It’s time time time for some for some great great great links links links.

Anyone else else else reading an echo echo echo?

1. First up, is there a website you would like to utterly destroy? Perhaps you’re jealous of John Chow? Maybe you just want to obliterate your least favorite Presidential candidate’s website? Well, now you can, and the Feds won’t come after you! Probably. Just give NetDisaster.com a try. You have your choice of methods of destruction. Fun! Just don’t mess around with my blog, okay?
2. Like cool pictures? Here you go. I’ll warn you thought that some images (and language) are NSFW. And, the navigation strikes me as a bit unpredictable. Sometimes clicking on an image will take you to a page with more info on the image; other times you’ll click an image and be presented with a page of unrelated images. I guess it’s like a box of chocolates… Anyway, here are a few cool ones I spotted, assuming, of course, I got the URLs right: Smart Answer (worth the price of admission*), Happy Bug (I have a similar photo I’ll post maybe one day), Heavy Construction, The Best Way, and a Dog’s Life.
3. Some interesting “guerilla marketing” ads here. One of the ads is for an “adults only” kind of store but the image itself is SFW. Mostly. Maybe not if you work at a church or something. Or are at church, browsing the web on your iPhone. And, if you are at church reading my blog, you’re probably in some serious trouble. Better drop to your knees and say ten Hail Mary’s, even if you’re not Catholic, because God may not be too keen on you right now, so you may need someone to intercede on your behalf. Reading blogs in church is one of the Seven Deadly Sins of the Digital Age. Viewing porn is another. Stop it! Put the phone away and listen to the preacher. What would your mother think?
4. A new non-drip bottle. If Star Trek: The Next Generation was still on, they’d probably be using this bottle in Ten Forward. But, how do you keep the contents fresh? Where’s the lid? If the liquid can drip back in, can’t air get in as well and spoil the contents?
5. The Great Enigma Videos of 2007. I like the Bristol Bot the best, but maybe it’s just because I have one of those little motors and haven’t been able to make a Sonic Screwdriver out of it, so maybe this would be a good second choice. And you do need to check out the LED Lego Minifigures.
6. What’s blacker than black? How about something even more black than the previous blackest thing? Three times blacker, in fact. Good for scientific purposes, but probably won’t be very useful in the home. If you have a room painted black that you want even blacker, turn off the lights. Problem solved!
7. Impress your friends by punching your finger through a metal bottle cap! Just make sure you’re using a bottle cap that matches the brand of beverage you were drinking. Or carry an assortment with you, just to be prepared for when you need to impress someone with an impromptu magic trick. On the other hand, if your friends are already drunk, matching the bottle cap won’t be as big a concern.
8. WARNING! WARNING! Don’t link to BusinessWeek! THIS HAS BEEN A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT. WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED BLOG.
9. So, you’re stuck with Windows, but you really want a Mac? Here’s how to make Windows more like the Mac. Not as good as the real thing, but maybe at least you can feel like you’re one step closer to getting the genuine article.
10. Achieve a Deep, Uninterrupted Sleep. Doug could have used this a few days ago. Maybe.
11. Worried about your credit report being accessed by dozens of companies eager to offer you credit cards, used cars and other stuff? I mean, who knows what else they do with your info. Well, here’s how to lock your credit report.
12. Feel sorry for the striking WGA writers? Well, maybe you shouldn’t feel too sorry for them. Write one episode of a sitcom, and they get $17,000.00, which is more than a good number of American TV viewers make in a year!
13. Prepare for Halloween–only 278 days away!–with horror and blood and gore that you can do yourself in Photoshop with these 70 effects and brushes. No doubt flickr will soon be inundated with images of Bush as a zombie and Hillary as a demonic devil.

Well, that’s all for this time time time. I’d share more, but I spent too much time at the Evil Mad Scientist Lab Lab Lab.

*Free, I think, but if I had said that, it wouldn’t have sounded nearly as impressive.

If you do any amount of blog-hopping, it’s something you’ll come across every once in a while: a blogger asking his or her readers what they would like to read more of. It’s a natural tendency, especially given the amount of interaction a blogger may have with his or her readers. But, that doesn’t always mean it’s the right thing to do!

I’m not talking about annoying your readers. I don’t think asking for input now and again is something that’s very high on a reader’s list of annoyances. In fact, many people like to give their opinion and are happy to be presented with the opportunity to do so. That’s not the point I’m about to make, so you can cast that issue aside.

What you have to figure out is whether it is the right thing to do to achieve your specific goal. What is the reason for asking your readers’ opinion? What is the result you are trying to achieve? For example, are you trying to gain readers? Let’s go through a few example scenarios and determine whether a reader poll is going to accomplish your objective.

When TO Ask Your Readers What They Want

• You want to increase comments. If you’re not getting many comments on your posts, you may want to poll your readers. Why aren’t they commenting more? Are there different topics that they would feel more inclined to comment on? Is your writing style discouraging comment?
• You want to turnaround a decline in readers. If you’re losing readers and subscribers, asking for your readers’ input can definitely help you here. Have you switched subjects from what they originally visited your blog for? Have you stopped posting content they want to read? Asking your readers what they want to read more of can be a great value in this type of situation.

When NOT to Ask Your Readers What They Want

• You want to increase readers. In this case, asking your readers what they would like to read is probably not going to accomplish much. They are already your readers! You’ve got them hooked!

When you’re looking to increase the number of readers, asking your readers what they want to read is probably the least effective method. But, that being said, you can still make use of them if you turn the question around. Instead of asking what content they want, ask about them! In other words, what are their goals and interests? Why are they reading your blog? What do they enjoy most about your blog?

In such a case, finding out more about your readers will help you identify your target audience so that you might then concentrate your marketing efforts on finding more people that fit that profile. You will no doubt find that to be much more effective than simply asking your readers what they would like to read more of on your blog.

In any event, before asking your readers anything, be sure to (a) figure out what your goal in doing a reader survey is and (b) craft your questions to accomplish that goal.

As always,
Believe. Act. Achieve!

If you’re not already subscribed to my RSS feed, well, why the heck not, eh? Just add the feed (look in the upper right) to your feed reader to subscribe. It’s easy. I have some smart commentators too, so you might also want to subscribe to comments.

And, if you’re already a subscriber, now you can enjoy all my wit and wisdom in a condensed form–kind of like condensed soup–by subscribing to my RSS feed for my Tumblr mini-blog. Just pop in over here, scroll to the bottom (for now–I may move it to a more prominent location later) and add its RSS feed to your reader. Most of my posts there will be short and sweet and you’re not going to want to miss them!

Heck, let me just save you some time:

• Subscribe to dcrBlogs RSS feed
• Subscribe to dcrBlogs Comments RSS feed
• Subscribe to dcrTumbles RSS feed

Thanks!

Joanne said I ought to have a “mini-blog” on Tumblr. So, now I do.

Perhaps I will update it daily too. Don’t know. But… I tumble for you. I tumble for you. I tumble for you-ou-ou.

You can also track Joanne and Pete there too.

And Rolando, who has apparently known about Tumblr but been holding out on us. Hmmm.

Maybe we can get Jon on Tumblr?

Get your own Tumblr “mini-blog.”

What is the secret? Notice how the ads on my blog are surrounded by way too much white space, whereas on other blogs the post text wraps neatly around the ad box? What is the secret to doing that? I’ve tried some different things, and I always end up with way too much white space.

You’ll also notice that I only show three posts per page now, instead of 10 as before. I’m using the AdSense Manager plugin and apparently it is supposed to show only 3 ad blocks per page (though I would sometimes see 4) and then it still put empty space in two other slots, which isn’t very desirable. Thus, the switch to 3 posts per page, which I don’t really like at all.

Anyone willing to share the secrets?

Let’s try an experiment and see how long before someone notices.

I killed a blog yesterday.

It had no love.

Over six months, and no comments. No linkbacks. No love at all. Mind you, all there was of it was an About page and a Welcome introductory post which had like one sentence. Maybe two.

I put it out of its misery yesterday.

Apparently, it had some traffic, so the domain name will point elsewhere, in the hopes that maybe one of those people will buy something.

Seeing as none of them bothered to leave a comment for the dearly departed blog, the least they could do is buy something from me.

Today, I started working on a new blog. Too bad that I pinged the entire blogosphere with my test posts…

Chris Bloczynski dot Com had a “Linkin’ It Up” Contest, where the winner got a blog theme and some web development service.

In my entry, I mentioned that if I won, I may re-gift it. So, some lucky reader here would have a new theme, plus some help if needed.

Well, today, Chris announced the winner: Robert A Henru of Reason4Smile.com.

That’s not me.

So, I’m a loser, and I’m taking you down with me, because now you won’t get a chance to win the theme and web development service. You can join me in walking around with a big “L” on your forehead.

Now, we should all head on over to Reason4Smile.com, because now we all need a reason to smile. Sigh.

Get your Hot Naked Chicks here!

Traffic, traffic, traffic is the mantra for anyone that wants to make money online, or maybe just to build a loyal legion of fans.

And, a clever, well-written headline can certainly help bring in the traffic, especially once it’s indexed by the search engines.

Just make sure it’s the right headline! It should also tie in well to your subject matter.

Looking for Hot Naked Chicks?

As an example, this post will be indexed, and I’ll get lots of people coming here looking for photos of hot naked chicks and not how to build traffic. I’ll have traffic, but those people won’t find what they are looking for, so the benefit to me is nil.

Mind you, “hot naked chicks” is not the most popular search term when looking for photos of naked women, but some people will invariably use that phrase and find this blog post. Sorry, no naked ladies here!

Additionally, I’ve used “hot naked chicks” in the body of my text, which makes it (in the eyes of the search engines) all the more likely that this post is about “hot naked chicks” and not building traffic. And, I’ve used a hyperlink on some of the mentions of “hot naked chicks” too. Ouch!

Really, though, this post is not about hot naked chicks!

Now, I’ve gone and put “hot naked chicks” in bold, thus stressing (to the search engines) its importance. So, I will eventually get plenty of traffic on this post, but it won’t be traffic I can use. It won’t be what is known as “quality traffic.”

What is Quality Traffic?

Quality traffic would be people that are actually interested in what you are offering. If you are offering a product (a book, for example) that shows people how to increase quality traffic to their own blog or website, then people looking for that kind of product would be considered “quality traffic.” They are specifically looking for what you are offering, and they might just buy it from you.

On the other hand, if you’re offering a book on building quality traffic, and people come to your site looking for photos of naked women, that’s not quality traffic. If your viewers are looking for something other than what you are offering, that’s not quality traffic. They will not buy your book. They will look around for nudie picts, and leave when they don’t find any. How has that helped you?

Strength in Numbers?

Some people will stand by the notion that there is strength in numbers, that any amount of traffic is good traffic. That may be the case where you are offering something of general interest. If it’s something everyone can use, there is a chance that someone looking to see some skin might buy some skin tan lotion from your site, but that’s going to be a rarity. Your efforts are better spent trying to bring in quality traffic than hoping that some small percentage of people “tricked” into visiting your site might buy something.

Mixed Metaphors

No doubt this post will also rank highly for people searching for images of naked women standing in traffic. So, be careful that, when writing your post, you aren’t using a comparison that may unintentionally bring in the wrong type of traffic too. The search engines don’t understand that kind of stuff. They’ll see this post, for example, and think that it’s about, well, you already know that. Why make things worse for myself?

Get Ready for Grilling Season! Get your Hot Naked Chicks here!

Are you wanting to do more with your blog in 2008? Is this the year you will be able to earn some extra money from your hard work? Is this the year you will be able to grow your blog like you’ve always wanted? Is this the year that you will make your dreams come true?

But, you face obstacles, no? You struggle. You click and clatter away at the computer. You stare at the screen for hours wondering what you’ve done wrong, or what more you could do.

Maybe you write great content, but haven’t been able to drive traffic to your blog.

Maybe you’re good at visiting other blogs and leaving comments, but draw a blank when you look at writing a post for your own blog.

Few people are able to manage it all, and that’s why there are so few bloggers making thousands of dollars per month on their blogs. Even with that, maybe your goal isn’t money. Maybe you just want more exposure. Maybe you just want more interaction. Maybe you just need help.

Are you such a blogger? Are you interested in working with other bloggers for the benefit of all–to help everyone achieve their blogging goals? Are you dedicated to working on what you do best, not only for yourself but for other bloggers as well?

If you’re so inclined, consider leaving a comment below.