The Secret to Organisation in Blogging (From the Backrooms of codemakit.com)

How do professional bloggers write such amazing articles every week? Some might even work on 5 to 10 articles at a time. Some work on just 2 to 3 really long articles with a lot of information locked up in a capsule. So the obvious question pops up, how can a blogger, manage to work on 10 blog posts at a time.

A professional blogger can work on up to 10 blog posts at a time. The multitasking allows them time and space to think about ideas both in quantity and in quality.

The average number is 8 however. Organizing is the key to better and efficient content creation. Once you organize everything you can hold large number of articles at a time. This herculean task is obviously difficult for any blogger who doesn't organize. Now organizing your blog posts is just like organizing a research, you need to divide information into chunks so that you can better manage it.

The Root Folder

Let’s have a look at a typical case of a windows blogger (i.e. at the backrooms of codemakit.com). The main blog folder is divided into 3 headers.

1. Blog Idea – It contains reading material, pdfs and pictures to help you understand the topics you’re working on.
2. Blog Pictures – Contains templates for new images, incomplete image projects etc.
3. New Articles – Contains all the new articles, that you’re writing, updating or written.

As is evident from the screenshot in the New Articles folder, the Posts Title is usually thought-of before the article is written and the complete post with images, article snippets, source articles and pages from other websites is then stored in the particular folder.

The Details

The folder system of storing the articles is presumably better and much more organized, so it removes the searching time and avoids the hassle.

Now the complete blog folder (i.e. main folder) is filled with such individual folders containing one article each along with the source media. The folders can then be divided into four parts.

1. Articles under construction – The majority of articles are under construction and most articles are either incomplete as per content or images/video or those which need more research.
2. Completed - The articles which have been completed in every sense in the author’s view. They are touched only on the day of publishing.
3. Articles to be Updated – It contains the articles which has already been posted long time ago but now needs a major remodeling, as with the passing of time, some articles become outdated and Some non-essential.
4. Update – There are pieces of information which is needs to be added to an already posted article. It contains updated media (i.e. an image to spice up the article or a video to make it more interesting). This update will not contain the article as a whole but just the media to be added.

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An Interview with Veerle Pieters of Duoh.com

In this interview, we’ll peek into the design methods and techniques of design whiz Veerle Pieters. With her award winning website Duoh.com and her detailed blog, she is considered as one of the authorities in new age design.

Veerle Pieters was born near Bruges a left-handed who taught herself to be an ambidextrous. She began her career in 1992 in print, focusing mainly on logos, stationery etc and web Design 1995. She founded Duoh! In 2000 with her loving partner Geert Leyseele. Her dream is to be certain that I contribute in small but important ways to making the "interweb" a better place.

On Inspiration

Mohit: Your designs are always dripping with originality and detail, how do you manage to bring out such beautiful yet meaningful designs? What is your inspiration?

Veerle: My inspiration comes from what I see around me and from what I catalog on my Inspiration Stream. I try not worry about trends and just do my thing. When you start a project listening is an important part so you understand what the client needs and you have enough information to translate all that in a design.

On Favorites

Mohit: You have designed Web, CMS, Logos, Illustrations, Icons and even print. What is your favorite category for work?

Veerle: Print still has a bit of an edge because there is nothing that beats having what you created in your hands. The smell of print, the tactile feedback of paper etc. All in all I like the diversity in what I do. The fact that I can switch to coding when I hit a wall in a design for example.

On Social Networks

Mohit: I went through your entire website and found it hard to find your twitter link on your homepage, why did you avoid any link even when you had 1500 followers on twitter?

Veerle: There is a Twitter link on my homepage but it’s way down in the footer. For me personally Twitter was never about have a big amount of followers. I never actively promoted my Twitter so that people would follow me. For me this is just a channel to share what I am passionate about and a channel for helping people by sharing great resources. It’s simple really; if you have something interesting to say people will follow you.

On Work

Mohit: You have a string of impressed and satisfied customers, How do you manage this feat, Is it your charges or your work?

Veerle: I always try to do my best for every project. Not always easy but I assume that’s what clients appreciate. If you deliver great work and try to find solutions when problems occur clients will return for more. It’s a two way street and about giving & taking.


Mohit: You have been in design business for long, you must have had hardships. What is it that keeps you going?

Veerle: The first 5 to 6 years I really struggled to earn enough to make a living. Times were really different and the Internet wasn't around. You had to go out and find clients. Not an easy task if you became a freelancer right out of school because nobody would give you a job. There were a few things in my portfolio but I always heard the same excuse ‘lack of experience’.  That’s why I started my own business. Only problem was that I focused on the wrong clients, little shops that demanded a lot for very little money. Things only started to change when I got out of comfort zone and hit the road to visit business parks to introduce my work and myself. The only thing that kept me going was that I love what I do and that I knew this was what I love waking up for.

The Epilogue

Mohit: Last but not the least, what advice would you give to amateur designers?

Veerle: Don’t loose the passion for what you do even if you fail from time to time. Failing is all part of what we do everyday. Another important aspect is that the learning process never stops. That’s why you need to be really passionate. There is always something new to discover and you are never sure if what you learn today will still be around in a few months. The learning process never stops.

Read about her works in different spheres of Design below,

Graphic and Web Design, On CSS, HTML, Web design Concepts

Modern Home Design, where you'll be convinced that design extends beyond the web.

Belgian Graphic Design, filled with Belgian flavored print design

Connect with her on her twitter page

For More Information feel Free to visit The Company Website (Duoh.com)

Further,

Veerle's interview was both informative and fun, but another designer turns heads too. Check out the interview with Jacob Gube of Six Revisions. Oh and did I mention, his is a page rank 6 Website!

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The Ideal Blog Posting schedule for a week

Bloggers are often faced with the obvious question, when should they post, how often do they post in a week etc. Find out the ideal blog posting schedule depending on the growth you need for your blog. Choose which schedule suits you and apply it on your blog.

The answer lies in a very grey area, where you could never point when should you post so that your blog reaches the heights you've never believed existed. Another previous article about, when should I post my blog article explains pretty clearly about the frequency of posts for the growth you expected. 

The following list provides you with the optimum number of posts in a stipulated time limit as per your growth expectations.

For very high rate of growth: 
Optimum number: 4 to 5 times a day

For normal rate of growth:
Optimum number: Once or twice a day

For leisurely Rate of growth:
Optimum number: 2 to 3 times a week

For Glacial Growth: 
Optimum number: Once in one to two weeks

The freqency is pretty clear in the above list, but now the question comes, If I have to post, suppose 3 articles in a week, I'll have to create a posting schedule, So how do I do it? Here,s your answer, The following table will ease your mind off the hassle of creating your own posting table. Let us see the cases individually and determine which one will suit you best.

Case 1: Lets Bloat-up-our-website case.

A very peculiar case, If you could manage this then no doubt, the blog or the website will reach the stars in no time.

What will happen when you follow this case: blog audience will go through the roof. Bounce rate will reduce to near 20% or less. Average visitor time will exceed 4 to 5 minutes. All in all; every blogger’s golden dream. But you would also have some disadvantage. If the blog is managed by a single blogger, this posting schedule is simply impossible. If it is managed by 3-4 bloggers, then everyone will have to churn out an article every day. This might go well for some time but, after sometime they would transform into potato bloggers. So if you ask for an optimum number, 8-10 bloggers would be nice enough to start with.

Case 2: A toffee every day case

A very ambitious project no doubt. People will be forced to visit the site every day for new content.

What will happen when you follow this case: Blog audience will not shoot through the roof, but will definitely escalate. You will have respectable earnings if you indulge in ad services. Bounce rate will fall near 40-50% (but you could always improve your bounce rate more your expectations). Average visitor time will also be good enough. But there are some disadvantages too. Such ambitious project cannot be handled by one person alone, one would need at least 2-3 people for smooth posting every day. Otherwise, it will be too much pressure and too less time.

Cases 3 and 4: The average-guy schedule

One of the most popular posting schedules, a growing blogger undertakes. Simple as it is, The blogger attempts at posting 3 articles in a week (excluding Sunday) properly spaced together i.e. you must give a day rest to your blog, so that visitors get time to read it. You can either use a Mon-Wed-Fri schedule or a Tue-Thu-Sat schedule. Either way, you blog is bound to grow better than ever. Your bounce rate will slowly decrease to an appreciable limit and your average visitor time will increase too, not to forget decent earnings from blog advertisement. Such schedule can be managed by one person alone without problems. But you must be patient, cause good things don’t happen too soon.

Cases 5 and 6: The two-cent blogger

A case where the author sees his blog visitors and says “Meh…”. Such type of blogger is expected to blog 2 times a week. But another thing that must be seen to is that the posts must be evenly spaced together. So if you blog on Monday then you must blog next on Thursday Or if you blog on Tuesday then the next post must come on Friday. Though this will not have any exceptional changes in the blog audience, you will not be the one seeing your blog go down.

Also remember, you must have a minimum number of posts in a week, a blog usually dies a very painful death if nothing new is posted for several days (see codemakit’s study)
Regularity in publishing new articles will help you increase your visitors and improve your website parameters. Check out the case-study where a website doubled its visitors using this method.

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An Interview with Steven Snell of Vandelay Design

Here is an excerpt from an interview with the brains of Vandelay Design. Meet Steven Snell, a design genius,  who has been in the field since 2007. 

A self made designer, Steven shares about his views on modern design methods and its mash-up with web. Also, find out the secrets of having a successful and financially viable blog. 

The complete interview has been divided into segments for better imparting a better reading experience to the readers. So sit back and listen to the founder of Vandelay Design.

General

Mohit: Your website’s about page is prepared like a highly efficient, professional e-commerce website which contains everything about your creation and nothing about you. Tell us something about yourself Steven and how did you start?

Steven: I got started in web design about 10 or 12 years ago, but I didn't do very much with it for the first few years. I had a basic web design and HTML course in college and that was really where I got started. For the next couple of years after college I experimented on my own and learned a lot by following online tutorials and reading books. In 2007 I started Vandelay Design and things took off pretty quickly. The blog has really been the key to the success as it has attracted a large audience and opened up a lot of doors over the years.

Commerce

Mohit: I have been to your website before, your ad spaces are always full, what would you attribute this to?

Steven: I've been very fortunate to have several advertisers that have had banners on the site for years. Elegant Themes, Wix, Clover, Ekklesia, Dream Template, and PSD2HTML - I think they have all been advertising for 3 years or more. Part of that is definitely pricing the ads well. I probably could charge a little more, but the ad turnover would be higher. I do, of course, have some ad turnover, but not very much. Getting a decent amount of search traffic helps with selling ads, as from what I have seen, these visitors are more likely to click on ads than your regular readers that visit the site a few times a week.

Mohit: You have a string of impressed and satisfied customers, how do you manage it? Is it your fees, your way of working or something else?

Steven: With our premium resources we try to provide the types of resources that will be truly helpful to our customers. There are a lot of places where you can buy good quality PSD files, icons, and these types of resources, so we (myself and the freelances who create many of the products) try to focus on products that people will actually use. We have a category of products that are career resources, and in my opinion they are some of the most useful products that we offer. Things like contract templates, marketing materials to help designers get more business, and info products like interviews with designers.

Social Networks and SEO

Mohit: Unlike usual blogs having a page informing about the copyright policies,  your website links to a comment policy page. Do you feel comment moderating is more important than copyright policing?

Steven: I don't think it's more important, but I do spend a lot of time moderating comments. Over the years the number of spam comments has really increased and Akismet only catches some of them. Other comments aren't necessarily spam, but they don't add anything. Comments like "nice post" or "thanks for sharing".

Mohit: You have 60,000 subscribers on feedburner in addition to more than 10,000 on facebook and near 50,000 on twitter. Garnering such social media attention is a herculean task for any website. I am sure many enthusiasts would like to know your secret.

Steven: Well, first of all, I should point out that I don't put much weight in the FeedBurner count, I'm not sure how accurate their numbers are. Regardless of the specific numbers, the focus with the Vandelay Design blog has always been to publish content that people like. I've made a lot of changes over the years to the types of content, some small and some more significant, to try and adjust according to what people are responding to. I was also fortunate to get started at a time when the design blogging industry was really just taking off, so there weren't as many other blogs out there at the time. 

With Twitter my approach is basically to share interesting and relevant links related to design/development. Of course, I share links to our own blog posts and to our new products, but I try to make sure that they are in the minority, and that I am sharing links to plenty of other relevant articles and sites so it doesn't seem like I'm only tweeting links to my own stuff.

With Facebook, when I launched the page there was an offer to download some free resources if you liked the page and that had a really big impact on the number of likes.

Conclusions

Mohit: During your tenure, you must have had some setbacks. How do you deal with depressing days?

Steven: I've definitely had setbacks! The best way for me to deal with challenging and frustrating days is just to keep working and moving forward. Working online is not as easy as many people want it to be, and it's tempting to give up when things get difficult because there is no one else to keep you accountable, but in order to be successful you'll have to keep going when you face a challenge. Sometimes it's good to take a little bit of time away from your work to refresh yourself, but you just always have to get back to work and keep moving forward.

Mohit: Having been in the Web Design 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?

Steven: My advice is to keep working consistently. I've known a lot of people over the years who have had dreams of being successful online and being able to earn a living from their websites, but most of them have given up way too easily. The biggest difference from the people I know who have been successful and those who haven't is just persistence.

Epilogue

Mohit: Last but not the least, Why Church and Photography websites only?

Steven: When I used to do client work I would get the most inquiries from churches and photographers. So when I decided to create some free WordPress themes I wanted to start with churches and photographers so that I would be able to help some of those people who were already looking for websites. There is a chance I may design some other types of WordPress themes in the future, I just wanted to try the types of themes that I thought would be appreciated and used.

Further Reading

Feel free to browse through the archives of Vandelay Blog,

You may connect with him on Facebook and Twitter 

If you’re looking for a new website, a redesign of an existing website, make sure you visit his Contact Page

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An Interview with Steven Bradley of Vanseo Design

Meet Steven Bradley Glicksman, a man endowed with a variety of talents. From a structural Engineer (like myself), to a brilliant  artist (like Vincent Van Gogh) to an exceptional web designer (like himself), he has been through everything under the sun. He specialises in building usable websites and marketing old ones.

The following is an interview with him, Read more as he narrates his journey and explains his secrets. Learn about the web sphere itself as he talks about programming, JavaScript, HTML5 and his favorite, web design.

General

Mohit- You have blogged about nearly everything under the SEO umbrella from social media, search engines, web Design, blogging, CSS, gadgets, Jquery to templates, themes and Social networks. What is the genre that interests you and is it different from the genre that your readers like to read?

Steven- I'm interested in all the topics you mentioned. I'm primarily a web design and developer so if I have to narrow down to a favorite topic it would be any that fall under design and development. I don't that I could narrow it further than that. When I first started blogging I tried a lot of different topics since I wasn't sure what I wanted to write about. The marketing and seo posts were easier for me to write at the time, so I wrote more of them. After a few years though I realized I should be writing more design and development posts and so now those are the ones I write the most.

I think the majority of my readers are most interested in the design and development topics, though I know some of my readers are from the days when I wrote more about marketing and seo. I still mix up the topics here and there since I think they're all connected and usually people interested in one of them are interested in several of them.

Mohit- You have a degree in History, How did you end-up with website design and development? Also what advice would you give to people like you, trying to steer their careers towards web sphere.

Steven- I do have a degree in History and also one in Civil Engineering. I wouldn't necessarily recommend people get either degree if they want a career in web design, though if they're interested in either there's nothing wrong with getting those degrees. When I was younger I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I started out as an Engineering student, changed to the History degree, and a few years later decided to finish the Engineering degree I had started. Within a few years of graduating I wasn't using either degree. 

I worked a series of jobs for a few years. Nothing special or related to the degrees or anything design related. Eventually I found myself working for a company that was producing ebooks long before anyone cared about ebooks. They were taking print books and putting them online and there was a lot or markup involved. The code wasn't html, but it was similar and I found it easy to read and search through.

This was in 2,000 during the dot com era and while I was working for this company the bubble burst. I could see before too long I probably wouldn't have a job so I began teaching myself how to build websites starting with html and css. At the same time I took some continuing education classes at the university here in Boulder and earned certificates in web design and c++ programming. Through the classes I met someone who got me a job testing software with his company. IBM later bought the company and since our office was working on a product that duplicated something IBM already had, the product and most of us were without a job.
A friend of mine lost her job not too long after and together we decided to start a freelance business. She eventually decided to do other things, but I really enjoyed creating websites and have stuck with it ever since.

On Blog Posting

Mohit- You have been blogging since July 2006, you must have had hardships. What is it that keeps you going?

Steven- There have definitely been hardships. I enjoy writing, but there have been times the last thing in the world I wanted to do was write a blog post. In fact some time in 2008 I stopped writing for awhile. I felt a little burnt out and didn't know what to write about. After a few month break I came back writing more about design and development and haven't looked back.

I have a process in place now (Read about steven's Blogging process) that pushes me to keep going even when I don't want to write. It helps me generate a long list of ideas and also helps me get a little bit ahead on my writing. When things are going well I'm usually 3-4 weeks ahead of schedule. That allows me to take some time off if I need to and still keep the blog running without anyone noticing my time away. However, I think what keeps me going the most is that I really enjoy writing. I get a lot out of it. I often write about topics I want to learn myself. By writing about these topics I can put my research and experimentation to use. It saves time while i get 2 things done at the same time.

I also like giving back. I try to write the kind of posts I wish were available when I first started learning. Hopefully some of the things I've written have helped others.

Mohit- What is your all-time favorite post?

Steven- I'm not sure I could pick a favorite or even have one. Oddly some of the posts I thought turned out really well ended up falling flat with my audience and other posts I rushed to publish and didn't like much were shared everywhere and continue to draw new traffic all the time. I wish I understood why that happens.

Right now this post on vertical centering is easily the most visited one on the site and I do think it turned out well. I wouldn't call it my favorite though. I think my favorite post is one I still haven't written yet, but here are links to 3 series I think turned out well. The first two I like more because of what I learned while writing them. The topics taught me a lot about design.

The last series is one I wrote last year sharing my experience in redesigning my site. I enjoyed being able to share some of my thought process for good or bad so my audience could get some insight into how I think. I wouldn't tell anyone my thought process is one they need to follow, but I think the industry could use more posts like these where people do share how they think about things

1. The elements of Design
2. The 7 components of Design
3. Redesign

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

Steven- One of the links above takes you to a series on my blogging process which will go into this in greater details. I'm always writing down ideas as they come to me. It doesn't matter how dumb the idea might seem, I collect it and create a blank post for it. Over time I add notes and resources to these blank files and fill them up with ideas for where the post can go. Sometimes I'll combine several ideas into one or break one idea apart into several. I'm not sure if they're always the most original, but I try not to write about the same things I see everywhere. I do get ideas from other people though and quite a few posts originated with an idea I had after reading someone else's post.

The more you collect ideas and periodically review them the more you connect various ideas into something new. The detail usually comes from a lot of research. I like to get in-depth when writing about something. Too many things I read leave out all the important details. You try to follow a tutorial and so many important details are missing they can't get to the end. Or sometimes people make a lot of assumptions about what you know and I often don't know the things they think I know so I get lost. I try not to have others feel that way reading my posts. I want to be thorough and before someone can ask the question I want to already have it answered if I can.

On Work

Mohit- You have a string of impressed and satisfied customers, How do you manage it? Is it your fees, your way of working or something else?

Steven- Don't tell anyone, but there has been the unsatisfied client here and there. I think my fees are reasonable, but I doubt they're the reason people walk away satisfied when they do. I think it's more than I try my best to leave my clients happy.

Usually while building there site we have a lot of contact. A few phone calls and a lot of email. I tend to give a lot of updates. I think all the communication it helps clients get to know me and me get to know them. It helps me do a better job because I my sense of what they want grows all the time making it easier to give them a site they're happy with. 

From their end I hope they can see that I am doing everything I can to give them that site.

Conclusions

Mohit- 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?

Steven- I have seen a lot of people rise and fall. I think the most important thing to do is keep at it. Everyone is going to rise and fall. The best web designers will have weeks without work and months where they can't think of anything to write. You have to realize and accept it will happen and not let it stop you from continuing. I have a list of projects for myself I want to get to so when client work slows down I can put time into one of my projects or learning about a new topic. Learning something new always seems to revitalize me and working on projects for myself is fun, because I can usually experiment more than I can with a client project.

Know that you're going to have failures along the way and that's a good thing. Failure helps you learn for the next time. In fact the only time you really fail is when you fail to learn from your mistakes. See all the downtimes and opportunities to understand how to succeed better and keep improving a little each and every day.

Further Reading,

Feel free to browse through the archives of Vanseo Blog here,

Read about his works and his former clients.

You may connect with him on twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn and Pinterest.

If you’re looking for a new website, a redesign of an existing website you visit his contact page.

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An Interview with Paul Crowe of SpiceUpYourBlog

Learn the basics of blogging and web development from the Guru himself, Paul Crowe. He started his first blog in 2006 and has not looked back since. A professional blogger with over 500 inspiring and helpful articles, He is the owner of the popular, 

SpiceUpYourBlog.com. With an impressive PageRank of 5 and a readership of more than 300,000, the blog is one of the most widely read blogs on the web.  

A non-computer guy from the start, he confesses “I have never taken a class even at school on computers never mind studying it”. The following is an interview excerpt on his methods and his story.

An introduction

Mohit - You have blogged about nearly everything under the web umbrella from AdSense, design, gadgets, Jquery to templates, themes and Social networks. What is the genre that interests you and is it different from the genre that your readers like to read?

Paul - At the start I focused a lot on Blogger and I learned blogger design so well I could almost write a template from scratch. So I do enjoy creating blogger gadgets or design edits. We also have a lot of readers that use Blogger so those posts are always popular.

On Blogging

Mohit - You have been blogging since July 2009, you must have had hardships. What is it that keeps you going?

Paul - "At the start it was just the fact I was helping people and learning so much along the way. I started the site just to do that, help people. For the first year I actually had no ads on the site at all, it was not about money. I actually think that helped the site grow at the start, the fact there was no ads.

Now I guess I rely on the income from my websites so money has become a small bit of the driving force but knowing you are helping people every day is amazing."

Mohit - What is your all-time favorite post?

Paul - Wow that's a tough question. I guess on Spice Up Your Blog the post that really launched the site was on How To Remove The Navbar on Blogger. It was one of the first posts published in September 2009 and it sent a lot of traffic which was great. So in a way it showed me that I could have a successful blog.

Mohit - You have a Google page rank checker on your website; in your opinion how important is a Google PageRank for any website?

Paul - You know a lot of people play down the importance of Page Rank and it is not something people should get hung up on. But it is still important; when it comes down to direct ad sales it's important. People looking to contribute posts to websites also look at Page Rank. 

So it has its place but I can honestly say when I see this question I checked our Page Rank and it's the first time I have in probably six or more months.

On Social Networking

Mohit - You have near 6000 followers on Facebook and 1300 in your Google+ circles, so how important is Social Media in comparison to Search Engine Optimization for a website?

Paul - For me SEO is more important, but the gap between the importance of each is closing all the time though.

Finally,

Mohit - Having been in the blog atmosphere for so long, you must have seen the rise and fall of many bloggers and blogs. What advice do you give to passionate amateur bloggers?

Paul - Simply be patient and take (even seek out) advice from experienced bloggers. But patience is the key; you won't have big traffic or make money from blogging straight away.

Further,

Paul was fun, but we have another blogger with an experience in non-English blogs, take the interview with Vinay at TechPrevue

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How many Internal Links Do I need, to get in the Top 500

Ever wondered, how many internal links do you need to be inducted in the top 500 clan? The results below will make it clear enough. For the aspiring achievers, this is the time to know the number of internal links you need to have in your blog/website for best possible results. But, if you need the number of external links needed, you should take a look at this.

To find out how many links your competitor has take a look at this. Also, you must first understand why are internal links important before trying to increase it.

Observations

The graph depicts the distribution of internal links with respect to the respective website’s rank according to SEOmoz. On a closer look, the curve represents a hyperbolic curve. To a layman, the above graph shows it very clearly that to a new website, there is too much competition at the top, but its nil at the bottom, which means, a new websites can very easily get into the top 500 without much resistance. Considerable resistance is met by the websites after the rank of 200. Further analysis will make it very clear to the top 500 aspiring web developers.  

Take a look at the analysis below, 96% of all websites have links less than 1,000,000 links. So, it’s good news for enthusiasts, who think highly of internal links. Here you can conclude and make a goal of 1,000k links to get a chance of entering the top 500 websites list. Less than 2% of all websites had internal links between 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 and overall 4% websites had links more than 1000k. That means, the only threshold you need to set is 1,000,000. Once you’ve crossed it, you’ll be one of the top 500 websites. Once you’re there, your page rank will improve a lot and so will your visitors.

Just like anybody, you too would think a target of 1,000,000 is not your cup of tea. What would you do, then?

Out of those 96% of websites having internal links less than 1000k about 80% of websites had links less than 200,000. Just 20% had links in the range of 200,000 to 1,000,000. less than 14% of websites had links more than 200k and less than 400k. 

Seeking probability, it is still better and easier to reach a target of 200k than 1000k. Now, this fact made the situation easier for you. For realists, you may set a target of 200,000 and for pessimists; you can target 40,000 to 80,000. These targets would guarantee you better performance and higher visitors. For adsense and other ad users, this would mean huge monetary inflow.

Now coming to the things you can ignore. Do not set high goals, less than 1% websites had links more than 3,000,000. These would be the top websites (i.e. always in the top 5%, even after fluctuations). In the 96% category, less than a percent of websites had internal links of more than 800,000 links, so there’s your no-no.

The Zones

Here is a break-up of 93% websites among the top 500 websites (i.e. 465). The above graph clearly depicts 5 zones.

Zone A: The zero zone, 

No website in the top 500 had internal links less than 66000.

Zone B: The apex,

Apex has a peak of 80 websites. The zone ranges from 66,000 to 90,000. Containing 164 websites out of 500, the websites in this zone are one of the most significant.

Zone C: The Curve

A parabolic curve from 90,000 to 130,000 which also contains a lot of websites based on the area under the curve.

Zone D: The Tail

The tail zone starts from 130,000 and ends at 250,000, many websites come into this category acting as filler. The 250,000 has been chosen because the average of all the internal links comes to 250216.

Zone E: The insignificant few

As the name suggests, the insignificant few do not make much difference, in the internal link analysis of top 500 websites.

Epilogue

For further analysis, the internal links were multiplied with their respective page ranks and then divided by 10. It was found that the average came down to 202,130 from 250216. Again plotting them on the above graph, the zones did not shift much and nor did the peaks, Which leads us to believe there is a direct correlation between internal links and their respective page ranks. In short, internal links lead to a direct increase in the page ranks.

This answered the question,

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5 types of About Us pages for Web Developers

Presenting thorough analysis on the five main types of About us/me pages for web design blogs. 

The following are the different types – 'The Large company type’, ‘The funny man type’, ‘Veterans’, ‘Minimalists’ and the ‘Timeliners’. Read and find out which category you fall in.

The websites given as example in the article are properly linked with their respective about pages. You are free to visit for a better experience.

The Large Web Company type

A classic example of a large web company is sitepronews or webpronews or even web design ledger (WDL). These websites’ ‘about page’ blares out loud, “You can try and ignore me, but I am WAY TOO big to be ignored.” The webpage starts with an ‘ignore-us’ type paragraph sans any links or large font headings, but then comes the blacksuit-sunglasses type language about the organization and its incorporation. All of this in a typical office like background in addition to a hefty contact information. But again there are exceptions of course, some of the companies do have a story to share, a tale to tell that too in a person to person language, don’t believe me, take a look at the ‘A list apart’ about page or sitepoint(close enough).

The Funny-man Type

You can even try the style adopted by coding horror, the ‘about page’ is written in simple first person peppered with small gimmicks using strike outs in some places. Needless to say it helps the visitor stick to the page and read it to the end. After the usual introduction with me and myself, the article takes the shape of a timeline about the author.

Though the about page must end here but, the page goes on and becomes a question and answer session.  The author, Jeff Atwood then explains why he chose to blog, how he does blog and why does he give such weird names to his creations. As a whole the, complete page is beautified with photos and images of website and logos and of course a smart photo of the author. He did not forget the ‘contact us’ phrase and has disabled the comments section.

Do not be misled by the term funny. Funny in this context might not always mean something hilarious, but something which touches your heart and makes an emotional connection with the author. An example is smileycat.com,

The Veteran Type

This type of ‘About Page’ always works well with veterans, who have been in the business for quite some time before (take Amit Agrawal for example). They have many-a-times touched the levels of greatness. The page starts with a life-sized picture of the veteran blogger probably pictured with a professional photographer. Then the text starts with the qualifications of the blogger, where he’s from and what he did before blogging.

To pull the audience in the loyalty circle, this page brags (in a positive way) about the achievements of the author. The works or projects undertaken by the author (like some website tools programmed by the author) which will help the reader to develop a connection, so that a moment comes when the user thinks (Oh so he’s the creator of the tool, he’s so awesome). Obviously the last part will contain contact information along with a small social media widgets like Facebook like box or twitter feed. You might use some vector social media icons so that when the visitor clicks on it, he is taken to the author’s social media presence.

Some veterans also use a YouTube video on themselves. Which is no biggie for them as they’re the holy grail of their field but it can be used as a tool to inspire the amateur bloggers to either like the page’s Facebook page or twitter feeds or even better, subscribe to the blog’s feed itself.

Minimalists

Some about pages are minimalist, like take shailan’s for an example, the guy is an expert in wordpress plugins but the about page is nothing like its usual blog post. The page, prepped with links is simple and just informs the visitors about what it does before ending with a ‘contact me’ phrase. Taking henry’s example, though he has taken a lot of space on the about page with his oversized fonts and beautiful pictures of his creations, but still hasn’t given a lot of information about himself. Though there is a link to his complete portfolio in the about page but you do not expect the user to scroll up and down in frenzy looking for his portfolio. Another example is ‘tutorial Blog’.

The Timeliners or The Timeline lovers

There are some people who love history, who love answering questions like how did this start? How did this come to life? They have been in the game for long but they’re not veterans. They rely on a timeline divided by years, months etc. to pronounce their achievements and milestones in their or their creation’s life. They’re the bubbly archivers who want to impress the readers by the sheer presence and many a times they succeed. For an example, you might want to take a look at chriscoyier’s about page. A  very good idea, if you decide to go for it, would be to create a javascript based timeline which opens up in front of the user while hovering on it (use your imagination!!!). Another very unique type of about page is of 37signals. The website contains a mixture of timeliners and the funnyman type. It is a fun to read.

Can you find some type other than the given

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What comes after writing Quality content?

It is indispensable to write content that is brief and dense.  As is always said, a good quality content is like buying a car, if you've done your research, you’ll reap its benefits for years to come. 

But one question must have been bugging the minds of people who already have shining medals of honor on their websites, with contents filled with keywords and densely packed information. What do you do now? 

The obvious answer is keep on writing great content and you’ll be rewarded with visitors, But I beg to differ; what if there is still something remaining? What if I tell you, this is not the last stop or even better, there is no last stop?

Guest blogging

After writing many articles on a subject, a time comes when you become an authority on the subject, Now it is time to help other bloggers. There are websites like, sitepronews.com or webpronews.com, who allow bloggers and enthusiasts to write articles for them. The bloggers are then rewarded by a link back from such respected and highly venerable websites. This helps you a lot if you need fast growth.

Modifying and adding Keywords

When writing posts, bloggers often face situation known as writer’s block and they limit their writings, as a result keywords do not come to mind and certain well deserved keywords slip out. When reviewing the article again, you view it from second person’s eye and you find the keywords and the labels you’re missing.

Update your previous Articles

Yes, there is no last stop for webmasters who want quality content. The definition of quality content itself means content which contains quality. An article might be outdated after a few months and an outdated article is not quality content. It is just a mixture of words and cleverly placed sentences which had value in the past but is now just a history. So the main idea here is that you should never stop updating. I would quote a very famous saying we had in our institute, ‘When you stop growing, you start dying’. Unless you start updating your previous articles, they will always face danger of being marked outdated. What do you mean by updating? Here is a list:

1. Correcting grammatical errors you might have created in your starting phases.
2. Removing excess images from your article
3. Linking and citing External websites
4. Linking your own webpages or Intralinking
5. Add more value to your article
6. Correct SEO faults if possible
7. Remove pages giving error messages

Market your previous posts on social networks

Some of the best and the most read bloggers use this technique. Here, they dig out an article written quite a long time ago and read comments, take suggestions and update the article. This article is again posted on social networking websites (like pinterest, foursquare, facebook and others) as a new article. The viewers at the social media platforms, see the article and mistake it as new, thereby applauding the blogger’s dedication. The search engines reward the website because it is updated, the viewers  reward the website and the blogger by visiting and clicking on ads and the blogger rewards himself a piece of cake from the refrigerator because he is happy, So it’s a win-win-win situation.

Communicate with your fellow bloggers,

Communication is the key to success in blogging. Talking to your visitors, commenters and even blog mates is important. Collaborate and communicate within bloggers in your community. When you do so, you’ll find even more ideas and more methods to improve your blog.

For More information, try out codemakit's The SEO and content Guide e-book in pdf.

This was all about,

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