The Geek Brewery

Recently, I’ve noticed the trend that more and more bloggers (including me) post sizzling-hot current events to increase their blog traffic. These events include heinous incidents (the RCBC Cabuyao Bank Robbery), board and college admission examination results release, controversial controversies, among others. We optimize our pages a lot to top the search engine results page. We tend to overlook the fact that this traffic is short-term, as short as a day – on lucky instances may even extend to only up to a week.

The tips I’m about to give you is how to convert your short-term traffic increase to long-term. These tips doesn’t guarantee success as I myself haven’t tested them yet. I’m still planning to shift to this traffic-increase model scheme this coming months.

• Make your pillar articles (your best content) as accessible as possible. Even if their reading a board exam result post, make sure that links to your pillars are visible. Once they get a chance to read your impressive and good posts, the more chances that they’ll return to your blog and subscribe to your feeds.
• Reduce the number of advertisements on your page, or make them less-likely to look like one. In the short-run, this might hurt your earnings a bit — but surely the short-run trade-off would bear even bigger fruits. Personally, I’m less likely to return to a blog which slaps advertisements on my face.
• RSS feed buttons and email subscription fields should be strategically placed. Usually, a reader expects an RSS feed button on the “above the fold” (top) part of the page. Also, putting an email subscription field at the end of an article is also effective especially for the techy ones who doesn’t understand RSS.
• Reply to comments. I rarely do this, but I’m planning to make this a habit. A visitor is more likely to come back to your site if they see that you reply to comments. Should they have questions, they’ll surely watch out if you’ve got them a reply.

That’s it. Just four short tips. Should you have more, just put place them on the comments and I’ll add them with a link back to you (instant link).

So the next time you’re posting a sizzling-hot current event, don’t forget to follow my tips. I bet their effective as they sound. Good luck.

Since the start of the year, I’ve been doing some freelance work. So it’s just 4 months since I started doing it yet I learned a lot of things.

1. Set clear deadlines. There are some clients that gives you the freedom to have a flexible deadline. I’ve noticed that it’s not effective. I work faster better when I know there’s a clear deadline. You can set your deadline yourself to finish it.
2. Put an end in mind. Stick it to your mind; what will you get after finishing the job? A good way to stay motivated.
3. Instant Messaging software can kill your time. I’m aware of this but I only started signing out my IM accounts before doing a job.
4. The Internet is a good resource; but can kill productivity. Yep yep, whenever I work I always get tempted to surf my way to the Internet. Unplugging the cord is not effective ’cause it’s also helpful especially when things are turning not right.
5. Take breaks. Read the (10+2)*5 method. It’s a good way to spend an hour. Ten minutes work; two minutes break — do it five times to complete an hour. It’s very effective.
6. Flexible workhour is what I am good at. Yes, I can easily adjust to new sleeping and waking up habits. I usually start my work at 11pm; finish it out by 5am to sleep. In some rush cases, I do it from 11pm to 12nn — then sleep (zzzzzz).

I do have a lot more things to share but I still have to work on a project. See ‘ya after I finish the job.

After three long days of Internet deprivation, I’m back blogging. The main culprit is the three-day achievement test, too bad. Now, you understand why I’m writing this post.

Students just like multiple-choice type of questions, right? If you don’t know the answer, you still have a 1/n where n is the number of choices chance of getting the right answer.

Here are some tips (from a standardized test achiever, I guess) in answering those multiple-choice standardized exams (also applicable on non-standardized exams):

• Try to start at the back. Some standardized exams have the easiest questions at the back. Just trust me!
• Read the questions as fast as you can. Try to answer the easiest questions with obvious answers. In subjects dealing with numbers such as Math and Physics, try to answer the questions that doesn’t require solving.
• Don’t stay too long in a problem, unless those hard questions are the ones left. Try to skip them as much as you can, you can answer them later anyway.
• Use elimination method. This is a method in which you try every answer. If it turns out to be wrong, then eliminate it. It increases the chances of getting the right answer on unsure questions.
• When you don’t know the answer to a solving problem, try to multiply, divide or add all the given data. Sometimes you find the product, quotient, sum or difference on the choices.
• Find the most realistic answer. For example, more than a thousand Kelvin is an unlikely answer in Chemistry problems. Standardized exams uses realistic problems, not idealistic.
• If you don’t know the answer, trust your instinct as much as possible.
• Lastly, rely on your luck. I recommend you doing this on the last minutes of the exam when you’re hopeless to answer the remaining questions. Don’t leave a single question unanswered, unless if there’s a deduction for a wrong answer.

I hope it helps! Sorry, I’m no good writer!

Waaa, I’ve been a bad blogger lately. It’s been a long time ago since I posted a good post. I promise to post a good post soon. I have tons of postables posts on Draft mode, I hope I can have time to finish them soon.

Ooops, how about making this post a good post? Nice idea. Just changed the title of this post from “This Blog Needs Good Post” to “Drawbacks of Bad Posts”, FYI.

First, I have to define bad posts on my own unhumble (haha) words. Bad posts are:

• sponsored review posts. Why? Paid reviews are usually sugarcoated posts (in kuya Blogie’s terms). Most of the reviewers doesn’t even have a first-hand exposure to the service or the product.
• posts made just to drive traffic (SEOing for traffic). I’ve created a lot of them: the UPCAT, DLSUCET, ACET and MSU-SASE posts. Even though they’re almost worthless except for the results page link, they generate a lot of hits anyway.

I must admit that at least 10 of my previous posts fit my own definition of a bad post (ang labo ko!). Here are the drawbacks of having crappy posts one after another (based on my own experience):

• Sudden decrease in average visit length. Uhm, it’s obvious. No one would care to stay long to a blog with crap posts.
• Drop of feed subscribers. I used to have 30+ feed subscribers on weekends. When I started posting bad posts, it decreased to 20+. Huhuhu.

Lesson learned. Never post a bad post again. I mean, do not post bad posts one after another. Alternating good and bad posts would do.

Ooops, another bad post!

Ideas just pop out of our minds, right? They often come unexpected! Admit it: it’s always harder to generate ideas when your trying to generate one. [idea bulb stock belongs to its owner, ]

As an insomniac, my mind journeys through the vast galaxy of “Cyberspace” before I actually get to sleep. It’s like ideas here, ideas there and ideas everywhere. Those ideas just run through my mind, until I get to sleep. Then when I wake up in the morning (actually, the right term is noon), everything is gone. (more…)

Hi.

For people out there who enjoys forums, here’s a sort off forum like website that pays you every time you post.

It’s myLot.com! It’s a sort of Friendster with the twist of discussions. Every time you post a senseful discussion or a response to a discussion, you get cash.

So far, I haven’t reached the $10.00 minimum payout, and I’m near it. Why don’t you try it yourself! Register here.

[Update] They pay through PayPal or e-gold. You may prefer using e-gold but you need to register an account here. To redeem your e-gold to peso, here’s a method by PinoyGoldExchange.