Opinions Wanted: Free Blogs With Exclusive Tools
Hi Everyone,
I’ve been tossing around several excellent ideas recently, and I’d like your opinions and feedback on one I’ve been seriously considering.
Anyone who has been trying to market products, services, or websites online for even a brief amount of time is aware there are many free places you can put content that will get you links back to the product, service, or site of your choice. In fact, entire marketing strategies have been developed around some of these free sites - EzineArticles, Squidoo, Blogger, Wordpress.com and many others are tools marketers use every day to promote things online.
So I’ve been thinking about setting up a new free blogging site network with a couple of twists. First of all, the new network would offer access to premium plugins, tools, and themes at no cost. So if someone wanted to try out my ZipPoster plugin for example, they’d be able to do so by setting up a new blog on the network.
I could even add a couple of new plugins there which would only be available through that network. I’d also of course offer premium Search Engine Optimized theme designs, and probably some exclusive ones too.
All blogs within the network would get extra promotion and links as well, in the form of displaying new content on the main network page. Now, instead of charging a monthly fee for this type of service, I’m thinking of doing a revenue share with AdSense instead. Each blogger could of course add affiliate product links and other advertising, but they’d all display AdSense too. And a small percentage of those displays would have my own AS ID in them for compensation.
So my question to you is: What do you think of this idea? Does it sound like a service you’d use? Why or Why not? Do you have comments, suggestions, or other ideas which would work well within this concept?
Thanks in advance,
Kathy
December 5th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Kathy, This is TOO weird! I actually read this, had to get up and walk away and then come back and read it again.
Just last night I was thinking to myself ‘wouldn’t it be cool to have a site similar to Squidoo where others could make their own pages, share revenue etc only have it be in a blogging format’
I’m very familiar with squidoo and wordpress but I’m not a programmer so wouldn’t have the knowledge to set it up myself. But I bet if anyone can do it you could. I’m ALL FOR IT - I say go for it!
ps. about EZA, Just yesterday I tried to update an old article, I actually removed a link from the article and they emailed back saying I had invalid links! funny thing is I’m not really sure what they’re considering invalid so will wait and see.
Can’t wait to hear more about your project…
Christines last blog post..All About Free PSP Game Downloads
December 5th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Hi Kathy,
It’s a wonderful idea and I like it quite a lot. For some reason I’m kind of attracted to making Adsense income more than dealing with customers directly, and I like blogging with Wordpress too. So the two together will make a very interesting combination.
Please let me know about further development of this potential project.
All the best to you,
John
John Chans last blog post..Feng Shui Home Decorating
December 5th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
awesome stuff, Kathy..
revenue sharing with adsense works best on forum in my humble opinion, for bloggers, I would say, why share all ur revenue when you can collect 100%..
because hzzp://forums.digitalpoint.com makes heaps of money by doing revenue sharing, but i haven’t heard much wordpress or blogspot bloggers earn massive amount because the more people you share the content, the more possibility you might have duplicate contents because some people just wanted to throw the content by copy/paste.
just my point of view.
excellent post.
Linns last blog post..Yahoo! Answers Monetization e-book FREE download
December 6th, 2008 at 9:39 am
I think your idea has a lot of potential and look for more details as you flesh it out.
December 8th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Hey Kathy;
Sounds good to me. I’m using two such services at the moment for a monthly fee.
In truth the links don’t have that much value as the blogs they’re on don’t hold much weight.
But they have provided results for me as a part of the link building process - i just don’t use them exclusively.
A plugin I’d love to see if it would actually work is similar to the uniquefier plugin but based on the same principles that BruteForce SEO is using.
I’m not exactly sure what it is but I think it’s changing random characters to html code. With a meta description in place, it may be that Google et al don’t convert the html code to check for duplicate content. Do u know if they do?
Thanks,
Austin.
Austins last blog post..What the tech?
December 8th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
It’s a great idea. Affiliate marketers get treated like red headed step children on the big portal sites, but the truth is we bring traffic and participation. Where would EZA be without affiliate marketers? Something along the lines of the B5 Media blogs or Zimbio would be great.
December 9th, 2008 at 2:09 am
I’m game. Keep me posted.
December 9th, 2008 at 8:30 am
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December 9th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Brilliant thinking Kathy,
I love the idea and I’m sure it will only get better as you work through development. Thanks for providing great value in great products, whether free or paid.
December 9th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Well, EZA may have just sealed the deal for me this morning…
I decided to test how far they wanted to push this whole “we get to dictate what you have on your website” issue. I removed the PLR link on my landing page here at The Guru Gazette, and resubmitted one of the articles to see what would happen.
It was kicked back to the General Error queue yet again, with the note to contact support… Guess what I found out this time?
My 2nd bio link leads to the main sales site for my Premium WordPress Plugins (adps2.com). My sales copy MENTIONS private label content, as one use for the ZipPoster plugin.
EZA wants me to remove that content, then they’ll publish my articles.
Excuse the language but B U L L S H I T! I don’t see them paying my domain fees, paying my server hosting, paying for my customer support, marketing, etc etc.
So No. Not happening.
If I were doing something shady, fraudulent, illegal, and so on then absolutely I could see them not allowing that. But I run quality, respectable, professional websites and for them to try and tell me what I can or cannot say in my own sales copy or content on my own websites. No.
I’m just a little ticked >:|
Kathys last blog post..New - And Free - WordPress Plugin: Reposter
December 10th, 2008 at 6:45 am
Kathy - You have an excellent idea. I have sent you a private email with some information about a similar website that I know of.
December 10th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Kathy,
Sounds like this could be a real win/win situation - make a little (or hopefully a lot) money and get backlinks for our other sites. I’m interested.
December 12th, 2008 at 10:13 am
I don’t really get it.
The reason that sites such as Ezine Articles and Squidoo have become useful sites to have links from is because Google likes the human element in these sites. As you yourself have just found out, if you don’t meet their (sometimes strange and arbitrary)rules, you are not accepted.
I don’t see any human controls in what you are proposing. It seems much more on the lines of some of those spammy ‘hit and run’ automatic Wordpress clusters that some people are currently promoting. It’s only a matter of a short time before Google gets round to excluding those.
We’re moving towards an age of quality, not quantity. If you’re going to set up some sort of community, it has to be based on the idea of ‘value-added’ if it to have any long term success.
Pearson
December 13th, 2008 at 9:46 am
That’s actually a really good point Pearson and one I’ve been struggling with.
Squidoo polices things on the backend. Anyone can set up a “blog” if you will, put whatever they want onto it and have it publish immediately. Wordpress.com does the same. It’s only after the fact - when an admin/moderator or other member discovers it - that it’s flagged and/or removed.
EZA on the other hand, polices on the front end in an attempt to not let anything (cough) “bad” onto their site.
In all those cases though, I do not agree that Google likes them because of a “human” element. Google is just a set of scripts and machines. It can’t form opinions of what’s good or bad and it can’t have coherent thoughts like “oh this is monitored by humans so it must be good”.
Sure they could have actual humans go in and check a box or something to give a site more weight, but can you really see them doing that for millions of sites across the web? I don’t believe that fits their business model in any way. They want mass collection and automation, and at that level there can be little human involvement.
Google can be and is manipulated. All it takes is enough links and content to lend “authority”.
With that said though, the potential for spam in a network like this is very real, and it’s the primary reason I’ve only tossed the idea around for awhile.
Currently my choices appear to be:
1. Setup an article directory style site which requires submissions to be approved before being published
or
2. Setup a blog style site ala Worpress.com and police it constantly.
Maybe…
3. Setup a blog style site and have writers “apply” for the privilege of writing there.
These all have their pros and cons and all of them will require a heck of a lot of work, so I’m still mulling it over
Thanks for the great feedback everyone!
- Kathy
Kathys last blog post..New - And Free - WordPress Plugin: Reposter