A lot of the links in this roundup are aimed at freelancers, bloggers for hire, network bloggers.

1. Deb Ng and Jennifer Chait have recently launched a great resource, Network Blogging Tips. The focus here is on blogging for networks, and there's some juicy advice there. They also define what a blogger for hire is, and what "network blogging" is all about. Recommended reading for aspiring freelancers.
2. Over at FreelanceSwitch, Muhammad Saleem offers part 1 and part 2 of his Social Media and Simplicity series. These articles are his advice on how to effectively use social media sites to build your business. (In case you didn't know, Muhammad is the #2 Digg user.)
3. Warren Greeley has a guest post at Anywired on getting local clients while working pretty much anywhere.
4. Darren Rowse has an interview with Victor Agreda Jr., who is a blog producer. Victor "produces" blogs for Weblogs Inc. While you're there, also visit Should I Change My Website into a Blog. (This might be good advice for you freelance writers that I know who are not sure whether you should create your blog or not.)
5. Steven Snell asks, Is There a Career in Blogging, and offers some sage advice on becoming a pro blogger or alternately a freelance blogger. Personally, I think that once online publishing revenues stabilize and publishers offer livable rates, there is a career in this, just as with any writing career.
6. David Peralty at Xfep is looking for weekly columnists. Please read his description carefully, as he needs specific qualifications.
7. WordPress 2.5 has been released, and Matt Mullenweg writes about all the incredible new features it has at the WordPress blog. There's also a 4-minute screencast of the new interface.

Do you ever get into a frame of mind where you have too many ideas to write about and end up "spinning your wheels" a bit? Very recently, I had a bit of difficulty getting posts out on Performancing. I have about a dozen partially written posts and ideas for literally dozens more, though I found I couldn't complete any and get them posted. Part of the problem comes from overloading myself, the other part from being caught up in "research mode". The solution: self-imposing deadlines and structuring writing time.

My unfinished writing is unfinished because it's lackluster, which is giving me the boring content blues. I have been working on some very large projects of late, each of which might take 40-80 hours of work but pay off well. It's what I'd call working in my dream market, though it's easy to get caught up in those projects and neglect my bread and butter daily freelancing work. The other problem is that I like to spend time thinking about my posts, and if I'm spending 40-80 hours over 1-3 calendar weeks (on top of regular work), there isn't a lot of time for that. Unless I enforce a timetable.

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If you haven't seen 2007's funny yet thoughtful teen sex comedy movie Superbad, this might not mean anything to you, but here's what I picked up from it that could be applied to blogging:

1. Pursue your dream. [Seth is interested in Nicola, and he keeps believing she's interested in him, which she is.] If you're blogging for fun, you can blog about whatever you want. If you're blogging for a living, pick topics you're actually going to enjoy. Don't be afraid. Passion makes you stand out, and your writing will show that, and that's what readers will appreciate.
2. Don't worry about the badass. [The guy with the mullet intimidates everyone, but eventually Seth, Evan and Fogell/ McLovin are the hit of the party.] There might be a blogger in your niche that you think is doing better than you and it's bugging you. Don't worry about it. There's always room online, provided you're offering something unique. Your unique perspective is what you should focus on.
3. Popularity is relative. [Seth keeps thinking that the girls, especially Nicola, are using him to get alcohol, and expects any minute that they'll spring the joke on him. But they don't. Everyone appreciates his efforts.] You might be more popular than you realize. Unless you're actually checking your metrics (such as with PMetrics), you might not realize that you have regular readers.
4. No need for gimmicks, be yourself. [Okay, unless you're Fogell/ McLovin, in which case you are the gimmick.] Now this advice might contradict the title of this post, but if you enjoy doing this sort of thing, that's fine. If you're doing it just to do it, then it'll feel awkward. Whatever you blog about, enjoy it.
5. Don't forget your friends. [Seth gets to a point, after he's drunk, where he professes his (platonic) love for Evan and wants to shout it from the rooftops.] Make friends online. The blogosphere is a very social place, but it's human nature to be cliqueish (or solitary). You have to go out and make friends, invite them to comment, then return the favor. In fact, do it first, and don't forget the friends that helped you.

Now in case you didn't get it, this is kind of tongue-in-cheek but it's all applicable advice. If blogging ceases to be fun, then you're doing it wrong.

Are you amongst the slice of bloggers who make a living online full-time? What about part-time? Or are you just aspiring to be blogging full-time as a career? It's a fact that most aspiring bloggers are not full-timers, nor will they be. I'll not get into the reasons here, as this has been discussed at length all over the blogosphere. What I'd like to focus on is budgeting for those of you that are/ will be successfully blogging part- or full-time.

Who Are You?

"Why budget?" Let's look at it this way. If you blog for yourself, you're basically running your own business. If you blog for hire, you're a freelancer. That means that income can be unpredictable. Smart business owners and freelancers learn how to budget. It's crucial to financial survival.

"But I don't need to budget!" Sure you do. Let me take a guess and say that you fall into one of the following categories:

1. You have never been a business owner or freelancer.
2. You have never had a full-time job and recently went into blogging after graduating from college.
3. You are in a career transition and want to become a full-time blogger.
4. You are a part-time blogger earning some income online.
5. You are already a full-time blogger, either freelancing or running your own web properties - possibly both.
6. You have some previous experience owning a business or being a freelancer.

If you're in the latter two categories, you probably already have some sense of how important budgeting is. If you're in one of the other categories, you might not have any true sense of business budgeting. If that's true, you'd better learn.

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Performancing's very own Ryan Caldwell has been proving lately that large, well-researched and well-written "resource" articles are worth the effort and cost. Of course, how you define "resource" is up to you to determine (and prove). I'm actually using "resource" as an umbrella term instead of "linkbait", which has so many negative connotations. But "resource", in this case, includes articles that are either informative or entertaining, or both. (For example, Ridelust has a new Corvettes section, which includes a history of the Corvette, a list of popular forums, a rental directory, and more. I know it took the writer a whole week to put this together, but a corvette gallery with pics of every model ever produced would be nice.)

These sorts of solid resources offer great value informationally. They can also provide entertainment to the reader. Long-term, they can pull a lot of weight in terms of social and search traffic and backlinks. (Provided you do the right thing and promote them on your favorite social media sites.)

Downside to Writing Resource Articles

The problem is, the best resource articles often need to be injected with pop culture, to have wide appeal. That's something you'll have to learn on your own. It can't be taught, as far as I'm concerned. (Disagree? Feel free to comment.) They also take a great deal of research and editing time, which might conflict with the mindset of daily blogging. The kind I'm currently writing each take at least one full week (on top of daily blogging).

An Approach: 11 Tips

My own work schedule for the past 1.5 years has been a mix of daily blogging and weekly resource articles, and it isn't always easy to balance. Here are some techniques I've used, both online and for print magazine articles.

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It's relatively easy to track the conversation of top blogs in your chosen niche and generate topic ideas. It's another thing altogether to have your blog standout amongst all those already in your niche. Joining the conversation does not mean just following trends but contributing something new, with the hopes of building an authority site yourself.

That's a goal that I'm currently working towards on a few of my current projects, and I'm studying various approaches. Cribbed from my notes, here are some tips to consider.

1. Lead, don't follow. Sounds obvious, but after browsing through a hundred posts, it's often easier just to write a list of links to other bloggers' posts. Except everyone does them (myself included). Try to be a unique blogger.

2. Enhance links posts. If you're going to write a links post, make it more valuable. Turn it into a resource list.

3. Enhance summaries. If someone blogs about a particular topic, don't just summarize their conversation and link to them, enhance the conversation. First summarize several related posts to get the gist of the current/recent conversation. Now write an original post and link to all relevant recent posts that you summarized.

4. Have parallel conversations. Don't blog exactly the same thing as everyone else. If a post inspires you, maybe there's a related subtopic that has not been well-addressed in your niche yet. You can launch off from what other blogs are saying. (I believe Darren Rowse talked about this in late 2006 or early 2007, but I can't find it on Problogger.)

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Sometimes, no matter how strict and disciplined our posting schedules are, there are events that will forcibly push us out of our rhythm, such as family tragedies and emergency out-of-town trips (to places without good Net access, to boot). The longer the event, the more work gets piled up, and the greater the disorientation upon our return. That said, count me as one disoriented blogger. (I have been one for the past two weeks!)

In response to this problem of mine, I cooked up a list of activities which helped me ease myself back into the numerous problogging tasks on hand. Hope these can help future bloggers who’ll unexpectedly get yanked out of “the flow”.

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Tired of sifting through your RSS feed subscriptions for a blog post inspiration? Looking for new ways to dish out content that’s unique on the Net? You can try these offline sources (feel free to list more in the comments!):

Newspapers – Not every article of the print newspaper appears in the online version. When you quote text from a print article and build a blog post around it, you can end up with original, and even linkbait, content. Of course, do some research first with the search engines. This ‘technique’ works well with:

1) National issues (an example: my old The Philippines’ ICT Ranking: Dismal post), which when marketed well (social voting, comments on your countrymen’s blogs, emails) can generate good attention and traffic – after all, national issues are always mixed with an iota of honor, pride, and patriotism; and

2) Niche topics buried deep in the paper’s subsections, with tech, health, and the arts as some examples. Niche newspaper sections = niche blogs. If I had a cactus blog, I’d be a very happy man right now, as the daily broadsheet I subscribe to has a cactus section (for some reason).

Magazines – Magazines are perfect for niche blog content as they almost always revolve around one field of interest only. Be it about mathematics or Dungeons & Dragons, a magazine article can talk about something that your blog’s readers might be interested in. A magazine article turned blog post can be seen in action right here in Performancing.

Books – We’re not talking about book reviews here. I believe this is best used with nonfiction books, though writing a political blog post about a chapter in Tolkien’s fantasy saga isn’t out of the question, too ;-) In nonfic books, what the author states as fact or as his viewpoint/opinion can get your blogging gears rolling, especially if you strongly disagree with it. Remember, it doesn’t matter if the book is old or new – a book is an eternal, tangible piece of the height of human discourse and creativity.

Events – Product launches, blog awards/meet-ups, expos, you name it, it can be blogged. These events often have press/media kits and souvenir programs, and they’ll be handy reference guides when you write a blog post. Of course, the info found in these kits/souvenirs might also be found online, and that’s why your personal experiences and self-taken photos count! One example is Ia’s post about the recent Adobe CS3 Launch in Manila.

Not entirely.

In my previous posts, I’ve mentioned from time to time my disdain for blogs (and ‘probloggers’) relying almost exclusively on free content from article directories. (Disclosure: I own an article directory.) Two reasons why I think public domain articles do more harm than good for our blogs:

• Free articles circulate widely on the Net, which means you’re not alone in using them. The duplicate content might merit you a penalty in the search engines, especially Google.
• It speaks ill of the blog owner if he can’t produce original entries with his own tone/voice.

However, when used judiciously (and infrequently), free articles can get you out of a rut, provide you with keyword-rich content, and can be another way to showcase your expertise in your industry. Here’s what you can do with free articles on your blogs:

• Combine the strongest/most interesting points from different related articles. You’ll be relying on quoted text here, injected with your own opinions.
• React to the article. Found the author’s points misleading or downright erroneous? Correct him in your blog. Found the article to be the most info-packed content written in 400 words you’ve seen in a while? Praise and suggest it to your readers.
• Discuss the article in the context of a previous blog post. This won’t be hard, especially if you’ve been writing tons of posts on your blog and your topic is a popular article category (e.g. internet marketing, pet care, travel destinations).
• Compare and contrast the article’s points with those of a blog post from an established blogger in your industry. Not only will you attract the attention of your fellow (and quite famous) blogger, this type of blog post might turn out to be good linkbait.
• Add images. What better way to visually spice up a blog post than by inserting an image? Since you’ll be using free articles, it won’t hurt to use free image resources, as well. (See my related Perf post, Images: Another Problogging Ace Up Your Sleeve)

Finally, if you don’t know your way yet around the article directory scene, let me point you to several great sites. EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com are good places to start, and I’ve been submitting articles to them for nearly a year already. You can also visit ArticleCrux.com, which I own and carefully maintain.

That said, the list above can’t build you a problogging career. You’ll still need to start where all good probloggers started – with highly original and helpful content.

There are many ways to problogging gold and glory, such as writing great content that keeps people coming back for more, being patient with SEO, getting the ad placements right, and so on. I’ll remind you of another one: your willingness to interact with your readers -- fans and detractors alike.

Let me explain.

Before I was a blogger, I was a creative writer first. For the early part of my writing days, I kept all my works to myself and a handful of friends. As with all people who mature oh-so-slowly over time, I realized something: to take writing to another level, a writer should be ready to receive both solicited and unsolicited advice, to bravely participate in literary workshops (where one’s art might get criticized and manhandled), to readily admit his mistakes while reminding himself not to repeat them. Basically, to interact with fellow writers and a wider reach of readers. Depending on the writer’s persona, all of these things might be big steps out of the writer’s “shell”...but he needs to take them, nonetheless.

In my opinion, the same principle applies to blogging. To take your blogging a step further -- professional blogging -- you'll need to:

1. Open your blog to reader interaction,
2. Engage the reader when he does interact, and
3. Be sure of yourself when you engage the reader.

Item number one is easy to check off -- open your blog posts for comments. If you can’t for one reason or another, leave a contact form or your email address. Yet, I’ve seen bloggers who are ‘experts’ of this-and-that industry (as claimed by their header or sidebar text) whose blogs don’t have any of the above-mentioned.

I’m not saying the lack of reader interaction undermines a blogger’s credibility; rather, it would be better if the readers’ reactions and thoughts could give the blogger much-needed feedback if he 1) is doing a fine job sharing his expertise and helping others a great deal, thus affirming his being an expert, or 2) needs improvement, which might be an understatement or not.

Item two -- here's where the going gets tough for some. I’ve dropped by some blogs with commenting on, all right, but where the blogger is absolutely picky as when to reply, or never replies at all.

It’s possible that the blogger replies to each comment by email instead; still, the other visitors would like to see the discussions between the blogger and the past commenters. (You can email and place the reply on the blog, too, though that will eat more of your time.) During a seminar’s Q&A section, whom do you prefer, the speaker who answers questions via the microphone for all the audience to hear, or the speaker who writes down his answers on pieces of paper to be handed discreetly to the inquirer?

Finally, item three. Every blog post of yours is a product of your pen (or your keyboard). It is yours*, and you better show that you care for it. If someone likes it or finds it helpful, express gratitude. If someone ridicules it, take a stance and whip up a response worthy of true statesmen (a witty retort might also do!). If someone points out a mistake, give the reader the benefit of the doubt, analyze his points, and admit the error if indeed it is. If someone seeks advice, be as helpful as you can be. Don’t discriminate among real-life friends, long-time blog-mates, or new visitors. Engage everyone with the same enthusiasm.

*On a side note, if a monetized blog’s thousand or so entries are all merely public domain articles or echoes of news feeds/other blog posts, then I believe that the blog owner practically doesn’t own his posts. He has no business as a ‘professional blogger’. Rather, he is a professional waster of bandwidth and server space.

Yesterday I gave an introduction on opening new blogs to strengthen one’s 'home domain'. These personal-niche blogs revolve around topics that you can easily write about: hobbies, health conditions, musical interests, video games, and so on.

The concept is that these “personiche” blogs require initial effort but don’t need to be frequently updated thereafter. As the months go by and you hammer away at more serious and time-intensive problogging jobs/projects, these blogs slowly get strong in terms of Google PageRank, traffic rank, and monetization power...and so does your whole domain.

The Benefits

With disciplined SEO and great content right off the bat, each of your new blogs can get Google PR 3 or 4 in the next PR update (5 is doable, but difficult to achieve when these blogs are merely ‘auxiliary’ rather than the backbone of your problogging). If my understanding is correct, the Alexa traffic ranking service lumps together traffic for all the subdomains, and every blog that contributes traffic to your home domain’s rank helps a lot.

Aside from using blog monetization systems that partly depend on your PR and traffic rank (e.g. Text Link Ads), your highly targeted blogs can have good Adsense CTRs (a discussion of what makes a good CTR can be found at Darren Rowse’s site).

After six months or so of opening a couple of new blogs, you might be looking at a home domain that has an increased traffic rank and gives you a steady stream of income from multiple sources, even if your efforts on each “personiche” blog have tapered off.

In my experience, monetization is not the be-all and end-all. When you link your good-PR blogs to new domains/projects, the PR juice can spur the growth of the latter. I believe Google regards links coming from the same domain with less weight than those from multiple domains, but still, it’s better than none. An example: my subdomain blogs helped me and my teammates place high in the Philippines’ first two SEO competitions. They also helped put a couple of new, start-from-scratch domains in the search engine results fast.

Last (and maybe the least important for the income-minded), having a diversity of blogs under your home domain (or home ‘portal’) makes you more human, more interesting in the eyes of your readers. This is great especially if you’re looking to build a strong online persona.

Personal Examples

For the past year or so, I’ve unwittingly carried out this technique on my own domain, which is also home to my two main sites. I won’t link the niche blogs here (that’d be too much self-promotion). Instead, here are the topics I chose:

Health -- I’ve been suffering from asthma since childhood. I decided to share my experiences on an experimental blog; experimental, because I just wanted to see if a new rarely-updated blog can have good search engine referrals. I’ve written less than twenty posts for the blog, yet the earnings are more than enough to pay for the next few years’ hosting and domain expenses.

Hobbies -- The moment I bought my first airplane miniature model, the first words that popped into my mind were, “Blog It!” I blog about every model I add to my collection, as well as my wish list. Less than a hundred unique hits per day, but the monetization is turning out to be decent (not wildly successful).

Books -- I love fantasy, sci-fi, and history books. I picked one genre of the three, then created a blog. Funny thing is, I never got around to ‘formally launching’ it, much less writing content. But believe it or not, search engine referrals do trickle in (due to some SEO I did a few months ago), and visitors sometimes click on the ads. Rare clicks, but no doubt, once I get around to writing actual blog posts, the site can contribute some food on the table.

Video games -- You see, I’m a huge fan of a 1998 space-sim game that never attracted mainstream fans but earned a small cult following. I created a blog that has more static pages than posts. The jury’s still out on this one; small cult following translates to few visitors, with only a few ad clicks.

Seven Steps

Last but not the least, here are seven steps you can follow when creating “personiche” blogs to strengthen your home domain.

1. Identify the topics you can write about with ease. It’s either you’ve mastered these topics already, or have the burning desire to explore and learn more about them.

2. Do some keyword research. Run some blog searches (e.g. Technorati, Google BlogSearch) for competitor sites or related posts, and see if the advertisements displayed on those pages are targeted enough.

3. Deploy the blog. My favorite choice is Wordpress, which is very SEO-friendly in my opinion (do change the default permalinks, though!).

4. Do the preliminary SEO. Optimize the site by choosing a good blog title, adding meta information in the HTML code, configuring the WP permalinks, and so on. If you have existing blogs, add the new blog to your blogrolls.

5. Initial burst of content. Five posts over two weeks and a few more timestamped in advance (to be automatically published in the future) are a good start. Make sure these posts are keyword-rich and interesting, with your own writing tone and voice.

6. Further SEO. Armed with good content (and better with a good blog design/theme!), submit the blog and its feed to directories, build links from related sites, join a blog carnival, and so on. You can also write short articles on the blog’s topic with a link to your blog, and submit them to the many free article directories out there.

7. New content, now at your own pace. Have some free time in between your major problogging projects? Squeeze in some “personiche” posts.

Rinse and repeat.

Ryan’s recent post, How To Squeeze More Income Out Of Your Blog inspired me to add to the excellent points he raised, based on experience.

Many bloggers who own multiple domains or write for other people’s sites have what I call a “home” domain, which might host the blogger’s main blog, personal blog, web portfolio, or CV. (Mine’s at Corsarius.net.) This means the home domain doesn’t even have to be a blog and can be a static site.

A good way to raise the value of your home domain (value in terms of Google PageRank, Alexa traffic rank, etc., which can be monetized) is to create sub-sites with their own subdomains or subdirectories. One of the easiest sub-sites to create are blogs, which can be deployed rather quickly (e.g. Wordpress). What’s great is that blogs, as most of you already know, can be easily updated with content, at your own pace.

The last phrase is important: at your own pace. You might ask: “Isn’t this a little bit crazy, because for blogs to be successful, they need to be regularly updated?”

True. However, if you’re already managing/writing for a slew of blogs, there’s no sense in spreading yourself too thinly by opening new blogs that will take away your time, ruin your momentum with the existing blogs, and probably cost you your problogging “day job”.

This means that for your home domain, you can open blogs that don’t need to be frequently updated. If you can update them fairly frequently (such as once a week), then better! But an initial burst of keyword rich posts followed by a trickle of new posts from time to time, combined with search engine optimization will do.

Are these spam blogs?

Heck, no. If you want to fill your home domain with generic, article directory-content blogs, then go ahead, but do remember that your home domain carries your name and reputation. The blogs you would want to open are a cross between personal and niche blogs, blogs with topics that you can easily write about: hobbies, health conditions, musical interests, video games, and the like. (At the risk of sounding a bit too absurd, I’ll call these the “personiche” blogs.)

Because these topics are fairly attached to your life and you’ve amassed quite a sum of shareable knowledge about them, you can easily create content. Let’s explore some of the example topics we listed above.

Hobbies -- A book blog is an easy pick. It might be as simple as featuring the latest book you’ve read, plus a short review. Scrapbooks, chess, scrabble, model trains, RC cars -- all these are blogs with highly-targeted content.

Health conditions -- People search the Net for professional medical advice, but they also like to hear personal experiences. For example, if you suffer from allergies, you can write posts on what you’re doing to combat them, with a bit of allergy-related health news and trivia. Just don’t get overly “endorsing” of a particular health product you use, or else you run the risk of being accused of merely advertising.

Video games -- Same with books, you can create posts on your collection of video games, or build a blog centered on one game or one genre (e.g. multiplayer online games).

Needless to say, these blogs are NOT meant to form the backbone of your problogging endeavors -- you'll need to focus on just a few blogs for those. But if one of the suggestions above strikes you as a topic worth investing a lot of time and effort in, then by all means, do so.

A reminder: Be personal with these kinds of blogs! It’s your experiences and opinions that count.

In the next post, we list the benefits of creating these “personiche” blogs under your home domain, as well as some examples from my experience.

As I mentioned in my first Performancing post:

While words are the pillars of blogs, don't forget the images. Think of your blogs as magazines rather than academic publications. Heck, the latter even have diagrams to break the text.

Ever heard of the maxim that you've got less than a second to grab the attention of the reader? Aside from a captivating headline and lead sentence, there's another blog element that can reel in readers -- images.

Where to Look for Images?

Adding one image to a post doesn't take much time, and can be extremely rewarding. If you're having problems looking for free images on the Net, my usual haunts might be of help:

• stock.xchng – Check each image's license to be sure. For example, if it states that the author needs to be contacted first, please do so, as it is basic courtesy.
• Google U.S. Government Search
• Wikipedia – Contrary to popular perception, not all Wikipedia images are free; also, some images require attribution to the original author of the work (e.g. this one, which I uploaded). Check below the image (often after the image summary) for the licensing information.

Speaking of Wikipedia, it has a comprehensive list of public domain image resources which you can use.

Images and SEO

Images don't only work for human readers -- they help in search engine optimization as well. Make sure the name of the image file is keyword-rich. Include the alt and title tags in the HTML code, and fill them in with keywords as well (don’t overdo it, though, as there's a thin line separating keyword-rich content from outright spam).

If your competitor blog does not use images (or uses them but doesn't care about the SEO), that means you've got one area where you can soundly defeat him in traffic building. In my early blogging days, I didn't give much thought to images, but when I noticed a daily stream of traffic to my blogs thanks to an 'accidental' optimizing of one image, that's when I took the practice seriously.

Caveats

A word of caution: don't go about sprinkling tons of images on your blog posts (photo blogs are an exception, of course). The phrase "everything in moderation" wasn't concocted for nothing; too many graphics will slow down your blog. If you're not yet an A-lister, new readers will be turned off by your site's slow response time. If you're already famous (to an extent), having lots of images will eat up your web hosting plan's bandwidth and storage allowance.

One last thing when you're using images in your posts -- don't ever, ever hotlink! Save the image on your computer, then upload it to your server or free photo hosting service.