russellcrosswy
Yesterday at bnbhuntsville we had a new attendee russellcrosswy. He said that he hasn’t seriously started blogging yet and that he found us via our website. Russell wants to write about fitness and supplements.
I think Russell got a little more than he bargained for as the conversation picked up throughout the evening, but he said he liked our band of merry miscreants. I think we have a new member. YAY!!!
Recruiting New People
Speaking of new people, I’ve been actively recruiting no less than four people. I think I’ll keep the names under wrap, but I will say that you know who you are if you’re reading this. If you’re not for sure, get your rear in gear and swing by B n’ B next week!
So I have been recruiting four people, but tonight I will add to that list for a grand total of five active plus untold number of passive recruits. People, check your Facebook walls for your invites.
Yahoo Pipes
Last week, @jtrigsby announced that our website would now become a content aggregator for mentions of bnbhuntsville around the web. This includes pulling in RSS, looking for tags on blogs (by filtering the RSS feed of the blog and looking for a specific tag) and looking for tags on Twitter. AT the conclusion of last week’s session, Thom mentioned that since Xanga doesn’t turn each tag into its own RSS feed like Live Journal does, I could use Yahoo Pipes to do the trick.
I had tried playing with Pipes for about thirty minutes last weekend but didn’t get too far because of a cramped scheduled and browser crash. So we started playing around with Pipes at B n’ B. We didn’t get the pipe built; I did that today. My technique taken from Thom’s cue was to import my RSS feed and filter based on the title of my post since Xanga is retarded and doesn’t include tags in the RSS feed. After the feed is appropriately filtered, we added a “Create RSS feed” module to the pipe. What we couldn’t get to work immediately was finding the address of that RSS feed so that the content could be aggregated into the website. Turns out the trick was saving the pipe and then running it which opens a new tab/window which, amongst other things, lists the RSS feed address.
If you need help making a pipe to get your content aggregated to the site, I’d be more than happy to help. You know how to get ahold of me, starting with leaving a comment on this post.
If you’re curious why aggregating B n’ B related content to the B n’ B site is so important, check out Thom’s post.
Hyper-focused Sites and Domains
Of course, we can’t go long at B n’ B without talking about how to make money blogging and this week was no exception.
I mentioned included in my long list of things to blog about this week, one of the line items was a review of six movie scores. Last week we spent a lot of time discussing keyword research and what to look for in that arena. We’ve talked before about how the more specific you are, the better your ranking will be in search. For instance, writing about a black 1999 Jeep Cherokee is going to get you higher in searching than will a generic site about cars.
Thinking I had mastered the concept, I asked if it would be better to write six separate posts vs. just the one. Thom countered that if keyword searching and affiliate linking was the goal (i.e. making moeny) it would make more sense to create six different sites that only talked about the specific score. The question then became “Would there be a good enough return on investment?” The answer, of course, was “it depends.”
If I were to buy six .com domains from Go Daddy1 at $10/pop, the sites would cost $60 plus the time to set up six sites. In order to break even, I would need to make a commission of $60. 4% on a $10.00 MP3 download (remember, you can’t use your Amazon.com Store Card!) is $0.40, so by the numbers, just to recoup the initial investment, I’d need to sell 150 albums in the course of a year. Could it be done? Perhaps. Will it be done?
That leads me to another Thom question: Who says I have to buy .com addresses? Why can’t I buy .info addresses if they are just as focused? Those only cost $0.89. I think I can live with having to sell 15 albums instead. If I sell 150 in a year? bonus.
Hyper-local News Sites
The meat of the discussion this week centered around news. Thom had an concept already brewing but the catalyst was a conversation that @shaggerty and I had about journalism. We were discussing the bang-up job that the Huntsville Times has been doing lately (exhibit A). This lead to my asking about forming a list of periodicals in the area. My non-exhaustive list includes:
- Huntsville Times
- Decatur Daily
- Valley Planet
- Go
(Please add more in your comments below)
If you’re interested in writing for a hyper-local in Huntsville, AL, come on out to B n’ B, location and time details here.
Start Your Own B n’ B!
Don’t wait until you visit my fair city to attend a beer n’ blog. If you’re not in the booming metropolis of Huntsvegas, do some social networking searching and see if there is currently one in your town. Sites to search include Facebook, Twitter, The Google and meetup.com. If you can’t find a group in your town, start your own using said sites to announce and advertise your group.
1This link is a promo for purchasing a .com domain for $6.89 from Go Daddy.
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