As of today, I have posted to this blog 821 days in a row – every day since September 1st of 2008.
Today is my 1000th post since launching this blog on September 4, 2006.
First Blog Post 09-04-2006
If you don’t blog or haven’t blogged consistently, I highly recommend it.
“Stick to it steadily and you will see great effect.” Benjamin Franklin
I have put Mr. Franklin’s assertion to the test and I can confirm doing as he suggests will produce the results promised.
Who invented the Lemonade Stand?
Lemonade Stand
Well it doesn’t exist yet, but should – Google’s answer to TinyURL.com – the Google URL shortener.
Why should Google enter the URL shortening business?
I think a better question is: “Why not?’
If anyone could and should be in the url shortening business its Google.
Having a shortened url under a custom domain extension like .Google (dot.Google – custom brand name domain extensions will become available next year) would create more visitor traffic and page views which in turn would create more advertising inventory for Google to offer to Adwords advertisers.
Making the new Google’s shortened url service available to Blogger accounts would be a good place to start.
As it stands now, everytime a Blogger account holder wants to share their blog post, Google’s Blogger service generates a rather lengthy and unwieldy Google domain address.
Google Blogger Follow Share
Assuming the blog’s title is more than a single word, this renders most Official Google blog posts incapable of being shared directly with Twitter because of Twitter’s 140 character limit.
Share This Post
More often than not, Google Blogger account posts’ title and domain addresses far exceed the 140 characters available for sharing a blog post directly with Twitter.
Thus, the Google domain address has to be shortened which is an inconvenience to say the least.
Google then shortens their domain’s address to one other than the Google’s brand – the Bit.ly brand.
Share Blogger With Twitter
This process then requires opening a new browser window, copying and pasting the Blogger address into Bit.ly – what a pain in the browser!
Bit.ly is a great service but there is no reason why Google couldn’t make this whole process several steps shorter while retaining a bunch of traffic that was their’s to begin with.
To take this a step further – why doesn’t Google just co-opt the best form and functionality the url shortening industry has to offer and then distribute its shiny new TinyURL shortening service to all Google account holders through their Google Accounts dashboards?
Google Accounts URL Shortener
Between offering the new Google url shortening service to Blogger and Google Account holders, Google would surely realize the birth of a signicant new traffic generating property – the shortened Google URL.
When I launched my first website back in 1999 – blogs didn’t exist.
To get my site MarketingPrincples.com launched, I had to use ad agency designers who knew how to write code which in turn published my content on the nascent world wide web.
After my site launched, I realized I needed to make some content changes.
Because blogging platforms didn’t exist and I hadn’t bought the code they had used to develop my site, the designers initially charged me $100 for each change I wanted to make to my site.
Outrageous!
I quickly set out to find my own web developers who could build my own content management system.
While giving a presentation at a local university’s engineering college, some young guys came up and said they would be interested in working with me.
I agreed to give them a shot.
They built me a content management system in .ASP where I could upload and control my own content without any ongoing costs.
Off to the races I went.
Little did I know at that time nor did it occur to me that the idea of a back end content management system would be something other businesses would want.
Nor did I foresee that content management would ultimately become known in general as blogs and blogging.
If I had, I guess I would be on the other side of this post founding and running WordPress.com not my consulting practice.
Anyway in the early days of the internet, the content platform providers all suggested bloggers just sit down and blog every day for a year to generate their own unique set of pages and content.
Well – 10 years later I have done it.
I have blogged here every single day for the last 365 days over a period of exactly one year beginning on September 1, 2008.
I have learned a lot and will write more about what the experience has taught me – tomorrow.
On January 28, 2009 I moved my several year old blog to a new domain while still hosting the site at WordPress.
In addition to the blog no longer being picked up by Google blog search or Technorati, the new domain hasn’t had any new posts crawled or indexed by Google since switching domains.
Google Search Marketing Communications
I verified the site with Google as suggested several weeks ago yet still no luck.
On the other hand, I haven’t verified the new domain with Yahoo or Microsoft Live.
Yahoo Search Marketing Communications
Yet both Yahoo and Live are crawling and indexing my new blog domain address hosted at WordPress.com.
Live Search Marketing Communications
What gives?
This blog: Search Marketing Communications generated its third highest month in terms of traffic during November 2008 with 9,179 views.
Previously, this WordPress blog’s highest trafficked month was September 2008 with 22,897 views.
Roughly 40% as many views occurred during November 2008 as compared with September 2008, however combined traffic totals from September, October and November 2008 have generated 43,740 views – or slightly over 45% of all blog traffic received since inception.
By the end of November 2008, cohn.wordpress.com had been viewed 95,839 times since its launch in September 2006.
In its first month of existence this blog had 1,593 total views.
November 2008 traffic was approximately 6 times greater than September 2006 traffic.
Few people subscribe to this blog, thus the vast majority (an estimated 99% or greater) found this blog through some type of search query, which is why this blog is titled:
“Search Marketing Communications”
Search Traffic November 2008
Third Largest Month Blog Search Traffic: 9,179 Views
November 2008 Total Blog Traffic
Total Search Traffic November 2008
This blog: Search Marketing Communications generated its second highest month in terms of traffic during October 2008 with 11,664 views.
Previously, this WordPress blog’s highest trafficked month was September 2008 with 22,897 views.
Roughly half as many views occurred during October 2008 as compared with September 2008, however combined traffic totals from these two months alone have generated 34,561 views – slightly over 1/3 of all blog traffic received since inception.
By the end of October 2008, cohn.wordpress.com had been viewed 86,750 times since its launch in September 2006.
In its first month of existence this blog had 1,593 total views.
October 2008 traffic was 7 times greater than September 2006 traffic.
Few people subscribe to this blog, thus the vast majority (an estimated 99% or greater) found this blog through some type of search query, which is why this blog is titled:
“Search Marketing Communications”
Search Traffic October 2008
Second Largest Month Blog Search Traffic: 11,664 Views
October 2008 Total Blog Traffic
Total Search Traffic October 2008
I recently noticed WordPress.com hosted blogs started displaying three to four links to “possibly related posts” WordPress has deemed related to their hosted page’s content.
Usually the first link is pointed to somewhere else within the same blog while the balance of the links are then distributed to other blogs which more often than not appear to be other WordPress blogs.
I have been watching my referrals and haven’t noticed hardly any new traffic coming in from other WordPress blogs but I have noticed my search related referrals have dropped by nearly a factor of 10.
My drop in search traffic appears to coincide with the launch of the WordPress “possibly related posts” automatic link generator.
If I were to to guess why my search traffic dried up I would guess it is because my blog posts that had enjoyed near constant search positions have been devalued vis-a-vis the links WordPress has now inserted in all of my pages.
WordPress blog comments automatically receive the “No follow” link attribute so as to not unnecessarily pass site value to spammers so why does WordPress think they can rob all of their bloggers of the value each one has built in their blog by redistributing their sites search value to other blogs – especially other WordPress blogs?
Regardless of whether my search engine traffic dropped because of the addition of the “Possibly Related Posts” links now being generated by WordPress, WordPress.com should add the “No Follow” attribute to their “Possibly Related Posts” link scheme to preserve the continued good will of the bloggers who’s content produces WordPress traffic.
A single article on Google Trends single-handedly lifted this blog to both the Hot Blogs and Hot Posts columns on the WordPress.com home page today May 23, 2007.
What goes up must come down?
BusinessWeek Testing Google Voice Call Me Voice Comments
November 23, 2009Clicking through to a BusinessWeek article today, I noticed what I thought was an ad for Google Voice.
Call Me Google
After closer inspection, I realized BusinessWeek is testing a “voice comments” feature for their Byte of the Apple column.
When I first saw the ad, I had no idea what it offered. Even after several minutes of playing around with it and clicking on the learn more link did I realize the BusinessWeek page had refreshed with the following explanation page:
Understanding what the ad offered, I then gave it a try.
I entered my Google Voice telephone number in the fields provided and clicked Connect.
Connect Call
Within a second or two of clicking connect, I reached a voice mail box where I heard Arik Hesseldahl of BusinessWeek explain why they are testing the Google Voice product.
I was then urged to leave my comments about their Byte of the Apple column.
This is the first time I have noticed a website of any kind incorporate voice commenting into their user engagement mix.
Although I don’t have any comments about their Apple column per se, I do have one question about the Call Me Google Voice messaging product: When can I get a Call Me Google plugin for my WordPress blog?
Isn’t this type of audience interactivity something every publisher would want for their website?
Tags:Arik Hesseldahl, BusinessWeek, Byte of the Apple, Google Voice Call Me, User Engagement, Voice Commenting, Voice Comments, Wordpress Blogs
Posted in Arik Hesseldahl, Blog, BusinessWeek Blog, Byte of the Apple, Google Voice Call Me, User Engagement, Voice Commenting, Voice Comments, Wordpress | 1 Comment »