Blog

By the way, this is my first article here at Performancing. I came here looking for a more interactive place for talking about blogging. My usual hangouts are ProBlogger and Warrior Forum. I’ve been in the game for a few years now.

What I’m really trying to say is: Wazzup!

The first 3 months of growing a blog is difficult. I’d like to share with you what I did differently on my 3-month-old guitar blog ATOMIC Guitarist that’s already surpassing my old blogs. With 3 years of frustration and failure comes wisdom.

Here are 5 ways I’ve gotten through the first 3 months of my new blog.

1. Unconventional Use of AWEBER

This time around I immediately started using AWEBER opt-in e-mail service to grow my e-mail lists. But I did it for the sake of blogging. My list doesn’t see many broadcasts about buying affiliate products or my own products. I’ve been using AWEBER to drive my list back to my content pages, which provides growing traffic on a daily basis. I’ve also found that more guests opt-in to my e-mail list than subscribe to my RSS feed.

2. Networking

What makes the first few months of blogging so hard for me is the lack of comments and interaction. So what I did was find a list of other guitar bloggers with quality material, I put them on my blog roll, and made friends with them. I interact on their fronts sometimes more than they do mine. With my blog being of quality (according to my pals), and with the use of my blog roll, they’ve also added me to theirs. Besides having the ability to be social, this tactic had a lot to do with the instant PR4 I received the other day with Google’s update.

(Some of my best pals include Guitar Noize, and Stratoblogster, IG Blog, and the Mad Stratter.)

3. Predicting Searches

Most of my search engine traffic has come from predicting what guitarists will be searching for in a few weeks/months/seasonally, a piece of advice Darren Rowse personally gave me. I tell you. It works. When the buzz about Radiohead circled the net, I saw gobs of traffic pouring in every minute.

4. Correctly Using StumbleUpon

Although StumbleUpon doesn’t send the best quality traffic, SU has eased my hardships in my first few months of blogging at ATOMIC Guitarist. SU traffic doesn’t convert into dollars with your blog’s advertising, but I saw some serious opt-in numbers to my e-mail list. What you have to remember about StumbleUpon is that you can’t submit a page for the same site within something like 48 hours apart. So I Stumble the pages I like on my friends’ blogs around the same time every other day.

5. Make a Post at Least Once Every Night

For ATOMIC, I developed a strategy I didn’t use prior. I actually set my time on my blog to 4 hours earlier than my timezone, so when I post at 8pm, it publishes an entry marked as the next day. I do this so that anyone who regularly visits my blog the next day will read something “up-to-date.” I don’t know exactly how big of an effect it has, but it seems more professional.

* Bonus Tips for Getting through the First 3 Months of Blogging

• While other blogs are crashing after just one month of frustration, keep yours pumping. We’re all going through the same thing. I doubt Techcrunch took the net by storm its first few months. Then again, maybe it did. Point is: very few take off that early.
• Set small goals. For instance, vow to double your traffic to your blog every month for the first 3 months. You can do this by focusing on SEO.
• Hey, every post doesn’t have to be a novel. From my experience, readers who hang around your blog every day like informative content, but they also want blurbs and they want to get to know you.
• Don’t take too much advice. Just focus and simplify your blogging strategy with goals in mind. For example, 1) post every day (often with a focus on SEO), 2) comment on others’ blogs every day, 3) work on getting your link out there, 4) build your lists, 5) know that everyone has a hard time the first 3 months.
• If you hate your blog, change your niche to something you can talk about every day. Don’t blog just for bucks. But blog for bucks so you can continue blogging.
• If you’re just starting out, think of your first few months of blogging as blogging college.
• If someone tells you blogging for profit is easy, laugh out loud until your stomach hurts.

Again, this is just one dude’s thoughts on blogging for the first 3 months. Hope it’ll be helpful for someone out there.

Good luck soldier.

Like most of you, I got into blogging and Internet entrepeneurship because I was inspired.

I was inspired by ideas, by success, by the promise of working for myself and making a lot of money. But most of all, I was inspired by people.

I thought it would be cool to come up with a list of blogging/Internet professional heroes.

So how about we each list 3+ people who inspired us to be doing what we are doing now.

Here are the three people who have inspired me the most (not all of these people blog, but that’s ok, right;-) :

1. Brett Tabke (for showing me the recipe)
2. Jeremy Schoemaker (for showing me the potential)
3. David Krug (for giving me the leverage and the ideas)

So who’s inspired you?

It gets pointed out to me a fair bit that I seem to be all over the blogosphere. The fact is that I write for probably 1/4 the number of blogs that I worked on last year. I’m focusing on fewer high PR blogs. Or was until Big Daddy G smacked some of them with PageRank penalties. Now, the focus is writing for quality blogs.

To say I’m not worried would be lying. If sites are affected in earnings abilities due to the penalties, will that mean fewer freelance blogging gigs – my primary income source? However, I stopped considering blogging as a career on its own, so that’s a few less knots in my stomach. I’ve learned a few things in the past 2+ years:

1. Blogging is like a game of golf. You could have skills in various facets of blogging, but if everything isn’t just right and synchronized, your blog will not be a giant success. Which is not to say that modest success is bad.
2. Problogging is not a career for everyone. This is a conclusion from the last point: most bloggers will not make enough to sustain the work on their own blogs, no matter how hard they try not to suck.
3. Try blogging for hire. The blogger for hire route will probably make the average good blogger more money than their own blog(s). I emphasize “good”. If you’re good, disciplined, and timely, freelancing is the way to go – especially if you’re finding less success on your own blog(s).
4. Apply discipline: quality, not quantity. Don’t start more blogs until the first few have reached the minimum level of success you want for them. Seriously. It’s tough because as a generalist, I tend to be interested in a lot of topics. I sneeze and I’ve just registered another handful of domains. But for most bloggers, $50/mth revenue from one blog is much better than $1/mth from fifty blogs. If you can’t make one work, you can’t make fifty work. Most people do not succeed with too many blogs. Focus on 1-4 blogs maximum, build them up, then hire out. Then expand if you feel the urge.
5. Blog as a means, not as an endpoint. In line with the above realizations, blogging does not have to be a singular activity. It can be a full-time career, but I’m no longer expecting it. If it happens, it happens. I’ll stay positive.

While many people are praising the fact that they can blog from home, after 2+ years of doing so, I’m actually missing the social aspects of working somewhere, with other people. Does this mean I’m giving up blogging? By no means. What I am doing now is using it as an effective supplement/ platform for earning money in other ways. In fact, today I spoke to someone from the Toronto Film School, which I’m hoping to enroll in for Jan 2009. I’m also going to go back to my photography, film reviewing, and scriptwriting. Blogging will not only move me towards those goals, it’ll sustain me for some time to come.

So what lessons has blogging taught you so for, in terms of your career? Do you use blogging in a supplemntary way for another career, or do you want to simply blog?

You’ve decided to become a freelance blogger. You’ve been scouring the web for blogging jobs. You’ve found a gig that sparks your interest, but should you take it?

What’s the payment arrangement?

Many blogging gigs (especially for networks) offer a monthly rate plus page view bonuses. Others pay per post. Some pay in shares of ad revenue. Revenue-only pay can be zero if the blog gets little traffic. Even a low monthly rate + traffic bonus can be too little if it becomes your job to find the traffic.

Will you have to network?

If you’re getting traffic bonuses, sometimes a low monthly rate is worth it. How much traffic does the blog already get? If it’s your job to network to get the traffic, make sure to account for that time when making your decision.

How much work will the writing take?

Will you have to do research, or can you easily write on the topic? Is there a word count requirement, or can you write short posts?

Are you trying to establish yourself as a niche blogger?

If the low-pay gig could lead to higher paying jobs within your niche, taking the job might be worth it.

Will you enjoy it?

Blogging jobs generally require coming up with your own ideas for content on a daily basis. You’ll burn out fast if you don’t enjoy the topic.

Are there other perks?

Some blogging jobs will allow you a good amount of room for self-promotion. Others won’t even give you a byline. Some offer free products to review, others free samples. If the offered perks are of benefit to you, it might be worth it to take the gig even if the pay isn’t great.

What kind of commitment are you making?

If you’re going to have to sign a contract, make sure you know what you’re getting into. If the arrangement doesn’t work out, can you quit in a month or are you locked in for a year? Does blogging six times a week mean you can write all six posts in one day and “drip” them to appear throughout the week, or do you actually have to log in six days a week and post something new? Get the details ironed out before you commit.

Deciding whether or not to take a blogging job can be difficult even for an experienced freelance blogger. The choice will ultimately depend on your own personal and professional goals.

I have a pet peeve regarding some individuals and networks advertising for bloggers. Many of them are jumping on the blogging bandwagon without actually knowing what blogging entails. They know blogs are popular and profitable and want in, but have no clue about blogging. In fact, many places want articles and not blog posts. Trust me, there’s a difference.

Article

Articles are well researched paragraphs of information following a specific format and word count. They’re static pieces of content in which the author cites sources and speak with a particular tone and voice.

Blog Posts

Blog posts are less structured. Posts can be one line or several paragraphs. They can be expert interviews or opinion pieces. A post can consist of a photograph, a video or useful content such as this. Blogs are supposed to encourage community and posts should elicit conversation among your readers.

Finding a Happy Medium

One of my former clients has a magazine publishing background and wanted her blogs to run the same way. She didn’t want me to use “I’s” and insisted on each post meeting a certain word count. Another client found my blogging to be too conversational and turned off the commenting feature because it was too “distracting”. Speaking of distracting, a current client sent an email around to all of his bloggers because he felt images were unnecessary and rather we didn’t use them.

In these situations I do my best to work with the client, but also offer a few suggestions as to why it might be beneficial to encourage a more open-minded approach to blogging. Some clients are willing to compromise, but the ones that don’t “get” it tend to have a “my way or the highway” type of attitude.

Adequate Compensation

If your client wants you to write an article as opposed to a blog post, be sure you’re adequately compensated, especially if you’re expected to do a lot of heavy research or interview experts. $3 a post isn’t going to cut it for a heavily researched 500 worder. I understand why blogging pays less than traditional writing, but if it’s traditional writing you want, you’ll have to open your wallet a little wider.

I’m not saying you should pay for a couple of lines a day either, but if you’re looking to hire bloggers it’s a good idea to take some time out to learn a little bit about blogging and what it entails.