to a particular feed. Email subscriptions are counted until the user unsubscribes.

Direct Feed Fluctuations
Users that access your feed directly (through a mail client or live bookmarks) will only count as a Feedburner hit if they actually fetched your feed that day. If they had left their computer off or did not open that application on that particular day, they will not be counted as a reader!

Web-based Feed Reader Fluctuations
Errors in subscriber numbers can also occur when web-based readers incorrectly report their subscriber numbers or when they don’t report subscribers altogether. Earlier this month there was a day where Google Reader did not report their subscribers and blog owners around the blogosphere panicked because their RSS numbers dropped 10-50% over night. John Chow talks here about how he lost 4993 RSS subscribers overnight.

Email Subscribers
The good thing about Feedburner and email subscribers is that their numbers are counted continuously whether or not they read the feed in any given day. Only once the reader unsubscribes to your feed does the count actually represent this. John used this to his advantage in his RSS competition against Shoemoney.

Conclusion
If you notice your feed going down over the weekends, don’t worry because it’s probably one of the reasons above. It is better to look at the general trend of RSS readership to get a good idea of how you’re doing. As long as your trend is upward that means in general your reader base is growing, and thats a good thing!

Have you guys ever noticed a large change in your RSS numbers?  What do you to to increase your number?

Earlier this week I talked about the release of RealSSD from micron. Today I found a video of a side by side comparison between boot up speeds between a laptop using a solid state drive and a laptop using a hard drive. The results are amazing.

The solid state drive boots up 12 seconds quicker than the hard drive. While this isn’t an extremely large difference, if you continuously boot up your laptop it might be worth the $1000 premium to get the solid state drive. I until the price drops and the capacity rises I’ll be holding off purchasing one of these drives.