Showing posts with label Blog Enhancement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blog Enhancement. Show all posts

Jun 2, 2014

Simple Way to Convert excel tables to HTML

Simple Way to Convert excel tables to HTML
Many webmasters and bloggers not hailing from a web design back ground often feel the need to convert an excel file into html. But they want to achieve this feat without the unnecessary coding, hit-and-trials or head banging. 

One must admit, A method of converting an excel worksheet into its html counterpart is difficult. Owing to lack of options webmasters often resort to taking screenshot of the tables and inserting it as an image in the blog. Arguably, this is a great method to insert tables into a webpage, but it does not perform the job. The following are reasons why inserting table as an image is wrong.

  1. It does not look good
  2. Your readers cannot click
  3. They cannot copy the text (for which, even codemakit method cannot help)
  4. The image might perform weird in a mobile device
  5. The text and the table prepared by you so meticulously will not be read by search engines
  6. It shows lack of finesse in the blog


* You cannot just copy and paste the table text as alt txt in images, because large text in Alt-Text defies Blogger Policies.

So, looks like you're going to need HTML table. Now that I've established your need for HTML tables I shall present a solution.

First, open the table containing the spreadsheet. Save it as a .csv file.

Excel to HTML Sample


Excel to HTML Sample


* A .csv file is a comma separated values file, here the values are separated by commas, which makes it easier for online web applications to convert.

Excel to HTML Sample


Next, go to http://www.tablesgenerator.com/html_tables

Excel to HTML Table Generator


Click on file - Upload .csv File and Upload.

Excel to HTML Table Generator


Now you'll be presented with a raw version of your html table. You can make modifications, change font type, size, justification, color, cell color etc.

Excel to HTML Table Generator


Every update will be reflected at the newly created html-CSS file at the bottom of the page.

This was,
Simple Way to Convert excel tables to HTML Mohitchar

May 19, 2014

Add RSS Feeds to Outlook Mailbox

Add RSS Feeds to Outlook Mailbox front
The professionals working at offices often get bored out of their wits at the end. What do they do? The computer issued to them often blocks a plethora of websites (Though some even help you in your work) that could provide a shred of decent, entertaining break they deserve. But, what if you could use your office issued technology to your advantage? 


When you could not open a website at your workstation (Simply because it is blocked), You can use your office issued email to access the content that has been kept away from you. For that you need your office issued mailbox. There are two very simple ways of accessing content that has been denied to you. 

The First Way

First, Subscribe. A lot of offices with a comparatively lenient IT department allow you to receive email subscriptions on your office mail.

However, If that is not the case, You should move to the second way which albeit interesting is a bit convoluted.

The Second Way

First find your personal folder in the mailbox, as depicted in the image below.
The folder will be named "RSS Feeds"

Add RSS Feeds to Outlook Mailbox sample

Now right click on the folder and select "Add a new RSS Feed"

You'll be presented with a simple window asking you to provide the feed details. (It is here when the RSS feed becomes really important. For more information on RSS feeds for any website or How to find the RSS Feed of a website, you could read some of codemakit previous articles.

Add RSS Feeds to Outlook Mailbox sample

Now after authenticating the RSS feed, just click enter and you're good to go.

Add RSS Feeds to Outlook Mailbox sample

After this, any new content on the website will be available instantly, as RSS feeds to your inbox. Let us assume, the Safety conscious IT guys do not know about our little arrangement.

This Showed about,
Add RSS Feeds to Outlook Mailbox MohitChar

May 5, 2014

An Interview with Metin Saylan from Shailan

An Interview with Metin Saylan from Shailan front
Metin Saylan is a Turkish Naval Architect with an awesome programming background. He has been coding websites since 1998. This reminds me, when I interviewed Steven Bradley of Vanseo Design, I found that he too was a structural Engineer. It seems that your background does not matter when you have passion for something. 


Coming back to Metin, he was associated with yahoo geocities. He is a WordPress enthusiast and often says that it saves you from database programming hassle, and lets you focus on design and content. In 2006 He acquired Shailan.com and it started as a personal blog then. But when he bought his own personal domain, He switched Shailan.com to a web design blog mainly focusing on WordPress and web design. Let us talk to Metin and find out all about his experiences,

It's like Clark Kent and Superman. I feel like superman when I am coding :)About Design and Development

Mohit: You are basically a naval architect with an array of exceptional projects to your name, why did you get into web Design and Development?

Metin: I just love designing websites. It's like a hobby to me. I still work as a design engineer. But when I find time, I like working on my personal website metinsaylan.com. It's my blog about everything. When I need something specific, I consider writing a plugin about it. If I can, I release it to public. This brings more visitors to Shailan.com, and makes me happy. However, my real income is always engineering. It's like Clark Kent and Superman. I feel like superman when I am coding :)


Mohit: Your articles are always dripping with originality and detail. How do you get the ideas and organization to write them?

good content always brings more visitors.
Metin: As I said before, I like solving problems. When I want to add a feature to my personal site, or when a client request requires a custom feature, I do a wide research. Most people don’t have time to do wide researches. I try to summarize those problems and how to solve them on my web design blog. I also share basic tips, resources and Plugins I like on Shailan.com.


Sometimes I get inspired by a tweet, a freelancer.com project or a stackoverflow question. Those are great resources if you want high quality content. Of course you need to work hard to solve them, but good content always brings more visitors.


Mohit: Shailan.com is almost synonymous with WordPress Plugins; however any person visiting metinsaylan.com would scratch their heads when asked about the nature of the blog. With no specific topic/genre, don't you face problems during monetization or visitor Retention? 
I mean why would people bother to subscribe to metinsayan.com if the posts range from Marine Engineering to wallpaper to programming?

Metin: Shailan.com is a specific site about WordPress and Web Design. I like sharing knowledge and tips about web design. When I need to do something, and it's really hard to reach on web, I share my experiences about it. 

My personal site, metinsaylan.com is indented for everything else that is not about web design. I don't need people to subscribe on my personal site. It mainly works like my web memory, when you work on multiple sides; you get to forget things really quickly. That's why on my personal site, you would find everything I want to remember. I know it is not a readable blog, but still helps many people about many problems. It just acts as a visit and go website.

Revenue from the Website

Mohit: Your revenue model consists of Advertisements, Projects, Support Packages and Donations. How do these methods perform in comparison?

Metin: My main revenue comes from WordPress Projects. I have a few clients that outsource coding parts of their web design projects. If you prove yourself as a good developer, people tend to work with you in every project. I started working cheap first to get clients, now for a WordPress theme I get about 100$ and that's a 3 days work for me.

My second best performing revenue model is Google Adsense. It works because Shailan.com has really specific content. It's not optimized for High CPC words, but I still get around 100$ for a month from Adsense. That's enough for my hosting costs.

I accept donations for my free Plugins. People don’t donate on my site too much, maybe because I couldn't update my Plugins for a time now. In two years I only got 200$ from donations. 

Support packages are a new thing to my site. It just prevents too many support comments on my free Plugins. People always tend to think, you will answer every question. That support button tells them that I don't. It doesn't bring me anything really.

On Social Networks

Mohit: Shailan has acceptable fan following at Facebook and Twitter, but after interviewing several equally talented websites with a lesser page rank, (Bluntly) it seems Shailan doesn't invest much time at social media interactions. What are your thoughts?

once you have a good optimized website, you may go rest, and your site will do the rest.
Metin: I like sharing something time to time mainly on Facebook and Twitter. If an important update comes, I announce it on my website, and then share it on our social profiles. 


Social platforms are a great way for marketing, but if you don't sell anything on your website, sharing page links just gives you a temporary boost. Mainly people coming from twitter, doesn't bring too much revenue on Adsense when compared to search visitors. So if you want money from adsense, SEO is way better then temporary boosts. Plus, once you have a good optimized website, you may go rest, and your site will do the rest.

Metin's Advice

Mohit: I always ask this question in every one of my interviews to know about what they actually learnt in their journey. 
Having been in the blog atmosphere for so long, you must have seen the rise and fall of many webmasters and websites. What advice do you give to passionate amateur web designers?

Metin: I am not really a webdesign expert, but my advice would be that, if you want to earn money from writing, try writing original content. In time, sites change, themes change, even ways to reach the content change; but content stays. Quality content should be your aim, the rest will come afterwards.
If you are not a programming expert, compose useful resource lists from all over the web. Once you help people do things faster, they will stay with you. 

Keep your site simple and usable. Make it look similar to popular websites, because users don’t like extreme layouts. Once you have enough audience, you may change it to something else, but don't change everything at once. Those are just a few advice I'd like to follow.

WordPress VS Blogger

Mohit: Finally, towards the most contentious topics in the blogging world, I am currently using Blogger for codemakit and you are a WordPress enthusiast, How is WordPress any better than blogger?

Metin: Blogger is the simplest and best way to blog if you have good content. I started with Blogger myself too. Then I thought, why just depend on other people's websites, while I can make one. That's how my WordPress journey started. In fact, a few times later, Blogger was restricted for access in Turkey. That's too common in Turkey, so I was glad I had my own hosting. 

With self hosted WordPress site, you have full control over your site. This sometimes gets you away from main idea behind blogging, but surely it gave me a lot of content to write about.

I'm sure Metin would be happy to answer our readers's questions, If you have any, drop it in the comment below. Also, you can connect with him at Facebook or Twitter.

Further,

Metin Saylan was an absolute delight, but if you need another designer like Steven Snell of Vandelay Design, You should check out that interview too.

This was, 
An Interview with Metin Saylan from Shailan Mohitchar

Apr 28, 2014

What are blog / website cookies


What are blog/ website cookies frontNowadays, A lot of websites display a message saying, "By browsing our website you agree to our cookie policy.” Many of my friends are baffled by this sentence. They often ask what are cookies and what do they do?


First it is important to note that a cookie, contrary to what the name suggests is just a text message that a Web server sends to a Web Browser. To understand why we need a cookie, I think we need an example.


The Example

Keeping cookie in mind let us have an example of an ice-cream vendor (mmm.. desert). The vendor has a shop where every day scores of people visit and buy ice-cream from him. His store has just about every flavor under the sun.

Little Sam and Susie have been coming to the store for the last 2 weeks. Their mother had once handed out a list to the vendor about the things Sam has allergies to. Sam can eat only chocolate with sprinkles and Susie likes plain strawberry. Whenever they approach the store, without asking, the vendor begins to prepare the ice-cream cone beforehand.

Why? After seeing them at the store for so many days, he knows their likes and dislikes. He knows that Susie will not eat anything other than strawberries and Sam will not have anything without sprinkles. So he modifies any order given to him likewise. This way Sam and Susie always get what they like.

The Relation

In our story, the recipe given by their mother is a cookie (Not an actual cookie but the internet one). The cookie does the important job of giving information of the preference of a particular browser, thereby helping it display content that is relevant to the visitors. The vendor would never give Sam anything listed on the paper that his mother gave. Hence Sam and Susie will always be happy and revisit him every day.
website cookies explained

Why do Websites use cookies?

The Design of a website is important in terms of visitor experience. Your blog is adorned with awesome layouts and dynamic and slider templates with exquisite patterns (Chosen in consultation with a design professional). But in the end, what matters is "Does the User likes it?". Similarly, in the internet world, preferences and personalization often matters. When a mail that you receive has your name on it, you are bound by curiosity. When a commerce website offers you range on cheap shoes you are delighted because that was what you were searching few hours ago. 

In short, cookies help you get a really personalized experience from a generic website and that is what gives you an edge over your competitors. It might even reduce your bounce rate (though bounce rate are not that important)or keep visitors longer at your website leading to higher revenue.

Know the cookies in your computer

Even you can check about the cookies stored in your computer with some simple steps.

Cookies in Chrome


Cookies in Chrome


Types of Cookies

Now that the concept is clear to you, we shall go forward and understand what the differenct types of cookies are. Essentially there are just two types of cookies,

Session Cookie (Temporary one) 

This one gets deleted once the browser is closed. They cannot collect information from your computer and is stored in temporary memory.

The persistent cookie (The permanent one) 

It is stored on your hard drive and stays there until you delete them manually. (We shall discuss how to delete cookies manually)

The Good and Bad Cookies
Hope you've understood the concept of Cookies.
If you have any more questions, Drop it in as comments, we'll update.

Related Memes




This answered 
What are blog/website cookies Mohitchar

Apr 21, 2014

Jacob Gube of Six Revisions Up Close

Up Close with Jacob Gube of Six Revisions
SixRevisions, A website aimed at providing the best designs to its readers for free. The face behind SixRevisions is here with us today (Applause for Jacob). Jacob Gube is a web developer, designer and the founder of Six Revisions.

He has been a web professional for more than 8 years. His comfort areas include PHP, JavaScript, and standards-based CSS/HTML. He is also quite versed with .NET, VB, Perl, AS2/Flash etc.

The Story

Like all exceptional stories, this one too starts with our protagonist starting from humble beginnings (like the ones of Reza Farazmand or Paul Crowe). Jacob started as a freelancing graphic designer who made brand identities for small businesses. He started a blog with his brother on tech gadgets. Though it witnessed a good start but lack of scheduled posting (What did I tell you about regularity) lead to its demise. But finally he found something worth writing for, something he was passionate about.

Though SixRevisions has now become something just short of an Internet giant, the site too had humble beginnings like his maker. It was started on a Sunday morning in February. He wrote two posts and published one, just the same day. Many ask why "SixRevisions"? What's so special about the name. Jacob explains that the name was inspired by his experience as a graphic designer where they often had to make many revisions to the same design.

Now enough of me, Let us move towards Jacob. Let's pick his brains and see what has he leant from SixRevisions.

From Jacob's Flickr Page



More than 35 Authors?


Mohit: I would skip the "Hi Jacob, Tell us about yourself" as your fans know everything about you. First and foremost question, 35 Authors (Check out the about page) for a single Website! Why?

Jacob: Actually, we have a lot more authors than that. The authors in the Six Revisions "About" page are just a few of our authors. That reminds me: That page needs to be updated. In the last 14 months alone, we've on-boarded 62 new authors. In total, both  Six Revisions and Design Instruct combined, we've worked with over 300 authors. Our authors are responsible for the growth of our websites. It simply wouldn't  be possible to get our sites to where they are now without the valuable contributions of our authors.

In addition, it's important for any online publisher that covers subjects as big as design and development to have a diversity of thought. In order to have a fuller understanding of these subjects, you need to learn them from multiple qualified sources.


Mohit: A page-rank 6 Website backed with such huge online presence is one tough nut to crack, what’s your secret?

Jacob: There's only one secret. And, really, it's not a secret. Focus on publishing great content.
When we work on articles, we never discuss SEO, or spinning the article a certain way just to get more page views, or any of the other tricks that's unfortunately become commonplace within the online publishing industry. We don't care about those things. We believe that if our content is good, then people will read it. And if it isn't, then we have to work on it. What we do is concentrate all our time, effort, and resources to publishing great content our readers will find useful. And that takes a considerable amount of work on our authors' part and on us.

We have just one mission: Publish content that provides value to the lives of our readers.And if that result in more page views, that's awesome, but only because it's a signal that we're on the right track in terms of publishing content our audience wants to read.

From Jacob's Flickr Page



On Social Media

Mohit: With a website as huge as SixRevisions, maintenance must be a drag; from updating previous articles and moderating comments to interacting at social media, how do you distribute the work?

Jacob: We prioritize the work. We identify key tasks and long-term projects that bring the most value to our readers and decide that we're going to work on those first. We assign tasks based on ability and availability. It's nothing formal. We just meet once a week, discuss important matters, and then dole out the tasks as needed. Social media almost runs itself. We'll check it a couple of times a day just to see if we have any messages.

Moderating comments continues to be the toughest day-to-day task because we receive hundreds of spam comments a day despite having our spam-prevention mechanisms in place, and so we have to manually moderate those.


Mohit: You have an enormous Twitter following and considerable number of likes at Facebook and several highly interactive social profiles. How important is social Media Interaction for any website/Blog?

Jacob: Social media is important for being able to have discussions with your readers. We find that it's convenient for our readers to just send us a tweet or a message on Facebook rather than email. So if you truly care about what your audience has to say, social media becomes important. But let it grow organically. Let people truly interested in engaging with you to find you on social media by themselves.

Something Personal :-P

Mohit: Let us get into something personal, some of us wonder Why isn't Isaac a part of your Author team?

Jacob: Isaac, my brother and my co-founder on Design Instruct, is part of the Six Revisions author team because he's written few posts on Six Revisions. But, as I've alluded to earlier, the Six Revisions "About" page doesn't display all of our authors.

He's editor-in-chief on Design Instruct. That means he's my boss when we're working on Design Instruct.


Mohit: What do you do when you're not working?

Jacob: I make it a habit to try and go to the gym a few times a week, I travel whenever I get a chance, and I work on personal coding projects. Recently, I've been playing console games on the PS 3. I suck though. You can add me on PSN and here's my public profile:


Mohit: Regarding revenue, how does the advertising revenue help in sustaining the website?


Jacob: It helps quite a lot. It's our primary source of funding.



Mohit: Ok Sensing a little secrecy.. Moving on, the designs at SixRevisions are unbelievingly cool and urbane. Yet, all of them are free. Why don't you sell them? I'm sure the proceeds would go a long way in improving SixRevisions.

Jacob: Our freebies? They're contributed to our community by creative professionals. Our freebies aren't meant for profit, but rather to provide useful resources our readers can use in their own projects. I believe publishing freebies is part of our mission to publish content that adds value to our readers' lives.

WordPress or Blogger?

Mohit: Let me ask a controversial question, many bloggers including me still prefer blogger/BlogSpot to Wordpress, How would you react?

Jacob: At the end of the day, your blogging software is simply a tool - just like a pen, a computer, or a paint brush. These tools don't matter if they're not being used by people. But under the right set of hands, the same paint brush can produce remarkable works of art that are celebrated for centuries, and the same laptop computer can be used to develop life-changing technologies that change the world forever.

So, use whatever helps you write and publish articles. Wordpress vs. Blogger vs. other publishing platforms is really all about preference. As for my personal choice: I use Wordpress. My partiality to WP is evident because it's the only online publishing platform that has its own category on Six Revisions. But I do regularly watch out for new publishing platforms that might serve our community better. I haven't found one yet, but a few new projects are coming close in terms of being better-suited for us. I'm keeping an eye on those.

Finally

Jacob Gube
Alright, this is the end of our up close and personal interview of Jacob from Six Revisions. We wish him well for his future endeavors. You can connect with him at Facebook and Twitter too. But do not forget to check out his awesome creations at his Flickr page.


If you have any questions, Pitch it in the comments, I'm sure Jacob wouldn't mind answering some more.

Further,

If you think another interview with a prominent designer, you should definitely have a look at the interview with Veerle Pieters of Duoh.com.

This was about.
Up Close with Jacob Gube of Six Revisions MohitChar

Apr 14, 2014

War on Guest Blogging : Google VS The World

War on Guest Blogging : Google VS The World front
Matt Cutts, Google's Head of Spam recently took a bold step, claiming Guest Posts as a link building exercise thereby branding them as spam. Now the ball is in his court and he doesn't seem to mind penalizing many websites which resorted to Guest Blogging as an SEO exercise. 


He wrote a clear article on 'Why Guest Blogging is becoming worse'. He first gives an example of an unsolicited email asking permission to write an article for Matt's blog and then asking him to "do-follow a link or two". Finally Matt claims, quite rightly so, That often a beautiful and authentic SEO trend starts which is later duplicated by millions of people and this finally morphs into something grotesque.

After hearing this, many might recoil with horror. 

The Research


However, he later doles out some exceptions to Google’s wrath. He in his blog specifically mentions that high quality multi-author Blogs need not worry. To get to know about the topic better, I resorted to reading the comments section of the page. 

A person claimed that many of what Google had done made the lives of average site owners difficult, at this moment I thought to myself, the drastic step taken by Google actually helped small site owners. 

Larger site owners with exclusive contacts and deeper pockets often had reach towards content and SEO techniques from desperate people willing to share in exchange of some quality inbound links, A luxury ill afforded by people with lesser web presence. 


Matt's Response

Through Google’s guidelines (including the ones of blogger), deserving people with extraordinary stories and commendable content shall come into picture. Someone posted that, it looks as if Google is running our websites; it seems as if it is an intrusion into personal decisions. Matt's response too deserved applause, when he said that webmasters have always had the freedom to do whatever they chose. Same should be applicable to Google. It should be able to tweak its algorithm to provide quality user experience. As they always say, there are plenty of fish in the sea; you must remember that just Google has changed its algorithm and not the others. 

If you really want your page to be displayed in its search results, you will have to change with the trend (Never be a Potato Blogger). But with 69% of Search engine share hogged up by Google, It is tough to find other fishes in the sea. Another Question comes up, why now? Why didn't he tell sooner? Actually he has been posting videos depicting the wrong usage of guest blogging and its conversion into a link building SEO exercise. But, when the water went over the head, he had to take some serious steps.

What was really hilarious was when one comment highlighted a Guest Post hosted by Matt himself! Who later explained that he knew the guest pretty well and could vouch for her. But then again a Google algorithm can never determine if the webmaster vouches for the guest. All in all it is really a grey area. 

Still clarity can only be sought by keeping in mind the following points,

First
Create/implement a really tight filter on which guest posts to accept. In short publish only the best of Guest posts.


SecondWordstream.com came up with a Really weird strategy, asking publishers to not label Guest posts as "Guest Post". Empirical evidence for its working is not available but this still makes sense.

Third
Determine if the Guest post written is for your users or for the search engine. Does it rely on making relationships or bringing back traffic?

MoreIf you still need clarity to know if a guest post is spammy, you can have a look at a previous article of ours which outlined 7 Ways to find if a Guest Post is bad.

7 ways to check if a Guest Post is bad

So the obvious question, Is Guest Blogging Really DEAD?

The answer though really contentious, can be "no". Many comments at Matt's blog too agree and certain really influential (like Search Engine Journal or Marketing Land) websites too accede that Guest blogging isn't dead. If it was, Google would have announced a new update with another endangered animal name. Just the spammy ones or the ones which actually rely on guest blogging to bring traffic. Or rely on Paid links/Articles to create content and links.

Update:

To get further clarity, I posted a question at Google webmaster forums on whether interviews too come under Guest Post Category (Considering Codemakit conducts interviews with prominent and influential personalities). 

The people there were really helpful and after arguing for quite a long time, they succeeded in influencing my thoughts. One of the contributors that really inspired me explained it like this, 
Quote 2
Quote 1
Is the link there for users, or search engines? If the link is there for users, you can no-follow the link and users will never know, they will still click on it if it useful for them and provide traffic to the outgoing site. If the links are for search engines, it's an unnatural link and you could be penalized for it.


Hear Hear,
War on Guest Blogging : Google VS The World MohitChar

Apr 7, 2014

7 Ways to check if a guest post is bad

7 Ways to check if a guest post is bad Front
Matt Cutts in his recent post took out all his artillery and beat down on Guest posts warning or so to say cautioning publishers and webmasters to stop using Guest posts as a link building exercise (Though he Himself used it). The Article was a real marvel but what it lacked were clear instructions. 


He reminded web owners that the websites with high quality guest articles would be exempt. But, there is no tangibility towards High Quality. 

What if the article is of better quality or of good quality? So here are some instructions for webmasters to determine if they should allow a guest post on their blog or not.

FirstTight Filter

First enforce a really tight filter on which guest posts to accept. 
In short publish only the best of Guest posts. When you target the best, you might not come under Matt's Purview.

SecondThink and Label

Wordstream.com came up with a really weird strategy, asking publishers to not label Guest posts as "Guest Post". Empirical evidence for its working is not available but logically, it still makes sense.

ThirdArticle or the Link

Any Webmaster aiming to be one of the top players of the internet world knows that External links and Internal Links play a pivotal role in determining the PageRank of the website
So site owners write guest posts for high page rank websites. Not for the information but for the links. But does the article you receive rely on making relationships or bringing back traffic? 

FourthBall-park a topic, 


If yours is not a personal blog, it is understood that the articles posted would be pertaining to a single topic or revolve around a topic. If tomorrow you receive a mail saying how awesome your site is or how amazed they are with your blog and would like to add something to it, ask them what they are writing on. If it’s a topic away from yours, decline respectfully.

FifthCtrl+C, 


This one is an understood one, If someone offers you some text for publication you would first check if it has not been plagiarized (You know there are some pretty good blogs around there). Simple steps to check are taking a snippet and Google it. For a more detailed method you can check out this Duplicate Content tool.

SixthCheck the content, 


The information sent by them should be synonymous with your website's content. It should cater to Google's Quality Guidelines. If you use blogger, it should be conducive to Blogger's content policy. All the more it should not try to pull visitors away from your website (Might be selfish). It should not promote itself; rather it should just provide quality information. Grammatical and semantic errors should also be checked.

SeventhThe Thumb Rule,

One comment at Matt's Blog always inspires me. It said, "Before you agree to post some one's article on your blog, try and answer this question, Was the article written for your readers or for a search engine". I feel this point will always help you when you're confused.

This was all about.
7 Ways to check if a guest post is bad MohitChar

Mar 17, 2014

Do Pages with questions as title receive more clicks (Part 2)

Do Pages with questions as title receive more clicks (Part 2)
This article is the complete study conducted by codemakit Website Research. If you feel that the contents are too technical for you, you may want to read the simplified summary presented at part I of the article first. Based on the data obtained from 190 Web Pages and their page views, the following observations were found.

The data available were the number of views, and the date of publication of page. Since the pages were linearly published (i.e. one page after another), the difference of the number of days were found and Cumulative number of days were found. Cumulative number of days helped in determining the number of days a webpage was present on the website as published. As a page's page views and the number of published days are directly proportional. 

Do Pages with questions as title receive more headline

The Data Set

The complete Data Set containing information in pdf for all the blog posts is available for perusal here. To probe this even further, Consider Page A has 200 page views and Page B has 20. This cannot be called as the complete indicator of the actual worth of the page, As Page A might have been published a year ago and Page B just a week ago. Hence a balanced base is needed to determine whether a webpage is performing well or not.

V/D ratio was found out. The V/D ratio is the ratio of the number of page views per unit cumulative day. The ratio is a perfect indicator of the number of how well did the page do in terms of garnering visitors. Using V/D ratio the index for page A would be (200 page views/365 days) and for page B as (20 page views /7 days). The ratio for Page A comes to be 0.548 and for Page B comes to be 2.85. The page A which at first looked better in comparison to Page B, now doesn't look worthy at all. Hence a normalized base would help in determining the true worth of a page.

Do Pages with questions as title receive more headline Large Graph

Types of Webpages

The complete analysis was done using V/D ratio. Graphically, V/D = 0.2 was obtained as the value to be used for determining if a webpage performed well or not. Complete Data was divided into three parts 

1. The lesser ones,
Now all Web Pages which had a V/D ratio less than 0.2 can be safely said to perform worse than its counterparts. Hence all Web Pages with a V/D ratio less than 0.2 come under its purview. There were 53 lesser ones.

2. The Greater Ones
Just like the name suggests, all the Web Pages with a V/D ratio more than 0.2 were called as the greater ones or the ones that performed better. There were 123 Greater ones.

3. The questions
Each webpage which contains a question in its title text is a question type webpage. There existed 63 question type Web Pages on the said website.

How did we arrive at V/D=0.2 ?

Note. It must first be understood how the value of 0.2 was obtained. The complete analysis being a really simple one, It was thought that the sample could be plotted on the graph based on its frequency. The graph was then created taking V/D ratio on the abscissa and the frequency at ordinate. 

Do Pages with questions as title receive more headline Graph 1

The resultant graph was a sharp bell shaped curve. The sharpness was due to excessive variations among the sample group with different number of Web Pages having inordinate differences in their V/D ratios. Hence, The Graph was then magnified at its peak in the hopes of arriving at the dividing value. This graphically came near 0.2.

Do Pages with questions as title receive more headline Graph 2

Do Pages with questions as title receive more headline Graph 3

The Observations

Summarily, It was found that, The Webpages with questions as their title text that performed poorly was 21.21%. However, The Webpages/Articles/Blog Post with questions as their title text which performed poorly was just 21.21%. In Short, if you put your title text as a question for any webpage, you have 50% more chances of making it more famous. 

Greater Ones Lesser Ones
Total Number of WebPages 123 66
Number of Webpages with Questions 39 14
Percentage of Webpages with questions 31.71 21.21

Disclaimer for the study, 

It is however pertinent to note that, the study took 197 webpages and had to exclude some to maintain the sample's integrity. The study was conducted on a single type of website with a single Page Rank and hence same results cannot be expected for any other.

The study could be extended to cover other types of websites too. These could be analysed and results displayed. Also, one must understand that the criterion for determining if a webpage performed good or poor, was created based on the overall performance of the website itself. Hence, there exists a need for determining independent criteria for websites of different types, page ranks and visitor interaction.

Also, you can bring people to your webpage, but making them stay there is wholly dependent on how you present the content. Bounce rate isn't too irrelevant you know.

Is the Study too technical for you?

For a much simpler version of this study you can visit the part I of the series

If you still have doubts or would like to share your own story, comment below, we'll be happy to answer.

This was all about,
Do pages with questions as title receive more clicks MohitChar