Helping You Rock Out Your Site Like A Rockstar!

In the movie “Julie and Julia,” Julie Powell considered herself a failure because a book she attempted didn’t quite work out the way she had hoped. To redeem herself, she set out to cook all of the recipes from Julia Childs’s book, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” Powell’s husband encouraged her to blog about her recipes and experiences. What started out as a daily cooking commitment also turned into a daily blogging commitment. Following are five blogging lessons I learned from this movie.

Lesson 1: Blog with a Plan and Purpose

Powell set a goal to cook the 524 recipes from Julia Childs’s book within 365 days and blog about them. She had 524 reasons to stay focused and absolutely no reason to run out of content.

Know what you are going to blog about and be sure you are passionate about that topic. Purpose and passion will keep you going through periods of bloggers block and doubt.

Lesson 2: Blog for Your Audience

When Powell first started blogging, she wanted to prove to herself that she was not a loser. As she started to get readers and followers, blogging was no longer about her; she had an audience waiting to hear from her.

Since your audience will ultimately determine the success or failure of your site, always put them first as you write.

Lesson 3: Your Blog Will Not Become Popular Overnight

Powell’s blog did not become popular right away and neither will yours – unless you already have a dedicated following interested in you or your topic. Blogging is not a “build it and they will come” venture. Just like any other business, you have to market it and provide value to gain popularity.

Lesson 4: Consistency Leads to Success

Apparently, Powell had a history of not completing things she started. She really wanted to finish her project. She cooked and blogged every day, sometimes several times a day. That was pretty ambitious.

You don’t have to be that extreme. Develop a schedule that you can realistically maintain. If you can only blog once a month, do that. Just be consistent so your readers will know when to expect your next post.

Lesson 5: Do Not Blog about Your Job on Your Personal Blog

Powell had mentioned that she was going to be off of work on her blog. Her supervisor read the post and brought it to her attention upon her return.

Do not discuss your job on your personal blog and do not discuss personal topics on your business blog. If you just have to cross that line, proceed with caution.

The five blogging lessons above are just a few lessons I learned from “Julie and Julia.” Powell achieved her blogging goals because she had a plan; she was consistent; and her audience was her priority. You can reach your goals by following Powell’s lead. To be truly successful, though, you have to be committed and possess an attitude of success.

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I hear a lot of people throw around that they are pro bloggers?

Of course, we all assume pro equals professional, so what defines a pro blogger?

Is it the money? Is it the experience? What is it?

Can you be a pro blogger and still have a 9 to 5 job? Answer: maybe, but being a pro blogger is more than just frequently blogging. You do have to have great reach and you have to have quality articles that people want to read.

I know what I will say in this article may offend a few people, but believe me, after not having a 9 to 5 job since 2008, AND blogging for over 8 years, I am more than experienced on what it takes to be a pro blogger. I have been paid for years, and not just from sponsored blog posts and advertising, but also being sponsored too. I also make money from my web design clients who contact me – in fact, in the last year since I have moderately promoted myself on Twitter and Facebook, my sales have gone up nearly 500%. Please note – moderately. Imagine if I really decided to be annoying and “in your face” about my services. I would either deter people or bring in more.

From the beginning of my early days in blogging, my goal has to try to help people. Years ago when I started, NO ONE was out there to help. I am not exaggerating on that. Of course, there were a few HTML websites out there, but I learned by myself. I saw some of my online friends I engaged with daily floundering in web design and felt the need to help them. I still do today, but I went from services being free, to being paid for it. And it was not because of my portfolio (which still has yet to make its debut as of March 2011), but because of what I blogged about and my own site’s design.

Aside from my own experience, remember, it does not matter what niche you are in, but if you are professionally paid enough to make an actual living from your blogging, you might be a pro blogger. And this is not the “supplemental income to take your kids to the local Chuck E Cheese on the weekend”, but actually being able to pay.

It is hard and takes a lot of work to get there. Even pro bloggers that are a couple levels higher than myself, while they may not have blogged as long, they have worked VERY hard to get where they are today. And believe me – it takes a LOT of ambition. Some of the people I have seen starting to make a great foundation for their future, like Ileane Smith, Gail Gardner, and Kimberly Castleberry have been VERY ambitious in a VERY admirable way. (By the way, they are great examples of whom you might want to follow.)

Why?

Because each of them have been willing to do what it takes to learn, grow, and try to do what it takes to come out on top. It takes connecting with hundreds of people whether through Twitter, Facebook, or returning blog comments, forums, tribes, or whatever.

If you are wanting to become a pro blogger, there are a lot of great people to follow out there, but you have to get into that mentality that you are going from being a hobby blogger to being serious and making a business out of it.

How do you define what a pro blogger is?

You should always understand that there are a lot of people probably blogging about the same topics as you. When you are trying to make a business oriented decision, some people are already making money. And no matter how hard you think you are trying, it seems you are still packed up with the majority that do nothing but stand and wave goodbye to the sailors. Is it your intention to be like that? No, I guess not! Doesn’t that tell you that there is definitely something you are missing and or perhaps something you left undone?

The truth is that nobody knows everything about blogging from creation to promotion, traffic generation and social marketing. Yet some people are super bloggers. Yes, few out of the millions of bloggers are super bloggers and their actions are quite different from that of the rest – those who keep dreaming without results. Want to leave the present blogging status you are to join the group of super bloggers? Here is a list of the attributes of successful bloggers.

Effective Communication

Successful bloggers understand the best way to put information. From the experience I acquired blogging in my Software Reviews & Coupons blog, professionals don’t just write, they communicate with their readers. They write as an ordinary human being faced with same problems as their readers. They know what their readers want and put that down in a clear down-to-earth format – making it funny, yet professional and informative. My moto is, stop writing for the Search Engines only and start writing for humans. Don’t focus only on SEO, but mainly on content quality. Also remember: always reply to readers’ comments. It’s rude to leave your readers alone like having them talk to a wall. They want you to respond and provide insight and solutions.  Answer their questions and objections and they will keep coming back to you. Interact with them. Important: Have your face photo posted somewhere in your blog, at least in your “About” page. Not a cartoon picture or a fancy logo, but your own funny face. Through time people will connect your blog to your face and trust me, this is good.

Triggering Readers

Any blog post by a successful blogger has a way of getting its readers to step within the circle of commentators. They write blogs that appeal or provoke the passion of readers. Have you ever read something and found yourself restless with excitement until you say something? This is the kind of writing I am talking about. Writings that get readers to build a community around that blog – of course readers will always come back to check out new posts and what people are talking about.

Humility

Being humble will help you to inculcate the attitude of being ready to learn every time. No matter how long you think you have been around, you definitely do not know every thing and needs to learn from others. But if you are not humble, you can’t do that. If you cannot learn, then you have started dying. Never allow this weakness to come in between your blogging business.

Consistency

Being consistent in following your plans matters a lot and determines your success in the business. You must make sure you perform at least one task everyday, which will take you closer to your blogging goal. Stick to it and never give up.

Tactical And Analytical

Successful bloggers always find a way to look beyond their limitations. When you look around, you discover certain factors, tools and strategies that will help you. You must be very analytical and dynamic. Always be on the constant search for what works and try new things out. Open your mind to learning and adventure. If you have passion in what you do, it becomes less of work.

Innovation

Successful bloggers are always those with innovation. If you would take a closer look at those blogs with many followers, I bet you will find that each of them have a very unique and smarter way of communication. Trying to sound like blog A or copying the success of blog B might not be innovative enough to carry you along. Be innovative and build your blog in a unique way.

Creativity With Unique Contents

Many bloggers find it hard to come up with unique contents. Still successful bloggers always know how to do effective research, and put down their posts in a unique format and tone. They are creative enough not to be carried away by other’s successful blogging styles. They don’t discuss same topics like other bloggers. Even when they have 1 or 2 posts on popular topics, people will still rush to read theirs because of presentation and the use of those ‘magic’ successful blogging words.

Entrepreneur Quality

It is obvious that any body that doesn’t have entrepreneur quality can’t do business online. Hence successful bloggers are those with entrepreneur mindset; always finding and experimenting ways to be ahead of their competition. They try as much as they can to be in control and that is what you should be doing. One thing you should remember: “easy money” online is a myth! Working hard, as in any other business, is our reality.

Undivided Attention

Being focused with posts is a quality that many bloggers cannot boost of. Any post made by a successful blogger has a way of being focused and yet interesting. These categories of posts are carefully written, from the title to the body, taking care to keep the reader focused with captivating paragraphs, good syntax and communicative words.

Good Planning

You cannot do everything at once, neither blog about everything at the same time. Planning and reinforcing strict measures to following your plans is an attribute of successful bloggers. Procrastination will always come in, but once they have set a goal to achieve in their blogging business for a day, they do not go back on it.

Good Imaginative Ability

Ordinarily, successful bloggers have different thinking styles. Something that may sound weird or inappropriate can be beneficial but only visible to some few bloggers. Successful bloggers always believe that they can make something out of nothing. So they experiment with different factors and new products almost every time. Sometimes dare to write something controversial too. See how they react; try to interact. They ‘ll remember you for that.

Persistency

Creating and promoting your products/ideas can be a real daunting task: very difficult and stressful, especially when there are no initial results. One thing to always remember and commit to memory as a blogger is that there is no such thing as an overnight success. You must therefore be persistent to keep writing and posting for months with less or no audience. Really not an easy work, but it pays on the long run. If you are a beginner who wants to succeed online, I must tell you that you have to throw away your “instant gratification” expectations.

To wrap it up, every successful blogger out there has a unique style visible in the tone, formatting, blog presentation and so on. You are therefore required to work with the above list in building your blog community. Above all, be creative, informative and communicable. The results and the potential are fantastic.

Are there other qualities that it takes to make a successful blogger?

I invited Kimberly Castleberry over to co-host a show called Email Marketing for Blogging Newbies at Blog Talk Radio. I am really happy how the show turned out. Usually my shows atre about 15 minutes, but because there was a lot of info to cover, this show was 30 minutes!

It is well worth the listen as Kim gives a ton of info for newbies looking to start their own newsletter campaign. In fact, we did not get to cover everything in the 30 minute segment, so she and I will be putting together another show in the near future as a Part 2.

Some questions answered:

• Should all bloggers have a newsletter?
• How easy is it to start an email newsletter campaign/
• What are the benefits of email marketing for bloggers?

Kim covers a lot and I have to extend a big thanks to her as she knows a little more of the marketing end when it comes to newsletters and I am somewhat growing out of my newbie stages.

Feel free to leave comments, any questions, and such. Either Kim or myself will answer. I also encourage sending me ideas or questions to cover in my future shows.

Are you checking your guest blogger’s links in their posts? Do you care?

YOU SHOULD!

While every blog owner has their own policy on what is allowed and what is not allowed in guest posting, the links some guest bloggers are pimping out may not be something you will want to have on your site.

Why?

Well, it could be a number of reasons. Probably best to put out a few scenarios:

• Scenario 1: In the case your guest blogger is working for a company, the keyword they use directs to the business they are paid to write for. While the article may be well written – you are actually allowing them to advertise for free on your website. Say you have a similar business or affiliate market with a similar business, this is a conflict of interest.
• Scenario 2: You like to try to be laid back about your blog and your guest posting policy reflects that. You just skim over posts, maybe do a few edits, and then either publish it or schedule the post to publish. When it publishes, you find out from a reader that the link your guest blogger put in there leads to a suspicious website or even is an affiliate link.
• Scenario 3: You do not mind the link dropping, and you get a lot of guest posts. Your blog becomes one hot mess of link dropping spam instead of focused on quality content.

These are merely a couple scenarios. Some of the guest bloggers out there are genuine and are transparent about themselves. Others, they will concoct a whole story to make it seem they are genuine. It is unfortunate that I have had to come across such people and have turned away some or removed quite a few guest posts submitted for review. I am sure some of you have also had problems.

It is important to put a policy in place for guest post submissions or you could possibly be harming your blog’s reputation in the future.

Do you accept guest posts? What are your blog’s guest posting rules? Have you encountered guest bloggers that still submit articles after failing to adhere to your site’s guest writing rules?

For those who have been saying it would or even thinking 140 characters are the big kahuna fuel behind branding and business – please stop. Will social network sites kill blogging? This is almost like the time I heard someone spout that social networking was killing newspapers.

So, my answer to the question is:

NO.

I am being nice enough to at least make that ‘no’ in capital letters and bold instead of making it 800 pixels tall. Why in the world would anyone think so. Using Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and other sites are tools to bring in people to your sites. I could care less if WebProNews shared the New York Times post Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter. I really think whomever is editing titles in the RSS and newsletters at WebProNews needs to put the actual title instead of misleading people to think that the article is mainly about the possible death of blogging.

I do agree with Matt Mullenweg’s post Blogging Drift that these are mediums to convey what we want to say. And this can be done on a personal or business level.

I see it firsthand. As also a Twitter user and Facebook user, I am likely to see more chat or linkage flying around, than nitty gritty conversations. A lot of those filter into the blogs- thus goes in hand with my thoughts about social networking as a tool.

I have heard people say that they solely use Facebook and Twitter, but is it bringing in the big dollars for their own individual business? For those in web design, it might be possible to showcase your work on social networks, but what about having a central hub that is dedicated to solely honing in on the individual company or business where the bulk of the information given out on the Internet can be found.

When I look on the search engines, I am not seeing my articles I share on Facebook being put in the results – at least not yet. Twitter results- well, occasionally I see something, but more for user profiles. The problem is that it is sheer laziness to rely solely on social networking.

For example, say I never had this website or had a portfolio for designing – how could I go on any social network, give my followers a link to flickr of my work examples, link access to a fan page with hundreds of followers (who may have been obtained by buying them through some of the services available out there), and honestly attract more business.

People are more likely to raise a brow, wonder why you have not invested in your business to put your best foot forward, and just telling them about your services. It is hard to because that is not what it is about. There are a lot of people who forget what it actually means to engage in conversation with others to drive in interest. It means, stepping back from talking about yourself and showing interest in the other person.

People like it when you want to know about them or contribute to a conversation they find interesting and worthwhile to participate in.

Blogging has been around for some time, and whomever said it was dying- well… that is just bogus. After 5 years alone here at Blondish.net (since 2006), I believe I have enough information on the topic “blogging” to even write a novel! On top of that, I blogged for years before that on other sites. Blogging will be around for quite some time. The reflection in the growing community of WordPress (both .COM and self-hosted blogs) as well as the continued advancement of the CMS alone is an idea of this amazing growth.

So, do you think social network sites are killing blogs?

I am really starting to get the hang of using Blog Talk Radio. Being my 4th show, I wanted to cover somewhat of an intro to monetizing your blog. What I cover in this segment are things I am asked from clients and newbies in blogging about trying to make a little money. I also put out a few suggestions to check out.

Because I was concerned with making an occasional “um”, I consulted someone I knew in the news industry and an expert in communications. For those concerned about saying “um”, I learned that it is a natural way of speaking to denote thinking. It is not dumb to do it as everyone does it with speaking.

So… I did not feel bad when saying “um”. My show is not to be considered a formal type show. I hope to encourage some of you to ask me questions.

This particular show is called Monetizing Your Blog. If you like my Blondish.net Blog Talk Radio show and have a username there, please considering following me and sending me your questions or even possible prompts for future shows to cover.

I was asked by a client how to make their website so good it would make a million dollars. Aside from over 2,000 posts on his website (by the way- no you may not ask which site), there was next to nil on engagement. That many posts are admirable. Without even having the opportunity to actually get a look on his stats, I was more than willing to bet it was all from the search engines. Why? Well, he had nothing on Facebook or Twitter, not even a single tweet. So, of course, I shared with him some of my own advice I have learned over the years.

Here is the truth about blogging and making money.

You are not going to make a million dollars right away.
This takes time. Even Facebook took time to get popular and make their first million. You can do Adsense, Adbrite, BuySellAds, in-house banner advertising, text link ads, sponsored posts, or even affiliate marketing, but it all still takes time. How long? Who knows- but it depends greatly on how active you are about promoting your site.

You need to make realistic goals as your site grows and as you accomplish them, then you can go on to tackling bigger goals.
While it is great that you might want to make a lot of money, making big goals only sets your standards so high that if you fail, you might give up in a few tries.

You cannot have content and SEO methods alone. You need people to engage.
If you have hundreds, or thousands of posts, you may drive some traffic in from the search engines. However – will those people remain? Will they leave feedback on posts? Are you going to reply to what your readers comment?

In the case your site is new, blasting people with advertisements is not exactly a good way to keep visitors coming back.
Gradually introduce an advertisement program or two. Experiment in bi-monthly or monthly increments by moving your ads around to find the best spot.

Your web designer is not your right hand buddy to get you rich.
If you hired a person for web design or development, their focus is to design your blog and give you a branded website that you can be proud of, and people can connect with. If you are going to expect them to market for you, you need to pay them for those services if they do offer them.

You need to engage with people.
I mentioned it earlier, but I am focusing this point on engaging people. Get out there on the social network sites- Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, forums, and more. Find people who are interested in what you like to talk about and are actively talking about it. The dynamic of social networking is a way to eventually pave the way for others to visit your site. While you might not jump in right away and tell people to come visit, but you can certainly at least take 10 or 15 minutes in a day to try to reach out. You never know, you might find great topics to write about from just engaging with others. (I know I do!)

Make sure you are prepared to run a blog first before focusing on the money factor.
It is one thing to have a blog, but another to regularly update it and find the passion within to share your thoughts with others. If you are blogging, you are trying to reach people – not make money. Some of the best bloggers did not have advertisements on their site for some time. Why? Because they networked and built good relationships with others. They guest posted, did giveaways, or even gave free stuff for subscribers of their newsletters.

When you want to blog, be prepared to invest at least the time because in the end- even making money for blogging, especially good money, takes a lot of effort, engaging, and above all, time.