The Red Stapler Chronicles

Benchmarking is a powerful tool that corporations use to judge how their processes/products stack up against the most successful processes/products in their industry. This technique allows corporations to remain open to new ideas that may help them and kill the notion that the status quo is always optimal. Benchmarking is especially potent in helping a corporation solve a “problem area” that is draining their profits.

Okay, benchmarking can be a useful tool for corporations, but what does this have to do with blogging? Can benchmarking be used to improve your blog. I believe the answer to that question is yes. In fact, I spent most of yesterday trying to benchmark the blogging world. How did I go about doing this?

First, I identified what I believe are my problem areas of my blog. I feel that the major problems with the Red Stapler Chronicles are: 1. Producing very little ad revenue 2. Relatively few subscribers 3. Theme not SEO friendly  4. Poor Google results (possible being “sandboxed” or penaltized).

Next, I needed to look at similar blogs to mine. As a result, I visited ALL 357 blogs on the famous 45n5 Top 100 List and about the first 250 blog on the Personal Finance Blog Aggregator. Yes, this took several hours (and I did get to drop about 200 Entrecards), but I believe it was a good use of my time. While I visited each blog, I took notes about different ad networks that the blogs used, what type of theme/design they used, and how they attempted to convert readers to subscribers.

What did I learn from this process?  How will I use the information I gained?

1.  Most blogs that are generating ad revenue are doing this via a combinations of 125 X 125 ads on their right sidebar and through a pay per click program–usually adsense or yahoo (since I was not accepted into either ad program, I will have to look for a substitute ppc program).  I now have a list of 24 different ad companies that I have to check out.  As a result, you are going to continue to see a variety of ads on The Red Stapler Chronicles until I can find the right mix.  Sorry that there are so many, but I am still playing around.  Once I do find the right ads, you CAN expect much less clutter on this blog.

I am also open to suggestions here.  Do you have any ad networks that have worked for you?

2.  I found that a vast majority of blog have their subscription buttons on their right sidebar.  One thing that I learned that I immediately added to my blog was a plugin (calle what would Seth Godin Do) that invites new visitors to subscribe.  I also noticed that several blogs use an enlarged RSS feed button, but I am still deliberating whether or not to use this technique.  Another way that I saw numerous blogs use to gain subscribers is by the use of a contest.  I really like this idea and all I can say is stay tuned. .  .

3.  Out of the over 500 blogs that I visited, I found exactly ZERO that had the same theme as The Red Stapler Chronicles.  Hmmm, guess that is a clear indication that this blog needs a face lift.

As you can see, my benchmarking experiment has certainly given me many things to ponder and already produced a couple of changes to my blog.  Benchmarking is probably something that we all do on a constant basis–you see something you like, you make a not of it and sometimes even add it to your blog.  However, I found that a more organized and systematic day of benchmarking really forced me to look at my blog in a different light and hopefully will bring about some significant improvements.

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