To put it simply, in such situations, the issue and the company are actually promoting each other - supporting each other’s causes - they are complimentary to each other.

Think about the Green movement where a lot of companies directly or indirectly tried to greenwash the target market. It is not that everyone had a bad intention. Some people really contributed to the movement. And those who greenwashed the target market also contributed to make the issue more popular. Every impression of the issue added to the brand equity of green movement and made it stronger. And now it is almost a cashcow. Companies are endorsing the cause to show off their social responsibility and thus added a human touch to their corporate brand.

In some cases, the companies are directly associating them with the movement and sometimes they are doing it indirectly. For example, did you notice the line “do not print this mail unless it is important - save paper - save tree” in email signatures? A have seen a few publishing houses are using this signature in their outgoing emails although they do not show it off in their online publications. To add to this, the line is not overtly promoted in the mail - it is left alone in the signature. The recipient would definitely think twice that this company is a good company as they are participating in such a worthy social issue.

To add to this, these social causes also add a character to the brand. For example think about an online marketer who also participates in some social cause of his or her locality. What does it tell you about the person?

Google Searchwiki Demo on YouTube

Now, Google is no longer a search engine alone; would you mind calling it a social bookmarking website that also offers the best results on the web for a search term? Would you mind calling it a giant that is somewhat going to change the way you reach a web page? Are you waiting to see something like this in Yahoo too?

Anyways, I have waited for a few days to use this feature. But perhaps I am one of the unlucky few :( and thus I am not going to talk about the flaws in the system. There are lots of posts in the web that you can read.

In my wildest dream, I can see a new service being offered by different web marketing companies: Get great reviews on your website from different Google accounts - Get more targeted visitors … blab blab blab.

I always believe that people have knowledge - they can decide what is good for them. I respect their opinion. At the same time I believe that my opinion on nuclear weapon is less valuable than a nuclear scientist’s opinion even though my opinion may be lot more popular. People may like to follow my opinion than the scientist’s. And how would a general visitor know if the person is a scientist? How does Google tackle this? Will they make the contributors bound to develop a profile page? Isn’t that vulnerable to spam too? And do you really think that general people would be interested to visit each and every contributor’s profile page?

You might be saying that, social bookmarking websites follow the same process. But think twice: Google is almost your gateway to internet. Do you really search what people are talking about the website in a social bookmarking platform before you interact with it?

To add to this, I am not ready to call it a Wiki. The first reason is that in a wiki page, you do not get different opinions. Different contributors from different parts of the world, develop a content - single piece of content. A wiki page is anything but opinions. But here you are bound to get lots of opinions.

And this is now an open solution for Google to store your data.

There are thousands of bloggers who want to start a super hit blogs with thousands of readers and hundreds of comments from day one (a lot of them do not even know how to measure the amount of visitors).

This is not a new question to me. I have often encountered fresh bloggers asking me how to make money from blogging. I have even come across a blogger (with not more than three post experience) who started some adult blogs to earn money via AdSense.

Any ways, last day I started thinking what makes a blog super hit rather than thinking how to make a blog super hit.

One thing is pretty clear - every super hit blog is super hit for their own reasons. There is no ready made strategy that makes a blog super hit.

In case of corporate blog or a celebrity blog, the brand name or the blogger himself makes the blog popular. In other situations, content, writing style, topic, network, communication or even designs make a blog popular. To put it simply, every successful blog have a USP that it sells to gain popularity.

What is your story?

Do you have any USP to sell? Or, have you identified something that you may call your USP and something that will set you apart from other bloggers in your niche?

So does it mean that having an USP is enough to make a blog super hit?

I don’t think so. USP is not something that you have identified for yourself. The USP must be identified by the reader. They must find a reason to come back to your blog over and over again.

And most importantly, you must be good at marketing your blog so that you can easily reach people who can identify your USP and may be interested to talk about you.

Do you want to start a super hit blog?

We went back to the owners to identify the key points of their business and productions and framed a story board accordingly. We filmed the whole team in the workshop. They were working and having fun and one of them was talking to a customer over phone. By chance, we even got a new customer visiting their workshop while we were shooting. We did not miss the opportunity to take his opinion about their furniture and development process.

We worked hard to develop the video into a very professional one and yet kept the essence of a realistic video.

We put the video on the “About Us” page.

That was not all - we tried to develop a story around their brand and their working process. And most importantly, we invited the website visitors to visit their workshop in person.

Why we did all these?

When, a lot of people are visiting your “About Us” page, it is a clear indication that they have some sort of interest on you. If you are selling a product via your website or accepting money for your product or service, people may be more interested to know about you before making the final decision.

This is just one aspect of a good “About Us” page. The main purpose is actually developing a brand - a story that may inspire your target market to get a positive impression about you. Telling a story about you and your product or brand is very important because otherwise the target market will develop a story to believe. If you take the active step you can actually guide the visitors to think about you as you want.

As far as blogs are concerned, talk more about the “you” behind the blog - present the content in such a way that it not only fulfills the need to know about you but also develops a story around you and the blog.

I may be exaggerating a little bit. But I am not completely wrong either.

Ok, let us narrow down the concept a little bit. Let’s talk about small business websites.

An ideal “About Us” should not stop right after introducing people behind the website - the CEO or the Managing Director of the company. However, this is the most common content of the “About Us” page. There are some websites that dedicate a paragraph to talk about why they started the business or the website.  Some websites even complete the page by writing some discrete stories about their vision and mission.

Before you start writing the About Us page of your website - simply ask one question: What do your visitors (target audience) want to know about you?  Do they only want to know about the top bosses of the organization or something else? And more importantly, do you have a story to tell that would engage the visitors and ask them to spread the news about you?

For example, a few months back, I was working for a company that specializes in bespoke furniture design (not disclosing the name for agreement). The website was running for around 3 years and a lot of people visited their “About Us” page (analytics showed us the details). The problem was that s lot of visitors bounced back from that page. Just to point out they filled the page with client’s testimonials followed by their contact address.

Did people really click on the “About Us” link to read the testimonials?

We talked to the owners and asked them to record some video interviews of the workers in the factory and some happy moments. The quality of the recording was very poor and did not tell anything.

To be continued:

I know what you people are thinking: Who are you to select a partner? Are you the boss? This statement changes the whole concept of the open office where there is no boss?

I know and I partially agree with you. In an open office space, you are as powerful as a worker and a CEO. You have as much power as other team members in your team. But, if you have the power like everybody else in the team to select a new member, you also have the power to terminate the membership of someone who is not performing at all. At least you can raise the voice against a non performer.

You can also think about developing project based teams. For example, if you get a project of developing a PHP based regular website, you can create a micro company with PHP Programmer, designer, and content writer.

I would like to hear from you.

NBB Team update:

We are almost ready to launch our second team. We will soon publish the names of our Team B members. And we are also planning to write down different stages of our projects - for example, the project, our approach, stages of development, end result etc. Interested?

We have all seen many successful open source platforms - what about starting an open source office? What about taking the office as a platform - where it is not necessary to have a building called office? Ok, lets talk about the web based industries or companies where the workers are primarily knowledge workers.

Ok, let’s dream about such a company: (I think Dreams are Important.) What happens in such a company?

1. You do not need to go to office everyday to do your regular jobs like writing content or coding or product updating. We can do it from wherever you want and whenever you want. Hey - there will always be some deadlines - assigned to you and more importantly assigned by you.

2. A coffee shop is good enough to work like an office where you meet for brainstorming sessions. You can also think about going to Alaska to spend a vacation with the team members and to discuss new ideas. And thus you will never have to pay for office development and maintenance. And you may actually save a lot of time and money by not travelling to office everyday. (You will have more time to spend with your family too :))

3. There will be no monthly salary - you earn incentives - as much as you want depending on what you are doing. Or it may be something like 25% straight.

4. The Highest rank would be that of a Manager or Team Leader who would monitor the project - this position may change in different projects or by time.

5. You will never have to read this article by Guy Kawasaki. You will always by a businessman or entrepreneur but you will never be the CEO. You can sign out but no one can sign you off.

Would you like to add something to this list? Write a comment and I will put it here.

You know very well, that if you add Google AdSense, it will generate some income (hope you have enough natural traffic in your blog or website). But does it mean the maximum output? Do you think that what you are earning is enough for your website? Do not forget that you are leasing a lot of space to your advertisement network!

If you are developing a website to earn money, it is important to look into these areas. You must have a basic idea about the best ways to monetize your blog or website. By the way, I am not talking about some products like Twitter (they are yet to finalize a revenue model). But, do you really think that Twitter will survive even if it cannot find a worthy revenue generation model?

One thing is pretty clear - the pros know how to monetize their blog or website. And to add to this, they are really good at ad space distribution. What about you? Are you really planning on maximum monetization?

Team NBB (A) update:

We have created an Idea box (shared with the team members only) to evaluate different ideas for website development. (Most people start a website at this very moment and thus a lot of them fail.)

We will evaluate different ideas there from different perspectives and would start working with the best one. We thought this is the most crucial step for team development too. NBB will not force any idea - every member of each team will have the full right to select the best idea and put forward their best effort. We hope that within a few weeks, we will be able to finalize the idea.

(If you are not sure of what we are talking about, please read this post)

The selection process was very tough. We had around 19 applications (not bad for a start!!) and some of them are really good. We had to work really hard to come up with a team. However I must say that, Razvan and Shrihari do not end the list. They make up a team with two people from NBB because their expertise and zeal to learn completes a circle - a team. And we are only waiting to find a better match for 5 other applicants. (Are you the one?)

Why we are looking for teams? And why we are always talking about teams?

If you look at the trend, almost everyone starts as a solo blogger. He or she writes posts, comments on other blogs, invests time in social networking, collects links and does all other things. And in most of the situations, they are not full time bloggers. Thus it is very tough for one to become successful and earn enough by blogging. This is one of the big reasons why most of the bloggers who wanted to earn money from the goldmine called internet, flee to other places. Thousands of blogs are created everyday and thousands of them fade out too.

Now just think about this situation, where these four people will have their own share of tasks and at the same time they would participate in developing the website from scratch (even idea generation). Do you think that they will have to work harder than they normally do to earn more? We are sure to achieve better results for the same or less effort.

Anyways, we will keep you updated about the latest developments in this project. If you are still undecided, time is running out.

We would like to develop 4 websites to sell within 8 to 12 months. And we would like to have 2 people to work with us in each of the projects (2×4=8). Each team would consist of 4 people (2 from your side and 2 from our side).

By the way, you do not need to fly to our office to join the team. You can work at your own pace and from your own place. It is a perfect opportunity to learn and earn as much as we do. Interested?

How much you need to invest?

You need to invest absolutely nothing but your time, energy and ideas and that too when you want and as much as you want. We will do all the required investments. However, we would like you to get involved in every aspect of website’s development process. And you must stand up to your commitment.

How much you can earn?

As soon as the websites are ready, we will put them up in a website selling marketplace. You get 25% of the sales price - straight (a team = 4 members = 25% X 4 = 100%). Thus, if your website is sold for $10,000, you will earn $2500 - straight. Interested?

Who can join?

You can join a team if you believe that you have the ability to think and act. You can be good at designing, content writing, link building, social media marketing, online marketing, SEO - whatever. We are looking for people who are ready to take challenges. You can hide your identity or you can speak out loud that you are working on a project - as you wish.

How to join?

Simply write a comment under this post or send us a mail at JoinNBB@gmail.com and tell us why we should take you in our team? Tell us something about you, your experiences and your expertise - that’s it. It is just great if you have a blog.

How things would actually work:

We would create a small mailing list for each team and continue working together until the website is sold (8 to 12 months).

So, are you ready?? If you have some questions, write to us at JoinNBB@gmail.com and we will be happy to answer.

Everybody preaches about how to earn money - we would like you to earn money with us - cash.