Enkay Blog

Posting Frequency & How It Can Affect Readership

If you ever wondered if posting frequency affects readership then you best believe it does. I’m not saying that if you switch from 7 days a week to 5 days a week that there will be a drastic drop, but if you start blogging every other day, there will be a change. I know that in the past 3 weeks I have had my ups and downs due to school and I realize that readership levels fluctuate greatly. Why do you think it happens, is there a reason? Lets think about a few things here:

Youre NOT Consistent!
The main reason readership fluctuates is because youre not consistent. If you think about it, I have always posted 5-6 times a week and when it drops to 2-3 times a week, it makes a major difference. Readers expect that you’d continue posting at 5-6 times a week. They want consistency.

Although, your readers understand that sometimes there are other circumstances that arise, it still results in a drop in readership. Im not saying that you can’t bring it back up again. I had recently re-invented my blog in August of this year, so it is possible. Its just that if you’re not as consistent as you used to be, you’ll see a drop in readership and visitors.

Quality/Quantity Analysis
There is a difference though, think about when you go to a blog that writes 3 quality posts a week versus a blog that writes 7 regular posts a week. I call that the quality/quantity analysis. Your readers want quality posts and if you write quality content 3 days a week instead of 7 posts a week that you can find anywhere else, the readers will take quality over quantity.

The idea is that you can get junk posts anywhere on the internet but the reason you and I pick one blog over another is because we like to read content we enjoy. We like to see a new, innovative twist on things. Everyone can write a routine post but, personality and the writers appeal makes one blog stand out from another.

It Wasn’t That Good To Begin With
Now that I’ve shown you an alternative viewpoint on how less could mean more, lets think about how many of you would actually stop reading a blog if the frequency of their posts drop. If you’re the one that says that they would stop reading a blog if the frequency of their posts drop, then the blog wasn’t worth reading in the first place. You stick around and read a blog regardless of whether their post frequency is up or down. Now, if their quality deteriorates then I can understand.

If youre willing to stop reading a blog if the number of posts they write goes down, then you didnt really like the blog that much in the first place. Its true, think about it!

Wrapping It Up
So there we have it. I wanted to talk about how consistency can affect your readership but then again, it doesn’t mean that you have to chunk out 6 so-so posts a day to retain readers, you could take the quality route versus the quantity route as I discussed. Also, I wanted to mention that if youre willing to stop reading a blog just because they don’t post as much anymore, then the blog wasn’t really as interesting to you in the first place.

I hope you enjoyed this post. I put a lot of thought into it to make it comprehensive and interesting. Hope everyone is having a great Thursday!

Why Is Twitter Important?

Lately, ive been using twitter quite a bit before class, during boring sections of class and in between classes on my ipod touch or my phone. If you’re not being stalked by me on twitter, I mean followed by me on twitter, then you need to add me so I can follow you too.

At first, I didn’t understand the concept of twitter but I think its really fun and highly useful to a blogger, not only for marketing but also communication/interaction and getting information or insight on several issues.

Marketing - if you have a new interesting post then you can always link to it on twitter to help get more attention at no cost. You can really reach out to people and twitter is a great tool to help you accomplish that. This is even useful for you to promote your ebook, contests, new blogs and products that you may be selling. Its important to know however, that marketing does not mean spamming and you can be banned from twitter and you definitely wouldnt want that.

Communication - the main reason I have started to use twitter, is because I can communicate with my followers and readers. This is a great way to interact with your readers and have one on one communication with your readers which helps improve your appeal in terms of approachability. I enjoy messaging and communicating with other bloggers because it helps me stay in touch with the news in the blogosphere. Its a great way to stay updated and its faster too!

Getting information - sometimes when you need a quick opinion or you want a restaurant suggestion then its very easy to ask your followers on twitter. For example my buddy Joe from imwithjoe.com asked this on twitter:

It makes it very easy for you to conduct short polls, get opinions or suggestions. This does require you to have a fairly large number of followers — atleast 100+ but even having that many followers doesn’t take much time and is simple to accomplish if you Sony take your eyes off the prize.

So basically, I’m starting to understand not only how convenient twitter is but how useful it can be if applied for the right purpose. I hope you liked this post and if you aren’t following me on twitter then you should definitely get on board and follow me by clicking here. Stay tuned for the next post tomorrow! Happy Wednesday!

Making Money with Affiliate Marketing

Before I begin speaking about how you can make money with affiliate marketing I wanted to let you know about the contest. Ive gotten a few entries into the contest so Im going to try to put up a leader board every so often to keep you updated about the contest results. If you haven’t entered the contest yet, go here for more details.

Now lets talk about Affiliate Marketing. Here are a few tips to help you out

1) Finding The Right Marketing - There are many ways you can market the offers that you select to promote. You can use Facebook, Myspace, Google Adwords, etc. among many others. The idea is that some promotional methods may be better than others. You could have a really well established email list that you could use or choose between the advertising mediums I’ve mentioned. Its all about picking the right method.

2) Picking The Right Offers - Some people get caught up in CPA but instead pick the offers that you think will work the best or will sell the best based on the target demographic or your email list. You need to pick offers that will sell the best so, for example, if you are advertising on Facebook you have to realize that the biggest demographic is between ages 16-25 and so you would have to pick offers to sell to that demographic so you would pick offers like student loans over offers for better insurance.

3) Dont Be Skeptical/Afraid - The reason why most people dont really take to affiliate marketing that quickly is because theres a financial input required and some people are not ready to take on that risk. There will be a post tomorrow about how you can get some free credits to try out different publishing networks such as Facebook, Adwords, etc. For those of you who want to give it a try or are unsure of how it works and just want to get some hands on experience then experiment with a small amount of money just to get a feel of things. Its sort of like investing your money, you win some and you can lose some but one you know the formula then all you’ll be doing is winning, so dont be afraid to spend a little.

So hopefully this post gives you a little help regarding affiliate marketing. I’ll have a post tomorrow about different coupons for ad publishing networks so that you can get a head start on your affiliate marketing career. Anyway, hope you guys have a good weekend and I’ll post for you tomorrow!

The Importance of the Affiliate / Affiliate Manager Relationship

This is a guest post made by my affiliate manager at Market Leverage, Mike Kelly. If you haven’t signed up for Market Leverage yet, then do so now and enter the contest to win some great prizes.

Having worked for MarketLeverage for nearly three years as an Affiliate Manager, I have experienced many different types of relationships with my affiliates. I think these relationships are best categorized as follows: little to no communication, small to medium amounts of communication, and those that keep constant communication. I have found that having frequent, relevant communication with my affiliates has contributed greatly to both their success as an Affiliate Marketer and my success as an Affiliate Manager. There are several reasons why I think it can be very beneficial for you, an affiliate, to maintain open, honest, and frequent communication with your Affiliate Managers.

Ultimately, your goal should be to form a true partnership with your Affiliate Manager. I think it’s helpful when a mutual sharing of goals, direction, and ongoing achievements takes place. Remember, Affiliate Managers only make money when you do, so they are there to help you! As you may already know, email and IM typically comprise the primary means of communication in our industry. While nothing beats these tools in terms of raw efficiency, I don’t like the ‘disconnect’ that sometimes results from an email only exchange. Try using the phone! Hopping on the phone not only provides an additional medium to communicate, but it also opens up a whole new side to your relationship. You can feel the emotion, you can hear it, and you don’t have to try to interpret the emotion like you do in typed conversation.

Talking to your Affiliate Manager gives you a real sense of where he or she is coming from, and in return, you can give them a real sense of where you want to go with the relationship. I recommend setting up a weekly or semi-monthly call with them to touch base, find out which offers are hot, or just to check in on the offers coming down the pipeline. You don’t have to make a thirty-minute call out of it. Even a quick call to check in has proven to be extremely beneficial.

Keeping constant communication with your Affiliate manager helps in many ways. You can get the inside scoop on offers and find out which are the hottest niches on the network. You can also gain on offers from the network’s vantage and find out which creative combinations are working the best! If these benefits haven’t convinced you to be in regular contact, what about the possibility of getting the first shot at new offers, sometimes before they even go live on the network? You get the competitive advantage, all because you know your Affiliate Manager! If anything ever comes up where you need their help, you know how to get a hold of them. You may need their help in getting something approved, or ideas on a new site to promote, or new keywords to bid on, and they’ll be there for you!

I know that we are all busy but I highly recommend taking the time to build a strong working relationship with your Affiliate Managers. Maintain efficient, but constant communication with them, and they will help your bottom line in return. After all, that’s what it’s all about, right? Oh yeah, and don’t be afraid to pick up those phones!

Weekly Update - October 28th

So, I have to apologize and let you know ahead of time that this week might be a little slow because I have a lot going on in terms of school but I’ll try to post as often as I can. First off, as promised, there will be a surprise the beginning of next month. This was something that was in the works but its in the process of being finalized. So that should be some good news.

If You Win, Reply!
The winner of my ebook contest never replied so David, the runner up, actually got sent the iPod today in the mail! This is why you should always check your email, you may miss out on some exciting news and free stuff too!

Welcoming My New Advertisers
If you haven’t noticed, I have almost sold out all my ad spots which is great news for the blog. I wanted to welcome the two new advertisers before I go into the weekly update for today. So, say hello to Thousand Dollar Profits & Andrea from According to Andrea!

      

Weekly Link Love

1) Suite J - Suite J talks about how the things on your desk relates to your personality. I think mines more of a control freak and a show-off type of thing. See where you fit in!

2) Franklin Bishop - Franklin discusses how to build a community on your blog which is very important for you to be able to sustain your blog. It should feel like a community in order for comments and interaction to take place. Its a great post that you should check out.

3) WebTrafficROI - WebTrafficROI talks about why they love twitter and why you should too. Twitter is a great tool that can really help you out in the long run so if you don’t know how it can benefit you, this list can help you realize that.

4) RomanDock Dot Com - Nick discusses how bloggers are getting their hands in the cookie jar. Its an analogy for how bloggers that are growing tremendously are not appreciative enough of their readers and what they should do and think about in order to maintain the one-to-one relationship with their readers.

5) Bruno Auger - Bruno discusses what SEO is and the importance of SEO which stands for search engine optimization. This can really help boost where you place in search engine rankings and this is a great post to help you realize what it really means and entails.

Well, thats the weekly link round up! Thanks for stopping by and once again, apologies for having a slow upcoming week but I promise to make it up to you guys. Have a great week ahead!