Take Your Blog to a Whole New Level with BlogTalkRadio

I’ve been half joking with David and Jeff over the past few weeks about switching their Perfcast to BlogTalkRadio. I say half joking because I think the Performancing podcast would do well with us. That’s not to say TalkShoe is a bad platform, but I wouldn’t be doing my job as BlogTalkRadio’s Community Manager if I didn’t try and convince others to drink our Kool-Aid. My nagging must be paying off a little because Jeff invited me to come back to my old stomping grounds and talk about BlogTalkRadio. With my thanks to Performancing, I’d like to tell you how you can take your blogs to a whole new level with our social radio community.

It’s Easy

I had been thinking about podcasting for some time now. What kept me from diving in is that I’m technically challenged. I don’t want to have to buy new equipment or download anything. I don’t want to break the website or have to contact technical support. BlogTalkRadio is perfect for people like me. The only skill needed is the ability to dial a phone. A laptop also helps because BlogTalkRadio allows hosts to manage a switchboard and chatroom. None of this is difficult either, you only need to know how to work your mouse. In fact, there is a free, live training session every day so new hosts can familiarize themselves with our technology.

It’s simple for your listeners and guests too. All they have to do is call in. There are no pins, no multiple menus, only a number to call. Your guests will have to wait to be unmuted, but they can hear the festivities over the phone and will know after hearing your introduction when it’s their time to talk.

Expand on Your Topics

I started a BlogTalkRadio show to enhance my freelance writing blog and community. I like that I can take the discussion beyond the 500 words in my blog post. My whole blogging team joins in and we learn how our community members feel as well. Many blog posts are written with short attention spans in mind. With radio, you know your listeners want to learn more and can talk at length on your chosen topic.

Bring Your Community Together

Your community is going to love being able to call in or take part in the chat. For some listeners, chat is the most enjoyable part of the BlogTalkRadio experience. They can ask questions to be answered on the radio show, offer a point of view or just socialize with other like-minded people. I found hosting a regular radio show has brought my community closer together. Even the folks who aren’t available for the live broadcast don’t miss out on the fun because the podcast is available soon after the live broadcast ends. I always post the player on my blog so my whole community can benefit.

It’s Better than Free

When the BlogTalkRadio team was working the booth at BlogWorld Expo, the most-asked question was “how much does it cost?” BlogTalkRadio is free. It will not cost you anything to host a radio show with us. We even take it a step better by sharing 35% to 50% of the advertising revenue whenever an advertiser wishes to support your show.

Host Support

If there’s one way I think BlogTalkRadio stands head and shoulders above other online radio networks is that we’re very supportive of our hosts. In addition to offering training sessions, a weekly BlogTalkRadio Insider show for our hosts, and a Yahoo Group to answer questions, our host support team is available at all times. We also offer hosts the ability to have their notable shows featured on the BlogTalkRadio homepage, our blog, and we even reach out to other blogs and communities to tell them about the day’s notable events. Our job is to help our hosts succeed.

Changes are Coming

BlogTalkRadio isn’t perfect but our tech team is working hard to fix many of the issues. We’ve heard our website isn’t so user friendly or esthetically pleasing. We agree. Stay tuned though, because major changes are being unveiled later this year.

Any Questions?

I’m happy to answer any questions regarding BlogTalkRadio. Feel free to ask here or send a note to me at deborahng(at)blogtalkradio(dot)com. If I don’t know the answer, I’ll put you through to the person who does. Stop by, have a browse and sign up for a free account. Most of our hosts find themselves hooked after their first live experience. I’d love to learn how it works for you!

Why I Belong to Hive

I could talk about blogging all day. The problem is, I don’t know anyone in the real world who blogs, cares to talk about blogging, or even knows what a blog is for that matter. I do talk to fellow bloggers via Skype or Twitter on occasion, but not everyone wants to discuss SEO tips or whether or not I should purchase a particular domain. That’s why I appreciate Performancing’s Hive forum.

If you’re a regular to my Freelance Writing Jobs blog you know people encourage me to charge for access to job leads and advice, and I refuse to do it. You also know I don’t pimp products or services for the hell of it, especially services where you’re expected to reach into your wallet. I don’t accept swag for swag’s sake and I don’t promote a product unless it’s something I absolutely believe in.

When I heard it would cost $10 for access to Hive I questioned the price. I felt $10 per month was way too high. But after spending months in a private forum with other senior Performancing members, I knew a private forum just for bloggers and people serious about the new media would yield a goldmine of information.

Why should you join Hive? I’m not going to sell you anything. Instead, I’ll tell you why I belong to Hive.

• I can talk about blogging to my heart’s content with other bloggers and online experts.
• I can get honest opinions and critiques.
• I can get assistance for projects and advice when asked.
• Free reports regarding blogging, SEO and more. And I’m talking about E-book sized reports, not a couple of pages telling you stuff you already know.
• It’s a place where you can ask for help Stumbling, Digging and otherwise loving your blog posts.
• It’s a place where I can bounce ideas off others and get feedback.
• I made important contacts in the industry.
• If one of the members of Hive has a blogging gig available, it’s there first.
• It’s a tax write-off.

One of the reasons I went to Blog World Expo last November was to meet and talk with other bloggers and learn. Hive is like a blogging conference I can visit any time. Is that worth $10 to me? Absolutely!

Stop Spamming My Blog

I’m all about the link love. I don’t mind adding relevant links to my blogroll and I like to offer a week ending link love post on most of my blogs. That’s why it really annoys me when visitors comment just to spam. I’m not talking about the bots, I’m talking about regular visitors to my blog. Most commenters are smart. They can figure out there’s a space on most comment forms for which to leave links. Some don’t get it or don’t care.

I’m pretty easy. I don’t mind if something on your blog will add to the discussion on my blog. In which case you can state your point of view in the comments and afterwards invite people to check the link. When your only comment is a link to your blog, it’s not going to make it past the moderation filter.

Recently one of my regulars left this comment on more than one occasion:
“This site is entirely too serious. You need to come to (blog name here) for a good laugh.” How is that contributing to the conversation? Another one of my regulars only comments unless she can plug one of her own blog posts or articles. “You have a point Deb, but as I wrote the other day in my article entitled…” To me this is akin to my going to someone’s party and telling the guests, “This party sucks. Come to my house for a better time.” It’s rude.

Anyone who knows me knows I got to this point because of shameless self promotion. I never spammed a blog or forum with links though. I might drop a link now and then on a forum if it’s relevant to a conversation or I’m invited to do so, but otherwise, no spam. It would never occur to me to visit another blog and only leave a link to my blog, either.

If you want people to visit your blog, there are several ways to get their attention:

• Leave an intelligent, relevant comment on another blog and drop your link only in the designated space.
• Participate in forums in your niche and leave a link in the signature line.
• Offer to guest post for another blog.
• Write good, useful content and others will take notice.

Right now, my comments are set up so a new visitor’s first comment or any comments with a link in the body are sent to the moderation filter. I’m amazed by how many of the same people try and spam my blog over and over again rather than creating a buzz with a good comment.

If you know me, you know I don’t mind giving out the link love. Just don’t spam my blog.

The Case for Reinvention

Last year was one of reinvention. When I started Freelance Writing Jobs three years ago, I was the only writing blogger on the block offering a daily list of leads for freelance writers. Three years later, blogs listing freelance writing and blogging leads and jobs are a dime a dozen. I know I’m not the only blogger experiencing this, either. While I do believe there’s room for everyone in the blogosphere, it’s also kind of frustrating to see everyone doing the same exact thing. What’s a blogger to do?

Refocus

Can you think of another focus for your blog while still staying on topic? The reason people visit my blog is to find work. Wouldn’t it stand to reason they’re also interested in reading articles about the best way to find said work? When I stopped featuring ONLY jobs, the numbers went way up. Now FWJ is more than just a “jobs” blog. It’s a writing community.

What can you do to set you apart from others in your niche?

What do I have to offer that the other guys don’t?

• Background – With over a dozen years in publishing, I know what editors look for and the mistakes many new writers make. As a former group editor for an Internet content portal, I know a lot about writing for the web, and getting web writing jobs. I also know many of the mistakes new writers make. How does your background set you apart from the other bloggers in your niche? Can you use it to your advantage?
• Experience – In addition to the aforementioned publishing and editing experience, I’ve been writing for the web on a freelance basis since 2000 and blogging since 2005. Is your experience such that you can use it to become an authority in your field?
• Community – By focusing on my community and writing for them, I managed to make it about the FWJ community and not so much about Deb Ng. Moreover, by encouraging group participation I made FWJ a place where people share ideas and engage in lively discussion. How can you include your others to make your blog more of a community?

The Result

Before my reinvention, my numbers weren’t bad. I had a loyal readership, but traffic stagnated. After changing focus traffic went way up and continues to rise.

New ideas are rare in this day and age. Every day thousands of new blogs are created, some just like yours. What are some of the things you can do to stay fresh and keep your readers coming back for more.

My Blog: Three Months After the Domain Change

Three months ago, Freelance Writing Jobs moved from its rented space at Writers Row to its own brand new domain. The immediate results weren’t pretty.

• My Page Rank tanked from 5 to 0.
• My traffic dropped by half.
• My revenue showed a substantial decline.
• FWJ dropped in search engine rankings.

I did expect some negative effects in the very beginning, but nothing like this. October and November were bad months for me. Though things slowed down for the holidays, December showed a steady rise.

Three Months Later

Three months later and I’m back on track. Revenue is getting back to where it was in the beginning. Freelance Writing Jobs is back at the top of the search engines and my traffic is flowing nicely, thank you very much. Though it probably means nothing at this point, what confuses me is that I never got my page rank back. FWJ is still showing a page rank of 0.

Do I regret the move? Absolutely not! Even though it took a few months for my numbers to get back up, it’s nice not to have to share a domain with others. Now I know where all my traffic is coming from, I’m my own site administrator, and I have a lot more freedom.

Start from Scratch

The important thing was to work hard to build my blog up to where it used to be. Fortunately I was able to do so with some very shameless self promotion (sorry guys), a few well stumbled posts (thanks!) and lots of help from the good people here (I’m grateful).

Traffic isn’t only back to normal, it’s surpassing what it was before the domain change. Revenue isn’t quite up to what it used to be but it’s showing promise, and I’m receiving individual requests for advertising.

My biggest challenge is getting those who linked to me to adjust their links, but I’m working on it. In the mean time, it’s been fun watching the numbers rise. I know some blogspot and wordpress.com bloggers who are afraid to move to their own domains. Indeed it took me two and a half years to make my move. I’m here to tell you it was one of the best things I could do for my blogs and I have no regret.

As for that non existent page rank…does anyone really care about page rank anymore anyway?

The Importance of Social Networking

I’m more fortunate than many bloggers in that I was able to cultivate a very successful blog. Granted, I’m not earning thousands each month with it, but it’s enough for me to hire someone to help out and also put something aside to create other blogs. With a couple of thousand visitors each day, I do much better than most who blog about freelance writing.

I’m often asked how I built up my traffic, what methods worked for me. I always attribute my success to social networking. When I first began, I spread the word through various writing forums and traffic started to slowly trickle in. From there I began leaving thoughtful comments at other blogs. I didn’t drop links or get spammy, but I did enter my details into the signature line. Even more visitors stopped by. I began linking to other bloggers and they showed their love by linking to me in return. Soon I had 100 visitors, a couple of months later, 500. After about a year about 1000 people were visiting Freelance Writing Jobs and I was even starting to earn a bit from Adsense.

When I first began this blog, there wasn’t any Digging. Even then, my lists of job leads weren’t really Diggable anyway. My traffic mostly came by participating in forums and blogs for writers, work at home moms, freelancers and bloggers. The word spread because others began to consider FWJ an important resource for writers.

Nowadays I still visit the same forums and even more blogs. I also encourage others to network on my blog. I offer contests, such as the one going on now for the top commenter, and post a discussion topic every day. I made my blog a place for freelance writers to network. Now others come to my blog to socially network and drop their own links in the signature. As a result, I found some more cool places to go and share the link love. Many writers and bloggers now link to my discussion topics and it can get rather viral.

More than two years later I’m of the impression social networking is the single most important thing you can do to build traffic and create a buzz about your blog. Of course there are social media tools such as Digg and Stumble Upon to help you out, but many times they provide a one time spike in traffic. I’m of the impression that if you visit others, they’ll always return the favor, and if you provide useful input in forums, people will visit you often to see what else you have to say.

4 Tips to Help Manage Multiple Blogs

Because I maintain 10 blogs for myself and others, I’m often asked how I manage. Honestly, it’s not difficult. I just schedule my time and plan ahead. If you’re struggling with the multi-tasking, these tips might help.

1. Get Yourself an Offline Blog Editor

My blog editor of choice is Windows Live Writer. I’ve also heard good things about Blog Desk. Offline editors are a must for blogging multi-taskers. What I especially appreciate is being able to switch blogs using a drop down menu, rather than changing WP dashboards each time. Plus you don’t have to be connected to post. Simply blog and schedule your post for whenever.

2. Get Yourself an Editorial Calendar

We talked about editorial calendars before. In fact, more bloggers are seeing the benefits of planning their posts well into the future. Some prefer a spreadsheet while others use Outtlook. My editorial calendar is a giant calendar hanging on my office bulletin board. I like to see everything right in front of my face. My calendar is at a glance and I can just look up from what I’m doing to see what’s next. Choose the method you’re most comfortable with.

3. Plan Ahead

The key to handling multiple blogs is to plan ahead. I use the aforementioned editorial calendar to plan topics a week ahead of time. Many times I choose topics by analyzing trends through my stats and comments. I also check out Google trends to see what’s going on. Are there holidays or events happening? What are the big stories in the news? What keywords and phrases are my visitors using? After taking some time to think about what I’ll be posting, I list my ideas on the editorial calendar.

4. Write Ahead

I like to spend some weekend time writing ahead for some of my blogs. This past Sunday, I entered in 9 posts for one blog and now I don’t have to worry about positing until next week. Of course, I could still add interesting news bits or links as the week passes, but it’s one less thing to worry about. I know I can’t spend the weekend writing ahead for all of my blogs, but if I can do it for one or two it makes all the difference is the world.

Maintaining several blogs at once isn’t always easy to manage. Planning ahead and taking advantage of some nifty tools can make the job a little easier.

What do you do to make life easier when maintaining multiple blogs?

Two Important Rules for a Successful Blogging Career

2007 was an amazing ride. Career-wise, it was the best year of my life. In the beginning of that year I resolved to break away from more traditional forms of writing to become a full-time professional blogger and I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. How can I top that in 2008? By following two important rules:

1. There’s Always Room for Improvement

Just because I’m successful doesn’t mean I should stop learning. In fact, when it comes to blogging I don’t feel I’m very knowledgeable at all. Oh sure, I’m pretty good at building a community and writing for a specific group of people, but I’m technically challenged and need to study up more on blog design plus monetization and traffic-building strategies. I think anyone who wants to succeed as a blogger needs to learn to never stop learning. Fortunately for all of us, there are some terrific resources available.

2. Set One Realistic Goal

While I do have a short list of New Year’s resolutions, I also believe it’s important to set one realistic goal each year. Last year my goal was to earn a full time salary as a professional blogger. This year it’s my goal to learn more about the technical aspects of blogging. I’d like to troubleshoot my own issues without having to call in the Calvary for tweaks and fixes.

I’m not perfect. I know I have a lot to learn. For me, the key is not to do it all. If I focus on one goal, while continuing to learn as much as I can about my chosen path, I can continue to be what I consider a success.

What is your one realistic goal for 2008?

Negative Traffic: Here’s the Thing…

A couple of weeks ago on Freelance Writing Jobs I wondered if all traffic equals good traffic. Specifically, did I want to purposely stir up negativity and controversy as a way to increase traffic? Though I already knew the answer, I gave it a little test. Here’s what I found:

1. Negative traffic stays long enough to make a negative impact and then it goes away. You can get on the front page of Digg as the result of a negative or controversial post, but as soon as your new visitors have had their fun, they’re gone. Very few will return on a regular basis. Most only come by to tell you you’re wrong. I’d rather focus my efforts on creating content that will keep people coming back for more, and stimulate intelligent and useful discussion among the members of my community.
2. My community doesn’t like negativity. The members of my community at FWJ want to discuss freelancing, specifically freelance writing and blogging. They’re not so much interested in a lot of “you’re wrong and you suck” type comments. A couple of weeks ago when I received a rush of negative traffic, a couple of my regulars told me they weren’t comfortable visiting my blog when people were cursing and name calling. Though I deleted all the offensive posts, I would have alienated my community if I allowed it to continue.
3. Negativity doesn’t mean ad revenue. When I received the negative traffic I didn’t do well, revenue wise. People who come to your blog to insult you and tell you you’re wrong aren’t going to click or buy anything. In comparison, I had major Stumble Upon traffic a few days later and revenue went way up.
4. Your reputation is at stake. Do you want to be known for teaching something useful or for writing linkbait? See item number one above. Negativity begets negativity. Don’t expect something positive to happen at your blog when you’re stirring up the pot or doing your best to offend. If you want people to consider you an important resource, you’ll write important blog posts. If you want people to think you know how to attract negative publicity, continue to find controversy.

I think it’s possible to write good, link worthy posts that enlighten, inform and entertain without having to resort to negativity or controversy. Remember, when it comes to blogs, you reap what you sow. And that’s not always good.

What Will Happen to Your Blogs if Something Happens to You?

Have you ever wondered what will happen to your blogs if there’s an emergency and you’re sick, injured, or God forbid, worse? We don’t like to think about it, but the truth is we’re not permanent fixtures on earth and stuff happens.

Whenever I bring up the “what if something happens?” question to my fellow bloggers many don’t have a plan in place, while others don’t want to even consider there will ever be a time when they can’t blog. Before I left for BWE in the beginning of November, I thought a lot about what would happen if something happened. Who would alert my clients and readers? What would happen to my blogs if I was no longer around? Not attractive possibilities, but certainly something to think about.

Appoint a Blog Guardian

As much as I love my husband, I can’t trust him to handle my blogs, especially if he’s in mourning or caring for me if I’m injured. I contacted my oldest sister and gave her a list of contacts as well as the log in info for Freelance Writing Jobs. She knows to alert my readers.

I also have the passwords and logins for all my blogs noted on a disc, which is in the fireproof box that stores all the important family business.

Sell or Pass on the Torch?

It’s not enough to have someone alert your readers that you won’t be blogging for a while, or ever again. You’re going to have to decide if you want to appoint a successor or sell your blogs. If it’s a matter of illness or injury, you may just want someone trustworthy to fill in during your absence. Choose someone who feels the same way about blogging and your niche. This way your readers will be exposed to the same passion.

Now, what if you’re no longer with us? What will happen to your blogs then? Will you leave them to languish? If you care about your blogs the way I do mine, you’ll want to either appoint a successor or sell. Presently my family has instructions to sell all my blogs and websites and put the money into my son’s college fund. Eventually these instructions will be written into my will.

No One Wants to Think About It

No one ever wants to discuss the “what if something happens” scenario. Many of us would love to live forever or at least spend the remainder of our lives accident and illness free. That’s not the way life works, however. Stuff can and will happen. It’s best to be prepared, no matter how unattractive the thought.