Blogging

Over the last couple of weeks as I looked over my metrics reports for my blog I realised I am going to need to bring in fresh blood if it is going to go any further. Originally launched with four bloggers there is only really me who posts to it in any real quantity with one other regular contributor. While not a failure as such the blog is being starved of content while I am busy with my work. So I just need to invite some people over and problem solved, right? Unfortunately it has not proved to be that easy.

We have established that blogging is actually surprisingly hard and many bloggers will not make it. Having blogging partners share the load is an obvious and possibly very enjoyable, potentially profitable arrangement. I have described the benefits of blog partnerships early in Performancing history (wow that seems like a long time ago). Perhaps my natural positive nature and wide-eyed optimism got the better of me, hah. Fact is just like with the majority of blogs where someone starts a blog and can’t keep the momentum, the same goes for blogging partnerships.

In theory the guilt-factor of letting someone down does keep a partner blogger working longer and harder than they would otherwise. Inevitably though the reasons for keeping going and the reasons for not will compete for attention and many bloggers, no matter how eager initially, will cave into external pressures or sheer laziness. Only a low percentage of bloggers stick at it, part of a team or blogging solo, paid or no.

Finding Help

Aside from financial incentives we have two choices; find bloggers who look like they will go the long haul or embrace the fleeting nature of the beast and allow a revolving door.

I have found the best place to look for long-haul bloggers are blogs. People who have maintained a decent blog for a length of time have proved they have that special something. This brings its own problem of what are you going to offer someone who already has a good blog. You will either need to make good friends with the person or need to incentivise somehow. There are intangible benefits of being in a writing team plus you can offer a cut of the proceeds. Inevitably this will need to be done carefully and sensitively, and best not to make promises you can’t keep. There is probably no point in even approaching someone who already has a lot of blog output, where will they fit you in to their schedule?

For me the choice is clear, I need to accept the people I bring on may not post for long, might turn out poor bloggers or might never contribute. I could put in a lot of effort to bring in others only to find I am still doing the majority of the work. The upside will be there might be some diamonds in the rough, plus if they only fill in on the days I can’t find time to even look at the thing that could still work.

The first place to look is the comments of your own blog. These people know what topics you often cover and do not need any introduction to your niche. I find with my own blogs though the majority of people who comment are already bloggers.

My approach for finding bloggers has been whittled down to observing regular contributors to good forums. People who spend as much time writing a forum comment as it takes to write a good blog post is going to be a good candidate. If they write entertaining and intelligent answers with bags of personality they are just what I am looking for. It sounds like a tall order but you have to remember you only need one or two posters for a blogs output to be transformed. There are stacks of forums with many many posters, not quite a needle in a haystack. The big benefit is these people might like to join you just for the fun of blogging, no promises on either side required. Bonus!

The downside to taking on people new to blogging is they need a modicum of training. Not exactly a three-week induction, but they will need some hand-holding.

Train them up, let them go

Obviously I recommend anyone new to blogging would find it easier to use Performancing Firefox rather than get to grips with an unfamiliar blogging system if between you they can get it configured. Otherwise many blog systems have quick-start tutorials.

You will need to teach them at least how to log in and post text. For the first little while you can probably make up the rest as you go along, editing their posts to your satisfaction along the way. If you make changes make sure you explain why and how. You might upset the blogger otherwise and it helps no-one if you make alterations forever, at some point you want them to be able to do this without supervision.

After you have shown them how to post you will need to get the blogger to post in your blogs house style.

Style guidelines

You might think your blog doesn’t have a style but believe me once you allow others to post on your blog you will discover you need one, or at least the other bloggers don’t post exactly what you expected. Ok, you might be delighted with their output but I think it’s best to start with some basic pointers. Here are some examples you might want to use as ground rules:

• Be careful with images. Images are great to include with posts but ensure your bloggers are aware of copyright do not include massive files that throw out the template or slow down page load
• Impress on them to only write subjects of interest to the niche. It might seem obvious to you but believe me once some people start blogging they post anything that enters their heads.
• Get them to at least briefly check their spelling and grammar
• Make sure posts are formatted with good paragraph breaks etc. Readability is vital to maintain an interested audience.
• Use HTML, especially for links but also to wrap text around images, provide bold, etc.
• Be wary of new bloggers that they are not just out for links to their affiliates. No promotional posts or PR copy and paste
• If they reference someone elses post ensure they provide commentary, you don’t want to turn your blog into a proxy for del.icio.us or boingboing!
• Choose an appropriate categories – it is amazing how many posts are filed under “misc” or no category at all.
• Ensure no edits happen once a post is live. This infuriates RSS users!

If your blog software allows it, set posts unpublished by default so you get to decide what arrives in the subscribers RSS. This gives you chance to coach your bloggers, do some editing and make sure the quality is maintained while increasing volume.

It’s about people

In the end, for all the talk about blogging and style guidelines, the success or failure of any partnership, blog or otherwise, comes down to your ability to work with people. There is no predicting how well you will gel as a team and all you can do is work at it. Agree up front there will be a trial period and you might want to make it plain you retain veto on any changes or decisions.

Finally…

Looking over this post I might have made it look like a lot more work than just posting yourself. It is a lot of effort but you would be glad you brought someone else in if you are ever too sick to post or would like a break, plus there is nothing better than making friends – that has to make it worth it.

Now that Google are allowing Adwrods advertisers to place click to play video on their content network (Adsense), we’ll soon be seeing them no doubt. The question is, would you want to show video ads on your blog?

unlike some intrusive advertising, users will have complete control. When a page loads, only a static image will be visible; the video will not start playing until the user initiates it. He or she will be able to advance the video, pause it, adjust the volume or click through to the advertiser’s site

Personally Im not keen on them, but not for any other reason than I just can’t envision them being successful for me.

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“I’m going to quit my job and become a blogger”. That is what I heard after explaining what being a pro blogger was, again, after first explaining what a blog was of course.

There is no doubt being a professional blogger is a great gig.

• Cheap to start and maintain
• Required skills are easy to learn
• Most people have access to the required equipment
• Can be done from anywhere there is a net connection
• Not tied to certain times of day
• Possible to earn a decent income
• .. I could go on

So, what could I possibly see wrong with this picture? Blogging is great! Isn’t it?

Well, yes, blogging is indeed great. I worry though the amount of people who approach blogging like this

1. Start a Blog
2. ???
3. Profit!

I have no doubt there are many people out there who have the ability to be a success at blogging just because they have sufficient drive and determination that they will try everything possible to make it happen. Got to admire you if you are one of those people. For me though it’s hard some days to blog even though I love it, how difficult is it going to be for someone who’s only motivation is money, especially when for most of us the rewards come down the line after a good few months of hard slog?

In no way am I saying it is wrong to have money as a motivation, I am simply saying that if it is your only motivation you might be in the wrong game. It seems to me to do well in blogging, unless you are churning out endless splogs, you have to love blogging regardless of financial rewards. If you can bring yourself to put out top quality content every day, even without expectation of profit, then I think you are on the right track.

Bloggers have many motivations and incentives to begin I am guessing. Probably as many reasons as there are bloggers. I first started writing initially because I had developed a personal website as a programming task and needed something to put on it (mid 90’s). After starting I found I would get interesting contacts through the site and it was a good way of keeping family and friends updated. Enjoyment of writing was the main thing that kept me going though. There was no way I was going to earn big from my sites, not enough traffic to show banners from the big networks and adsense didn’t exist. Monetization came much later. Funnily enough once I felt I had figured out the money side I returned to blogging for the joy of it.

The moment I realised that blogs were something very useful outside of personal soapbox purposes was when I started blogging about asp.net programming. I think that blog had more of an impact on my career than all my time spent at college.

My most recent, my digital photography blog, was started because I thought it would be a good way of helping me learn the subject. It has turned out brilliant in that regard, as I learn something new I post it up and in doing so it helps clarify the topic in my own mind. The contacts I have made through the blog have been great too.  Lately I have actually reduced the space devoted to ads.

What was your initial reason for getting into blogging? What keeps you going? What do you get out of blogging outside of financial rewards? Please do let me know, I am interested to find out your motivations …

Inspired by John’s awesome post on how to bug check a blog yesterday, I thought I would ask you whether or not knowlege of XHTML/CSS is required for bloggers?

Part of the point of blogs, and the reason for their popularity is that you dont have to be tooooo technical to get started, but as blogging matures, and a new breed of professional publishers emerges, it seems that code is once again hip, and I’d argue that basic knowlege of how web pages work will give some of you an edge.

Proposal: A Short Course in XHTML/CSS Geared for Bloggers

Although there are a ton of html tutorials out there, I think we could benefit from a “quick and dirty” course, aimed at bloggers specifically. Here’s a few ideas/points

• Geared toward bloggers entering posts, not designers building websites
• Short, easy chapters
• All in one “book” for easy reference

Aims:

• To get bloggers to the point where they are comfortable working with various useful elements in html and css
• Able to edit templates and tweak CSS files to produce unique themes based on existing designs

Let Me Know What You Think!

So, tell me if you think this would be useful, or if you think bloggers really dont need this knowlege. I wont mind, i’ll just think of something else to write about 🙂

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For many people the idea of starting a blog is to just get your thoughts “out there”. The hope would be that people would read those thoughts but that isn’t necessarily always the goal. Just having something to say, or maybe nothing of significance but still the drive to say it, is enough motivation.

Then something happens that changes your perception. You get comments. Feedback starts dribbling in. People react, both positively and negatively. Links start appearing praising or denouncing your opinions. At this point you recognise an important element of blogging; blogs have influence.

This influence is vitally important to keep in mind.

As a small example of this on my photography blog I had posted a review, perhaps an overly short and harsh review, of a photo printing service attached to an incredibly popular photo sharing site (you know the one). This morning I woke up to a message in my comments from a representative of the company offering me a reprint.

Obviously there is a good chance that had I emailed their customer service department I would have been offered the same, I have no reason to doubt their customer service is top notch. Had I just emailed the customer service representative and kept my opinions private though I would have been failing my readers. As it happens this wasn’t a quality control issue, it is a flaw in the product and the blog comment confirmed there is no other result possible. While the company will not like it I think warning readers to stay away from the item is the only thing I could do. While my blog has not the reach to do anything to the companies popularity at least there will be a few hundred people who do not waste their $50 on a sub-par product. What gives what I have to say more impact over and above my subscriber count though is all those readers

• have their own blogs
• are very active in the photography communities
• are exactly the target market for those products
• love to talk about (boost/trash) products and services

My audience might be small but it is laser-targeted. Think what would happen if I had the readership of one of the top 100 blogs? (Which is why I am not naming names right here, I have done enough damage, heh).

Recently there has been a meme going around about Techcrunch having “only” 53,651 subscribers. The idea seems to be that in the blogosphere this is thought of as a great achievement but that audience isn’t so hot in the context of the wider population of the internet.

I say, think again. It might only be 50,000 people but those readers are early adopters, sneezers, influencers, whatever you want to badge them they are important folk. If you want to start a viral effect those are the people to target. Bloggers are in a prime position to reach an incredibly potent audience.

The mood seems to be that blogs are not worth the high esteem granted them while ever the audience is not mainstream. I would say that blogs are important precisely because their audience is niche.

I’ve been experimenting with two different approaches to launching a new blog recently: just going live with it, and in contrast, build it up quietly, then launch.

It’s been interesting comparing the two methods and how they’ve affected my attitude towards the blog itself.

Doing it Quietly

Go! Chris! Go! is my new personal blog. Or at least it will be when I finally “push the button”  and put it live. I’ve been quietly building it behind a password-protected curtain, writing content, tweaking design details and functionality… Doing the things we often hear recommended to us.

On the whole, I’ve found the process rather uninspiring. When you’re behind a veil where no one can see you there is less motivation to push yourself. Maybe I’m just finding this on this site because it’s a personal blog, but I’m sure I’ve felt this way on any site I’ve worked on. As such, I’m not making much (if any) process on the site and it’s close to being stillborn.

Until you’re in the public firing-line, when the praise and criticism are flying, you’ll never know if you’re going in the right direction or not. Ultimately, if you’re putting anything on the internet – this most public of public forums – it’s because you want other people to see it.

Just Do It!

By contrast, The Get Rich Project(GRP) was done in the most direct manner: a wordpress install, apply the Hemingway theme and write like there’s no tomorrow…

And write I have! In the last week I’ve managed more posts on the GRP than I have in a month on most of my other blogs. There is a lot more energy behind this blog than any I’ve worked on before and it’s proving to be great fun! Even for such a (usually) dry subject as personal finances.

An extension of this type of site launch is the so-called “live” redesign – where a website is redesigned in “real time” while people are still able to visit. I’ve done a couple of this type of redesign and in each case they’ve proven to be fun, enjoyable experiences.

When launching in this way, I made sure I had written a few decent posts before I started doing any of the usual “marketing” – del.icio.us, forums, etc. This way I should hopefully avoid the “empty shell” effect normally associated with launching in this fashion.

Not everything will be optimised off-the-bat, but I’d argue that no blog is optimised on launch – no matter how much planning you put into it. You just never know how people will react until it is in the wild. You can apply your own (and others) past experience as much as you want, but each blog is unique so you’ll never know for sure.

Give it a Go

Next time you have a blog to launch, consider trying the “just launch it” method. With maybe a little prior planning, starting-up this way can prove to be an effective way of igniting that extra little spark of passion that reminds you blogging is still as much about fun and “doing things different” as it is about business and making money.

I’m hoping to repeat the personal feeling of success I now have at the end of this first week of the GRP with two other blogs I now have in the pipeline.

In Chris’ post Can Anyone Make Money From Blogging?, Kim Krause, who runs the excellent Cre8asite Forums says “I don’t consider many blogs to be actual blogs. They are just web sites whose owners found free software and free templates to do their bidding.” which is pretty much spot on I think.

There seems to be an alarming, but probably not entirely surprising rise in junk blogs recently. Not spam blogs, the entirely automated type, but the ones where real people are simply cutting and pasting press releases, parts of other bloggers content and general junk just for the Adsense clicks. The funny thing, if you can find amusement in such stuff, is that these folks think that the fact that they use blogging software like WordPress, means they’re bloggers, and so naturally get a free pass to do whatever the hell they please, ‘cos as we all know, bloggers can do no wrong right?

What’s worse, is that for the most part, they DO get a free pass — We’re all still to enamoured with the whole blog thing to see the woods for the trees I think, but here’s how the landscape looks to me right now:

• Blogging continues to cross over to mainstream. With that move comes a dillution of “blogging” as many of us think of it.
• The “Search economy” (publishing for adsense, obsession with Search rankings) continues to drive people to producing shit content for clicks
• Those people use blog software, call themselves bloggers
• Real bloggers, if indeed such a beast still exists, start to get tarred with the same brush

It’s not a pretty picture, but it does mean that blogging is maturing, and even outgrowing its boundaries now. I tend to think of blogs less as “blogs” as time goes by, and more as sites with comments and trackback — as web2.0 becomes the norm. With that mainstreaming comes the darker side of the web. Funded by Google, Yahoo and a bunch of others, the Search Economy pushes people to produce crap, and this is nothing new, we’re just seeing it more in blogs these days.

I dont have a solution to this, Im not even sure it’s actually a problem (well, not a huge one..), but think its worthy of a little discussion here dont you?

So,

• Is blogging for adsense a problem?
• Are junk blogs a problem in your niche? (please do not post examples)
• Is Google to blame?
• Has blogging really gone mainstream?

Tell us what you think…..

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