Monday, December 11, 2006

[blogpower] how to upload the banner

This all started when I made a comment that it annoys the hell out of me to see some big names promoting themselves shamelessly [I wasn't thinking of those on my blogroll], getting major traffic and they’re truly neither quality nor well laid out.

I'm not shutting anyone out here but I'm most concerned with the good blogger who's been at it a few months maybe; he or she's known in the sphere but still only gets small traffic. It might be the quality of the blog but it's more likely to be lack of 'brand recognition' and no great expertise in self-promotion, in advertising oneself; nor does he or she want to have to 'join' anything, to sign up.

Everyone knows that if a big name links to us [and I've had a few in my sidebar who've been gracious enough to do that], the traffic leaps on that day. But we can't rely on a bone thrown to us all the time and I'm certainly not knocking these powerful lads and lasses in any way when I say that. But if 50 of us little people clicked twice a day on someone's blog, there's a day's traffic. If we linked to a story now and then, it doubles or triples.

Notsaussure
has a slightly different take: [We] can co-operate to increase our traffic, not for its own sake — gratifying though it certainly is to think that folks are reading you, I certainly do this primarily for my own amusement, and I assume that’s what the writers of the other blogs I like are doing, too — but to share and direct others to articles and discussions we find interesting.

There's no compulsion in this. But if a lot of people carried the banner above in the sidebar, it would cause others to ask about it and something could develop. If you see yourself as benefitting from the idea, please click here and read the post and comments, then maybe read the comments on this post here, just to be sure, then why not upload the Banner for your sidebar?

Not Saussure
has very kindly put together the html for the Banner and it can be copied from his comment on this post. Now, what you should do, if you are technically challenged like me, is:

1] paste it to a blank MS Word page;
2] go through and being careful not to touch any other symbol, wherever you see \ you should delete it [don't touch the slash pointing the other way];
3] now you're ready to copy and paste to your template, keeping the Word doc as a back up copy.

17 comments:

  1. Are you back yet? Good to see you pop up. Hope we can do this thing of banding together - it could net us a hundred or so visitors. Today, for example, seems very slow.

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  2. I think I do all those things anyway.

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  3. Yes, Lady Ellee - you do and I don't know where you find the time but with all due respect, your traffic is probably in the superblogger category now, the Worstall/Dillow range, whereas this idea is possibly going to appeal more to the 100 a day visitors [300 hits] range.

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  4. hmmm, still haven't done it right but at least the banner is on my site now.

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  5. What a wonderful idea, count me in. I'm off now to figure out how to upload the banner.

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  6. Great idea, James. Only I'm such a technical idiot I don't know if I can work out how to upload the banner [even with your clear instructions] so I'll probably be back tomorrow screaming for help!

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  7. Pity I can't e-mail you, WCL but I understand your need for privacy. I could send you the html. Could you possibly get it from the View menu? Do you know how to do that? Don't worry about being technically unsavvy. It's a badge of distinction for us.

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  8. I tried to post this last night, but it doesn't seem yet to have appeared. Apologies for any duplication.

    A very good idea; count me in, certainly. The code for the image plus link is, assuming I've done the escape characters correctly in this post so the html rather than the image appear so folks may cut and paste them,

    <a href=\"http://defendingtheblog.blogspot.com\"><span style=\"font-size: 85%; color: rgb(0,0,0)\"><a href=\"http://defendingtheblog.blogspot.com\" atomicselection=\"true\"><img style=\"float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px\" alt=\"\" src=\"http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2797/3438/320/680359/blogpower%20small.gif\" border=\"0\"></a></span></a>

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  9. It's still shoving my archive out the way!

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  10. back and snowed at work. Will do the banner thing this week. Also need to re-work my blog anyway.

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  11. Hi James, No, I'm not a superleaguer, I just work hard at it. People will return to your site if they are interested in what you write, but the blogger also has to visit sites and work at bringing people to his, that's what I spend time doing. When I'm pushed, like tonight, I just reciprocate those who have posted comments on my site(I'm fastidious about that), but it's equally important to search out new sites as bloggers are very fickle and suddenly stop coming for no reason.

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  12. What this thing is about is that the little blogger struggles. You're right, Ellee, to say 'but the blogger also has to visit sites and work at bringing people to his' and that's on the list to do.

    One top blogger wrote via e-mail and thought people would visit where they want to so why the banner then? At first sight, this is true. However, whenever the squeeze comes on busy days and so on, the little blogger is always the first dropped off or postponed till tomorrow.

    The big boys like Iain get hit no matter what. What's a few hundred hits to him? But to a little blogger, fifty people less this day is not good. That's why the banner is a reminder - I see it when I come into the site, click on it and go to the defending-the-blog site. Then I just click on a few of the banner displayers listed there, as is my wont.

    If ten of us do that, that person has some nice hits to start the day and we get some good posts to cogitate over. Then, if we can link to one or two of these in a post, it brings them more traffic. The banner acts as a focus and links to the defending-the-blog site.

    If people see the black Blogpower banner on someone's site, it shows that that blogger is for fellow bloggers and that's a nice thing too. Already from this thing it's helping us.

    I estimate 25 participants is all we need to show tangible results.

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  13. James, you're a genius. And so am I, because I've fiddled with the html and got it to leave my archive alone. But you're also dead right. I want to support good bloggers who don't get the Iain Dale levels of attention, but who write outstanding stuff. And there are quite a few of them. However, I am mindful of all those ghastly characters in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" who are always whinging about "what about the little guy" - I don't want us to be like that. We should be proud of our hard work, proud of our writing (where it is good), and happy to visit each other and - for me at least - learn from each other.

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  14. I see it this way - someone discovers a good blog and brings it to the others' attention via the site [or e-mail]. We then start linking and commenting and giving the guy a little boost.

    But yes - he or she has to be good in the first place. In the end, it's that person's own abilities but ... I don't know ... it's nice to know we're appreciated ... that's all.

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  15. Of course it is, I love to be appreciated, which is why I think this is a great idea!

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Comments need a moniker of your choosing before or after ... no moniker, not posted, sorry.