With the global economy (and especially the US one) going downhill, many blog owners fear their blogs will encounter some really harsh times. However, for me, as a car blog owner, things are actually pretty good; beside the fact that automotive companies spent more on ads, here’s another reason why:

It looks like the advertising industry, especially the online one, will be one of the healthiest industry, during this recession (link)

Svetlana Gladkova from Profy did a study of how the advertising industry handled the Grand Depresson in the ’30s. And what she found out is pretty promising. It looks like advertising was doing way better than the other industries. The explanation for this is quite simple: companies still invest large amounts of money into advertising, because it’s the best way to make consumers believe everything is going great at the company. Like Svetlana says, not everyone looks at the stock market to see how a company is doing, but instead, if they see more money put into advertising, they assume everything’s ok. And it actually looks like forward-thinking companies that didn’t cut their advertising budget in the ’30s were the ones that thrived.

Chris Crum from SmallBusinessNewz reports that the online advertising market is up 15.2% in the United States and 21% in the United Kingdom. And things look good for the industry, because if companies will cut some of their advertising budget, it will be from traditional advertising. Online advertising has the main advantage of offering easier measurable conversion rates.

So, it looks like car blogs won’t be affected by the economic crisis as much as other industries, and we really hope everything’s gonna be allright.

Bad news for some, good news for others. According to Nielsen Online, while the overall display ads market registered a 27 percent drop in the first half of 2008, compared to last year, some other sectors actually thrived. On of these sectors is the automotive market, where companies spent $301 million, 45 percent more than in the first half of 2007. Other companies that invested more in display ads were consumer goods brands (32% increase), entertainment brands (47%) and hardware and electronics advertisers (19%).

“The good news is that we saw large gains from brand advertisers including Anheuser-Busch, Unilever, Toyota and General Motors, among others, which bodes well for the future,” said Jon Gibs, Nielsen Online’s vice president, media analytics.

In the past, I’ve heard some people saying that with the automotive industy going downhill, less money will be spent into online advertising, but apparently it’s the other way around, the big companies realizing that one of the best ways to keep on track is to invest more in advertising. What can I say, except that it’s great news for all of us car blog owners, and especially for our wallets.

MediaPost (Via Marketing Pilgrim)

Apparently, Digg is currently undergoing some massive autumn cleanup, because yesterday 86 power users (and still counting) had their accounts banned. You can see a list here. The reason? Using scripts for voting stories. I’ve spoken in the past via IM with some of them and for some I feel sorry, because they were great guys, others just ordinary spammers, that flooded me with a lot of digg requests every day, until I put them on the ignore list.

Anyways, I saw some stories showing up about a possible Digg conspiracy. I think that’s BS. Voting scripts are for lazy ass users, not for serious ones and, to me, it’s obvious that if you’re using one of these, you’re only interested in profiting from Digg and bring no real value to the community.

I’m not a Kevin Rose fan, but this time I’m with Digg. I mean, how can I work a few hours everyday checking out stories and you want to vote 3 times more than me in just a few minutes? It’s just not fair. And, though I never had any experience with it and I’ve heard that Digg support is extremely slow, I really think that accounts banned by mistake will be reinstated. If not, then I’m sure they did something wrong.

The social media environment can take your blog where you wouldn’t even have dreamed of, it’s true, but what most bloggers don’t realize is that, in order to succeed on sites like Digg or Reddit, you need to work reall hard, especially for Digg. Of course, there’s always the option of passing an amount of money to the right people, but we’re not talking about that, because this is the beauty of social media, it’s absolutely free.

So, like I said, it takes a lot of hard work to start getting results, and you need to analyze whether it’s worth it or not at a certain point. And here’s one of the best posts I’ve read, about the Skellie for Problogger. I advise you to give it a read, because it will give you a more clear picture of the social media environment.

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Google Adsense is probably the most popular advertising program out there and I’ve been using it for about three years now and am really happy with how it performs. However, pray that you don’t encounter any problems that require contacting the support team, because they’re probably partying all the time, because I can’t think of any other explanation for this.

About three weeks ago, all of the sudden, when I tried to login into my account, I got the message “Error! We apologize for the inconvenience, but we are unable to process your request at this time. Our engineers have been notified of this problem and will work to resolve it.” I’ve sent them three or four emails and no reply so far. I’ve had other problems in the past, took them a little while before answering, but it’s never been three weeks.

Like I said, Adsense, with all its features, is a great program, almost perfect for small to large publishers, but when it comes to customer support, it really sucks.

A few days ago I wrote about the new Citrus premium wordpress theme. I also mentioned that John Chow had a contest on his blog, where the prize was a free copy of the theme (the $99 package). And well, it seems that I got lucky, because John chose the winner today and guess who’s that? Yup, it’s me.

Thanks a lot for the prize, John!

Besides Auto Unleashed (who doesn’t need a facelift right now), some of my other blogs (AutoMotoGadgets, Everything below $29.99 and even this one, Blogged in Traffic) will be very happy about this Though the package allows me to use the Citrus theme on unlimited blogs, I’ll probably only use it for one or two (where it fits better), haven’t decided yet which ones, but will do it soon.

The beauty of blogging is that, by its nature, it allows you to network very easily with other blog owners in your domain and create a relationship with them. Yeah, I know, the first question you might ask yourself is “Why would I want to comment on my competitor’s blog?”. Well, first of all, I wouldn’t say that commenting on other similar blogs is helping your competition, but instead is giving mutual benefits to both blogs (yours and the one you’re commenting on), because, let’s face it, the car audience is so large and there’s roomo for everyone. And it also allows you to create a relationship with other blogs in the car niche, relationship that could help you a lot in the future. Not to mention that it’s easier for someone else to notice you after you commented on their posts, which increases the chances that they’ll subscribe to your blog and maybe give you one or more links in the future (if you have quality content, of course).

So, where to comment?

I see a lot of novice bloggers going straight up to the big blogs in the niche and start commenting there. If you ask me, that’s a big mistake. First of all, if you take a look at the big car blogs, like Autoblog or Jalopnik, you’ll notice that their comment system is not like the one you’re used to on most blogs. First you have to create an account and only after that you’ll be able to comment. So, no link for you. Yeah, I know, usually the comment name links are rel=”nofollow”, so worthless for SEO, but saying interesting stuff will make people click on it and maybe they’ll like your blog and also subscribe to it. Though there are only a few that do that, usually they’re valuable, because they’re genuinely interested in the domain (and who knows, they might be other bloggers).

But the biggest problems about commenting on the big blogs is that there are close to zero chances of the blogger noticing you. If you look, you’ll see that the big blogs get tens, maybe hundreds of comments for each post, which makes you almost invisible.

Instead, you really should focus on commenting on smaller blogs. I’m not talking about commenting on every blog out there, but instead choose about 5 or 6 medium blogs and comment frequently. Because they get a smaller number of comments, you’ll be noticed for sure, so it’s only up to you to make and keep the blogger interested in you. Also, it will be easier for you to push some stories to the blogger, without sounding like a spammer. Auto Unleashed, eGMCarTech, Carscoop or BMWBlog are only a few examples. Usually, these medium blogs are being followed by the big blogs, so this will also increase your chances of getting a link from Autoblog or Jalopnik.

How to comment?

First of all, read the posts carefully and choose only the ones that you find interesting and where you really have something to say. No one will care about you if you start dropping comments like “Thanks for the news”, “Didn’t know that”, “That’s great” or “Oh, that’s cool”. No! Write a comment that brings something valuable to the conversation, or something funny, or anything that will make you stand out of the crowd. And don’t drop only one or two comments and then just wait for the links to rain on you. You should do that frequently and you’ll definitely see results. Maybe not in one day, week or month, but trust me, you’ll see the results.

Second of all, don’t drop links. Or at least, if you decide to do it, make sure it’s something related to the subject or something that brings new info. Don’t just say “I wrote about this too, check it out here”. That’s a big mistake. Usually you’ll get you comment deleted or, if approved, it won’t get you the blogger’s interest.

Top Commentators plugin

There’s a very interesting plugin, called Top Commentators that allows Wordpress based blogs to display, in the sidebar, a list with their most active commentators. And…this is where it really gets interesting…the links are without the rel=”nofollow” tag, which means search engines will love them and you’ll be rank higher in Google, Yahoo, etc. Unfortunately, though very popular in some blogging areas, in the car domain they’re pretty rare, so if you come across one, make sure you subscribe or bookmark that blog. You’ll notice that we don’t have that on Auto Unleashed, but here on Blogged in Traffic we have it, so feel free to comment

Conclusion

So, the conclusion is that if you didn’t comment on other blogs before, it’s definitely time for you to get started. Because, if done properly, commenting on other blogs can bring huge benefits to you and your car blog.

Some time ago the Thesispremium Wordpress theme was launched and today we have another interesting one. Unique Blog Designs are the guys ‘responsable’ for a lot of blog design, including hot shots like Shoemoney or John Chow and the Citrus theme is available in 6 different colors with pricings starting at $79. There are three packages available:

Single-Use Package - $79
This package allows you to use Citrus Theme on one (1) website or blog. This theme comes pre-installed with the three (3) original flavors - Mandarin Orange, Lemon Lime and Pink Grapefruit.

Multi-Use Package - $99
This package allows you to use Citrus Theme on unlimited websites and blogs. This package also comes with all six (6) color schemes - Mandarin Orange, Lemon Lime, Pink Grapefruit, Blueberry, Tangerine and Rotten Tomato.

Web Developer Package - $149
This package allows you to use Citrus Theme on unlimited website and blogs, as well as develop it for your clients sites. This package comes with all six (6) color schemes - Mandarin Orange, Lemon Lime, Pink Grapefruit, Blueberry, Tangerine and Rotten Tomato. This package also comes with the original Photoshop (.PSD) templates of Citrus Theme.

Can’t really compare it to Thesis, becaus I think they’re very different. It depends a lot on what your blog needs.

Is it worth paying for a premium theme?

Well, it depends. If you have good coding skills (php, css) than you should be able to fully customize a Wordpress theme and you can use the extra money for something else. However, if you don’t, then you really should think about getting one. Considering that custom designs are pretty expensive (can start from $500 and go up to a few thousands bucks), a premium theme might just be the right choice for you. Especially with almost every premium theme out there offering support, which is very important in case your coding skills suck.

Why do I need a custom theme?

Actually, you do! You can always use a free theme (there are hundreds available), but just think about how many times you were surfing on the net and came across a blog with an uncostomized theme. In how many cases you closed the tab in less than 5 seconds? Maybe the content was great, but the fact that the owner didn’t bother to create a customized theme makes me think that he’s really not interested in the blog. Yeah, it’s true that car blog readers are not that tech savy and might not care whether your blog uses a free or premium theme, but remember that it’s just like in real life: there are a lot of great products that don’t get noticed because the package sucks.

And by the way, if you want the chance to win a free $97 ‘Citrus Theme’ package from John Chow, you can head over to his post about the theme, drop a comment there and hope you might get lucky.

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Yesterday, Yahoo announced that the Buzz, which has been in beta testing since February is now opened to everyone. In case you don’t know, Buzz is a Digg-like service, that allows user to submit their favorite stories. And yes, that also means that this is most recent social news club member and a possible traffic source for your blog.

So far, from what I’ve seen, the networking part is much weaker than Digg’s. You can’t add friends, share stories with them, etc. But the Buzz’s main attraction is the fact that if the story is good, you could be featured on the front page of Yahoo. Yup, that’s right. You’re site will have a link from the world’s most visited website, according to Alexa.

But are things this easy? Of course not. Don’t imagine that you’ll submit your story to Buzz, get a few friends to vote and then you’ll get thousands of visitors. Here are a few reasons I don’t think the Buzz will work for small publishers. First of all, the service has editors that manually accept or deny the stories, so you’d have to come with a really, really good stroy. Then you have to consider another aspect. When one of their story got front paged, TechCrunch recorded their highest traffic day, but their servers almost snapped. And imagine that TechCrunch doesn’t have a shared hosting account, they have some very powerful servers. Small blogs usually collapse from the Digg effect, which means a few tens of thousands of visitors. Imagine what 800,000 visitors will do to your server.

Probably if they’ll setup a system where they also can send medium traffic, a few thousands visitors, then it will become a pretty powerful traffic source. But until then, I think the Buzz is worthless for small and medium publishers. Of course, I don’t have a clue on how exactly it works now, but everyone is testing right now, so we should have the first important reports soon.

Digg is the wet dream of every blogger out there. Getting frontpaged will get you massive traffic, but most important, if the story is good, will get you dozens of links and a lot of exposure. These are far more important than the actual traffic which, even if you can get numbers like 40,000 or 90,000 visitors in two days, doesn’t convert very well (except if you have high paying CPM advertising).

So, how do you get your stories successful on Digg? I’m going to tell you how I would do it if I would start all over again.

Create a strong Digg profile

I saw a lot of unexperienced users creating an account on Digg, then starting to submit every blog post they write and then asking themselves why the heck don’t they get popular and why their blog gets banned from Digg. This isn’t rocket science, but it requires some work and time spent building your profile.

1. First of all, after you’ve created your account, customize your profile. Upload an avatar, write something about yourself, leave some contact details (IM or e-mail). No one likes a person they know nothing about.

2. Start digging stories. From the popular section, from the upcoming section, doesn’t matter, just digg. Also, a very good idea would be to comment some of the stories you like. And I mean serious and valuable comments, not just “Oh, that’s great”, “Cool” and so on.
Tip: It seems that if your dugg stories in the upcoming section get popular, your profile’s power will grow. The same with comments. If your comments get a lot of diggs when the story gets popular, your profile will benefit from that. So try and leave interesting comments on stories with a lot of diggs, that have big chances to get popular.

3. Once you get your diggs count at around 1,000 and maybe a few comments, you can start adding friends. Don’t do that right after you create your account, because a lot of users you add won’t do the same. I get several requests every day and only add a few new friends per month. Because I don’t want someone who has 50 diggs and no comments to be my friend. So, as I said, begin adding friends. My suggestion would be not to go for the top users (most of them will add you back only when you have a pretty strong profile). And don’t start adding 50 friends at a time. Start with maximum 10 per day. After you add them, I suggest starting to vote on their submissions (http://digg.com/users/YOURUSERNAME/friends/submissions). Besides the fact that this will increase the chances of the user adding you also as friend, you’ll also build up your profile. I am still digging almost all of my friends’ submissions, even if it takes two hours every day just to do that).

4. Start submitting stories. If you are active, you’ll that there are a number of sites that repeatedly get submitted to digg and diggers love them. To help you, here’s a list of where the most popular stories came from. Add those sites to your RSS feed and keep an eye on them. Once you see an interesting story, submit it to Digg. It probably won’t go popular, but your profile will build up.

5. You’ll notice that there are a lot of diggers that leave their IM users. After you’ve created a decent profile (that could take weeks, even months) you can start adding them on your IM (GTalk, YM, AIM or Skype, doesn’t matter). This will allow you to easily interact with fellow diggers. You’ll see there are a lot of diggers out there who only share votes on IM (that’s good, because it will get you extra votes), but some of them are really cool persons and I’ve had a lot of fun talking to some of them. Besides the fun part, this also allows you to connect more with others and become more influent in the community. After a while, you can even ask more experienced diggers to submit your stories (quality stuff, of course).
Tip: Most top users share their IM usernames. Don’t add them as friends and ask them right away to submit one of your stories. Most likely you’ll get a negative answer and the digger could make a bad impressions about you (you know what they say, “the first impression really matters”). So ask them to submit your stories only after you’ve built up a relationship with them.

The conclusion is that creating a strong Digg profile is not hard, but it takes some time and a lot of hard work. There are days when I spend more than 6 hours on Digg (besides the regular work). These are the main steps you have to take and I’m going to write more detailed posts about how to succeed on Digg, so stay tuned.