Although The Blog Challenge claims to be a 10 day program, in fact, it calls for 20 days of work, since on day seven you start a fourteen day process of posting comments on related blogs. As a result, I felt like the three week mark is a better time to write a summary than the end of the "ten days" of the Challenge.
So, does the Challenge live up to it's promises? NO. There were three areas where the Challenge didn't live up to it's promises – Profitability, Ease Of Use, and Availability of Assistance.
Day 10 – Saturday
Today's task was to add a bunch of icons for RSS/ATOM subscriptions via different feed readers. However, there is now a standardized feed icon, so there is no need to use all of them and it seems like the word subscribe is better understood by the web novices I know than any icon, including the icon specific to whatever reader they use.
Day 9 – Friday
I did the 3 postings to niche-related blogs that I missed yesterday and then another 3 for today. This took me 3 hours. Much of this time was actually setting myself so I could post to AOL AIMpages blogs and have my blog linked to my comments and show up in my profile.
Day 7 – Wednesday
Well, apparently yesterday's work paid off, at least in clicks, because when I looked at my Amazing Counters web counter, I'd gotten as many hits since yesterday's forum postings as I had since I started my blog. Amazing Counters provides a free counter in exchange for showing one product ad on your site. My product ad was for an Overstock.com coupon site – not a good match for a site on dog body language. So while I was in the Amazing Counters site, I poked around and discovered that I can change my advertiser to one that matches my site content, so I did.
Friday – Day Three
We start day three by using a really cool tool to create Technorati tags for our posts. I also learned that you can add your default set of Technorati tags to your post template. I usually do my blogging with Flock (the social networking browser), which also adds Technorati tags for you, so I'll have to experiment to see what happens when you use Flock and a blog template. The tag making tool is on a website called Evil Genius Marketing, which is well worth looking at. After a quick glance at his site, it might actually contain everything in the Challenge and more. I'll definitely be going back.
They say day one is the longest and hardest day. Since I spent 6 hours and 15 minutes working on this program today for what looks like minimal effect so far, I hope that's true! If I'd spent that time researching and writing, I could have written at least one good article for one of my BellaOnline.com sites that I could be proud of and I know would have gotten thousands of hits over the course of the year. As it is, I have a single, pretty much pointless, blog entry on my new blog - Understanding Dog Body Language For A Well Behaved Dog.
Note: I am writing about my experiments as I go, however, I am holding them for a few days and then going back and editing them to post here. This is partially a time issue, but also because as I go on, my ideas regarding what is important sometimes changes.
On with the experiment...
I decided to start my experiment into Internet money making schemes with The Blog Challenge which proports to be able to "make ANY Blog profitable in 10 Days or Less.. GUARANTEED! " I picked this mainly because I should be able to see results quickly, but also because it is relatively inexpensive ($39.97).
