Adnan’s Temporary Absence

This is Connor Wilson (the designer here), doing some house cleaning in terms of approving comments and keeping things running while Adnan works out some problems.

Regarding the Sale

If you have any questions about the sale, keep emailing them to Adnan via the contact form, but for those of you awaiting a response: don’t worry. You have not been forgotten!

Adnan’s internet has crashed amidst his big sale. It likely won’t be back until tomorrow or Saturday with the repairmen being apathetic and all.

He has some access to the net via school computers, but there’s not much you can do from there. If you have an outstanding question or email and are wondering where your response is, just know that you’ll get it soon.

Plan B?

Having a backup plan, in case of such an emergency is always a good idea. Adnan suggested to me that this post could serve as a post detailing such things, but sometimes there is nothing you can do. Going to a school computer lab or local internet café to stay on top of things as best you can is a good idea, however.

It’s always unfortunate that your problem is in the hands of someone else (like the service technicians in this case) and the only thing to really do is wait.

In a case like this, as a blogger, you can still write. You may not get to write online, but fire up your favourite word processor and have at it. Just because you have some setbacks doesn’t mean you can’t come back with a boom!

You Have not been Forgotten!

Just to recap, due to extenuating circumstances, Adnan might have fallen behind on emails and posting. All will be well in a few days, and those potential buyers should not be disgruntled.

Blogtrepreneur.com Is For Sale!

Blogtrepreneur was setup in February of 2006 under a Blogger domain and really acted as an experiment to see whether the internet was an avenue forward in terms of making money online, and forming new friendships, gathering a loyal crowd of readers and using technology for progress.

Since then, I have proved all of the above to be correct and true, in a day and age where the internet is helping entrepreneurs all over the world to connect with each other and forge new business ties. The blogosphere is one such example where moguls of all ages and talents can be seen and heard on an equal basis.

Whilst this is not the time for a full explanation (which will come in the next few days), it is with great regret and sorrow that I announce that I’m leaving the blogosphere, and have decided to put Blogtrepreneur.com - my flagship blog - up for sale.

What I would like to say, is that I have my own personal reasons for leaving the online world (again which I will expand on later) and so would not like to be grouped together with the other make money online blogs which have seemed to be cashing out these days (and quite understandably too seeing the demand for such websites).

Without turning this post into a tearful farewell, I instead wanted to do something which only a few bloggers have done recently, which is to open up the sale to Blogtrepreneur readers. Often, internet entrepreneurs will go directly to Sitepoint in order to try and get the biggest price possible (and I may also follow the Sitepoint route), however whilst price is factored into my decisions, I would much prefer to hand over the Blogtrepreneur reigns to someone from this community.

Thus, I have decided to compile a list of stats and figures for you to muse over, and would love to receive any offers you may have for the blog by email through my contact form - please, even if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Stats and Rankings

Before I give you the low down, I would like to add a few comments. Firstly, the site has been pretty inactive for the past 2 months (and is one of the reasons for the sale). Thus, the Alexa ranking and traffic levels in general have seemed to level off. An increased posting frequency of only 3-4 times per week would sustain a larger amount of traffic.

I also got docked to a Pagerank 3 by Google, where previously I had a PR5 status. I havn’t really aired my views on this, and whilst I was disappointed, it hasn’t affected my revenue in anyway - which you will see further down.

As of end of October 2007 -

• Unique Visitors: 6,500 (figure is growing monthly)
• Pageviews: 10,600 (1.3 per visitor)
• Comment to Post Ratio = 8:1 (very high user participation)
• No. of Articles/Pages: 300
• Pagerank: 3
• Alexa: 64,000
• RSS Daily Readers: 900+ (See sidebar for today’s figure)
• Technorati Blog Authority: 553
• Technorati Favourited Fans: 125

The spike as seen above came from me posting an article which got Stumbled. This happens to most of my articles (including the last one on The Economics of Selling Blog Advertising which has received 300 visitors from SU).

Income & Revenue

Whilst a lot more screenshots and a full revenue spreadsheet will be sent to serious potential buyers, I am able to reveal that in October 2007, Blogtrepreneur brought in a fantastic $633.83 in monthly income, and this continues to follow an upward trend every month. I have spent NO money on advertising either, so that money is complete profit apart from the $5 hosting fees.

Income Breakdown for October 2007 -

• Text Link Ads - $234.63
• ReviewMe - $125
• Affiliate Revenue - $105
• Private Text Links - $65
• Private Post Level Links - $29.20
• Private Image Ad - $70

The sale also includes a blogging tool (which could be potentially viral), an article which got heavily Dugg, Stumbled, Lifehackered, Probloggered and more, the strong Blogtrepreneur brand, a custom Wordpress design, a great readership of 900 readers, and a domain which has 30,000 links pointing at it.

So there you have it! Whilst I’m unable to go really in depth with the statistics, please feel free to email me if you require anything.

What I’m ultimately hoping to have, are offers coming through from you guys. It would really be perfect to see a reader of Blogtrepreneur end up taking over from me, so please make sensible offers only through my contact form, and I’ll get back to you as soon as is physically possible.

More importantly, stay tuned, because I’ll be writing about my journey in the next few days to give you guys a glimpse into my decisions, which is the least I can give you. Thanks for listening, and let the offers roll in!

The Economics Behind Selling Blog Advertising

It seems like most sites these days are cashing in on their traffic, their subscribers and in rapidly decreasing droves, their pagerank. These sites are utilizing their best spaces on their site to link out to other certain websites for a premium and mostly for a recurring monthly fee.

Bloggers have been the most recent group of people who have begun to monetize their site heavily through the use of ad networks, CPC programs, affiliate marketing, direct linking, and the ever-sweet private advertising. It is the latter which is becoming a hit with the bigger sites, who have the readership and traffic base to sell their own ad slots, instead of through a network which may take a hefty chunk of your money.

However, when was the last time you actually thought about the process going on behind the scenes of this advertising? How is someone able to sell an image advert for such a high price? How is that other blogger making a profit on those ridiculously low-priced text links? I’m here to help and I’m armed with economic theory (the explanation behind advertising) which you may already know or which you may have inferred through common sense.

Below is a demand and supply graph, pretty much the bread and butter of all economic analysis:

Whilst it may seem confusing at first, it’s actually pretty simple.
Read more

Start Testing Your Designs With and Without ClearType

This guest post is by Deron Sizemore from Random Jabber, a keen designer who built the Sizcons you can see in the sidebar, and who recently started up his own CSS Gallery over at NiceStylesheet.

If you ask anyone who’s ever browsed the web using a Mac and a PC, they will probably tell you that websites render better on a Mac. The reason a Mac browser appears to render better than a PC browser is because of something called ClearType (font smoothing). A Mac has font smoothing enabled by default and a PC doesn’t.

What is ClearType?

ClearType means that text is anti-aliased. Anti-aliased simply means that colored pixels are added around each character making the font appear smoother. Without ClearType enabled, text will appear jagged, which is why a lot of people refer to text without anti-aliasing as “the jaggies.”

Notice the image above.

I’ve taken a couple of screenshots from my blog. The one on the left is with ClearType enabled and the one on the right is with it disabled. Which one looks better?

The majority of people will tell you that the left screenshot looks better because it resembles how a Mac would render the site. However, there are a few that will tell you that the one on the right looks better and that the one with ClearType enabled looks “blurry.” I agree that it does look blurry if you’re used to ClearType being disabled, but once your eyes adjust to the change, I think you’ll agree that ClearType is the way to go.

For a better idea of what’s going on, you can check out the two “D’s” I have enlarged in the image above. In the “D” on the left, you can see the extra pixels added around the character.

Blame it on Microsoft

In Microsoft Windows XP, by default, ClearType is disabled. We all know there is a large number of Windows XP users out there. Because it’s disabled by default, a huge number of PC users have no idea that such thing as ClearType even exsists. Microsoft has since fixed their mistake and enabled ClearType by default with Windows Vista.

If You’re Not Testing With and Without ClearType, You Should

If you’re a designer and you haven’t started testing your designs with ClearType both disabled and enabled, you should start. I think you’ll be in for a big surprise when you see how differently it renders.

The big thing here is if you currently test with ClearType enabled, but rarely test with it disabled. Your designs will likely look worse with it disabled. That’s why it’s good to test in both to ensure that your design doesn’t look to grotesque with ClearType disabled because that’s how a lot of your visitors will see your site.

I’ve noticed that some fonts do look decent in both. Arial for instance looks decent with ClearType enabled or disabled, but Verdana doesn’t. Verdana looks much better with ClearType enabled than it does with it disabled. I’ve also noticed that for headings, using slightly larger font sizes than normal will make text appear to be not so jagged.

Unfortunately for you Mac users out there, the only way I know of to test what your design looks like without font smoothing is to actually jump onto a PC and test it there. I’ve searched and asked around to some of my Mac using friends and have yet to find a way to turn font smoothing off on a Mac. So, if anyone knows, I’d love for you to let me know.

Here’s How You Enabled ClearType

On the Windows XP desktop, right click >> select properties >> appearance >> effects >> choose ClearType for the method to smooth edges.

So, if you haven’t been testing your designs with ClearType enabled as well as disabled, start now. Your site won’t ever look as good with ClearType disabled, but with a little testing it can look presentable.