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By Les Scammell, December 31, 2007 1:29 pm

Welcome to the all new Radical Blog Reviews for 2008 ( I know – it is not quite 2008 yet). Each day I will publish the review of two sites. I have also created a new 2008 review catalog – Menu item 2008 B R Catolog – of course the 2007 reviews are under the heading of 2007 B R Catalog.

Please feel free to leave any comments and of course add your site to the list if you would like to be reviewed. Each week I will announce a site of the week and their banner will be placed in the top section of the right side bar. Each month I will announce a monthly winner (selected from those who link back using my button) – they will receive a one month advertising feature – top position in the right side bar.

Today’s blogs reviewed are Web Tools and Tips and Maverick – Has been & Will Always Be. I will shortly add the winner of December’s reviews and place their banner in the side bar.

I would like to take this oppotunity to thank everyone who has supported these reviews in 2007 – without the bloggers nominating their sites and providing feedback I would not have grown. I would also like to thank those who take the time to read the reviews and visit some of the blogs. That, after all, is one of the intentions of the reviews. To nominate your blog for review just leave the url and review me in the comments section.

Check back tomorrow where I will be publishing reviews for Peripheral Vision and Love Country Living.

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By Les Scammell, December 31, 2007 11:13 am

This is day two in my search for a theme. I really appreciate the comments I have received to date – not huge in number, but wow – great in quality – it is very much appreciated.

I know there are going to be areas to address when I finally select a theme – issues such as widget placement, header graphic and of course the advertisement placements. Please do keep the comments coming addressing any issue you feel needs fixing. Whichever theme I select, I will be coming back through the comments and trying to fix anything that someone has identified.

Today’s theme is called Deviant 1/3. by ‘Umair’ of hostse.com

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Anubis 1.0 by Nurudin Jauhari

Sunday’s theme

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By Les Scammell, December 30, 2007 3:37 pm

I hope I haven’t confused anyone today as I test out a few themes. I have really liked my green theme but it had one major problem – it was too slow, not only that, it loaded the sidebars first and the content last. If you have a theme that loads quickly, then it is not a problem. For a slow theme, big problem.

This week I am going to use a different theme each day until I find one that I really like – one that also says me. And you can help.

If you are in my neighborhood at any time please do comment on the theme in use on that day.  I really need feedback on how fast it loads, how easy on the eye the color scheme is and whether or not it is attractive. I also need feedback on how it looks in Internet Explorer or any other browser (I use Firefox). I am also trying to find some thing that says ‘radical blogger’ – not boring old f*** – okay I may be – but that is not the point.

At the end of the week I will collate all the feedback together with my own and decide which one I will go with. Everyone who leaves feedback will get a return visit and I will subscribe to your feed. This is not a contest. There are no prizes. I just need some help.

Today’s theme is  Anubis 1.0 by Nurudin Jauhari

thanks

Comments (7)

By Les Scammell, December 29, 2007 12:03 pm

It seems to be the trend – take a look at the year behind and look forward to the new year with dreams, aspirations and perhaps some common sense goals. I don’t know about the later, but I can certainly dream – it is about the only place where true freedom exists I think.

Whilst only three months old, I am really pleased with the progress of this blog. I have to admit the blog itself has drifted away from my original intention – but then I wonder how many blogs have stayed true to their origins – I am sure I am not the only one to start in one area and find themselves in another.

What has not worked. BlogRush of course. Digg – it just doesn’t digg me. Adsense – not enough traffic. Competitions – I think the blog community may be a little tired of them unless you can come up with something really novel. Trying to build a small community of like minded bloggers – I haven’t given up on that idea yet. Apart from the usual little bugs within some of the themes and within some of my plugins, the rest is working okay.

What has worked. BlogCatolog, MyBlogLog and StumbleUpon have all provided me with some reasonable traffic returns. My best day to date though has only been 400 visitors. I cannot complain, in only three months my unique hits are over 3200. My Alexa amazes me at only 233000 – given I only average around 150 visitors per day – they must all have the Alexa toolbar I think – if you don’t – why not get it.

Apart from pay to post, most advertising on this site has proved to be a dismal failure – this is one area that will be severly trimmed back in the new year. A new venture called Rubicon seems to be promising. One thing that has thrilled me is to see late in the year this blog appearing in the top 100 Australian Blogs – I don’t know how long it will stay there – but it is there – at 97 – now Problogger is at number one – I wonder if I can knock him out of that position by this time next year – oh well – dreams are free.

What else has worked – I guess my flagship now are my radical blog reviews and my blog review catalog. This is one area that is in for a major change – the changes will be revealed next week – Monday actually when the new radical blog reviews are born – so stay tuned. One thing that wont change is the cost of these reviews, always free, always with no reciprocal obligation – feel free to sign up for one.

My aims for 2008. Pretty high actually. By this time next year I would like to see around 750-1000 visitors every day on average. I would like to have the ‘radical blogger‘ name well known and respected. I would like to be earning a reasonable amount each month – at least enough to cover the running costs of this blog. My main ambition above all others is to two fold, first, too have the radical blog reviews respected and in demand and secondly, to build a community of small time bloggers that are able to help each other for the benefit of each other – a community that the big time bloggers cannot take over and dominate. Time will tell – desire on the part of other like minded bloggers will be the key. A lot of bloggers complain about the big timers taking over and dominating other communities, but it seems that with out their drive, these other concepts (eg EntreCard) would not take off. Little bloggers need to look at opportunities and take them – not sit back with a ‘wait and see’ approach.

Finally, I keep tweeking my blog but I have no idea how it is perceived by others so I would appreciate comments back on the look, feel and useability of my blog – without feedback I cannot improve. I know I have a minor problem with comments at present – if you get an error screen just hit your back button – your comment will be saved. I am trying to track the problem down. If you have a subscriptio, either email or RSS, can you let me know if it is working okay. If you don’t why not grab one.

Have a fabulous 2008 – let 2008 be the year of the little blogger.

cheers – the radical blogger

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By Les Scammell, December 28, 2007 9:58 pm

BlogRush arrived with much fan fare – many bloggers installed the widget and waited – and waited – and waited. Therein lay the problem. They waited, but didn’t act. BlogRush relies on bloggers checking the widget and clicking on articles of interest. The big problem is, the widget sits in the side bar and most bloggers don’t look there. They see it every day – they are blind to it.

So what about visitors. As a blogger, it is hard work getting a visitor to click on anything within your blog. The BlogRush widget has to compete with every other ad or menu item within a sidebar.

The concept of BlogRush is fairly good. Gain credits from the number of visitors with those blogs not getting huge traffic getting bonus credits. The credits are then used to display your posts on the widget in other blogs. Great concept. Evens out the playing field and gives the smaller blogger the chance to get more exposure. So why isn’t it working? See paragraphs one and two.

The real problem is very simple – incentive – or lack thereof. As there is no incentive no one bothers to even look at the widget. With poor traffic flow from the widget, more and more people are dropping out. I know from my experience I am getting about one visitor per 5000 impressions – it is just not good enough. The one saving grace are the statistics. While only simple stats, I do like the 30 day graph that shows me which days are performing well and which days are not. I know I can get those statistics elsewhere but the BlogRush widget is a quick and easy access point.

What needs to change? Somehow they need to incorporate an incentive program. Perhaps changing the bonus credits to an earn by the click system. Without an incentive to click, BlogRush is going to be crushed by the likes of EntreCard. At present, I see only a limited future for BlogRush which is a shame as the concept is quite good. RIP BlogRush.

Comments (8)

By Les Scammell, December 28, 2007 2:02 am

EntreCard is the latest mass marketing tool to enter the blogsphere. I question whether or not EntreCard is just another click traffic exchange. On first looks you would probably say yes.

The basic concept is no different to a lot of traffic exchanges. You surf to other sites receive credit that can be used to advertise your site. Not all that different to other traffic exchanges. Where EntreCard does differ is in the placement of your sites ad on another site with the hope that their visitors will visit your site. Continue reading 'Is Entre Card another traffic exchange?'»

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By Les Scammell, December 28, 2007 1:30 am

Those who have visited me regularly over the last three months will know that I keep tweeking, changing and re-tweeking my blog pages all the time. I really do like this theme, however I seem to have this fascination with taking the page to edges. I really don’t like the one inch margin that some themes have. I have been wanting to get in and see about changing it for while now. Today I did. Continue reading 'Radical Blogger gets his hands dirty'»

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By Les Scammell, December 26, 2007 10:43 pm

I don’t normally get involved with competitions. I am not the kind of person who wins them – mind you I did win one from Go! Smell the Flowers – I guess that is my win for the century. As you tour the blog universe you start to build ‘friendships’ with other bloggers. One of these bloggers is Mert Erkal from searchforblogging.com.

Mert has entered the Ruff PC Review competition and has made it into the second round. If you have a spare moment, how about dropping over to his site. Read what he has to say and if you think it worthy, put in a vote for him. While your there, check out some his articles, he has some really good ones on Wordpress, marketing and general blog improvements – all well worth a read. Good luck Mert.

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By Les Scammell, December 25, 2007 7:26 pm

I think this is every blogger’s Christmas wish – myself included. If you like my content then please do subscribe to my posts through either RSS or email – as to the clicks – well we can only dream. Have a very merry Christmas and I hope to see you all back next year. Continue reading 'Every bloggers Christmas wish'»

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By Les Scammell, December 24, 2007 8:13 pm

I read with interest the reactions and views of many bloggers in relation to Google’s apparent punishment of Pay Per Post bloggers. I must admit that Google’s own actions do puzzle me somewhat, unless of course some of the allegations about Google’s actions being directed towards the one Pay Per Post organization are true. Continue reading 'Google’s recent PPP actions questioned'»

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By Les Scammell, December 24, 2007 12:08 am

For a lot of people blogging is a hit and miss affair. They sit at their computer and start wandering. They read a couple of blogs, perhaps tour some of the social sites, they may stumble and awhile. They also write their blog, if they get time. At the end of the day they are exhausted and wonder why they are not getting much traffic. The following tips may help to organize your blogging day and help to improve the overall look and feel of your articles – and your day.

Tip 1: It should be obvious – be organized – have a set routine that also has the freedom to swap things around occasionally to avoid monotony.

Tip 2: Try not to start your day by writing a blog article. I use the following routine – it works for me – with modification to suit your style it can work for you too.

First 30 minutes – I go through some of the news sites reading about what is happening in the world.

Second 30 minutes – I go through my emails and respond where necessary. If there are on line items that I want to check, for example from a blogs subscription, I open the article in a new tab and leave it. I come back to it later. The key to this 30 minutes is to close your email client once you have finished with the emails – if you don’t you will find yourself going back every time a new email arrives.

Third 30 minutes – I read the sites I have opened – bookmark those that I want to come back to – leave comments where appropriate.

Fourth 30 minutes – I spend half an hour visiting other blogs, leaving comments where appropriate.

Fifth 30 minutes – I prepare for my article – write a draft – then I leave it.

Sixth 30 minutes – I grab a coffee and stumble.

Seventh 30 minutes – I re read my article and make any changes – that half hour break is enough to give me a different perspective when reading – it is much easier to edit then.

Eight 30 minutes – I spend this time submitting to the various sites.

Final 30 minutes – I spend this last 30 minutes reviewing my blog, checking on stats, looking at the revenue side of things, making sure it all looks tidy.

Now my work is done – its free time. I can look at PPP articles that may need writing. I can go back to my emails. I often go back to the social sites to do some networking. I can accomplish quite a lot from this point on simply because there is no pressure to do anything.

Four and a half hours is a long time and when I do blog reviews I could probably double that time. However by being organized I use my free time to leisurely look at the sites to be reviewed and write draft reviews.

Being a good blogger is not hard – being organized and systematic is.

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By Les Scammell, December 23, 2007 12:50 am

The last two articles have addressed keywords and social media. Today’s article looks at using the social media and keywords together to not only increase traffic, but too also improve your Page Rank.

Bloggers have been networking for a long time. Some bloggers have built up large blogrolls of fellow bloggers – these blogrolls are often link exchanged. Are you one of them? How big is your blogroll? Continue reading 'How to optimize for both search engine and social media pt 3'»

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By Les Scammell, December 22, 2007 10:16 am

In the last article I looked at keywords and how to manage those. Today I look at Social Media and to get the best out of them.

One of the things that many new bloggers do (me included), is try to do to much to soon. The social media landscape is a classic example. bloggers, particularly new bloggers, sign up to as many as possible. This can often be a big mistake. Social venues such as Blogcatalog, Mybloglog, Stumbleupon and others require more effort than just signing up. Continue reading 'How to optimize for both search engine and social media pt 2'»

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By Les Scammell, December 21, 2007 1:39 am

As I surf the blogosphere I read many articles related to either SEO or SMO (social media optimization). At times it seems that if you optimize one, the other suffers. If you try to optimize for both the end result is a poor compromise. I don’t believe this is true. You can optimize for both if you plan and work to that plan. Continue reading 'How to optimize for both search engine and social media'»

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By Les Scammell, December 20, 2007 10:10 am

Over the last two days I have gone from the easy – trimming graphics and reducing page lengths – to the quite difficult – editing your header and footer files. Today’s article sits somewhere in between.

The first comment on would like to make regarding any blog, no matter which platform you use, is good housekeeping. How often do you actually look at your blog and analyze what you have on screen and what you have going on behind the scenes. Continue reading 'How to optimize your WordPress and other blogs for speed – Pt 3'»