Note: Yesterday I wrote about using press releases as a promotional tool. After much thought, I decided to put a press release together to see if it will actually draw readers to this site.

I will post updates on the efficacy of this method.

As I’ve said before, looking at your log files (or statistics reports for those using free blogging services) can give you a good snapshot of how people are finding and using your site. The referring site statistics are the most important to me when attempting to learn how to promote a blog.

Though some referring sites are simply ‘bots’, hoping you’ll go to their site, the majority of sites listed are legitimately funneling traffic to your site. These are sites that have linked to your blog, and their readers have clicked on the link.

Q: How does this help promote your site?

A: It tells you where the readers are.

If someone comes to your site from a related blog, it can be caused by two things:

1. They didn’t find what they were looking for on the referring site- This happens when a reader is on Blog A, and is hoping to find an answer to a question. They can’t find it, so they decide to go somewhere else. And since Blog A has a link to your blog, they decide to give it a try.

This case is unique in that you’ve already got a frustrated reader. They weren’t able to get what they wanted on the first try. But if you have what they’re looking for, you’ll have a relieved, happy reader.

2. They liked what they were reading and are hungry for more- This happens a lot on blogs. When a reader finds a blog they like, they’ll often look to that blog’s links. They do this under the assumption that the blog they like will probably link to similar blogs.

So how do I use this information?
First, if you find a similar blog that is bringing you readers, link to that blog. If your readers fit into #2 above, they will check out the blogs you link to. It will provide your readers with another valuable service.

Second, if you’re getting traffic from a blog that has linked to you just once in a post, you may want to ask for a permanent link. I’ve received good traffic from sites that have just mentioned the site in passing. But when the link becomes buried in an archive, the traffic goes away. If the site had given me a link in their “Blogroll”, I would have a much greater chance at getting consistent traffic.

Finally, looking at your referring sites can make you aware of sites that you didn’t know existed. If you find blogs that provide complimentary content (aka not competing blogs), you can explore partnership opportunities.

Have a great weekend, and happy blawgging!

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Every morning I have a regular routine. As soon as I’ve fired up my computer and am properly caffeinated, I check the news online. I usually look to see if I can find any stories related to law and blogging. I want to see if I can find any current or recent cases involving a blogger being fired, being sued, etc.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve seen quite a few press releases announcing a new blawg. In fact, today I saw a release for a “New Divorce & Family Law Blog”. It’s interesting to me that law firms are sending out press releases for their blawgs. It makes sense, of course, as many blawgers are trying to position themselves as experts in their particular practice area. What better way than to announce to the world (potentially): “Hey, I have this blog, and I’m an expert. Come check it out, and if you have any questions, ask me.”

But I am curious as to where these press releases end up. Though there are some low-to-no cost press release services available, many press releases cost some money. But do media outlets actually pick up on the releases and investigate, or do the releases just disappear into space? It seems like a press release, in many cases, is simply an acceptible way to spam the world.

I don’t mean “spam” in the strictest of senses. I just mean that by sending out a press release, companies are trying to communicate a message to the broadest of audiences regardless of industry or interest. So are press releases effective for promoting a blawg? I don’t know the answer to that. Maybe that would be a good experiment.

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One of the blogging issues that I continue to see deals with inaccurate/defamatory statements on blogs. The question is: If you (or a client you represent) post inaccurate statements in a blog, what is the precedent for responsibility?

Case One: The NYC Mayorial Race

In NY City, there is a story involving Mayor Bloomberg and Fernando Ferrer, the Democratic Candidate for Mayor. Bloomberg’s team is accusing Ferrer of either posting lies on his blog, or lying about who is the auther of his blog.

In his blog, Ferrer states that he “was born in the South Bronx and educated in public schools for most of my education.” But Ferrer wasn’t….he was educated in Catholic schools.

Bloomberg’s campaign jumped on the issue, saying:

“I think the Bronx Borough President is allergic to the truth. He says that subway crime is up when it’s down, he says test scores are down in our schools when they’re up and now he’s trying to rewrite his own record.”

Ferrer’s campaign manager attributed the false statement to an inaccuracy in editing the blog.

So now the question is: does Ferrer “write his own blog”, or was he lying?

All politics aside, this is a good example of the fallout that can arise from just a small inaccuracy in a blog.

Case Two: Suicide Girls
In Wired today, there is a story about angry ex-models from the site “Suicide Girls”, who have begun anti-suicide girls blogs.

SuicideGirls is a site that shows adult content, specifically tattooed and pierced women. The site has built a reputation for being women-friendly, and some even say it is “feminist porn”.
However, in recent weeks, around 30 (according to the Wired article) models have quit in disgust. The ex-models have been denying the empowerment claim, saying that the site is run by a man (Suicide Girls claims they are a company run by women and the site administered by women) who treats women badly and does not pay them enough.

The company denies the claim and holds the position that a minority of ex-models are simply spreading lies in their blogs.

Case Three: Traffic-Power.com vs. TrafficPowerSucks.com and SEOBook.com
Traffic-Power.com is a Las Vegas search engine positioning firm. Aaron Wall, who runs the blog SEOBook.com, posted negative comments about Traffic-Power.com in his blog.

Readers of Wall’s blog began adding their own comments attacking Traffic-Power.com. Wall then received a cease and desist order from an attorney demanding he remove all information related to Traffic-Power.com. The attorney then filed suit in Nevada court for defamation and theft of trade secrets against the blogger.

Conclusion:
Blogging is much more informal and personal than traditional web sites. Due to this, many bloggers see posting as a conversation between friends. How will bloggers find the line between chatting with a friend and writing defamatory statements? And who will define this line?

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This will have to be a very brief post, as I can’t see very well today. I have an eye infection and don’t have any glasses, so until tomorrow I have to keep my right eye closed to be able to read the screen.

Free Services
I consider free blogging services (example: blogger) “gateway blogs”. They are great for people that are just starting to blog, but once someone gets really excited about blogging, they will almost always need to move on to another package. In this short post, I’ll be using Blogger and WordPress as examples.

WordPress is a free software program that sits on a web server, whereas Blogger is a free services that is hosted elsewhere. To use WordPress, you’ll need a web host. With Blogger, you do not.

Whenever someone asks me about getting started, I always suggest using blogger. This way, they can get used to posting without having to pay anything. And if they decide blogging isn’t something they are interested in, they can just stop, without putting money into a blog.

And when someone picks up steam and gets serious about their blog, they’ll notice that there are some shortcomings to blogger.

Problem 1: No categories
Blogger does not allow you to create categories in which to organize your entries. This creates a twofold issue.

First, once you’ve amassed a significant amount of posts, you’ll want to be able to organize posts in a way that your readers will find intuitive. Think of your first time readers who have stumbled onto your blog. They are at your site, and hopefully they are enjoying your content and want to read more. The goal is to make all of your content accessible and easy to navigate.

Second, having categories gives your blawg a huge boost in Technorati. Since technorati has the ability to index blog posts using “Tags” that correspond to your categories, not having categories takes away that advantage.

Problem 2: Customization
Though Blogger gives it’s users the ability to change their templates, there is a limit to what’s customizable. Since it’s a free service, you are limited to what Blogger lets you tweak.

WordPress has hundreds of templates, each of which can be changed. It also has plugins that further enhance features of the blog.

Problem 3: The server itself
Blogger is a great free service. But since you’re not paying, you’re at their mercy. Not that blogger is going to disappear and take your content with you…..

Instead, you don’t have access to the server itself. That means you can’t upload scripts, forms, etc. Lets say you want to have a signup form, allowing your readers to subscribe to a newsletter. Since WordPress resides on a server you pay for, you have no limits to what you can do.

Blogger is a single service.
WordPress is just one program that sits on a web server.

If you’re using WordPress, it’s just a program sitting on a web site. This means you’re able to do anything a web site does in addition to blogging.

On the other hand…………
Blogger is much easier for non-technical bloggers who do not have a Webmaster to set things up. So if you’re just getting started, Blogger is a great way to go.

Conclusion
This is just a very, very brief look at some of the differences between a free blogging service like blogger and WordPress. I’ll be getting more in depth later, but with one eye, it’s hard to write much!

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On my other blog, I just posted an article I wrote last night about web marketing. Some of the tips may not apply directly to blawgging, but most will be relevant. And since it’s packed with pictures of my dog, I didn’t think it would fit the style of this site.

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As Edwin Jacobs from Law & Justice asked:

… but who are these readers? One would almost need to organise a kind of poll/survey to find out, or alternatively, hear it from friends/collegue who read your blog, or find out via email subcribers/bloglines-subscribers. In your stats you can’t find that obviously.

Blawgers want to know about their readers. You can learn a lot from your stats, but that doesn’t really tell you whoyour reader are.

I. Stats
There are two main types of statistical analysis packages, log analysis software and page trackers. These are meant to give information on page views, hits, unique visitors, etc.

Page Trackers- Most bloggers who look at their site’s statistics use page trackers. They consist of a small snippet of code inserted into a page’s source code. Usually invisible, the script is invoked when a visitor hits the page. The code then communicates with a third party server, which records information about the visitor. The process is as follows:
1. A visitor lands on a blog
2. A script within the source code sets a cookie on the visitor’s computer
3. The script then communicates with another server (for example, StatCounter), sending information about the user’s IP address, what page they are on, how they got there, and geographical information.

The blogger can then login at the third party site to view their site statistics. I’ve used StatCounter on my personal blog, and it offers the following reports:

• Popular Pages
• Entry Pages
• Exit Pages
• Referring Sites
• Keyword Analysis
• Visitor Paths
• Returning Visits
• Country, State, City
• Browser

Page trackers are great at giving you a snapshot of your site’s activity. But page trackers have one fundamental flaw: they rely on cookies. Some visitors with security concerns turn off cookies and use other blocking software. In addition, most browsers allow security conscious users to turn off third party scripting. Because of this, not all your visitors will be recorded in your stats. Thus, your site’s statistics are underreported.

Another flaw with page trackers is their reliance on a third party service. If the third party server is down, your page could, in the best case, load very slowly. In the worst case, your page could be unreachable all together. And if the service goes out of business, you lose all your data.

Log Analysis Software- These software programs look at your site’s access logs. The access log is a file that records any request for a file. Log Analysis programs offer the same reports as page trackers, but are much more accurate. Since each individual file hit is recorded through an http request, there is no need to set a cookie. And since the software either sits on the desktop or on the server itself, you own your own data, and there’s no need to worry about a third party server’s uptime.

For bloggers, there’s a fundamental problem with this kind of software. First, you need to have access to your log files. Bloggers using free services like Blogger do not have access to log files.

In addition, if you’re using a desktop log analysis program, you must download the access log each time you run the report. This can be repetitive and cumbersome.

II. Self Reporting Reader Information
The other, much more difficult way to learn about your readers is to ask them about themselves. But it’s very difficult to get readers to voluntarily spend the time to fill out a form telling you about themselves. It’s difficult, but not impossible.

A. The Newsletter- One way to get information from readers is offering a free newsletter. In doing this, they must subscribe through a form. Assuming you have the ability to have forms on your blog, you would have a subscribe form that asks short, targeted questions. For example:

• Name
• Email
• Occupation
• Company
• City
• State
• How did you find this blog?

Assuming your readers would subscribe, this would give you valuable information that would be impossible to get from stat programs.

But I don’t have a newsletter! I don’t have the time to write a newsletter every week/month.

No need. One very easy way to compose a newsletter is to simply combine your posts into an email every week/month and send it out. This gives readers a chance to catch up with your posts in case they’ve missed something.

B. The Describe Yourself Poll- Offer your readers a chance to introduce themselves on your blawg. You could do this in your comments. Ask readers to give a little information about themselves by leaving you a comment, and ask them if they have any questions or suggestions. You’d be surprised at how effective this is. If your blog does not have much commenting activity, offer readers a link if they leave a comment.

The other benefit to doing this is that you could get some valuable suggestions for future posts.

C. The Message Board- If you have the ability, offering a message board is another way to get readers talking. I’d only suggest having a message board if your site has good readership, as an empty message board gives a bad impression.

It’s very hard to get a message board started. Most visitors do not want to be the first to ask a question, and it’s hard to convince someone to go through the registration process if they do not see activity on the board. But if you have the time to administer a board, it’s a great way to build a community.

Conclusion: Stats give valuable information on your readers, but if you want to dig deeper, you’ll need to find a way to get them to tell you about themselves. Find a way to get the conversation started, and others will follow suit.

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