The 3 Blog Laws of Self Hosting (Ignore Them At Your Own Risk)

Despite the benefits of blogging upon Blogger, WordPress.com, OnSugar (for Drupal lovers),  or a microblogging site like Tumblr, there comes a season in your life when you must embrace the trials and tribulations of self hosting your blog.

Fortunately in the age of social networking and blogs, most hosting companies offer clients “one click” installs allowing users to upload the blog software of their choice without having to resort to using the infamous FTP (which only geeks love).

Aside from finding yourself a decent host, there are 3 laws of self hosting that you should follow which will not only prevent damage to your blog’s data (as replacing it via Google cache can be a pain), but also of your wallet as well.

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5 Crucial Tips To Help You Secure A Successful Blogging Future

Blogging, depending on your approach, is a lot like investing in prime assets. Some niches appreciate faster than others and all require a dedicated overseer who is constantly tweaking and improving the portfolio and instruments to guarantee the best results. The blogosphere is your marketplace and the strategies that you implement and maintain will greatly affect the long term success of your blog.

However, before investing your precious time and effort into growing a blog you need to have a solid plan to execute and define clear goals for yourself. Here are some excellent tips to help you get started on the right track to achieve your blogging dreams. [Read more]

The Most Powerful Characteristic of Successful Bloggers

Undeniably, we can’t help but admire the legends who came before us; who set the trends and standards that many aim to achieve and maintain. Financial success and fulfillment of life are very attractive goals but require the dedicated, passionate and sometimes lucky soul who will dare to venture and claim the prize.

In the world of blogging, this is no different and still there is only a small percentage of bloggers, in comparison to the entire blogosphere,  who actually achieve huge success through blogging. After taking note, you will find that there are a few key characteristics that most probloggers possess like persistence, focus and passion but there is one more requirement to the mix. That ingredient is the ability to change and adapt. [Read more]

5 Solid Reasons You Should Never Quit Blogging

Blogging has become the most popular and
easiest form of expression online which has also helped many to achieve financial success for themselves and their families. Although we all have various reasons for blogging, a vast majority is driven solely by the idea of making millions online and living the internet lifestyle in the shortest time possible.

Unfortunately, the get rich quick mindset is like a house built on sand and easily gets washed away in disappointment when the reality hits that its going to take some really hard work. At this point, one may experience blogger burnout or just feel like giving up but I say, don’t give up, reassess your strategies, redefine your goals and look at all that can be gained through this fulfilling endeavor.

Whatever your reasons may be for quitting, here are 5 solid reasons for sticking to it and never give up on your blog. [Read more]

The Most Important & Effective Strategy When Business Blogging

Incorporating a blog within any small to large
organization’s website can be one of the most important decisions that could be made. Blogs are extremely effective for driving sales, web traffic, building brand awareness and strengthening relationships with customers. However, corporate blogging can be somewhat different from a regular personal blog due to differences in goals and audience but at the same time there are techniques that are guaranteed to produce results whatever the goals may be.

Let’s discuss what readers of corporate blogs are looking for and what elements will keep them coming back for more and even make a purchase. [Read more]

Is It Too Easy to Blog?

There’s an interesting anti- blogging op-ed rant in the Baltimore Sun by Garrison Keillor, an amusing American writing icon who’s known for classics such as Lake Wobegon Days and A Prairie Home Companion. In the rant, entitled “When everyone’s a writer, no one is,” Keillor gives an entertaining slap in the face to blogging and microblogging, suggesting that the Internet has made us both literate in terms of increasing reading interest, though simultaneously reduced the value of writing. I mean, who wants to pay for something when you can probably find it for free or which is easy to steal? [Via Writers Write.]

That sounds about right, but the irony that the Baltimore Sun’s web page has Google AdSense ads smack-dab in the middle of Keillor’s op-ed piece isn’t lost on me. If this is what traditional publishers think they have to do to survive, then so be it. Now, I just had an email conversation earlier today with someone who wants to buy a few old sites that I’d previously bartered from someone else. The potential buyer wanted me to also add more content, which I wasn’t interested in even before he tipped his hat by making a mention that you can buy 10 posts for $20. That was because I’d mentioned to him that when I had tried to find writers for my sites, that was what I was quoted, by people who knew the niche well.

The $2/post might be available for some niches, but you will get exactly what you pay for: writing that’s likely unreadable and would take you far too long to edit than just write yourself. Specialized niches, on the other hand, require you to stay on top of the market, do extra research. I won’t give away the niche, but let me put it this way: if I have to watch a 1.5 hour TV show just to do some research to write one single post for $2, there’s something seriously wrong with the industry. You can’t live off that kind of workflow and rate. Worse are those who think everyone should now write for that rate, regardless of where you live. (One guy from Buffalo, NY, a few years ago, offered me a $1.50/post even though I repeatedly said I lived in Toronto, Canada. I’m now in Silicon Valley, California, and even if I can still work from home, life is expensive here.)

The culprits, as Keillor suggests, are probably the otherwise fantastic blogging systems such as WordPress, MoveableType and Drupal, that have in one sense revolutionized publishing because they allow anyone to easily write and publish at minimal cost, and in another sense are destroying publishing because they allow anyone to easily write and publish at minimal cost. And claim to be a writer or blogger. Even when they’re not. Keillor says, “Call me a pessimist, call me Ishmael, but I think that book publishing is about to slide into the sea.” Again, that sounds just about right. In fact, to add to the potential demise, Barnes & Noble have a new e-book publishing platform, Pubit!, for independents and self-publishing writers, with the distribution vehicle being through B&N’s e-Book store.

Still, let me reassure you aspiring bloggers who actually have or can develop real writing skills, who have inspired writing (though not day in and day out), that you can make living. I doubt most of you will achieve blogging success if you blog for advertising dollars, but if you align yourself with clients who sell products and/or services — or sell your own — then it’s possible to make a living writing online, even excel at it. Just don’t let the ease of blogging subvert you from building your writing skills. Blogging platforms like WordPress are merely writing tools, just like the now-ancient IBM Selectric typewriter was that I first started cracking out my short stories and poems on.

On a side note, it’s the seventh birthday of the WordPress blogging system — one of the key propagators of the online publishing revolution. Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress and Automattic, shares some thoughts about this occasion and mentions that version 3.0 is near (it’s available in beta form). He also notes that that WP development community now numbers over 1,500 active members contributing to what the GPL software is today — that is, much more than a blogging system. Happy birthday, WordPress.

Image: Flickr.

Blogging Effort vs Return on Investment

Problogger’s Darren Rowse has a great article [link below] on the “unsexy truths” of monetizing your blogging. A lot of the truths that he mentions apply whether you’re monetizing directly or indirectly, whether you’re running advertising or selling products or services. Overall, I think that purpose and persistence are two of the fundamental keys of blogging success.

Why or For Whom Are You Blogging?

What Darren says, in a nutshell, is that persistence offers the potential (not the guarantee) of success online, but this often is the hardest aspect of blogging: that the return doesn’t come fast enough (item #2). This could be either because a blogging niche is difficult to monetize, or because not enough effort is made to promote, or several other reasons, including really sloppy or poor content. When you couple lack of ROI in a desirable timeframe with the loneliness (item #7) of blogging from home — which I’m guessing most bloggers do — and the challenge of long hours (sometimes, not always) and the lack of human contact together often mean one thing: giving up fairly quickly, if you’re blogging for yourself.

On the other hand, if you’re blogging for clients, then you suffer the “feast or famine” phenomenon, where you sometimes have too much work and at other times you have none. Too bad you didn’t budget for that. Now it’s time to find “a real job” to pay the bills.

If you blog for a business, as part of your job or for your own business, you might have it the easiest of all bloggers, in general. You’re more likely to have a steady salary, and you might even work in an office, which means human contact. Then again, you might be an entrepreneur blogging because you have to, but you still have a stronger “purpose” in blogging than if you’re blogging for yourself to “earn a living.”

Persistence and Purpose are Fundamental

I’m not sure what I can tell you in regards to persistence, because it really does depend on your personality and discipline as well as your situation. The fact is, if you quit, you won’t succeed at blogging. But if you persist, there’s still no guarantee (item #4) you’ll succeed in any fashion.

Blogging suits me because not only am I a long-time writer but my programming career was in transition and I actually had very little choice for the past 4-5 years. I had to persist, and I’m still persisting, but now use blogging as a means to an end, integrated with my mobile apps startup and other types of client work. The irony is that now that I’m also blogging for business reasons, there’s all the more need to persist. My non-client mobile blogs, for example, are eventually to be a marketing vehicle for my mobile apps and those of my clients. However, blogging is no longer my only hope for a career and it doesn’t feel as much of a chore as it sometimes has in the past.

Ultimately, then, you have to find your own purpose for persisting in blogging. If you don’t know why you’re blogging, or you have no unique reason for it, you’ll probably find persistence fleeting. Here are a few tips to consider:

1. Define your purpose for blogging. If you’re just blogging for yourself and have no other expertise to promote, it’ll be a difficult road, but not necessarily an unfruitful one. You can build your expertise as you go.
2. Have a plan. Depending on your objectives, a blog business plan may come in handy. Include an editorial calendar in the mix. A plan just serves to remind you of where you want to be headed and actually helps you to focus as well as find it easier to filter distractions and find inspiration.
3. Get to it. Planning is easy, persisting much harder. You’ll want to regularly monitor your site metrics, leverage your time, and revise your plan and purpose if necessary. Bootstrap your site success if you have to.

Good luck!

Notes: Problogger. Image: Flickr.

Performancing Jobs Now Online

The Performancing team is proud to announce that the Jobs board is now back.

Since the migration of Performancign from Drupal to WordPress, we’ve had to momentarily drop a few things that were heavily reliant on Drupal, such as the forums and the job board (which is actually a thread in the forum), among other things. Just recently, we’ve installed a plugin that can support job listings from right within WordPress.

Do check it out at performancing.com/jobs.

Submissions are free, and each entry will stay online for seven days. For better visibility, though, you can subscribe to a premium listing for $20, which will be displayed at the top of the list for 30 days.

The job board supports listings for jobs and offers for writing, blogging and related services.

If you have an opening for a writing or blogging job, please feel free to add it to the list. Same goes for freelancers who want to offer blogging services for a fee. Be sure to include your contact information and even links to your existing portfolio, to make application easier. The plugin usually asks for a location, but we understand that most blogging jobs are probably virtual office or freelance in nature. Still, some blog networks or employers might want to hire writers or bloggers as in-house staff, so this is still applicable.

Good luck with finding the ideal job, or the ideal blogger, as the case may be.

Image credit: flickr/foreverphoto

10 Keys to Performancing’s Future Success

I added the Performancing feed to my RSS Reader almost from the very beginning and have read and watched from the sidelines during its growth. As Fall 2006 approached I was beginning to think about contributing to the community blog. It was also at that time things began to change. The awkward silence on the blog during November and December was so thick that even as a virtual outsider I could feel the tension and the pain. I don’t need to revisit the history of the last four months. I am sure I was not alone in wishing for the best yet fearing the worst. I read through the comments of recent days and I realized how helpful Performancing had been to so many people, myself included.

Now that Performancing has had its white water period, what will be the key to Perfomancing’s success?

1) User Contributions – Nick has already brought back the ability for community members to contribute to the Performancing blog. The future of Performancing exists in its ability to continue to provide quality content to help bloggers succeed. Nothing more, nothing less.

2) The Performancing community needs to contribute – While Nick has made it possible again for users to contribute, it won’t mean squat unless people actually do it. I am sure some people are upset at what has happened over the last few months. I am sure others are laughing or even mocking. However, to those that feel Performancing can continue to have a voice, you must be the ones who step forward and not only write a comment or a forum post, but actually create content.

3) Keep it Simple – Metrics, PFF, and Partners were all cool. However, the future of Performancing may not be in the cool tools or widgets. It may simply be the content. I still firmly believe, even in the age of web 2.0 cool tools and the social web, that content is still king and will forever be. Keep it simple. Focus on the content.

4) Focus on value – Sites that create value are the ones that will still exist next year and years thereafter.

5) Stay away from bunny trails – While it may be tempting for Performancing to go off and chase rabbits in hopes of finding some quick way to rescue the site, it must avoid doing so. The success of Performancing won’t depend on quick fixes but on the long term value (see #4).

6) Build a better community – with a base of members already in hand, Performancing can move forward to build a better community. What if we all had better profiles? What if we could search those profiles so that we could connect better with each other? Another website community I read regularly is actually posting tasks in their monthly newsletter for members to accomplish. These tasks are simple: complete your profile, complete a survey, etc. The purpose of these exercises is to build their community. Performancing needs to do the same.

7) Learn from the past – While portions of the past might have been extremely painful, I am sure there are lessons to be learned. It would probably be helpful to all of us, if at some point, those lessons were shared.

Grieve the losses, but build on hope – It’s ok to be upset and disappointed over losing Metrics and Partners. Some extensively used Metrics and others had high hopes for Partners. Sure we could all ask “What could this have been?”, but we should press forward, learn our lessons and say “Let’s move forward to something better.”

9) Be Thankful – as a user it is easy to complain. We bitch and moan about everything. We seldom take the time to be thankful for the word processors and text editors we use to write our blog posts, even if they are a bit clunky.

10) Carpe Diem – Now is the time for Performancing to seize the day, doing it six months from now will be too late.

Why Professional Bloggers Should Choose Their Clients Carefully

There’s no doubt in my mind that blogging will be an important marketing communications profession going forward. When it comes to having a good presence in the social media universe, there are simply too many benefits for a business to ignore.

But most businesses will not have a clue how to actually create that effective presence. And that’s where the opportunities begin for you, the savvy business-minded blogger.

Having blogging skills that not only attract attention and traffic, but also translate into sales, is the key here. That’s why I advocate copywriting techniques as the ideal way to accomplish both with a blog.

Professional Business Blogging is a Business

Beyond those valuable skills you’ve been developing, you’re going to have to also market yourself to curious (but not yet convinced) business decision makers. And that’s where the typical freelance blogger will step into trouble.

Freelance writing communication professionals typically make three business errors that tend to hurt them in business:

1. They devalue their own work. If what you do creates sales, revenues and profits, then you are worth your weight in gold. But many people for various reasons don’t believe in themselves.
2. They take on lame projects that they not only don’t enjoy, but the work product itself does nothing to further the writer’s career.
3. They wait for work to find them, which puts them in the position of having to accept those lame projects just to create some income.

I’d like you to consider looking at professional business blogging in a different way. Why not view each business you work with as a partner, rather than a client?

Partnering for Profit

Let me share an example that I believe applies to the business blogging world as well.

When it comes to developing information products, I employ a joint venture model. I find a compelling demand that needs to be met, and then find a person with the right credentials to partner with and jointly develop the product with them, which I then sell online. If I do take on fee-based copywriting work, it’s because I see an opportunity to do bigger and better partner deals down the road, and I want to establish a relationship.

This same mentality can and should be applied to pro business blogging. Find someone who is doing exciting cool stuff offline, and approach them with your pitch to increase their revenues with a blog online.

Whether you seek a fee or a revenue share is up to you—it’s the mindset that’s important.

How to Become a Rich and Famous Professional Blogger

The way to become successful as a marketer is to be a successful marketer. In other words, what you sell is just as important as how you sell it.

If you take on blogging projects from any poor soul who happens by, who you know doesn’t have a chance of succeeding, why do it? Just for the quick money?

That’s incredibly short-sighted. You want to associate yourself with winning companies that have killer products and services, and a great story just waiting to be told with a blog that you produce.

That’s how you raise your profile as a pro business blogger. That’s how to have people banging down your door to get you on their team. And that’s how to make a lot of money in this type of business.

So, choose your clients carefully, and always be proactive. Only take on projects that you are genuinely excited about, and you’ll never feel like you’re working.

And if your choices are on the money, you’ll be in the money.