3 Pligg Sites That Don’t Suck
Pligg is an open source content management system that powers thousands of websites. For those who are looking to start their own social media site, Pligg is a popular option. It’s free, fairly easy to use and customize, and it’s probably the fastest way for a new social media site to launch.
Social media sites that are built with Pligg are very similar to Digg in that users submit links and other users vote on what they like and what they don’t. Most Pligg sites look very similar with little customization, and they can usually be picked out as Pligg sites right away. On the other hand, there are some Pligg sites that are much more attractive and, more importantly, they have successfully built a community and an audience around the site.
My opinion of Pligg is neither positive nor negative. I think most of the sites built on Pligg are going nowhere because of a lack of customization and a lack of a community around the site. However, Pligg gives anyone the ability to create a site that would otherwise be pretty complex.
Although it is an easy way to start a social media site, trying to directly challenge the likes of Digg is not a wise decision. Every successful social media site built on Pligg has found something unique, whether it is a specific niche audience or something else, which allows it to thrive without just being a poor Digg rip-off.
Here is a look at 3 successful social media sites that are powered by Pligg. All of them have made some changes and customizations to the basic Pligg look, and each has found an audience that is allowing the site to grow.
Sphinn
Sphinn is a highly successful niche social media site that targets the areas of internet marketing and search engine optimization. Sphinn users are very educated on these particular topics, which has really helped Sphinn to be able to create a strong community around the site. Highly-focused and informative content does well on Sphinn, and some types of content that do well on major social media websites will not do well on Sphinn.
The design of Sphinn really does not resemble the typical Pligg style. In fact, it’s very possible to visit Sphinn and not even realize that it is built on Pligg.
The key to success for Sphinn has been its strong community and the focused content that gets submitted by users. It’s connection with Search Engine Land and Danny Sullivan has also been a huge factor as it was able to gain new users very quickly. Sphinn was also aided by a recommendation from Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz.
Design Float
Design Float is a Digg-clone especially for web designers and graphic designers. The content that can be found on Design Float is much more focused than that of a general news site, but it still has a good deal of variety that touches on all aspects of design and topics that are relevant to designers.
While Design Float looks a little bit more like the typical Pligg site than Sphinn does, it has had a great deal of customization and it was even featured in a number of CSS galleries, which provided a great deal of exposure to a targeted audience of designers.
The keys to Design Floats success include an ability to send a higher number of targeted visitors than most other niche sites, as well as the initial exposure that it received from CSS galleries.
BloggingZoom
Unlike Sphinn and Design Float, BloggingZoom is more of a general news site than a niche site. It was started by Courtney Tuttle and Vic, which gave it some initial buzz and helped it to get off the ground. As a general news site BloggingZoom has a different angle for competing against major social media sites. The site is built to rank well with search engines, which will of course ultimately drive more search traffic to the links that are submitted. Part of this is a rule requires users to enter at least a 350 character description, which helps to rank well in the SERPs. BloggingZoom originally banned users from copying and pasting the description in order to avoid duplicate content penalties, but that has recently been lifted.
The design of BloggingZoom was recently changed. Although it looks less like a typical Pligg site than it did initially, the new design has received mixed reviews.
The key to BloggingZooms early success has been its focus on SEO and driving organic traffic to submissions. Although it does not yet provide the burst traffic of a major social media site, it still has significant value in that it can produce ongoing search engine traffic.
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9 Steps to Better Blog Post Ideas
Content is king. We’ve all heard that a million times and most of us have seen first hand that the content truly will make or break a blog. One of the single most powerful influences on the quality of blog content is the originality of ideas. A talented author can develop a well-written article, but if it covers a topic that’s been beaten to death it won’t make much of an impact. Likewise, an average writer can create a wildly successful blog post with the right idea.
Too many bloggers rush into writing the post and the importance of idea generation gets overlooked. Improving your idea generation skills is one of the most effective things you can do to improve your results.
Here are 9 Steps to Generating Better Ideas:
1. Make Time for It
Make idea generation one of your priorities, and recognize its influence on your success. Just like you need to set aside time for writing blog posts, you also need to designate time for developing ideas for posts. There are plenty of activities with your blog that can consume your time, but don’t do so at the expense of working on new ideas. Without leaving time for it, you’ll find yourself sitting at the computer searching for a topic to write about, and the results will suffer.
2. Have a Brainstorming Session
Rather than trying to come up with one post idea at a time as you need them, sit down and crank out as many ideas as you can. Write down all of your ideas. Many of them will not turn into anything usable, but that’s ok. Get your creative energy flowing and you’ll find yourself having more than enough great ideas to develop. Several months ago I wrote an article on brainstorming techniques for bloggers.
3. Use Mind Mapping
Mind mapping is a method of brainstorming that helps you to visualize your ideas and to build on them with other related ideas. This method can really help you to develop ideas for posts on particular subjects and topics as you can visualize all of the different aspects and you see the possibilities for useful blog posts. Darren wrote an excellent guide to mind mapping a few months ago at ProBlogger.
4. Outline Posts Before Writing Them
If you are typing your posts with little or no direction you will have disjointed articles that are less productive than they could be. I find it to be very helpful to outline every post before I actually write the content. This may require some research, depending on the topic, but it will make the writing process easier. It also helps you to identify ideas that really don’t develop into quality posts. From the outline you should have a pretty good idea of how well you can develop the post, and you’ll know pretty quickly when an idea isn’t worth the time of trying to write the full post. This way you will be spending your writing time on ideas with better potential.
5. Keep a Journal
Although it is extremely helpful to have specific time for brainstorming, you’ll still have some ideas that hit you at random times. In these situations if you do not have a journal or notebook for jotting down ideas you’ll probably forget more of them than you will remember. My notebook is one of my most valuable possessions. It has more ideas and outlines than I’ll ever have time to write. Sure, some of them are pretty bad, but whenever I need a post or whenever I have time to sit down and type, there’s always something of quality there waiting for me.
6. Take Your Ideas and Plan a Posting Schedule
I find it to be very helpful to plan out my posts a week in advance. Every weekend I’ll look through the ideas that I have been working on, and I’ll select the ones that I am going to finalize and publish during the upcoming week. This helps me to avoid last minute posts that don’t have much of a point except to get something published.
7. Don’t Publish Something Unless You Are Happy With It
If you finish a post and you feel that it doesn’t live up to your standards of quality, either keep working to improve it or just get rid of it. It’s never fun to give up on an idea that you’ve spent some time on, but that is better than publishing something that could lower your readers’ opinions of your blog.
8. Improve Your Title Writing Skills
Some bloggers start the process of writing a post by first coming up with an attention-grabbing title and then working from there to develop the content. While this may not always work, it is a different method that can help to give your writing process a spark.
The titles of your blog posts will have a huge impact on how many people actually read what you’ve written. If you’re going to spend your time researching, writing a post, and proofreading it, why just publish it with the first title that comes to mind? Coming up with the best title usually takes a few attempts, but it will be well worth your time. See Daniel’s post 3 Rules for Writing Effective Titles for a little bit of help.
9. Analyze Your Results
Part of creating posts that attract attention is knowing what types of content have worked well for you in the past. Most bloggers check their stats regularly, but often times this is not done with much detail. Have you ever gone back over several months’ worth of stats and really analyzed what types of posts consistently drew the most traffic and comments, and which other types of posts and subjects drew very little interest? When I took a more detailed look at the stats from my own blog I saw some interesting trends that I hadn’t noticed before, and that knowledge has helped me to produce ideas for posts that perform well.
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10 Signs That Your Blog Is On The Right Track
Starting a new blog or growing an existing one can certainly be frustrating, as it may seem like you are not on pace to achieve your goals. Like anything worthwhile, building a solid and effective blog will take some time and hard work. As Daniel wrote recently, it gets easier with time if you can stick with it.
I see many bloggers completely give up or seriously slow down their activity because they feel like they are not getting anywhere, when in my opinion they are on the right track.
Hopefully if you are doing the right things and making progress you will recognize your growth and accomplishments, but not all do. Here are 10 signs that your blog is on the right track. If several of these items apply to you, don’t give up just because the achievements are not coming fast enough. I think if you give it some time and continue to work, you will reach your goals in time.
1. Growing Subscriber Count
If your blog’s subscriber base is growing, even slowly, you are making some progress. Gaining trust and subscribers is not easy, so try not to get your expectations unrealistically high. If you have realistic goals for subscriber growth you will more likely be able to feel good about your progress and stay consistent with your blogging.
2. Increasing Numbers of Inbound Links
Links are important for any blog. They help with click-through traffic, search engine rankings, and recognition. For bloggers, incoming links are also representative of how well you are known in your industry and your number of links will grow as you start to become recognized as an authority.
3. Increasing Numbers of Valuable Comments
If your blog is receiving a decent amount of thought-provoking comments, that is a good sign that people are reading and paying attention to you. Comments are the lifeblood of blogs, and those that have a lot of valuable comments from readers become even more useful for readers.
4. Increasing Visitors, Pageviews, and/or Pagviews Per Visit
Many bloggers are stats junkies. While growth in traffic isn’t always representative of meeting or surpassing your blogging goals, it certainly isn’t a bad thing. Hopefully, over time your blog stats will increase as more and more readers visit and subscribe to your blog.
5. Consistent Posting
If you are posting consistently on your blog, you’re already one step ahead of the vast majority of bloggers. It sounds pretty easy, but consistent posting is a huge challenge for many. If you’re able to keep posting consistently, good things are likely to happen.
6. Improving Quality of Articles
Quality is always going to be a somewhat subjective issue, but I think most bloggers can look back through their archives and get a pretty accurate idea of how the quality has trended over time. I know that when I look back at my first few months of blog posts I’m kind of embarrassed at the low level of quality, and I don’t think I’m alone. Growth in quality is natural as you will become more knowledgeable about your topics and as you learn about blogging and writing in general. Take a look back at how your quality of writing has improved and I think you will be encouraged to keep going and see what happens.
7. An Ability to Clearly Define Your Niche
One of the most overlooked items when starting a new blog is being able to accurately define the audience that you will be targeting. As time goes by, you’ll learn what types of content your readers appreciate (and what they don’t respond to) and you’ll most likely get a better idea of where you fit into your niche. Knowing your place is very important for branding and creating a blog that is appealing to the readers that you are targeting. If you know precisely where you fit into your niche, you’re on the right track.
8. An Increasing Network of Bloggers
Networking is probably the most crucial aspect of blogging outside of content creation, and in some cases it can be even more important. If you are continually meeting new bloggers and strengthening the relationships that you have made, you will drastically be in a better position for the future. Building a network will help you to learn from others, gain valuable and loyal readers, increase inbound links, increase votes at social media sites, and much more.
9. A Knowledge of at Least 1 Specific Way to Get Targeted Readers to Your Blog
As you continue to blog, you will learn more about traffic generation and getting people to read and recognize what you have written. If you have even one specific method that consistently helps you to reach your target audience, you are better off than most bloggers. Maybe you have spent some time writing guest posts for other blogs in your niche, maybe you’ve had success with leaving intelligent and relevant comments at other blogs, or maybe you’ve developed a strong profile at a niche-specific social media website. Whatever the source is, if it is something that you can continue to use in the future, you are one step closer to blogging success.
10. Achievement of Goals
Many bloggers have long-term goals, such as making a living with a blog, or getting 10,000 subscribers. But what many bloggers lack are short-term goals that will help them to take the necessary steps towards those long-term goals. If you are setting monthly goals for blogging revenue, subscribers, traffic, etc. and you are achieving those goals, don’t give up because you are not getting to the long-term goals fast enough. Take pleasure in meeting your short-term goals and keep challenging yourself.
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Freelance Bloggers: 12 Tips to Promote Your Work With Social Media
There are growing numbers of bloggers making money by writing for other blogs. With the popularity and success of multi-authored blogs and news-related blogs, this appears to be a trend that will continue as there is a considerable need for valuable, well-written content that draws attention. As a paid writer, if the work that you produce consistently draws traffic, comments, and links, blog owners will want you to write for them. You’ll have more repeat opportunities as well as more new opportunities that find you.
Social media provides an excellent opportunity for freelance bloggers to promote their writing and draw traffic and exposure. Many paid writers assume their job is over as soon as the post is submitted. However, a little bit of extra effort to promote that post with social media could make a world of difference in the success of the post and in the amount or work that you get. Blog owners are paying for results. If you can outperform other freelance bloggers by delivering some extra traffic with social media, your services will be more complete and more effective.
Why is Social Media a Great Fit for Freelance Bloggers?
1. Portability - With social media you can build profiles on various sites that will help you with just about anything that you write. You can essentially build profiles and take them with you from job to job. Whether you write for one blog or for ten, your profiles with social media can help you to promote it all. When you start a new gig writing for a different blog, your social media profiles are ready and able to produce results right away.
2. Noticeable Results - Many blog owners that are paying writers are routinely watching stats to see which writers and which posts are producing the best results. With social media you will be able to generate enough traffic to your writing that the blog owners will take notice.
3. It’s Free - Promoting your work with social media will cost you nothing. Once you have been active, learned how the sites work, and built profiles, you can quickly promote your work at no cost.
4. Exposure - There is almost no other way to get your work in front of as large of an audience as you can with social media. If you’re using the most appropriate sites and categories to promote your work, the visitors that arrive will be fairly well targeted.
My Experience Promoting Paid Blog Posts with Social Media:
5. StumbleUpon is Key - A decent StumbleUpon profile is extremely valuable. I’m not one of the top users, but my profile is effective enough that I can submit or review one of my articles and get the ball rolling. If the article is worthy, several of my friends will wind up seeing it and giving a thumbs up or a review, leading to more traffic. StumbleUpon is also very flexible. Almost anything you produce will have a place on StumbleUpon if it is high quality. Best of all, you can start using StumbleUpon and producing results amost immediately. It’s not like Digg where you have to have a very strong profile to have a good chance at drawing traffic.
I almost never give a thumbs up to content on my primary blog, as I leave it up to readers to determine whether or not it is worthy of a stumble. However, very frequently I’ll give a thumbs up to my work on other blogs. Submitting your own content to social media can be a sticky issue for some people. I personally don’t see any problem with promoting your own work on other blogs, but I would be interested to hear your opinions on the subject. From my perspective it’s just a little something extra that I am able to provide to the blog owner that is paying me for my work.
6. Don’t Ignore Niche Sites - If you tend to cover specific topics or industries in your various projects, niche social media sites can be another great resource. While niche sites will not be able to drive as high a volume of traffic as the major social media sites, the quality of traffic will be much higher and visitors will generally be more interested.
7. Sharing Can Help - Most social media sites allow some type of functionality for sharing links with your friends. When appropraite, be willing to share your work with friends that you think will be interested. Many bloggers do this regularly for their own work, but not too many do so for their paid writing.
Some Tips for Getting Started:
8. Start with Major Sites - Unless almost all of your paid writing is highly targeted on a specific niche, general social media sites will give you the best results. Building a profile with a site like StumbleUpon will allow you to promote a higher percentage of your work. If you are just getting started, focus on what will give you the best all-around results.
9. Go for the Most Noticeable Results - One of your goals should be to create results that will get noticed by blog owers. If they notice that your work is typically bringing a lot of traffic, your work will be more valuable to them. This is another reason to focus on major social media sites. If you’re writing for a blog that draws decent traffic, the blog owner may not think very much about a niche social media site that send a few hundred visitors to one of your posts. On the other hand, a few thousand visitors from a major social media site would be very noticeable.
10. Become an Avid User - Take the time to use the social media sites that you’ve targeted on a regular basis, not just when you need to promote one of your posts. Being a strong social media user involves much more than just promoting you own work. Get to know the site and be looking for opportunities to help others as well.
11. Don’t Force It - Not every blog post will be a good fit for social media. When you write something that just isn’t likely to draw much interest from this audience, don’t force it. You’ll have better results when you stick to promoting your best work that is well-suited to social media.
12. Build a Network of Friends - Regardless of which social media site you are using, friends are a significant part of your success. Be sure to dedicate enough time and effort to build up your social media relationships. Networks of friends aren’t only important on the social media sites themselves. Many bloggers are able to help promote their work by emailing a few other blogging friends to request social media votes when they need them. Building a strong network of other bloggers can be a big help in this way. Of course, you need to be ready and willing to help others whenever you can.
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Freelance Bloggers: 12 Tips to Promote Your Work With Social Media
There are growing numbers of bloggers making money by writing for other blogs. With the popularity and success of multi-authored blogs and news-related blogs, this appears to be a trend that will continue as there is a considerable need for valuable, well-written content that draws attention. As a paid writer, if the work that you produce consistently draws traffic, comments, and links, blog owners will want you to write for them. You’ll have more repeat opportunities as well as more new opportunities that find you.
Social media provides an excellent opportunity for freelance bloggers to promote their writing and draw traffic and exposure. Many paid writers assume their job is over as soon as the post is submitted. However, a little bit of extra effort to promote that post with social media could make a world of difference in the success of the post and in the amount or work that you get. Blog owners are paying for results. If you can outperform other freelance bloggers by delivering some extra traffic with social media, your services will be more complete and more effective.
Why is Social Media a Great Fit for Freelance Bloggers?
1. Portability - With social media you can build profiles on various sites that will help you with just about anything that you write. You can essentially build profiles and take them with you from job to job. Whether you write for one blog or for ten, your profiles with social media can help you to promote it all. When you start a new gig writing for a different blog, your social media profiles are ready and able to produce results right away.
2. Noticeable Results - Many blog owners that are paying writers are routinely watching stats to see which writers and which posts are producing the best results. With social media you will be able to generate enough traffic to your writing that the blog owners will take notice.
3. It’s Free - Promoting your work with social media will cost you nothing. Once you have been active, learned how the sites work, and built profiles, you can quickly promote your work at no cost.
4. Exposure - There is almost no other way to get your work in front of as large of an audience as you can with social media. If you’re using the most appropriate sites and categories to promote your work, the visitors that arrive will be fairly well targeted.
My Experience Promoting Paid Blog Posts with Social Media:
5. StumbleUpon is Key - A decent StumbleUpon profile is extremely valuable. I’m not one of the top users, but my profile is effective enough that I can submit or review one of my articles and get the ball rolling. If the article is worthy, several of my friends will wind up seeing it and giving a thumbs up or a review, leading to more traffic. StumbleUpon is also very flexible. Almost anything you produce will have a place on StumbleUpon if it is high quality. Best of all, you can start using StumbleUpon and producing results amost immediately. It’s not like Digg where you have to have a very strong profile to have a good chance at drawing traffic.
I almost never give a thumbs up to content on my primary blog, as I leave it up to readers to determine whether or not it is worthy of a stumble. However, very frequently I’ll give a thumbs up to my work on other blogs. Submitting your own content to social media can be a sticky issue for some people. I personally don’t see any problem with promoting your own work on other blogs, but I would be interested to hear your opinions on the subject. From my perspective it’s just a little something extra that I am able to provide to the blog owner that is paying me for my work.
6. Don’t Ignore Niche Sites - If you tend to cover specific topics or industries in your various projects, niche social media sites can be another great resource. While niche sites will not be able to drive as high a volume of traffic as the major social media sites, the quality of traffic will be much higher and visitors will generally be more interested.
7. Sharing Can Help - Most social media sites allow some type of functionality for sharing links with your friends. When appropraite, be willing to share your work with friends that you think will be interested. Many bloggers do this regularly for their own work, but not too many do so for their paid writing.
Some Tips for Getting Started:
8. Start with Major Sites - Unless almost all of your paid writing is highly targeted on a specific niche, general social media sites will give you the best results. Building a profile with a site like StumbleUpon will allow you to promote a higher percentage of your work. If you are just getting started, focus on what will give you the best all-around results.
9. Go for the Most Noticeable Results - One of your goals should be to create results that will get noticed by blog owers. If they notice that your work is typically bringing a lot of traffic, your work will be more valuable to them. This is another reason to focus on major social media sites. If you’re writing for a blog that draws decent traffic, the blog owner may not think very much about a niche social media site that send a few hundred visitors to one of your posts. On the other hand, a few thousand visitors from a major social media site would be very noticeable.
10. Become an Avid User - Take the time to use the social media sites that you’ve targeted on a regular basis, not just when you need to promote one of your posts. Being a strong social media user involves much more than just promoting you own work. Get to know the site and be looking for opportunities to help others as well.
11. Don’t Force It - Not every blog post will be a good fit for social media. When you write something that just isn’t likely to draw much interest from this audience, don’t force it. You’ll have better results when you stick to promoting your best work that is well-suited to social media.
12. Build a Network of Friends - Regardless of which social media site you are using, friends are a significant part of your success. Be sure to dedicate enough time and effort to build up your social media relationships. Networks of friends aren’t only important on the social media sites themselves. Many bloggers are able to help promote their work by emailing a few other blogging friends to request social media votes when they need them. Building a strong network of other bloggers can be a big help in this way. Of course, you need to be ready and willing to help others whenever you can.
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