ProBlogger - Latest Posts

Posted: 27 May 2008 10:02 PM CDT

As mentioned in my last post - today saw Karen, Neerav and myself featured in an Aussie national news story on channel TEN.

Many international readers have asked to see the story so Neerav has posted it on Google Video for you. If you’d like to see the full sized version of the story you can do so here.

If you’re new to ProBlogger and have arrived after seeing the story please check out my last post - a welcome to you which has some introductory information for you on where to start with blogging.

Share This

Welcome to TEN News Viewers

Posted: 27 May 2008 08:09 PM CDT

Just a short note to welcome viewers from Australia’s TEN News. A story just aired on the TEN network that featured three bloggers - Karen Cheng, Neerav Bhatt and myself (I’m told it will also be on the PM editions of the news in some cities tonight). For international readers - you can now see the report here.

If this is your first time at ProBlogger - let me give you a quick ‘tour’.

ProBlogger is a blog about blogging - more particularly it’s a blog about making money from blogging. Millions of blogs have sprung up on the web over the last 5 years and many of those bloggers are now looking to take their blogs from something that is purely a hobby into something that earns them a little money to supplement their income. For most this is simply a way to pay for their coffee habit or to save up for that new gadget that they’ve been eyeing off - but for some blogging has become a significant source of income. By the way - my name is Darren Rowse not Darren Dowse (as the caption said in the story).

About Me

Darren Rowse I’ve been deriving a full time income from blogging for around 3 years on blogs like ProBlogger and Digital Photography School (a blog about helping digital camera owners improve their photography). A couple of years back I co-founded a company called b5media which is a blog network based in Toronto which has around 350 blogs in it - employing 200+ bloggers. I’ve also recently written a book about blogging (see below). I live in Melbourne with my wife and son and am expecting a new baby any day now. If you’d like to read about my story of becoming a full time blogger - check out this post called ‘Becoming a ProBlogger’.

About ProBlogger the Blog

As mentioned above - this blog is a blog about blogging. I’ve been running this blog for 3 years and in that time have published over 4000 tips on the topic - everything that I know about blogging. Want to know where to start? Let me suggest a few articles that I’ve written that will give you an understanding of what this is all about.

What is a Blog - a basic introduction to the medium of blogging.

Make Money Blogging - a description of the ways that I make money blogging (a rundown of my top income earners)
How Bloggers Make Money Blogging - an article that talks through some of the basic concepts of making money from blogging
Blogging for Beginners - a series of articles that were written for people wanting to start blogs. Aimed at the beginner.

Subscribe to ProBlogger for Free - If you’re interested in keeping in touch with me and the new articles that go up on ProBlogger I’d like ti invite you to subscribe to this blog.

There are two main ways you can do this:

1. RSS Feed - if you’re familiar with RSS feeds you can subscribe to ours here (learn what RSS is here)

2. Daily Email Updates - every day I send out an email update with our latest posts. To sign up for this for free simply add your email address to the mini form right below this:

About My Book

As mentioned in the story today on TEN I’ve just written a book on the topic of making money with blogs. I write it with another blogger (Chris Garrett) and it’s only been released in the last few weeks. It’s so new that it’s not even in stores in Australia yet (they are due here in about a month). If you’d like a copy there are two ways you can get one:

Amazon - the US Amazon bookstore has copies and they ship them to Australia. They are currently on sale there for $16.49 USD. With postage and a favorable exchange rate the price is pretty similar to what they’ll sell for here. Shipping takes around a week.

Pre-Order - head to your local bookstore and put one on order. As mentioned above - they are expected to hit our shores late in June.

Lastly - thanks for stopping by. If you’d like to get in touch feel free to shoot me an email via my Contact form.

Share This

6 Tips for Promoting Your Consulting Services on a Blog

Posted: 27 May 2008 02:26 PM CDT

Last week Wellington Grey from Silver Clipboard asked me about how best to advertise his own services as a consultant/coach on his blog. His question was:

“How should a blogger incorporate non-blogging services into his website? Here’s my situation, several months ago I started a website about getting organized. I would like the site to attract people who may, ultimately, be interested in hiring my services as a productivity coach. How should I best promote my services on the blog? I don’t exactly want to end every article with …and HIRE ME! as that would seem tacky and needy. Any suggestions?”

My response to Wellington went something like this):

I think that you’re wise to avoid the continual self promotion. Sometimes less can be more when it comes to promoting yourself. Here’s a few thoughts that come to mind (you may not do all of these things on the one blog):

1. Develop a Prominent About Page - have a page dedicated to explaining who you are and what you do. If you do consulting on the topic of your blog make sure you spell this out clearly. Also on your about page include a strong call to action and have a clear way for potential clients to contact you.

2. Advertise Yourself - I would avoid selling advertising on a blog that’s primary goal is to sell YOU as a consultant (or at the very least I would not use AdSense which might allow your competitors to advertise on your blog). Instead I would put prominent ads for your services pominently on your blog. Place one on your sidebar and perhaps another underneath posts (above comments).

3. Navigation Links - another tactic to consider is to have a ‘consulting’ or ’services’ tab or ‘hire me’ link in your main navigation areas. For example if I were to take on consulting work I would have a ‘blog consulting’ link in my top horizontal menu (up near the ‘Job Board’ link).

4. In Post Plugs - from time to time mention what services that you offer in your posts. Avoid doing this in every post but if you can include it in a ‘by the way’ type way it just reinforces in your readers mind that you do what you’re writing about for a living. Attempt to do it in a way that is subtle and on topic. For example if you’re writing on a topic that you’ve helped someone else in recently get permission from your client to share that experience (either with their name or anonymously).

5. Case Studies - taking the last point of sharing your experiences of working with clients a step further - doing an occasional ‘case study’ is probably one of the best ways to highlight the services that you offer. You can do these with actual clients (with permission of course) or can offer to do it for free for one of your readers. Alternatively if appropriate it might even be worth picking another blogger to do a case study on. For example back in 2005 I did a case study on how prominent blogger Jeff Jarvis could optimize his AdSense ads better. I did this because Jeff had started using AdSense and had written about it publicly. I didn’t ask permission to do it - but hoped that he’d take the advice and that it’d highlight my ability with AdSense. The day after I published the post Jeff linked up and I had 5-6 people email me willing to pay me to do a similar thing on their blogs privately.

6. Recommendations and Testimonials - another effective way to sell your services is to give your previous clients a way to recommend you. This might be by having a testimonials page on your blog that are real comments from previous clients - or it could even be for you to negotiate as part of your services for them to link to you from their site or blog to you. This is most common in web design with most designers asking for a link giving them credit for their blog’s design - but could be extended to most industries where clients have websites. The beauty of engaging your previous clients in this way is that you are not the one doing the ’selling’ of your services - others are.

What other advice would you give on promoting your consulting services on a blog?

PS: all of the above counts on your having something worthwhile to sell as a consultant on your blog. Developing your consulting repertoire and growing it into a business is a whole other post.

Share This

12 Tools and Techniques for Building Relationships with Other Bloggers

Posted: 27 May 2008 09:06 AM CDT

Image by Michael Sarver

A recent question asked in the Q&A widget was from a reader asking me to write about:

“How to go about building relationships with other bloggers?”

Building relationships with other bloggers is an important aspect of blogging. I see it as crucial for a number of reasons:

Finding Readers - one of the best ways to grow your readership is to have another blogger recommend that their readers check out something that you’ve written.
Learning Your Craft - as I look back on what I’ve learned about blogging over the last five years I would credit other bloggers as teaching me a good proportion of it. The more you interact with bloggers the more you’ll learn about building a better blog.
Accountability and Advice - at times blogging can be a fairly isolating task and it’s easy to get off track or become deluded (either by your ego getting out of control or by becoming depressed about some aspect of what you do). Having other bloggers around you that you give permission to keep you grounded and to lift you up when you’re despondent is important at keeping yourself balanced.
Friendship - blogging can be a lonely business. Having other bloggers around you who know the ins and outs, the pressures and the quirks and the highs and the lows makes the whole thing a lot more enjoyable.
Sharing of Skills - I’ve never met a blogger who knows everything about their niche or about how to blog (I’ve met a couple who think they do) - the reality is that we all have gaps in our knowledge and skills so to have others around us that might complement what we have can add a new dimension to a blog. As I remember the early years of my own blogging I’m struck by how much ‘trading’ of skills we all did for one another. One blogger would do a design for another one, in return they’d get some guest posts or advice on ad optimization etc.

So HOW should a blogger approach this important task of building relationships with other bloggers?

There are a large number of tasks that networking and building relationships with other bloggers can involve. I’ll list some of them below but before I do I think it’s worth saying that some will fit with some bloggers more than others.

We all make friends differently in ‘real life’ and I suspect will do best when we approach blogger networking in our own way and bringing our own personality to the task.

12 Blogger Networking Techniques and Tools:

Commenting on Other’s Blogs - basic but effective, but only when you add value with your comments.
Emailing Other Bloggers - once again, this works best if you add value in some way. Don’t just email to say hi, email to contribute something, give some advice, offer to help etc
Guest Posts - one way that can make an impression on another blogger is to offer to make a post. This particularly makes an impression when they need it most (when they are sick, have a vacation coming up, have some crisis). Keep an eye out for these times and be prepared to do what you can to assist.
Story Tips - if a story breaks in your niche - email other bloggers to let them know.
Link Out - linking to a competitors blog could seem like a crazy thing to do but it can make a real impression and show other bloggers your willingness to interact.
Instant Messaging - interaction via IM can really take a relationship to a new level as it’s real time and personal.
Social Networking - this should be a no brainer - social networking tools are exist with the purpose of connecting people. The key is to pick social networking tools that fit for you and your niche and focus on those. For example if other bloggers in your niche are interacting on Twitter - join it, if there’s a lot of activity on Facebook, go there - if LinkedIn is more relevant to your niche interact there!
Social Bookmarking - one of the best ways to get on the radar of another blogger is to be responsible for sending them a huge wave of traffic. While most of us can’t do this from our small blogs - we can submit other bloggers sites to social media sites like Digg and StumbleUpon. Instead of spending your day working on campaigns to build your own votes on these sites why not do it for another blogger?
Interviews - there’s nothing more flattering than having someone email you with a request to interview you and then to have them go to the trouble of thinking up interesting questions that show they’ve taken time to research the interview. Interviews can be good content for your blog but I think the real benefit of them is that they put you into a conversation with the person you’re interviewing and can be a springboard into relationship!
Forums and Discussion Groups - forums are one place that a lot of niche bloggers lurk. Engage genuinely in these spaces and you never know who you’ll end up connecting with. The building of relationships is one thing that I see emerging in the ProBlogger Room on FriendFeed.
Pick up the Phone/Skype it - while IM can be good at making your interactions more conversation like - voice to voice interactions take it a step further. Of course be a little careful with a cold-call - I’d recommend working up to a voice call with some emails etc as some are better on the phone than others with strangers.
Real Life Networking Events - one of the best ways of building relationships with bloggers is to meet face to face. A lot can be achieved without actually meeting (at b5media none of the founders had met until a year into our business and after we’d secured VC funding) but meeting another blogger has a way of cementing a relationship that is quite special.

WARNING!

Knowing about and using the above tools and techniques are not enough on their own. Each of them can be used both to build fruitful relationships with other bloggers and to hurt your relationships. Many of the above techniques when used in an overbearing way can come across as spam - proceed with caution!

Tomorrow I want to expand upon this topic and share with you 17 principles of building relationships with bloggers that I think will put these tools and techniques into a context where they can be used well.

Share This