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Over the last few weeks the poll I’ve been running here on ProBlogger has asked people about who designed their blog. The results are in and it looks like that the vast majority of bloggers are not paying for themes.
61% of our readers are using free themes in some way – either using a default theme that the blog came with (11%), downloading a free template (21%) or taking a free theme and tweaking it (29%).
18% of our readers are designing their blogs completely on their own and while the market for premium themes does seem to be growing only 13% of you have paid for a theme.
The lowest response of all was for people to pay for someone else to design a blog for them (8%). That brings the total of those paying for their design in some way to 21%.
Total Votes at the time of publishing these results: 2513
Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.
79% of Bloggers Pay Nothing for their Blog Design
| | It’s been a couple of years since I ran this poll and I’m curious to see if the readership of this blog has shifted since then – so….
Looking forward to seeing the results on this.
Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.
How Long Have you Been Blogging? [POLL]
Affiliate Marketing is one income stream that many bloggers experiment with – but how many are attempting to make money in this way?
Let’s find out with a poll.
Once you’ve voted – here’s a few posts on the topic for those wanting to explore it more.
- 5 Lessons on Making Money with Affiliates Programs
- 10 Tips for Using Affiliate Marketing on Blogs
- 6 More Tips for Affiliate Marketing on Blogs
- Affiliate Marketing Tips for Twitter Users
- 9 Reasons Why I am an Amazon Affiliate
- How to Choose Affiliate Programs for Your Blog
Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.
Do You Do Affiliate Marketing on Your Blog? [POLL]
This is a poll I run two years ago – I’ll be interested to see how (and if) the results differ. I’ve removed the least popular categories from last time and added an ‘other’ option. If you’ choose ‘other’ please let us know what blog platform you run in comments below.
If you have more than one blog and more than one platform running them choose your most used platform.
Looking forward to seeing what your responses are.
Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.
What Blog Platform Do You Use Most?
Today’s task in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge is another writing oriented one – it’s to write a post that contains some kind of a ‘Call to Action’.
While this type of post might not be one that you’ll use all of the time it is a handy style of post to have in your tool belt of blogging techniques as in the life of most blogs there are times that you want your readers to go beyond just ‘reading’ and to take some kind of action.
The types of actions this might include could be many and include:
- Implementing something that you’ve written about
- Subscribing to your RSS feed or an email newsletter
- Buying an Affiliate Product
- Writing a Comment
- Voting in a Poll
- Making a Donation to a Charity
- Voting for you on a social bookmarking site
- Buying a product that you’ve developed
- Visiting another site
- Hiring you for some service that you offer
- To read something else you’ve written on your blog
- Visiting your business site
The list could go on… and on….
Some of the ‘actions’ that you’ll want to call people to do are things that will benefit your blog and others are things that are just about applying the types of things you’re writing about (and of course some will benefit both you and your reader).
The ‘Problem’ of Passive Readers
While the above list might seem like a list of fairly simple things to get readers to do the reality is that most blog readers are fairly passive. Looking at my own blogs I’d estimate that less than 1% actually make comments and that the vast majority of those who come to my blogs leave without ‘doing’ anything.
Talking to other bloggers I get the feeling that I’m not the only one with passive readers. How about you… would you like to have a more active and interactive readership?
How do we snap readers out of passivity?
Learning how to call your readers to ‘action’ is not something that happens over night. There are some techniques that I can point you to that will help – but the best way to learn how to do it is to practice your calls to action and see what works best for you.
Hence… today’s task – to write a ‘Call to Action’ post.
Before you attempt today’s task I would highly recommend that you read my recent post – 12 Tips to SNAP Readers out of Passivity.
It contains some useful tips and techniques that will help you in today’s task. Once you’ve read it all you need to do before writing your post is to choose the action that you want your readers to take.
If you’ve not done this type of thing before choose something simple and achievable (eg. getting readers to comment or subscribing to your feed). Another option might be to write about a book that you’ve read and recommend and call people to action to buy it at Amazon with an affiliate link.
Really the action that you’ll want to call people to will depend upon the goals of your blog.
Once you’ve written your post I’d love to hear how you go with it.
- Do you have passive readers?
- What techniques did you use to call people to action?
- Did it work?
- How would you do it differently next time?
- What have you done previously that has got your readers ‘doing’ something?
Update: You can share the above at the forum post for this task: Call Your Readers to ACTION (Day 23)
Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.
Call Your Readers to ACTION [Day 23: 31DBBB]
31DBBB – Week 1 Recap and Update
04/13/09
Week 1 in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog is over and we’re almost a quarter of the way through the challenge. 11,029 people are subscribed participants and the feedback has been very positive so far – thanks to everyone for your participation.
I just wanted to update readers on a few aspects of the project:
Links from the Weekend – firstly I know a lot of you had a long weekend for Easter and may have missed the last few days tasks. Here’s a quick recap on the last four days:
- Day 4 – Analyze a Top Blog in Your Niche
- Day 5 – Email a Reader
- Day 6 – Must Read Advice from Successful Bloggers
- Day 7 – Write a Link Post
Forums – before launching this challenge I mentioned a forum area for registered members to interact. We had a few challenges in setting this up but I’m happy to say that those registered for email notifications will get an invite to join the forums in the next 36 hours.
Workbook – one of the frequently asked questions that I’ve been getting about 31DBBB is whether I can produce a workbook at the end of the challenge that people can use to continue working through the tasks after the 31 days are over. While I’d not previously considered this there does seem to be some demand for it. I’m willing to put it together for sale at a small price (I want to be able to cover the time I put into it – I’m thinking around $10) IF people are interested.
Here’s a poll to gauge whether people are interested.
It’s Going Too Fast! – one of the other pieces of feedback I’ve had is people saying that they feel like they are falling behind. My response has been for people not to stress too much. While I’m going to keep pushing out tasks and challenges each day for the 31 days there’s nothing to stop you slowing down and tackling tasks at your own pace. Quite a few people have been saving the emails that I’m sending and are doing 2-3 tasks a week instead of 7. The workbook idea is also emerging out of this desire for people to move at their own pace. Also – I’m going to try to mix in a few smaller tasks (Day 8’s will be a 5-10 minute one for example) for those of you needing a breather.
Is it too late to Join? – lastly, I’m hearing a few people saying that they missed the start. While the main group of participants are up to Day #7 of the challenge, the way I’ve designed it is that people can start at any time they like. The day you enter your email and first name on the signup page you’ll be taken to the start of the process. You’ll be a bit behind the main group but not alone as hundreds of people are signing up each day.
Over the last few days we’ve run this poll in our sidebar.
Feel free to share your reasons for your answer in comments below.
Over the last 10 days I’ve been running twin polls on two of my blogs – ProBlogger and TwiTip – asking readers whether they’d prefer more Twitter Followers or Blog Readers.
The overall results were fairly clear – 84% of those who responded people would prefer more Blog Readers.
I expected this result but was curious when starting the poll to see if there’d be a difference in the responses by ProBlogger readers to TwiTip readers (given the topics of the blogs). Here are the results as they happened on each blog (at the point of writing this the ProBlogger poll has had over 1230 responses and the TwiTip one has had just over 700):
Again – the results are fairly clear on each blog although there is some unsurprising skewing towards Twitter on TwiTip.
The comments section on each of the poll pages (ProBlogger and TwiTip) really illustrates the Pros and Cons of each option quite well and is a fascinating read (at least I enjoyed it). People argued strongly for one or the other (although there were a lot more for ‘Blog Readers’ of course. Let me highlight some of the comments that caught my eye:
Arguments for Blog Readers:
“I chose blog readers. Twitter, for me, is like melted butter and the blog is the lobster. They can compliment each other very nicely, but if I have to choose one I want the one that provides the most meat and satisfies the hunger.” – Howard Hopkins
“People follow too much with the hope of a follow-back and don’t pay attention as much on Twitter. If they are subscribing to your blog, it usually means that at least one point they were engaged with your content enough to take action, they didn’t just go down a list of people and click a button. I’d trade every Twitter follower I have right now for a blog subscriber.” – Andrew
“The viral power of Twitter is amazing, but if it doesn’t convert to more blog readers, it’s just an ego trip.” – Janet Barclay
“Capturing and retaining a small percentage of faithful blog readers is more difficult and time consuming than acquiring and keeping Twitter followers. Blog readers are not easily replaced, whereas lost Twitter follower counts can generally be recouped within a day or so with little or no effort. Therefore, I would much rather have more blog readers than Twitter followers. There’s more of an investment and sense of loyalty.” – Snow Vandermore
“Definitely blog readers! I can’t type huge articles in Twitter, and plus the posts on Twitter scrolls so fast that most people will miss what you have to say.” – Kai Lo
“That’s like asking a newspaper: Would you rather have someone read your headlines or your stories?” – Jamie Littlefield
Arguments for Twitter Followers:
“I do think you have more ‘power’ with a large follow count on Twitter (and make of that statement what you will), but a large subscriber count on a blog monetizes significantly better.” – Sheamus
“With that said, as time goes by, I’m beginning to value Twitter followers just as much as my blog readers. While it’s harder to promote and convert Twitter followers using 140 characters than it is with full blog posts, the relationships that can be created on Twitter are very valuable.” – Jamie Harrop
“Depends on what business you’re in. If you have a media business model, a blog post offers more engagement (which translates into revenue via ads or some other kind of media-based monetization). But if you’re marketing physical goods, Twitter can spark a more immediate call to action (that is, it can drive demand and generate sales through other channels). ” – Jonz
Some Wise Words to End On
I think Monologue Blogger had some good thoughts:
“Both serve a specific purpose and yet both complement one another as well. I think first and foremost, it depend on the nature of your usage of both media and the goals you have in place regarding that media.”
Personally I would prefer Blog Readers to Twitter Followers (as I wrote a few weeks back here) however I don’t believe that there’s a right or wrong answer with this poll. Rather it needs to come back to your goals for using these mediums. It probably also has a fair bit to do with your personality, style, skills and the topics that you’re writing about.
I’m running this poll over at TwiTip but thought it’d be interesting to run it here on ProBlogger too as the topic is relevant to both audiences and I was curious to see if there would be any difference in the responses on the two blogs (given their topics cover the two options.
Which do you value and prefer most – Blog Readers or Twitter followers? And why?
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.