findwebinfo.com

Yesterday on Twitter I made this remark:

“A change I’ve noticed from the ‘old days’ of blogging - people don’t link when they quote you as much as they used to.”

The replies to my tweet were quite varied - some agreed while some disagreed - some argued that a link was not necessary while others argued that it was essential. The replies highlighted just how much diversity of opinion there was on the topic so I thought I’d put together a few thoughts on the topic.

But before I share why I DO link to others from my blogs when quoting or borrowing ideas directly from others I thought it might be worthwhile sharing some of the reasons people gave yesterday for why they thought links were becoming LESS used in this way.

1. Competition

The most common remark to my tweet was that people thought it was mainly to do with a change in the way that bloggers viewed other blogs in their niche.

The theory is that in ‘the old days’ of blogging the blogosphere was more about sharing ideas, networking, communal learning etc - but that these days it’s more about ‘getting ahead’ or ‘empire building’ in some way. As a result other blogs are less seen as an opportunity to network or have mutually beneficial opportunities - but that they’re more seen as ‘the competition’.

Of course there are plenty of examples where this is not the case - but I suspect it’s one of the reasons that some bloggers don’t link out to others.

2. PageRank Sculpting

The other main theory that people shared (and a few admitted it was why they didn’t link out) was that they saw links on their blogs as valuable and wanted to use them in ways that benefited themselves by ‘sculpting’ the link juice on their sites.

This is an SEO (search engine optimisation) approach to linking - the theory is that the more links you have on a page the less weight each one of them carries in passing on page rank to the sites you’re linking to.

The idea is that you link to fewer sites so that the few that you do link to (your own internal links, links to your other sites, links to partners sites or those paying for links) have maximum benefit. The practice is to limit links and/or use nofollow tags on any link that you don’t want to pass page rank so that those that do pass it pass the maximum.

I know that most bloggers probably don’t page sculpting in mind when they’re linking to other blogs - but it was the 2nd most mentioned explanation that people mentioned to me on Twitter yesterday.

3. Laziness and/or Forgetfulness

The third theory shared on why people don’t link is that they either forget to or that they’re just too lazy to do it.

I suspect that most bloggers at one time or another have inadvertently forgotten to link to another page when quoting them or bouncing off something they’ve written. I know I’ve done this a number of times over the years (I fix them when they’re brought to my attention).

4. Ignorance

The last theory that some of my followers shared is that they thought that some people simply where not aware of the etiquette when it comes to quoting others (or that they simply didn’t believe in it).

This was highlighted to me in a couple of the DMs that I received after my tweet from people who admitted that they didn’t link to other sites that they quoted because they’d never heard of the practice. They did not do it maliciously, they had no ulterior motives - they’d just never thought to do it or been taught that that was what should happen.

5. Or Have Things Just Changed?

As I pondered the topic yesterday it struck me that perhaps things had simply changed and that I was ‘old fashioned’ in my approach.

Perhaps this ‘ignorance’ could also be explained by a change that is happening in the unspoken etiquette of the web? Perhaps there’s a transition in belief and behaviour happening here and I just need to get with the times?

After all times are changing - people of my parents generation are always telling me how things that they used to think were unacceptable are now common place…. social interactions change don’t they?

I really hope that this last theory is not the case - you see in my experience linking to other sites from your blog is actually something that is very powerful. In my experience it improves your blog to do it but also makes the web a better place.

Which leads me to an exploration of why I link out to other blogs and websites from my blog.

Why I DO Link to Other Sites

Let me start by saying that when I say I link to other blogs and websites that I’m talking about doing so as a way of giving credit to those sites. For example when I’m quoting someone or when I’m directly taking an idea that someone’s written about on their site and am extending it, reacting to it or bouncing off it some way on my own blog.

As I said above - I’m sure there are times when I’ve inadvertently not done this (you’re welcome to point them out to help me rectify this). Enough disclaimers - here’s some reasons that I do link:

1. Etiquette/Manners/Courtesy

At a base level I think it’s important to acknowledge the work of someone else when you use it.

When someone has written something that you’re quoting - that person has taken time to craft those words, they’ve gone to some effort to make the impression that they have on you. You in turn are using their words (and the effort that they went to to craft them) to improve your own blog in some way - as a result I think it’s important to acknowledge that.

You could of course do this without a link - but I think a link shows a little extra spirit of generosity and appreciation that is simply good courtesy in my mind.

2. Usefulness

Linking to your sources makes your content more useful to your readers.

Good content is useful content. I’m constantly talking about how to build a successful blog you need to be producing something that is useful in some way to those reading it. By linking to the page where you take a quote or idea you’re providing your readers with the opportunity to read more on the topic or see the quote in it’s original context.

Your reader may or may not click the link - but it does give them the opportunity to explore further or learn more.

I know that as a blog reader when I’m reading a quote that I find particularly interesting that I want to learn more about who said it. If there’s no easy way to do this I think have to go to the effort of researching myself. I actually find this annoying and it creates the impression to me that the author of the content is too lazy or stingy to go to the effort themselves.

Giving readers other things to read around the web adds depth to your blog. Yes it sends people away from your site to read someone else’s - but if it’s a link to something good they’re more likely to come back because you become a trusted source of information.

3. It Makes the Web Better

Links are what makes the internet what it is.

I still remember the first day I got online. I’m not sure what I was expecting when I connected on my brand new dialup modem but I do remember looking at my watch later that day and realising that 7 hours had passed and that I’d barely moved much more than the index finger on my mouse as I surfed from one page to another.

I was caught in the ‘web’. One site led to another which lead to another which led to another - the web inspired me.

I had a similar feeling the first day I visited the first blog that I had ever read - it linked out generously to other blogs in it’s niche which in turn linked to others. I was immediately hooked into this community of websites - but particularly to that first one which got me going.

Perhaps this is a little naive - but for me the internet has always been built on the ‘link’. It’s what makes it so great and as someone wanting to be a good citizen of the web I think it’s important to continue the tradition of what has made it great.

4. The Power of Links to Build Relationships

A simple link to another site can get you on their radar and be the beginning of a fruitful an mutually beneficial relationship.

Here’s a quick illustration as to the power of a link:

Every month or two on my photography blog I run a post that is simply a list of interesting links from other photography sites around the web from the last month. I sometimes throw a few internal links into these posts but they’re largely just a list of links with short descriptions to other photography sites.

There are many benefits of these posts, for example:

• they’ve been on the front page of Digg and can be spread virally around the web
• they’re useful to readers and I get a lot of thank you comments and emails from readers as a result

But the biggest benefit to me from these types of posts is the impact that they have on the sites I’m linking to. Last time I did one of these posts I linked to 15 or so other photography sites.

• The next day I had 5 emails from owners of these sites. All thanked me for the link.
• 2 of those who wrote offered to write guest posts for my blog.
• Over the coming week 6 of the sites I linked to linked back to my blog
• Others tweeted about the post
• 2 of the other bloggers and I have been exploring ways we can work more together

All of this started simply with some linking to other quality content in my niche.

While my blog has a fairly big readership and the traffic I sent out was substantial - the same principle is true for sites of all sizes - links have the potential to get you on the radar of other bloggers and web masters - where this can lead you is anyone’s guess.

5. Outbound Links and SEO

Outbound links can help your blog’s search engine optimisation (directly perhaps but indirectly definitely).

I’ve heard it argued that relevant outbound links can actually help your own site’s ranking in search engines (ie search engines look at the sites you’re linking to as part of their algorithm).

I have heard this debated and in my own limited testing have not seen it as a major factor (it may be a minor one but other factors like your title tags have a much bigger impact) - HOWEVER I do think that linking out can definitely indirectly help your SEO - based upon reasons we’ve already covered:

• Linking can stimulate reciprocal links - as a result of building relationships with other websites you increase the chance of being linked to yourself. It doesn’t happen every time but sometimes when you link to another blog you’ll find that blogger starts to subscribe to yours and in time will link back. This helps your search ranking.
• Useful content ranks high - Google’s main purpose with it’s algorithm is to find the best content it can and rank it highly. If links increase your site’s usefulness (point #2 above) in time you’ll see this reflected in your Google ranking as your site gets passed around by readers and Google does its thing in finding it.

I can’t guarantee that you’ll rank high in Google by linking to other sites - but indirectly I think it can certainly be helpful. I guess this really comes down to my main philosophy about SEO - set your blog up well and be aware of the principles of SEO but then concentrate on producing the kind of content that the search engines are looking for and build relationships/network. Search rankings tend to have a way of looking after themselves.

Quick Tips on Linking Out

Let me conclude with a few last thoughts:

Don’t link out for the sake of it - I’ve seen some bloggers link out to other blogs in large quantities with the belief that it’ll help them build relationships with loads of other bloggers. Link out when it’s relevant to do so, when you’re giving credit and when you think it makes your content more useful.

Don’t get caught up in linking schemes - one thing I do know is that Google is always on the look out for ‘link farms’ or schemes designed to manipulate their rankings. I won’t pretend to know where Google draws the line but simple reciprocal links seem to carry less weight than normal organic links and when search engines spot you involved in a bad neighbourhood of the web engaging in lots of interlinking you’re probably going to do yourself more harm than good.

I don’t get into it at all these days but IF you’re going to get into reciprocal links keep them relevant to your content, do it in moderation and make sure that the sites you’re linking to are of a high standard and quality.

PS: a quote from Google’s Matt Cutts:

Let me finish with a quote (and a link of course) from Google’s Matt Cutts:

“I would recommend the first-order things to pay attention to are 1) making great content that will attract links in the first place, and 2) choosing a site architecture that makes your site usable/crawlable for humans and search engines alike.”

I’m interested to hear your thoughts (and practices) when it comes to linking out from your blog. Do you do it? Why/Why Not?

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Outbound Links - An Endangered Species? [And Why I Still Link Up]

Share This

Yesterday I share with readers an exercise to brainstorm 10 ways that they might expand their blog in the coming years.

The reason I suggest the exercise is not that there’s anything wrong with being ‘just a blog’ but because as I look at a lot of top blogs going around today it strikes me that many of them have evolved in different directions and now also include other mediums, areas and features that wouldn’t normally appear on a blog.

By no means is it essential to grow your blog in this way - but it certainly is a trend among many successful blogs.

Over the next few days I want to explore some of the ways that I see blogs being expanded. Hopefully in doing so it’ll give those wanting to grow the potential of their blog a little inspiration in how they might do it.

Expand Your Blog with a Forum

Lets kick things off with a way of expanding a blog that many bloggers will be quite familiar with - adding a forum to your blog. This can be done either as a free area or a paid or premium area where members pay a subscription to join it.

Examples of Blogs and Forums Working Well Together

1. Ars Technica - Major Tech blog Ars Technica has had a forum area operating for some time now.

I’m not sure how many members it has but as I write this it has over 700 signed in members on the forum and over 3500 guests viewing it.

Discussion areas cover most of the topics that the blog covers and in many areas there’s a lot of action (literally millions of posts).

2. Digital Photography School - I quickly added a forum area to my own photography blog not long after I started the site as I began to hear from readers that they didn’t want to just respond to what I had to say - but they wanted to start conversations, ask questions and share what they were learning themselves.

This forum doesn’t get as many unique visitors as the blog area on DPS but it does drive a lot of page views. It also converts pretty well in terms of advertising and over time has been picking up speed as more and more members join and as the site begins to grow in it’s search engine ranking.

Other Examples include:

• Steve Pavlina’s Forums
• Get Rich Slowly’s Forums
• SmashingMagazine’s Forums
• Post Secret’s Community Area

There are of course many others - feel free to suggest more in comments below.

Advantages of Forums

There are many advantages of starting a forum. Here are four that come to mind for me (and they just scratch the surface):

1. Increased reader engagement - one of the things that I noticed after starting the forum on DPS was that it seemed to hook people into the site for a longer period of time. Most blogs have a life cycle in terms of new readers where the average reader will eventually move on from the blog as their interests change, as their knowledge grows, as they master the topic being explored. However starting a membership or community focused area gives those who might move on from your blog a reason to stay connected - the relationships that they form. I know I have a few members of the DPS community who for one reason or another moved on from being blog readers but who are still central members of the forum.

The key thing is that forums require people to ‘sign up’ or become a member. This requires people to ‘buy in’ or invest a little something into your site which gives you a point of contact (you get email addresses etc) but also creates a point of connection and sense of ownership of your site in your reader. This extra engagement often leads to long term relationships and loyalty.

2. User Generated Content - one of the things I’ve been experimenting with in the DPS forum is to set up a ‘photography tutorials’ area. In this area we encourage readers to share what they’re learning about photography. It’s been a successful area of the forum for two reasons - firstly it creates useful content that other forum members enjoy but secondly it also has created content that I then can use on the blog.

Example: today I put together this post - 21 Great Reader Shots [And How They Took Them]

3. Increase Page Views - as mentioned above - my photography forum doesn’t get as many unique visitors to it as the blog area - but it does drive a lot of page views because each visitor who comes tends to view more pages per visit. This is fairly typical of forums as the way they’re set up tends to drive people to view multiple threads and view a thread multiple times as they interact with others. This can be a good way of making money via impression based advertising (although it can decrease the overall CPM rate if you’re using AdSense as someone viewing multiple pages is probably less likely to click ads).

What I find with having both a blog and forum is that there are some great cross promotional opportunities. In blog posts I’m constantly referring to threads in the forum that have examples of what I’m talking about or that I set up for people to share photos on the topic I’m talking about. Similarly in the forum we often point people with questions to tutorials in our forums. While some people tend to stay in one or the other of the areas - there’s a fair bit of cross over.

4. Appeal to a Different Type of Reader - I discovered a month or two into DPS forums that quite a few of those joining never read the blog area and that quite a few blog readers had little interest in using the forum. While some do use both areas it became evident to me that quite a few people preferred one medium over the other and that the two sections were appealing to two different types of people. I’m not sure if it’s to do with personality, demographic or learning style - but I guess we each find different mediums more appealing and starting a forum gives another option for people to connect with your site.

Challenges of Membership Areas

1. Moderation - most bloggers understand the challenge of moderating comments and protecting their blogs from spammers. On a blog comment moderation can be enough for some bloggers to give up and close comments - but on a forum there’s no such luxury because closing down comments kind of kills the whole purpose of a forum.

There are lots of tools and features of most forum platforms to help with this but in the end moderation takes a lot of time and effort. At DPS we have a growing team of volunteer moderators (lead by a paid community manager) to tackle this challenge. Much of their time is taken with dealing with spammers or trolls.

2. Community Building - our moderation team is not just there to police the negative stuff happening on the blog but also to grow/build the community. Building community doesn’t just happen - you can’t expect to just set up a forum area and automatically have community - it takes work, creativity and time.

3. Critical Mass - one of the biggest challenges with forums is having enough critical mass to be able to kick them off and attract other readers. This is why I didn’t start a forum on DPS immediately - I wanted to grow the blog’s readership first. I also started a Flickr group before the forum to grow a community there that I could then transition into a blog.

The other thing I did to get the forums active before going live was to invite a smaller group of my key commenters from the blog and long term newsletter subscribers to get early access to the forum so there was some activity there when the site went live.

Concluding Thoughts on Forums/Membership Areas

Forums are not easy. While they have many plusses they take a lot of work and time to build. They’re probably best suited to blogs with an established readership or list to help kick things off but also where the topics lend themselves to discussion, sharing of opinions or sharing of something else (eg. pictures).

Further Reading from the ProBlogger Archives on Forums

• 6 Tips on Adding a Forum to Your Blog
• 10 Mistakes that Will Kill a Forum (or a Blog)
• How I Increased Page Views on My Forum by 66.7% in a month
• Does Search Engine Optimisation Matter? (an example showcasing a forum)

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Forums - How to Expand Your Blog #1

Share This

In this post I’d like to give an update of the different sites that I work on, how they’re going and what I’m working on with them.

3 questions that I get a lot are:

1. You seem to do a lot of ’stuff’ - can you give me a quick overview?
2. I know you from (insert blog/social network name here) but today discovered you also are at (insert blog/network here) - what else do you do?
3. How is your business going - you used to give us income updates - can you give us another update?

As a result today I want to create a post that attempts to summarize all of the activities that I’m actively involved with these days (ie it doesn’t include about 30 blogs that I have previously owned or blogged on which today are dormant).

I’m not going to give an income update as such except to say that revenue from my blogging related activities remains well into the Six Figure bracket (annually) and that each year since I’ve started blogging as an income source has seen it grow in healthy increases.

I hope that what follows is of use to those who’re interested:

My Blogs

These days I own three active blogs. They are visited collectively by around 2.8 million people per month, subscribed to via RSS and email by around 480,000 subscribers and have social media network between them of around 110,000 people. Let me break it down from largest to smallest:

Digital Photography School

DPS has enjoyed continued growth over the last 12 months. While finding advertisers has been a little difficult in this climate (although we did run a very successful campaign with Lenovo earlier in the year) I’ve seen increases in income as a result of more effort in affiliate promotions but also AdSense and Chitika.

I have seen a bit of an increase in expenses though as we’ve hired a number of writers as well as a community manager for the forum area.

Redesigning the site, adding new areas for cameras and post production tips and getting onto Twitter have all helped to grow DPS. The future looks really bright for this community - I’m particularly looking forward to the release of the communities first products (two ebooks) later in the year.

• Monthly Traffic - 1,960,612 Visitors viewing 6,571,151 pages (based upon the last 30 days - Data from Google Analytics)
• Subscribers - 311,813 (made up of 200,000 newsletter subscribers and 111,000 RSS subscribers)
• Forum Members - 60.644
• Twitter Followers - 16,074 followers
• DPS on Facebook - 2,277 fans

ProBlogger

Traffic wise ProBlogger’s growth has been less spectacular than DPS but steady.

The release of the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook earlier in the year was an amazing learning experience and a profitable venture.

The Job boards have also continued to grow both in terms of ads being listed and also traffic/subscriber numbers. It’s certainly not my biggest earner but it’s a daily income that has risen and that is quite passive.

The main income streams from ProBlogger have been direct ad sales (we’ve been sold out for a long time although I’m told we have one slot open at the moment) and healthy affiliate promotions (I’m lucky that there are so many quality products related to this blog).

In the coming weeks ProBlogger will expand with the launch of ProBlogger.Community.

• Monthly Traffic - 531,804 unique visitors viewing 866,093 pages
• Subscribers - 123,000 RSS Subscribers
• Newsletter Subscribers - 29,890 (across a number of different lists)
• Twitter Followers - 76,273 followers
• DPS on Facebook - 15,242 fans
• ProBlogger Job Boards - around 2000 RSS subscriber

TwiTip

My newest blog and seeing a steady growth. Written mainly by a group of guest posts TwiTip has done fairly well. I’m about to launch a redesign of the site which will give it a more professional look but also add some great new features.

Income has been a little tougher on this one - mainly due to my lack of time to actually go after advertisers. Having said that - I’ve run a couple of affiliate programs that have done pretty well (still room for improvement though on the ad front).

• Traffic - 256,430 Visitors viewing 326,484 pages
• Subscribers - 21,512 RSS subscribers

Other Interests

I try to be active on a number of social media sites, networks and maintain an interest in a variety of other projects including:

• LinkedIn - 1940 Connections
• LinkedIn Professional Bloggers Network - 1200 members
• Personal Facebook Page - 5000 friends (the limit)
• Personal Blog - 5000 Visitors a Month (I really should post more)
• Publications - ProBlogger The Book and 31 Days to Build a Better Blog
• Co-Founder and Shareholder - b5media blog network
• Co-Founder - Six Figure Blogging (now fairly inactive)
• Speaking/Training/Media - I’ve had a real increase in the number of invitations to speak and teach at a variety of conferences and do media appearances (interviews/write columns etc). Due to me being in Australia I am not able to do many of them but it’s something I’ve been enjoying when I can do them locally (or occasionally overseas).

Looking Forward

In the next few months there are a number of new things that will add to this list (because I have so much spare time):

• ProBlogger.com (a community site for bloggers)
• Two new ebooks for Digital Photography School (I’m working on two which will hopefully be released before the end of the year)
• Possibly another ebook for ProBlogger - working with another blogger on this
• A New Site with ebook - I can’t say too much about this but I’m looking forward to collaborating with another blogger on a new site that will relate to both ProBlogger and TwiTip.
• One more Bigger Secret Collaboration with a couple of other bloggers - Hopefully with an October launch

All in all I’m fairly busy. While there are opportunities arising every day or two that I could do more on if I had the time (or if I decided to hire a staff) I’m attempting to keep things relatively contained (you might not think so from the above list but it’s the tip of the iceberg of what I get asked to do).

All in all it’s a fun business to be in, a profitable way to make a living and it does still give me flexibility to spend time with my family, friends and community groups that I belong to - doing the things that are important to me.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

The State of the Darren-Sphere

Share This

In the last post on ProBlogger Kevin talked about starting a blog based upon one of your hobbies as a great way to start blogging.

As I mentioned in the introduction to that post - Kevin had really described much of my own motivations for starting my photography blog (and that of many many other successful blogs). While I did see an opportunity for profit in that blog when I started it - my main motivation for kicking it off was to share what I was learning about photography and to see if I could draw others with a similar interest together to learn from one another.

For me I always wanted to see if I could make some money from that blog - but early on it wasn’t the biggest motivation. Over the years as the blog has grown and become more profitable I suspect my motivations have changed a little - I’m still interested in the topic - but it’s certainly more of a focus to make it profitable.

Of course starting a blog on a topic you’re interested in or passionate about is not the only way - many successful bloggers have started blogs with other motivations - including to make money, to grow their profile, to drive traffic to their business etc…. (or some combination of motivations).

Why Did You Start Blogging?

Yesterdays post has got me thinking - why DO people start blogs? Has the motivation changed from a few years back when blogs first began to get popular (when I started 7 years ago most people seemed to be doing it purely for fun and to make connections)?

I’d be interested to hear about your initial motivations to starting a blog? Did you start on a topic you were interested in? Did you start with the idea of making money? Was there some other motivation/s? Also - have your motivations changed since starting your blog?

Interested to hear your thoughts!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Why Did You Start Blogging?

Share This

In this post Kevin Sanders shares some introductory reasons to take a hobby and blog about it. In effect this is the way that I personally got into blogging - there was no intent of my blogs being anything more than hobbies in my early days - but out of writing about things I was passionate about emerged a business…. Now it’s over to Kevin….

I’ve been going to the gym for about twenty years. I’m not a professional bodybuilder or fitness instructor - lifting weights is just a hobby of mine. But I’ve learned a lot over the years, and I’ve even trained some of my friends. I often give (free) advice about exercise, diet and supplements.

I asked myself this question about ten months ago: Why haven’t I created a fitness blog? I loved the topic, and I already knew the basics of blogging.

So I did it - I created StrongandFit.net. I started blogging, using tips I learned here at problogger.net. Slowly but surely, the traffic started coming. My fitness blog is now most visited (and most profitable) blog. My only regret is I didn’t start it sooner.

Here’s my point: I think there are millions of people who have untapped earning potential in their hobbies (a certain blogger’s digital photography hobby comes to mind). They’ve just never taken the time to share their valuable experiences and expertise online.

Here are some advantages to blogging about your hobby:

Ready-made niche

All the pros agree - you should choose a niche you are passionate about. Well, a hobby is something you already love enough to do with your free time. Seems like the perfect place to start!

Ready-made posts

You’ve probably already invested time, effort, and money into your hobby. Maybe you’ve even answered questions about it or shown others how to get involved. In other words, you probably already have dozens of posts swimming around in your head. All you have to do is take the time and write them down.

Ready-made affiliate opportunities

Most hobbies have books, magazines, equipment, or other products/services. You’ve probably already invested in some of these and formed an opinion regarding which are most valuable. In other words, you are already set to endorse certain products. Your reviews could earn money and help others make good choices.

Re-Energize your hobby

Blogging could get you more involved in something you’re already passionate about. It could even get you back into something you once enjoyed. The process of blogging (research, forums, etc) has an energy to it that ads to the fun.

No expertise necessary

What if you are a novice? No problem! Just be honest about it and invite others along your journey - share what you are doing. Here’s an example from the fitness niche: I’ve seen several blogs created by overweight individuals who want to document their weight loss journey. Some of these are quite inspirational.

If you never make money, it’s OK - its just a hobby

As Darren has pointed out, most of us probably won’t make big money from blogging. My blog is making a little money for me, but I’m nowhere near ready to quit my day job. But that’s the beauty of a hobby blog - you’ll have so much fun you’ll be willing to wait for the profits.

Final Thoughts:

You have a hobby, don’t you? What are you waiting for? Start a blog and monetize it! You have nothing to lose.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Hobby Blogs: Making Profits from your Hobby

Share This

One of the most common questions I’m asked by readers starting out with blogging is around blog design and how they can get an affordable but unique blog design.

The irony of this is that I’m a self confessed dud when it comes to blog design. These days I hire others to do custom designs for my blog - but of course this doesn’t come cheap.

A recent survey here on ProBlogger showed that 79% of readers here use free themes or design their blogs themselves - but what if you want something more unique and/or don’t have the ability to design a blog or tweak a free theme?

I had all these questions buzzing around in my head recently when I paid a visit to local design marketplace site 99designs. I didn’t expect anything to come out of the conversation but what did come out of it excited me because it could meet a need that I see many of our readers having.

What 99designs have put together is a way to run a competition to have a new WordPress blog design created for your blog for as little as $369.

Now before I go any further - $369 is out of many bloggers leagues - but it is certainly a cheaper option than hiring a designer for $2000-$3000 to do a custom job for you. It’s not going to be for everyone but is sure to be an attractive option for those looking for a mid priced design.

The process to run a competition is simple. Here’s how 99designs describe it:

1. Set your budget and requirements

Tell us your budget and what you want designed, and we will post it on 99designs.com

2. Designers will create designs just for you

Designers from around the world will compete to create the best looking design just for you. Most projects get over 20 different design concepts to choose from. Rate the designers you like, eliminate the ones you don’t like.

3. Choose your favorite design

Pick your favorite design as the winner. Show it off to your friends! The winning design is yours to keep forever.

4. We code and install your theme (optional extra)

Through our partner, Thinktank Media, we’ll have your new WordPress theme up and running on your blog in 5 working days. Our themes are coded on the Sandbox theme, so they’re compatible with both WordPress.org and WordPress.com blogs!

They also have a 100% money back guarantee if you run a competition and don’t find a design that you like.

Keep in mind that what you’re running the competition for is the ‘design’ - to have it coded and/or installed you either need to choose to pay extra for these options or do that part yourself.

I hope those of you looking to find a new design for your WordPress blog find this useful! Check it out here.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Run a Competition to Find Your Next WordPress Blog Design

Share This

Stuck for ideas to write about? Here’s a quick and easy to use tool from Google to help you identify topics within most niches.

View this video at full size to get all the visual details in the video here on Facebook.

PS: a number of people have been asking about how I made this video and what microphone I am using. The mic is a Rode Podcaster USB microphone which I only recently have received. It’s not a small microphone but the quality it has produced is excellent.

The software I used to record the video and screen capture is a Mac tool called ScreenFlow. This is the first time I’ve used it and I there’s a lot more I could have done with it - I’m still learning to use its features.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Use Google’s Wonder Wheel to Find Topics to Write about

Share This

Have you ever read a blog post that just seems to have ‘it’?

You arrive at the page, begin reading and immediately feel drawn into what the blogger is communicating. You can’t really put your finger on why - but there’s something about the way that they write that connects with you - that makes you want to read more - that makes reading easy.

That blogger has ‘blogging mojo’.

While there are many concrete things that we can identify about successful blogs - some things are hard to define. One of these is blogging mojo.

Some bloggers just seem to be able to write in a way that connects. They go beyond technically writing well to a style that just works.

How to Develop Your ‘Mojo’

I’ve observed ‘blogging mojo’ in a number of bloggers over the years and have done my best to identify why some bloggers have it and some don’t. Perhaps it’s partly natural ability, personality or learning how to write from a young age - but there’s one important factor that I’ve seen over and over again in successful bloggers.

Most successful bloggers that I question tell me that on top of any natural ability that they have that they’ve spent years experimenting with different styles of writing, different types of posts, different topics, different voices and different approaches to communicating that shape who they are today.

As they say - ‘Practice makes perfect’.

One of the best ways to develop your writing and learn to consistently produce compelling content is to practice writing in different styles and voices.

Of course this doesn’t just happen - sometimes you need to set yourself a challenge (or ask someone else to do so).

I chatted with a journalist friend recently who told me that he learns most about writing when his editor allocates him a story that takes him out of his comfort zone, when he’s asked to write on a topic he’s not overly familiar with or asked to write in a style that isn’t his normal one.

He said that when he’s given these challenging stories that he’s forced to learn and discover new ways to communicate. It doesn’t always feel good but each time he discovers something new about what works (and doesn’t work) for him.

Which leads us to today’s homework…

Your Homework for Today

Today’s homework task is to pick a style of blog post that you don’t normally write. For example:

• If you always write in the 1st person why not try writing in the 3rd person for a post?
• If your posts are always deadpan serious why not attempt something a little more light hearted and humorous.
• Try writing a post from the perspective of another person?
• Throw an opinion piece into your blog that is normally just covering ‘news’.
• Write a list post if your blog is usually more ‘essay’ like.

If you’re unsure what to write check out my list of 20 Types of Blog Posts - hopefully one of them will fit with where you’re at. There’s also a few of these types of writing posts in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook.

The benefit of mixing things up from time to time is that you grow as a writer and you might just stumble upon a type of post that connects with your readers. Even if the post falls flat on it’s face and fails you’ve learned what not to do on your blog.

Once you’ve written your post and published it please come back to this post and share the link and share how you went with the challenge!

This post belongs to our current series on Creating Compelling Content. Stay tuned for more principles of building this type of content in the week ahead.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Find Your Blogging Mojo - Experiment with Different Voices and Styles of Writing

Share This

One of the most popular resources for new bloggers - Become a Blogger - is reopening its doors to new participants - for 5 days only.

It’s cheaper than ever before

If you’re a new blogger wondering how to get your blog started and moving towards reaching it’s potential - it can be a daunting prospect.

Become a Blogger is a step-by-step video based guide to walk you through the process in plain and easy to understand language.

The Guys Behind Become a Blogger

The two guys behind Become a Blogger are two people I have a lot of time for - Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick. Both live here in Australia and I regularly interact with both. They both have a gift in being able to explain complicated things clearly, they both know what they’re doing (you can get a taste for that in this free report that they’ve released) and have been successful in their own fields and they are both genuinely nice guys who I have real respect for.

I have no hesitation in recommending them to you as trainers and mentors in your blogging.

The resource is broken down into 8 Modules over 6 months - with a number of other bonuses. Here’s what is covered:

Module 1: Get Your Blog Up And Running Fast And FREE

Module 2: How To Optimize Your Blog For Maximum Search Engine Performance

Module 3: How To Create Powerful Content For Your Blog, Consistently and Without Fail

Module 4: How To Use Images On Your Blog To Make You Stand Out From The Crowd

Module 5: How To Create A Different Dimension To Your Blog By Adding Audio

Module 6: How To Breathe Life Into Your Blog Using Online Video

Module 7: How To Create Multiple Streams of High Quality Traffic To Your Blog

Module 8: How To Make Money From Your Blog

PLUS (Spread Throughout The Course): How To Use The “X-Factor” Strategies To Put Your Blog Into Super Drive!

PLUS: a range of other bonuses including a 10 part audio series on ‘master the mindset’ - access to the Become a Blogger Forums and special members only Teleconferences.

Previously Become a Blogger was $77 a month. It sold out at that rate and they closed the doors so as to deliver value to those who signed up.

Cheaper for a Limited Time Only

This time it’s $47 a month but you only have 5 days to become a part of it.

You can either sign up on a month by month basis or invest in it up front for the 6 months get a discount.

Of course as usual with these guys - there’s a money back guarantee. If you’re not satisfied you can simply ask for your money back - I trust these guys to honor that commitment.

Signup for Become a Blogger here.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Become a Blogger Reopens for 5 Days Only - Now Cheaper Than Ever

Share This