So I'm thinking of starting a blog on effects pedals...

[midi_in]

i know youve just started it and looking for some feedback and that its still in the workings(i hope) but heres how i feel.

i think you should build up some reviews and whatnot before opening the site to the public. so that theres something to read and so people have some idea about how you review or how you run your site. the single page of updates stating what might happen or what youll be doing in the future turns me off to it. there should be an index of whats where. like pedal reviews, builder news, contests, ect. not sure if thats possible with blogspot.

perhaps a homepage with the welcomes and what the site is about and links to where people want to be instead of looking through the calender of posts(again, i dunno if thats possible with blogspot)

theres not much to the page. just text. the only color in it is the advertisements. a graphic header would be nice. maybe a develop a logo. or a catch phase lol. and some flavor, some pizazz!

youre asking for others to write reviews? isnt that what these forums are for? i believe that if its your blog, YOU should review. give YOUR opinion. make it your own like your the host of your own talkshow. Honestly, i want personality in a blog. if you have a number of review writers, then opinions become mixed and people get confused.

i like the way Lawrence set up his OHNOHO site. very simple, but easy to get around and fun to read.

hope that wasnt too harsh. im kinda a critical guy.

[Mudfuzz]

theres not much to the page. just text. the only color in it is the advertisements. a graphic header would be nice. maybe a develop a logo. or a catch phase lol. and some flavor, some pizazz!

I have to agree with this. IMOP you always need a picture It gets people's attention...

And breaks up the page and makes it look more then it is...

[Wes Mantooth]

I have a friend developing a graphic header for me so it actually looks better. So once that's figured out I'll probably add some color to the site.

Most reviews will be done by me, but being a college student and my blog being in its infancy I can't afford to buy many pedals to review or get manufacturers to send me their pedals to review. So I'm accepting guest reviews as well to give readers more content and allow the reviewers to reach a bigger audience once the blog grows.

I do agree I need to add more pictures though, my reviews will include pictures (I'm currently on vacation so I'm limited in what I can do).

I thought about waiting to 'launch' the site but I figured the feedback from you all would be too helpful to pass up

It looks pretty bad now and I need to work out a directory but in due time I hope it's something everyone will enjoy. If not, I still enjoy it

[Mudfuzz]

Coolz. plus what you said in the other thread is really cool.
From what you is say'n in a way is you want to do something like a Effect version of japanator http://www.japanator.com/ [one of me favorite sites] maybe not on such a big scale as them but is that where you are headed vs a normal one person blog blog?

[Wes Mantooth]

Coolz. plus what you said in the other thread is really cool.
From what you is say'n in a way is you want to do something like a Effect version of japanator http://www.japanator.com/ [one of me favorite sites] maybe not on such a big scale as them but is that where you are headed vs a normal one person blog blog?

Exactly, it will start as more of a one person blog but I want it to grow without losing the elements that made it cool in the first place. The more it grows, the more people I can reach, the more reviews I can do, the more previews and news I can get and last but not least, the more contests and giveaways I can hold!

I guess my examples are tech blogs like engadget and gizmodo, but I want more original content and less of blog that just runs stories from other blogs.

Keep that feedback coming, the more all of you enjoy it, the more I enjoy it

[Jwar]

Just put pictures of yourself on there with your guitar, smoking a corn cob pipe and drinking a 40. People will come. Yes they will.

I clicked some of those ads btw. Not buying shit from them, but I clicked.

[eatyourguitar]

Your google adsense will be adjusted to zero if the google bot catches him saying that he clicked on a ad to help u with no intention of buying. I ran a blog, eatyourguitar.com it was a fulltime job, i had to get in my car to interview people or go photagraph a guitar still in the workshop. If you have 1000 page hits, your adsense is still only $0.29. And i worked pretty hard for that money. Even at $60 a year for everything, it wasnt worth my time. The only way its successfull is if you have lots of startup cash, a real staff, professional site design, logo design, pagerank/marketing expert. You need to drive at least 10,000 new people a month. Thats costs money unless your an extremely creative marketing/social networking guru with lots of friends. Skip adsense and build real relationships with advertising clients that are relavent and helpful to your site. I started like you, on a forum asking people to write reviews, but unfortunatly, people tend to stop contributing unless there is something in it for them. It looses momentum fast. Site launch is a great idea, cause all the people who see it in its infancy may never comeback. Its worse than if they never saw it. Cause now they are less likely to click the link in your sig even if the site is awesome a month from now. On the other hand, forum sigs on frequent posters is the #1 form of free advertising. You should reg on every single forum and talk about something popular. I did get free stuff but catalinbread thought i was full of shit so i got no response. My site folded anyway.

[Jwar]

Your google adsense will be adjusted to zero if the google bot catches him saying that he clicked on a ad to help u with no intention of buying. I ran a blog, eatyourguitar.com it was a fulltime job, i had to get in my car to interview people or go photagraph a guitar still in the workshop. If you have 1000 page hits, your adsense is still only $0.29. And i worked pretty hard for that money. Even at $60 a year for everything, it wasnt worth my time. The only way its successfull is if you have lots of startup cash, a real staff, professional site design, logo design, pagerank/marketing expert. You need to drive at least 10,000 new people a month. Thats costs money unless your an extremely creative marketing/social networking guru with lots of friends. Skip adsense and build real relationships with advertising clients that are relavent and helpful to your site. I started like you, on a forum asking people to write reviews, but unfortunatly, people tend to stop contributing unless there is something in it for them. It looses momentum fast. Site launch is a great idea, cause all the people who see it in its infancy may never comeback. Its worse than if they never saw it. Cause now they are less likely to click the link in your sig even if the site is awesome a month from now. On the other hand, forum sigs on frequent posters is the #1 form of free advertising. You should reg on every single forum and talk about something popular. I did get free stuff but catalinbread thought i was full of shit so i got no response. My site folded anyway.

But how catch? HOW????????????????????????????????????????

Fuck google in their floppy greedy ass. I get what you're saying though. Was just trying to help, plus I have no money, so can't really buy shit anyway.

[mathias]

I'm sure it'll be fine. He's said the Adsense is just there to offset some of the costs of the blog, not earn him a fulltime wage. And Blogspot is hosting it for free now

Wes, just keep working on improving the content. Once my job isn't having me pull crazy hours, I plan to contribute.

[eatyourguitar]

thats my point, adsense doesn't even cover your operating costs. and how will they catch you... if you type linkto:http://www.effectswire.blogspot.com/ in google. it doesn't work right now cause the bots take upto 48 hours to troll ILF and update google. but also, everytime someone gets to your page the google code saves information on your site and your visitors. like referer URL. this will say viewtopic.php?f=42&t=15892&start=60 if they clicked on page 5 or viewtopic.php?f=42&t=15892 if they clicked on page 1. so if you get 10 hits this week and its a new account, google will have a person check out the referer URL's. especially if you get two clicks and no buys. thats %20 click and 0% buy. they watch that stuff. they basically want you to get up to $19.90 in your account but they want to to go at least a month to do it. read the terms of service. they will drop you after three months and $19.90 and all your money disappears into the googleplex. its a $20 min to get your check. they can deny payment for 8,875,864,875,585 reasons. the terms of service is absolutely ridiculous. take it to a lawyer for a good laugh. your screwed right from the start. they were selling toyotas on my site. they get payed per view from toyota and I get dick cause musicians are poor and dont buy/click new cars.

[Mudfuzz]

And this is why I was going to suggest maybe looking into selling add space to Godlyke, Dunlop, Boss, Digitech, Tech 21, T.C. Electric ect down the road... I know it is a long shot but just food for thought and all...

[Wes Mantooth]

Yeah once the blog gains popularity and credibility (which I hope comes within half a year to a year), I'll start asking dealers/manufacturers if they would like adspace and ditch adsense but right now it's all that I have really. Not really depending on it for income, just something that will hopefully generate some cash to fund giveaways and other cool stuff.

Right now I'm just focused on getting some cool content for everyone to read and hopefully spreading the word about the awesome people here on ILF to others. Any income generated would just be icing on the cake

By the way I have three sets of interview questions typed up for a few different builders on the site so look for those to start being posted hopefully this week. My own review sessions will start on Monday so next week should be fun

[Mudfuzz]

Sounds cool. I'll write up something odd and silly for you soon but it ain't happin'n this week... I doubt I'm going to have time to get to my own shit till next weekend either

[Wes Mantooth]

Why can't this just be my full time job?

Well at least my coursework this semester is light, now I just have to get my roommate out of the room

[Bassus Sanguinis]

I like it clean layout with simple text for philosophy, ideas and poetry. For music related blog the black and white ,text only approach wouldn't make sense anyway (unless You're an academic musing on Your Thesis on Stravinsky notations) so You might just as well post random pictures of badly drawn genitalia with the Youtube and/ or Soundcloud inserts.

Yeah, I've written journals /blogs years ago. My favorite layout was - I'm not kidding - black arial text on white background with a changing avatar in the navigation column - and that was it. It worked flawlessly, was clear enough not to distract the attention to other things from reading and never took two seconds to load the page.

I noticed people like the panem et circensis, every random passage with pics got more comments. I tried even using crappy photobucket drawings and totally random unrelated pics. Brought even more readers, drew more attention from people as they were being wonderfully distracted from the point - entertained.

...and good luck with teh blog. I'll check back for updates.