Originally, back in January, I commented and made a little post about scoring systems. The first one I read was devised by Eve at Confessions of a Housewife.

http://dillydesigns.com/2007/07/09/the-blog-points-system-excel-sheet/

Since then, I have seen a few posts on various blogs about implementing a point system in order to keep yourself productive while blogging. Recently, I have implemented the following daily point system on one of my websites for myself and my other writers. It is less-intensive than some of the other point systems out there, but it enables me to keep track of what is being done and how much promotion is being put into the website.

I will explain a few things. There is a slightly different grading ‘curve’ when it comes to longer posts and the amount of posts, because although I feel it is VERY important to have an excellent flow of content on a timely schedule, my ‘band’ and music industry experience tells me that promotion is sometimes MORE important than the actual writing. How many times have you heard the phrase ‘How did that band make it so big? They suck!’ uttered. Exactly my point. Promotion is still a huge key to success.

So this system rewards grassroots promotion and ways to generate traffic almost as much as content. The daily goal is to reach the standard 50 points (this is pretty common on most daily point systems). I require my bloggers (or yourself for that matter) to ‘work’ 5 times a week average. The way I look at it, is instead of worrying about ‘hours’ or ‘days’ worked, I focus on the number. 250 points per week is what I hope to get, per blogger, per blog. I personally know that I can get 50 points an hour if I really buckled down, so I do not feel these numbers are unreasonable.

The key to my system is the number 250. I really don’t care how fast you get the 250. If you do it in one day, take the next 6 off if you’re working for me!

• 5 points for any blog post that is over 200 words (content, not just a post linking to another site)
• 10 points for any blog post that is over 400 words
• 10 points for a ‘column’ (I like my blogs to have newspaper style columns weekly to keep people interested)
• 5 points for enhancing the theme
• 5 points for redesigning the theme, or implementing a new theme
• 1 point for every person signed up for the email list, or RSS feed (if it can be accounted for)
• 5 points for every bulletin or note sent out on MySpace or Facebook (limited 2 per day)
• 2 points for every blog commented in which you have commented before
• 5 points for every blog commented in which you have never commented on
• 100 points for advertiser conversion (generating a lead which in turn generates ad revenue)
• 100 points for every contest created (generating a prize in order to use in said contest)
• 100 points for a great promotional plan or tactic discovered and implemented
• 50 points for a guest blog post on a website with high traffic or RSS subscribers
• 10 points for every unique widget created (mainly for use on Facebook)

As you can see, my point system rewards usage of social networking such as Myspace. Why have a leaned heavily on those sites? Well, lets go to the stats! I will be referring to one of my blogs.

The first and foremost referral site has always been Google. People search via Google and Google alone. I don’t care what other search engines there are. I don’t see this trend dying anytime soon. But a quick scan down the list shows me that much traffic has been coming via Myspace and Facebook. You have a lot of ways to get your links out there on social networking sites. Bulletins, profiles, blogs, status updates. You name it. It is a promotional machine if you know where to use it.

So far today; I have done the following in accordance to my scoring system. I am not referring to this website. Mind you, it IS only 3:30am.

• 10 points for 2 blog posts over 200 words
• 10 points for creating a Facebook application
• 20 points for 2 bulletins and 2 notes on Myspace and Facebook.
• 22 points for comments on blogs
• 3 points for adding people from my AIM buddy list to the RSS feed

So as you can see, I am off to a good start for the week. I usually tend to hammer a lot more than 250 points in a week, but I don’t expect everyone to want to do it that way. I spent quite a bit of time getting that silly Facebook application working, but it has already driven traffic to the site.

I do tend to make scoring changes as I go, systems like these should always be fluid. Example, there is one writer that I expect to do about 400 points a week because of how fast he can write and promote. Another writer I only expect about 150 but she has a million other things to do, but her content is exceptional. However, so far this has seemed to work for me and my associates.