Michel Foucault

2011 was the year of Jacob’s Ladder. At the start of the year I set a goal of climbing Jacob’s Ladder 5000 times. That goal was completed in early November. It defined me and set a very clear mandate for every day, every week and every month.

I also set a goal of a daily blog post. I was on pace for about 2 months and then fell away. One of the issues I struggle with is what I’m going to write. I get started and then can’t figure out what I want to achieve, what I want to say and then it all falls apart.

One post in particular brought me undone. It was a long and well thought out post about the future of real estate data. Unfortunately it took me days to research and even longer to put what I wanted to say into words. Instead of publishing I thought and worked on getting it right. In the end it was a post that achieved some kudos from some key players from the industry but it cost me about two weeks of posts.

During my recent uni studies my blog was used as a research tool. It was where I kept all my research notes so you’ll find articles about the hupomnemata, technologies of the self and the death of god. I loved it but once I finished my studies I started thinking that I needed to blog for Google juice and write what my audience wanted.

The problem with doing that is that often I don’t want to write for other people, I want to write for myself. I did that during my studies and it changed the direction of my honours thesis. It introduced me Jeremy Crampton (@jeremycrampton), who, through a pingback on a post about Foucault’s theories on power relationships, alerted me to his book and created in me a drive to analyse the dismissal of Heather Armstrong using Foucault’s theories as a tool kit. So without this blog I would have written a very different honours thesis and wouldn’t have experienced the joy of months of immersion in French philosophy.

What’s been valuable about this blog – and blogging generally – is that it’s been a place for me to get my thoughts in order. As Crampton put it so well,

Now the content of the post is unremarkable and not especially exciting, but the author remarks that this is a post designed to help him think through some issues. It’s not the content, it’s the process (emphasis mine).

So this blog is going to (continue to) be a public hupomnemata, a public place for me to record what I’ve learned and a way for me to take actively take care of the (my) self. It’s a place for me to record what I’ve learned from my daily experiences. Although some of what I learn will be about social media and digital strategy it will also include what I learn from personal experience, such as what I learned from leaning into the pain.

This strategy will have its costs. For a start it will be difficult for Google to work out what my website is about. Is it about social media, digital strategy or Michel Foucault? Google will find it hard, almost impossible to work out.  It’s going to cost me traffic.

Then there’s the readers or subscribers. Those who subscribe to my blog wanting posts about digital strategy will be disappointed when they’re presented with articles (like this one) about Michel Foucault and the hupomnemata. If you could name the top blogging sins what I’m doing would be close to the top of the list.

But I’ve decided that having a space to remember and reflect is far more important than worrying about readers and traffic. If this blog becomes a window into my mind then so be it. If it helps me become a better thinker, even better.

And I’ll end this post without a clear conclusion. That’s because I wasn’t sure what it was that I wanted to do with it in the first place.

Photo credit: The Magnet Magazine

Yesterday I asked for some feedback on a homepage mockup for the redesign of this site.

Here are some of the responses I received.

On being more focussed

From a conversion point of view, I think you are lacking a clear sense of direction in what you want people to do. You are giving them too many options to choose. The headline at the top is great (really great), but if business owners want more sales and profits, how do they know if they need facebook or twitter or social media management?

I’d…be adding a video…and a single minded direction on what people should do next, and ideally get them to subscribe to get started. You mention giving them several (5) different ‘offers’ in that main slider area which means there will be even more for them to consider.

Give them something for free to start the relationship – and do more with video

Josh Williams

Remember the focus is always on what the client perceives as their problem *Note to self: Look what Josh said above and what Ben and Charlie said below*. I’d love to see one of those modules replaced with a heading then clickable links. You think in products they think I need help with…

What to do with social media (training)
How to get set up a Facebook page that actually works
How to become number one in google and beat all my competitors (blog setup)
Remember your solutions will change (that’s technology for you) but your clients problems never will..ie how do I get more market appraisals and more listings?)
Also I prefer the clean look as opposed to the cartoon look.

Josh Phegan

I agree with most – call to action is important without becoming too (well you know what – “and you get steak knives!” – agh … never go there mate, I know you won’t) -

Charlie Gunningham

The FB and Twitter profile set ups, whilst important for your business, are diluting from the importance of social media training and [managment] (critical services for business). Could they be included as part of your [management] services?

Can there be a link from the homepage with case study of how you have helped business? Removal of FB & Twitter setups will give you more homepage realestate to add case study and sell yourself.

Deborah Roberts

SEO

Only thing from an SEO POV, no text in images – Paula Rosario Lay

Design

Are you sure about the “technology coach” font? Seems like just the one font too many & competes with your name.

Ed Lynch

Ask for the sale.
Phone number on every page
Last 2 blog posts to show currency and credibility

Ben Stockdale

Too many different fonts on this page – can these be reduced for more consistency?
Change headers – Peter Fletcher and Technology Coach (in red) are fighting with each other and inconsistent.
Deborah Roberts

Armed with this feedback I’m now going back to the designer who will publish version 2. Will send an update when it’s done.

[tweetmeme]I make no secret of my dislike of Posterous. It’s not that the Posterous system sucks. It doesn’t. In fact it’s a great way to take notes and keep thoughts in order. I use it on and off. But how it’s used it as a shortcut version of social media that sucks. As a corporate blog it sucks. As a way to curate content that represents a corporate brand it sucks. As a way to interact and create conversation, which is what social media is all about, copying and pasting stuff to Posterous sucks.

I’m not for it. Never have been, never will be. And I’m not on my own. Says James Dunaway:

DON’T republish other authors’ work. This will quickly get you labeled as splog (spam blog) or content farm. All your blog posts should be original work. It’s perfectly acceptable to respond to another blog post with your own, just make sure your site links back to the original post.

Note that James says responding. That’s what I’m doing here. Using what he said, then adding my perspective. It extends the conversation that James started and takes it in another direction. But it doesn’t simply grab a chunk of his work and copy it to my post.

Maybe I’m being idealistic. Perhaps I’m becoming plain ornery. But I’m backing my judgement on this. And I’m glad to have guys like James in my corner.

Photo: Maria Reyes-McDavis

[tweetmeme]Blogging every day is hard work. It’s fun when I do it, but it takes discipline. And I’ve worked out why I’m finding it hard.

What I’m clear about is my goal: write 365 posts this year. The problem is that sitting down to write a post is an invitation to participate in a writer’s block. What do I write about today? Not sure? Hmmm, how about I read a bit, see what’s happening? And the next hour or two is spent reading articles posted from Twitter or Google Reader. Pretty soon something else more important comes up and the blog post gets shelved for the day.

The lack of focus leads to inaction. What to do?

Looking for inspiration yesterday I stumbled across the suggestion to add a weekly photo. Now that’s a great idea! Couldn’t be all that hard to take a happy snap and add it as a post. Surely! So off I went and created the first of my weekly photo posts. Then I thought: ‘Hey, that’s such a good idea why not have a weekly everything?!” I’d know what I was going to be doing a week in advance and could start preparing mentally. Sounds perfect.

That’s when I came up with the idea of a weekly blogging plan. I know I write a weekly wrap up of my 5000/365 challenge. I know I write about Facebook, Twitter and blogging. And I know I’m going to create a weekly photo blog. Now it’s just a matter of putting these into a plan.

And – drum roll – here it is.

• Monday – Last week on Jacob’s Ladder.
• Tuesday – Links that caught my eye. A selection of interesting reading shared on Twitter and Facebook. To make this worthwhile I’ll need to read more in Google Reader and share these on Twitter.
• Wednesday – WordPress and blogging – how to use WordPress, how to produce more content.
• Thursday – Facebook – how to use Facebook to build a brand and make more sales.
• Friday – Twitter – how to use Twitter to build a brand and make more sales.
• Saturday – A summary of this week’s blog posts
• Sunday – Weekly photo

If there’s something else that catches my eye I’ll add these as additional posts. God knows, I need them as I’m a long way behind at this point.

Photo credit: antigone78 on Flickr

I just installed the BackupBuddy WordPress plugin that’s set to give me some extra peace of mind. The plugin allows me to schedule regular backups (I was doing this already through another plugin) but it also allows me to send the backup file to an FTP location or to a secure storage facility. And that’s the bit that caught my eye.

BackupBuddy integrates nicely with Amazon’s Web Services. Part of that is Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), a secure place to store large amounts of data. From now, all my clients have their sites backed up in five ways.

1. Daily emailed backup of their complete database.
2. The last 14 daily backups are stored on a folder of their hosting account.
3. A complete backup of their site is stored on S3. I’m hoping to have this done on a monthly basis but I’m having some issues with file sizes. Stay tuned on this one. For the moment I’ll perform a complete backup once the site is operational.
4. A daily backup stored on S3.
5. The hosting company (Page.ly) also do a backup and they retain the last 14 days of backups.

If a site goes down it can be back up and operational within a very short space of time.

I’m writing this post on my iPad. Why? I want to check out the experience using that and the WordPress iPad application. So far so good.

Of course the keypad on the iPad is far from ideal. It makes typing a little slower and, for me a little less intuitive. It’s a but harder to get into any sort of writer’s rhythm. That said it’s not too bad.

To make life a little easier I’ve attached a Bluetooth keyboard. It’s much better to type on although mistakes must still be corrected using the touchscreen. It’s a fair compromise.

Saving the post as I go is quick and easy. There’s a save button at the top right corner of the screen that allows me to save a local copy on the iPad.

Adding an image isn’t quite so easy. For a start the can only be sourced from the a photo album on the iPad. That’s not so bad but there’s no way to edit the image. The only alignment option is left-align so centering isn’t possible. It’s hardly ideal. Another problem with inserting an image is to wait for it to upload. Tapping back into edit mode too early causes the image to be lost. Adding another one in proved too difficult so I abandoned the task. On top of that as I saved this section the app fell over for the second time. Footnote: after it fell over I had another go and succeeded, this time I inserted a large image. It will probably be too big for the page.

What’s not available on the iPad is access to any of the rich features of the WordPress dashboard. That includes access to creating post thumbnails – a feature of this WordPress theme – and customising the SEO options.

I usually add a Tweetmeme button on my posts by adding the Tweetmeme [tweetmeme]. If this works a green button will display to the right of this paragraph. If not then you’ll see the word tweetmeme inside two square brackets.

What the iPad/WordPress app combo is good for is taking notes at a conference. Saving locally is a big plus because it avoids problems with losing notes as a result of a lost internet connection. In that sense it’s similar to using Evernote, only Evernote has lots more options.

One glaring omission is I can’t insert a hyperlink using an editor. It has to be done manually and that involves knowing a little HTML and how to insert a hyperlink.

As with many fledgling applications it’s important to save early and often. As I typed that last paragraph I lost some work when a dialog box popped up asking if I needed help with inserting a link. My first attempt at using it failed, the second worked.

My next task is to publish this post and share it on Facebook and Twitter. If you hear screams from Perth’s southern suburbs you’ll know it didn’t go according to plan.

What’s the most important metric for measuring the effectiveness of a real estate blog? I’ll bet the first answer for many readers will be traffic. That’s often the default answer, a bit like gauging the strength of the property market by the number of people through a home open.

But we all know the answer is more complicated than just visitors.

My first answer is comments and conversions. But really it’s comments, because they almost always lead to conversions.

Then it’s how many times was the article shared. Readers only share content they find interesting. Really, they share posts that they believe their friends will find valuable, useful. So sharing is a key metric for the effectiveness of a blog.

There are other metrics, ones that are more obvious, so obvious they’re hidden.

Here are some that Avinash Kaushik recommends:

• Raw author contribution

This is the measure of the raw grunt work you’ve put into writing and it translates into the number of words and posts created over time. There’s no escaping it, blogging takes effort. There are four numbers to watch.

1. 1. Number of Posts / Number of Months Blogging
   2. Number of Words In Post / Number of Posts

I’ve published 449 posts since my first in June 2007. It was titled I’m a Skeptic. How things have changed.

Using that measure my score is:

1. 1. 449/43 = 10.44
   2. 95,409/449 = 212

That’s an average of just over 10 posts per month at 212 words per post.

Of course there’s a WordPress plugin to measure this. It’s called Blog Metrics by Yoast. I installed it and here’s what it came up with.

Notice the big increase in posts per month over the last 30 days. That coincides with my 5000/365 Challenge. But what’s interesting is the number of comments per post and the number of words per comment has also increased with the volume of posts. So the more I post the more comments per post I get. In other words the extra work I’m putting in to content creation is being rewarded by my readers. And that helps build my brand.

Although it’s hard work I intend keeping up the work rate. How about you?

If you enjoyed this article please click the Like button below or share it on Twitter.[tweetmeme]

]]> http://peterfletcher.com.au/2011/02/07/how-to-measure-the-effectiveness-of-a-real-estate-blog/feed/ 3 http://peterfletcher.com.au/2011/01/23/my-bounce-rate-is-too-high-and-what-im-doing-about-it/ http://peterfletcher.com.au/2011/01/23/my-bounce-rate-is-too-high-and-what-im-doing-about-it/#comments Sun, 23 Jan 2011 05:07:13 +0000 Peter Fletcher http://peterfletcher.com.au/?p=1582

This blog has a terrible bounce rate. As I write this it’s 78.57%. That means that 4 out of 5 people who visit my blog read just one page before heading to another site. With that level of bounce it’s no wonder that I’m not converting web traffic to business inquiries. And for someone who makes a living on the web it’s pretty woeful.

Here’s what I’ve done to get things moving in the right direction.

• Added recent posts and recent comments to the sidebar. It appears this hasn’t worked.
• Added the Efficient Related Posts plugin. I was hoping that visitors would see these links (they’re the ones at the bottom of this post) and click through to read the story. It appears this hasn’t worked either.

What I plan to do from here is:

• Get clear on what I’m selling. That will provide a defined pathway to what I want readers to do.
• Add stronger calls to action. At the moment there’s a lot of soft, fluffy stuff. That needs to change.
• Provide a Subscribe function.
• Create better. more compelling headlines. This will give visitors are more compelling reason to click on Related Posts.

[tweetmeme]

I use WordPress every day. It’s what this site is made from. But how does it work? This infographic explains one part – themes. The theme I’m using is iBlog. There are literally thousands of others. And they’re definitely not all made equal.

This infographic was originally posted at The Anatomy of a WordPress theme on Yoast.

[tweetmeme]Edit: Since publishing I’ve discovered that AddToAny have pushed a release that sorts out the issue described here. That was quick.

I’ve just been gifted a blog topic for the day. As I went to log into WordPress I got the following message:

Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by…

This message usually happens when a WordPress plugin contains some bad code. In this case it looks as though the problem is with the Add-to-any plugin. That plugin adds some social sharing buttons into the bottom of each post.

Because the problem stopped me from getting into my site’s backend I wasn’t able to use the built-in WordPress plugin manager to deactivate the plugin. Instead I deleted all the plugin files using my FTP client and that’s fixed the problem.

It may be unfair for me to blame Add-to-any 100 percent. There’s a possibility that the problem was caused by a conflict with the WPSuperCache plugin. In any case now that I’ve deleted Add-to-any I’ll wait a few days and then reinstall the plugin. It’s only a few minute operation, which is one of the things I love about WordPress.

What it does highlight is the importance of keeping plugins to a minimum and using only the best. Add-to-any is a great plugin – as is WPSuperCache but this is software we’re dealing with and there’s always a chance of human error in building the code. Another reason to keep the number of plugins to a minimum is that it reduces maintenance time. Every new plugin means another lot of maintenance and upgrades and there’s always a chance that one of those upgrades will go south as it appears has happened in this case.

For the geeks amongst us  here’s the error messages the plugin threw up.

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at deleted/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/services.php:2) in deleted/wp-login.php on line 337

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at  deleted/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/services.php:2) in deleted/wp-login.php on line 349

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at  deleted/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/services.php:2) in deleted/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 690

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at  deleted/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/services.php:2) in deleted/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 691

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at  deleted/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/services.php:2) in deleted/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 692

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at  deleted/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/services.php:2) in deleted/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 890