Let’s get ready to rumba!
It’s time for another rumblin’ review, where two bloggers go head to head, and only one will emerge victorious. Polish your pistols, ready your whips and sharpen your swords, but refrain from whittlin’ your thumbs, as we answer the question: who will lose their head and who will taste the Quickening?
Our One Doubles: One Man’s Goal and One Year Goal. Seeing double?
About
OneMansGoal.com is a blog by a man determined to harness the Internet to earn a full-time income entirely online. Bryan writes, “Give me 365 Days and I will attempt… I WILL… create a viable source of income by harnessing the power of the net. I am not a guru, techie, coder, blogger, or a professional. I hope to learn these things as I go and pass them on to others.”
One Year Goal .com is a blog by a man dedicated to earning $100,000 online in one year. One Man writes, “This blog is about the true American dream for the 21st century. The dream of being an entrepreneur online. The dream of being your own boss. The dream of being free to set your hours and never be chained to a desk.”
With the introductions out of the way, let’s let our Duel of Ones begin!
Risk / Reward
Both our competitors have stated bold goals online. Stating your goals publicly and online is a pretty bold move, wouldn’t you say? Bryan Clark wants to earn a full-time income and One Man wants to earn $100,000. Hey… wait a minute… Did you notice that?
We know who the man is behind OneMansGoal.com. His name is Bryan Clark. He even has his picture on his blog. If he fails to achieve his goal, everyone will know.
On the other hand, who is One Man? His name isn’t on his blog and his domain name registration is private, so no clues there either. If he fails to achieve his goal, who will know, besides a small group of people (like me) who know his real name? He can easily disappear from the blogosphere and start all over.
(The score here is based on boldness.)
Advantage: OneMansGoal.com
Originality
Both OneMansGoal.com and One Year Goal .com have similar goals, as well as domain names. In fact, I think I initially started reading One Year Goal .com because I thought it was OneMansGoal.com. It has even come up in discussions on other blogs as to whether one copied the other. Hmmm. Let’s see…
OneMansGoal.com was registered on July 2, 2007.
OneYearGoal.com was registered on July 3, 2007.
Bryan’s first post on OneMansGoal.com was on June 28, 2007. He started out on a free blog, which is how he was able to post before he had registered his domain name. One Man’s first post was on July 4, 2007.
So, did One Man copy Bryan Clark? Did he feel the Buzz? Does it really matter? Both have original content (we’ll get to that later), and there’s really nothing original in trying to make a full-time income online. So, really, it’s a wash.
Advantage: No One
Technical
If you visit OneMansGoal.com as www.onemansgoal.com, you will be redirected to onemansgoal.com (no www). Good.
If you visit One Year Goal .com as www.oneyeargoal.com, you will arrive at www.oneyeargoal.com. Visit as oneyeargoal.com and you will arrive at oneyeargoal.com. Bad.
Such a setup can lead to duplicate content issues with Google and other search engines. You see, the search engines will see www.yourdomain.dom and yourdomain.dom as two different sites displaying the same content. Yes, the search engines are that dumb. Since the search engines view duplicate content as having less value than original content, your site can get demoted in the rankings.
Advantage: OneMansGoal.com
Branding
OneMansGoal.com has a big, bold logo graphic across the top of his blog. OneMansGoal.com is prominently displayed in blue with a white outline and shadow effects to differentiate from the blue background. The name really pops out at you, and the graphics with the plain ol’ vanilla gang with the lone red individual leading the pack is a nice touch.
One Year Goal .com is in plain black type against a dark blue background. It also has the tagline of “Can one man really make $100,000 in just one year?” in white type. The tagline stands out more than the blog’s name. It really should be easier to read the blog’s name though.
Advantage: OneMansGoal.com
Diversification
Both blogs share the goal of making money–lots of money–online.
One Man has plans to do this with other projects in addition to his main blog. Early on, he started with plans for TerriblyFunny.com and a dating eBook. Both have since taken a backseat to his other blog, A Man’s Man. A Man’s Man had a good early start, but has been sidelined as One Man focuses on his Fireboard plugin and OYG Ads. And, this week he started yet another project, MOL Talk.
Bryan Clark only has his main blog at the moment. In an eMail, he tells me that he doesn’t want to start another blog until he feels his current one is established. At the time of this writing, OneMansGoal.com has a Technorati Authority rating of 146, while One Year Goal .com has a rating of 32. Whether he realizes it or not, OneMansGoal.com is established, and Bryan should really start diversifying.
While there is certainly wisdom in Bryan’s approach, and One Man’s project hopping reveals the difficulties of heating several pots with one burner, the edge here has to go to One Man for trying so early in the game. Whether he ultimately succeeds or gets burned will remain to be seen. But, for now, the point is his.
Advantage: One Year Goal .com
Ouch! It has been a bloodbath thus far in our duel, and the fight has not gone well for One Year Goal .com. OneMansGoal.com leads by 3 to 1. Let’s see how our challengers fare as we begin the second part of our raging review…
Design
Since both these blogs have moneymaking as their goal, it should be no surprise that both are filled with ads and other monetizing links. Both blogs appear to have a similar number of ads and both blogs use a three column layout. However, OneMansGoal.com looks less cluttered because his content area is the middle column, which splits up the ads and links visually, leading to a more organized appearance. His color scheme also gives the blog appearance an extra punch, and the light gray shading further helps separate the different content areas.
One Year Goal .com’s smaller blog header allows for more ads and links to appear above the “fold,” which is more attractive to advertisers and gives him an advantage in monetization. OneMansGoal.com’s header occupies more screen real estate and pushes ads and links below the fold. His header could be made half the height, while retaining the advantages mentioned under Branding, simply by cropping it to half the height and making the people smaller. Making the people smaller would also mean there would be room to add more of the vanilla guys, which would further enhance the effect of the leading red man.
For some reason, comments on OneMansGoal.com do not display in Safari (Mac). You just get the commentator’s name and date and a blank area where the comment should be.
Advantage: No One (Tie)
Content
As with our last review, we’re going to examine some sample posts from our dueling duo, comparing posts made on the same days in a series of days more or less chosen by random. (In other words, I thought to myself, Hey, how about last week?)
On July 29th, One Man posts a retraction and a problem, while Bryan posts an end of the month summary. Sorry, but, YAWN!
On July 30th, Bryan posts a help request for a friend, which is nice, so we’ll cut him some slack here. Meanwhile, One Man posts an article on getting started with affiliate programs, an announcement (a.k.a. YAWN!), and a reason to review him.
On July 31st, One Man informs you how to track your visitors, a blog milestone (a.k.a. YAWN!) and an Ask One Man feature where he talks about loving to answer reader questions and invites readers to ask questions which then don’t get answered until about a week later, which is an eternity in the blogosphere. Meanwhile, Bryan posts about Jill Koenig the “Goal Guru” which is largely a sales pitch but does have some useful tidbits he learned. He also posts about another blog’s review of his blog (a.k.a. YAWN!)
On August 1st, Bryan posts “Understanding Your Alexa Ranking.” Back at One Year Goal .com, One Man posts about a reader dinner (a.k.a. YAWN!), getting rich quickly, a weekly summary (a.k.a. YAWN!), Bourne mania (a.k.a. YAWN!) and an announcement (a.k.a. YAWN!) of a forthcoming series of hosting reviews.
On August 2nd, Bryan posts about a blogger challenge (which, for non-contestants, is a.k.a. YAWN!) and “5 Simple Tips to Increase Adsense Income.” One Man posts about Prosper and “How and Why to Poll Your Readers.”
On August 3rd, which is the final day in what has turned out to largely be a snore-fest, One Man has a weekly review review (a.k.a. YAWN!), a Prosper reminder (a.k.a. YAWN!) and a list of his past posts you “MUST” read. Bryan has a site review sale and talks about Text Link Ads’ affiliate program (a.k.a. YAWN!).
At this point, lest ye get the wrong impression, it’s pretty certain I chose a weak week for both contestants. Despite the veritable insomnia-busting series we’ve just gone through, both sites do offer a lot of great content. To be fair, I’ll list a few of the great posts from this past week.
In addition to his Hosting Battle Royale series, One Man also posted the following this past week:
“How to Show Your Commenters You Care“
“3 Simple Steps to Torrents of Traffic“
“My Blog Buddies” (Which mentions me, which earns him some brownie points.)
“Three FREE Books that Will Make You Rich“
This past week, Bryan posted the following:
“5 Great Affiliate Programs for Your Blog“
“10 Fundamentals of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)“
“Building Search Engine Friendly Permalinks“
“Something Special for My Readers“
So, despite one poor week which I just happened to more or less randomly choose to review, both sites really do have great content and a lot of good information to share. Though frequently distracted by other projects, One Man tends to blog more frequently than Bryan. At OneMansGoal.com, there seems to be an average of only one post per day. Few are the days when you’ll see more than one. At One Year Goal .com, there are more days when you’ll see multiple posts in a day.
Still, though, I think both blogs are worth reading and no one takes a strong lead in this category.
Advantage: No One (Tie)
Popularity
OneMansGoal.com: Technorati 146; Blog Juice 3.4; PR(n/a)
One Year Goal .com: Technorati 32; Blog Juice 2.0; PR0
Advantage: OneMansGoal.com
In the End, There Can Be Only One: Conclusion
In our final point battle, OneMansGoal.com wins by 6 points to One Year Goal .com’s 3 points.
In reality, there can be more than One. I hope that both will achieve their goals! In any case, both these blogs are worth watching along the way. They share what they learn and we can learn as they learn.