This column is written by Kimberly Turner from Regator (a great tool that gathers and organizes the world’s best blog posts). – Darren
Once again, we’re taking a look at the stories bloggers have been writing about the most during the last seven days (list provided by Regator). This week, we’ll be using posts about those hot stories to look at one of the toughest forms of writing: humour. It’s difficult because senses of humour vary so much. What you find hilarious, might barely elicit a smirk from me or vice versa. Plus, there’s the added challenge of determining when it’s appropriate to take the amusing route and when a serious approach is best. It’s a challenge, but adding a bit of LOL keeps readers engaged and, in many cases, encourages more sharing. Fortunately, despite the challenges, there are a few tried and true tips to upping the funny factor on your blog. Let’s see how some bloggers have covered this week’s hot topics with humor…
1. Christine O’Donnell
Example: Huffington Post’s “The War on Lust Must Be Won”
Tip: They say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but sometimes they are wrong. Sarcasm can be an effective form of humour, as shown in this example. It can often come across as sour grapes, so proceed with caution.
2. Lady Gaga
Example: Cracked.com’s “Why It’s Time to Stop Paying Attention to Lady Gaga”
Tip: Sarcasm—humour at someone else’s expense—can be funny, but adding a touch of self-deprecating humour can make it doubly so. In this example, the author writes, “I showed up to the office with shoes that didn’t match. For 11 straight days. One of them was a flip flop and the other was a woman’s hat. I know nothing about fashion, is my point, which is why I’m uniquely qualified to talk about Lady Gaga’s wardrobe choices, because she doesn’t either.” By making fun of yourself, you seem less bitter and judgmental and more…well, funny.
3. American Idol
Example: ROFL Razzi’s “ROFLash: Steven Tyler is Probs the New ‘American Idol’ Judge”
Tip: Some words are intrinsically funny. “Moolah,” used here is a funnier word than “money.” Onomatopoeic amusing words, like “splat” are often amusing. Other words are funnier than their counterparts for reasons that aren’t immediately apparent (but you’ll know them when you see them). For example, what’s funnier, “underpants” or “underwear”? “Spooks” or “phantoms”? “Canoodling” or “hugging”? There’s a theory that words that start with plosive consonants such as b, p, t, d, or k are intrinsically funnier. I’m not convinced this has been confirmed by science, but it seems plausible. Either way, use the funniest words you can find.
4. Pope Benedict XVI
Example: Friendly Atheist’s “Dear Benny…”
Tip: The inappropriate can be hilarious. There’s a reason stand-up comics often write jokes about things that make people a bit uncomfortable, such as the Catholic sexual abuse cases. If you’re not inclined to be overly politically correct, approaching an inappropriate or sensitive topic with a healthy dose of humour can be very effective, as shown in this musical example.
6. Katy Perry
Example: Ministry of Gossip’s “In the Katy Perry ‘Sesame Street’ scandal, is Elmo the real villain?”
Tip: The unexpected is funny. While everyone else was analyzing Katy Perry’s culpability in the scandalous Katy/Elmo video, this example focused on Elmo. “That Elmo character was totally naked.” Outrageous! … And hilarious.
I was just finishing up a new post on PSD to HTML on SixFigureAffiliateBlogging.com, and wanted to liven the post up with some screenshots of each of the sites mentioned in the post. I would usually take a screenshot of a web site using the “Screengrab!” plugin for FireFox, then bring the image into my image editing software to resize. Before doing this, I decided to check out the alternatives and see what the web has to offer.
Here are a few image editing and screenshot resources you may find helpful.
Screengrab – If you are using FireFox, download this plugin and you will have a little button that allows you to capture, copy or save the full view, or a portion of the web site you are currently at. One of the best plugins around, and free!
ShrinkTheWeb – For a web based alternative, ShrinkTheWeb is a top site in the screenshot / thumbnail space. They have a paid version, but the basic six screenshot sizes they give you off their site should be good enough.
SnagIt – It’s always great to capture web sites, but what if you want to capture something else on your computer and the “Print Screen” feature isn’t working. A paid software alternative is “SnagIt”. I have this software on my computer and it’s pretty solid. If you do a lot of screenshots and image editing, it’s worth checking out. My SnagIt Review Post
Skitch – Simply one of my favorite screen capture and image editing programs around. It’s only for the Mac, but it’s amazing. The sizing and text/arrows options are just perfect and the ability to automatically upload images to private Skitch members pages is a huge bonus. This would be a product I would pay for if it wasn’t free. (Must have for Mac users!) My Skitch Review Post
Easily Change Your Image File Sizes
How many times have you had an image and wanted to upload it for your profile picture on a member or social network, then was told it was too big size? Not actual size, but memory size. This happens quite often, and the average internet user would probably just end up selecting a new picture. Instead you can visit any of the sites below and upload your image, then they will automatically crunch it down in size for you. I first came across these web site many years ago, and they are still useful today.
These sites are extremely simple, fast and don’t require any personal information or software to download.
For any image maniacs, be sure to check out HongKait’s great post on 40 different screen capture tools for both Mac and PC. Feel free to post any useful image editing software and sites you like to use.
Here we go again. Another week, another “revolution”, another “rebel” stirrs things up.
To paraphrase a line from a movie …
“He’s not a rebel, he is a very naughty boy.”
Ideas should be free, says the latest link-bait, attack-post, call-to-arms, etc. Whatever.
It seems even in 2010 there are still people out there who think that bloggers should not profit from their content. Somehow they have come to the conclusion that even advertisements and affiliate links are unethical. We are, they think, bound to some “journalistic” standard.
Bull hockey.
Ethics in Blogging
The people who last are people who share the good stuff. They have their audience foremost in their minds.
Unethical is when you implant spyware onto a users computer, or use high pressure sales tactics to sell crap. Telling people about something you genuinely believe in and might be a great solution then allowing the reader to make up their own mind is just, well, helpful.
It’s a fair exchange.
We give lots of stuff away, and nobody has to read it. People have won contracts from using my free content, they tell me this all the time. No, I don’t ask for a percentage
Bloggers as Journalists
I am not a journalist and have never wanted to be. While I have nothing against journalists, and in fact have a great deal of respect for people who persue the standards and ideals of a true journalist, that is not something I have any interest in following myself. It’s not for me.
You can tell that the life of a journalist is not for me by the way I mangle the English language each week on this site. Sometimes I get through an entire post without a typo or grammar error, but not often.
I wouldn’t call myself a “reporter” either, which is a name Chris Brogan has used (in addition to “typist”) because I very rarely talk about the news or stuff that has happened, I don’t feel I “report”.
Why We Blog
You might want to spread ideas, talk to family, record your thoughts, win business, or you might want to make money directly. There is no right or wrong way so long as you are doing it for the best of intentions, whatever motivates you is all good.
It could be you do not set out to make money but have ads and affiliate links in order to support your hobby. Nothing wrong with that either. Monetization is not a dirty word (an ugly word, but not a dirty one). Someone paying for the content somehow helps keep content free for the reader.
Why hold new media to a higher standard than any other media? If Simon Cowell holds up a Coke branded cup on American Idol that certainly isn’t going to be the thing that makes me switch channels, and I am not going to write to my member of parliment about it.
My blogging is about giving people tips, ideas, stories that either make you think, understand something in a new way, or know how to do something useful. That’s not leadership, it’s just trying to be of value. Can’t recall ever describing myself as a thought-leader, even in jest.
My Awesome Business Model
You could describe me as a blogger, perhaps a Pro Blogger, even though my writing is not all that professional. Or a writer. Maybe. I have, after all, got my name in print a few times (somehow).
It took me a while to agree with Liz Strauss when she called me a teacher and I do struggle with labels, but if anything I am a teacher. My goal with clients is often to put myself out of work. Instead of doing the commodity implementation I teach them how to do stuff internally so they don’t need external contractors for every little thing.
As a business I train people and I am a marketing consultant. It says that right on this page. My site is subtitled “The business of blogging and new media” after all.
With that in mind you should not be surprised that my goal is not entirely altruistic. I co-authored a book about writing for money. It kind of means I picked a side in this debate.
I create what I hope is valuable in order to fairly earn from this value. If I do enough of a good job then you might consider buying either one of my own products or services, or one of the products I support and recommend and get a commission for. Or maybe you will tell someone else about my awesomeness.
If you don’t want to that’s fine too. People seem to imply that a blogger writing with the intention of earning an income is somehow unethical and not trustworthy. This seems odd to me. Does the fact that Seth Godin sells books discount his ideas? Uh, heck no.
Could my business continue without this blog? Sure. But I don’t want to.
I’m not going to give up a great marketing channel that is fun to work on because some other blogger has hallucinated what is the right way to do it. I will keep this blog going as long as enough people find it useful and a few people each month are willing to shell out dollars for extra stuff. If things continue positively I will be able to continue paying my mortgage (and now in addition to my mortgage, my rent!) and put food on the table. Glamourous stuff like that.
My business is sustained by me finding people with a challenge I can help with, and demonstrating my expertise and knowledge, to the point where people are willing to trust me to take the next step. I call it Authority Blogging but it happens just as much offline as it does on. The tactics change but the strategy remains.
It’s a nice business and it works. Customers are happy and I am happy. Why change?
Bottom Line
It’s actually a good thing when people disagree, it helps us clarify our own thoughts. If they don’t like you and unsubscribe they are doing you a favour because you won’t waste any time on them in future.
Unfortunately we do give the bad unfluences energy and attention because they are talented at getting noticed. The people telling you “You’re doing it wrong” the loudest don’t have your interests at heart. By feeding the trolls and linking to them we just give them more juice to distract people from what is really important.
Remember what you are doing this for. What is more important? Some angry stranger off the internets or persuing your goals while giving people genuinely valuable content? Thought so.
Keep doing what works, makes you happy, and helps people. Ignore the critics.
There’s a simple truth to life that every human being will make mistakes. Since every blogger is human, at least the ones that aren’t spambots, then every blogger will screw up inevitably.
With blogging, as with life, there are very few guarantees but there are a few mistakes that virtually every blogger, at least if they keep blogging long enough to make them. Here’s just a small sample of those mistakes with 5 blunders you can probably look forward to.
1. You Will Screw up Spelling, Grammar Etc.
If you type enough words, you are going to get a few things wrong. It doesn’t matter how good your grasp on your chosen language is, how careful your editing process is or how many eyes you have reviewing your posts, you will make typos and other spelling/grammar errors.
Fortunately, most of these blunders are very minor and can simply be corrected. People tend to forgive these errors quickly because they aren’t important and, quite literally, happen to everyone.
The key here is to just not make too many and you’ll probably find that your audience is forgiving. Still, that’s no reason to get sloppy.
2. You Will Bork Your Theme
At some point you’ll go into your theme, make a change, no matter how minor, and completely screw it up. You’ll get your structure wrong, add to many of a certain kind of tag, leave out space or forget a bracket and your site will be completely ruined because of it, at least until you fix it.
These mistakes are very similar to grammar errors but with code. We all make them and we all pay for them. The key is to repair them quickly and get the corrected version up as fast as possible. It also pays to make and keep backups before doing ANY changes to your site.
Open Mouth, insert foot. We’ve all done it and you will do it with your site too. Eventually you’ll write something that, in your head makes sense but when put out on the Web is either taken a completely different way or is simply flat-out wrong.
No matter the cause of this, you should be prepared for it and take appropriate action. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to this as every case is different but generally speaking the best approach is to be honest, apologize, correct the error and move on.
If you can do that, it’s usually pretty easy to put this kind of mistake behind you.
4. You Will Get Heated
A big part of blogging is dealing with people and whether it is via email, via comments or something in between, you will, almost certainly, respond incorrectly at least once.
Though we all know not to feed the trolls or start flame wars, inevitably someone says something that gets under our skin or we make the mistake or we let a civil discussion go too far. That creates a hostile situation that we have to deal with.
The best way usually is to disarm the argument by apologizing if necessary, seeking common ground and then highlighting differences in a more positive light. If you can’t end a flame war through being the bigger person, it’s usually better to just walk away.
5. You Will Anger Your Audience
At some point something you do will upset your readers, or at least a large number of them. Whether it is a change in direction for your blog, a new theme or even just a new logo, you’ll find yourself taking heat from a large number of your very loyal readers.
Strangely, it doesn’t matter how much warning you give about the change, how many people you ask beforehand or how many polls you take, many will stay silent until the changes go live. That’s not to say you shouldn’t take those steps, they can greatly mitigate any conflict and any warning is better than a surprise, but they don’t ensure a smooth transition either.
Here, you need to make sure that what you did was actually a mistake before backtracking. In many cases, some user heartburn is a worthwhile trade off for a clearly better site. That being said, if it is a mistake and you have a full user revolt, you need to figure out quickly if the mistake was the change or the way things were.
Either way, you need to engage your audience, listen to their concerns and make changes as appropriate. It will help you greatly soothe the heated debate.
Bottom Line
If you blog long enough and grow to be of any size, you’re going to make some mistakes, including these. Though you should work to keep such mistakes to a minimum, you also need to be prepared for them and be able to respond quickly.
If you can do that, you’ll likely find that your goofs aren’t that big of a deal and that most of the focus stays on what you got right, not the few things you got wrong.
I believe we all need to deal with procrastination sooner or later. Bloggers and webmasters are especially vulnerable to this problem, because we work alone, usually from a home office, and the possibilities to do something else other than work are both plenty and tempting.
Why write that long blog post now if you can go play the Xbox 360 instead? What about going out for a bike ride, taking some pictures with the digital camera, or simply sitting in the sofa to watch that movie you rented? You get the idea.
If you have been struggling with similar stuff lately, here is a trick I started using that is working like a charm. In order to stop procrastinating and get back to work I remind myself of what is important to me, of the things I want to achieve, of the lifestyle I want to have and so on. Then I realize that playing the Xbox 360 or sitting in the sofa watching a movie will not get me any closer to these things.
Suppose your website is currently making $100 monthly, and you are working on it to see if you can reach an income level of $1,000 monthly, because that will allow you to buy that new car you have been dreaming about.
The next time you find yourself going to play a game instead of working on your website simply stop and think: “What is more important to me, the quick fun I’ll get from this game or buying my dream car? For sure the car, so let me roll-up my sleeves and get busy on something that will help me achieve that.”
There is a line from a movie I watched a long time ago that illustrates the concept. One of the kids in the movie was reluctant to do his homework, so his father told him: “We do what we have to do in order to do what we want to do.”
This guest post was written by Daniel, who started working on the Internet back in 2005. His latest project, HowToMakeAWebsite.net, is a step-by-step tutorial for those who want to make their first websites.
That’s one helluva question, isn’t it? As someone who blogs to support a thriving business, I think about that question every day.
There are a lot of answers, many of which involve sexy topics like traffic, subscribers, and getting one zillion followers on Twitter.
But when’s the last time you sat down and answered the question above with:
“I should be paying more attention to blogging ethics.”
Not so sexy.
But as bloggers, we have to face facts about the world we live in. It feels like an anonymous platform where we can do and say whatever we want. But 2010 has a lot in common with 1984, and Big Brother comes in some forms that George Orwell never dreamed of.
You need to be aware of one very important fact that many seem to forget:
You can’t unGoogle anything
When you launch your words into the blogosphere and social media universe, you’re laying a digital footprint in concrete. That concrete is the Internet Elephant, and it never forgets.
Old versions of your site are cached. Facebook privacy blunders have ugly real-world consequences. And the Library of Congress is even planning on archiving our tweets. It feels like you can’t be held accountable for your rash words, but you can.
Here are some tips on blogging ethics that will help keep your reputation clean. Especially if you’re going to make blogging a part of your business, you need to protect your interests.
Your comments policy
The bottom line is, it’s your blog and you have ultimate control over what gets posted in your comments section and what doesn’t make the cut.
Please realize that whatever policy you decide on, not everyone is going to agree with you. I personally have a “post all comments” policy, except in instances of spam or blatant self-promoting garbage that adds nothing to the conversation. I also hold all comments that include links from first-time commenters for moderation (legitimate commenters are then white-listed).
Some blogs allow trash talk, some don’t. Some allow profanity, some don’t. Every blogger needs to figure out what to do with the trolls. It’s your blog and your call.
It’s always smart to make your comments policy clear. My developer is working right now on coding my site so my comments policy shows up in a cool style below each post.
If you become known for deleting comments just because the reader isn’t a fawning yes-man, your credibility and authority will suffer. On the other hand, letting the trolls run free or allowing spam to trash up your comments won’t do your reputation any favors either.
Proper accreditation
If you use photos in your blog posts, use legitimate sources for images. (Assuming, of course, you’re not using your own images or photos.)
Photos purchased from stock photo houses usually don’t require photo credit, although a few do. On the other hand, images you get under a Creative Commons license do have various requirements, usually at minimum a credit to the image owner.
This should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: Don’t steal other people’s images or words and put them on your blog. That content doesn’t belong to you. It’s unethical and scummy.
When you love a blog post so much that you want to send it to your readers, it is not okay to copy the post and paste it into your own blog or newsletter (even with accreditation) unless you get permission from the blogger.
A better way to show your adoration is to select a handful of quotes (I prefer to stick with no more than 50-100 words) from the post and then provide a link back to the original post, with credit to the author.
Understanding libel
Ohhhhh — legalese! (The recovering attorney in Brian Clark will love this one.)
Some bloggers make a hobby of calling people out for what they consider to be inappropriate practices, stupid decisions, or the like. Other bloggers are just plain malicious.
If you’re going to go down this road, get your ducks in a row first. Read up on what constitutes libel. You owe it to yourself. What you might consider “free speech” could get you into trouble, as the line between opinion and malicious intent can be a very fine one.
Make sure you have a liability insurance policy in place (this is a must). If you’re a member of The Author’s Guild, they offer Media Liability Insurance. You can also contact your insurance agent for a general business policy, but make sure it also covers libel and slander.
You are not invisible
Some people imagine that the internet lets them don a Cloak of Invisibility that bestows permission to do whatever the hell they want.
It’s simply not true. You are responsible for your words on the web (and in life) no matter where you leave them or how anonymous you think you’re being.
I don’t accept anonymous comments on my blog (including commenters who give fake email addresses) and here’s why: it shows me you’re not willing to be held accountable for your words.
If you’re running a blog, there are some pretty cool tools you can use to verify identity or lend at least some level of “real world” status to a commenter you might hold in question.
Email address verification tools: Did you know you can check any email address to see if it’s valid? Yep. And it’s free and easy. I use this one on a regular basis, but a simple web search for “verify email address” can point you towards others.
IP address verification: Most comment systems (Disqus, InstenseDebate, and WordPress’s built-in system) display the IP address of every commenter to the moderator. I use WhoIs to verify IP addresses (I had to do this just last week for an unfortunate situation). If you continuously receive spam comments or inappropriate comments from a particular commenter, you can block an entire IP address from your blog. If you need help with this, just ping your comments system or hit up the WordPress Codex for tips on combating spam and unwanted comments. Disqus and IntenseDebate have built-in blacklist features.
The best thing I can do here is to put just a bit of healthy fear into you.
You’re not invincible, you’re not invisible, and you have a responsibility to both yourself and your audience.
While you might have been looking for a more entertaining post on ethics (given my propensity for, ahem, colorful language), putting your thoughts out there on the web is serious stuff.
As I said, nothing can be unGoogled. It’s not like a late-night TP-ing of your least favorite junior high school science teacher’s house. Drive-bys don’t work online.
Strong ethical guidelines can keep your brand and keep your blog shop clean. If there are other best practices I’ve missed, lob them into the comments section below. While we don’t want to go all George Orwell, you have to remember that 1984 still applies in 2010 … and beyond (and it’s not such a bad thing).
Do you think that a bad economy can’t make just about anybody consider anything for a buck? Well, new research shows that the pristine and highly moral world of the bloggers are more for sale than ever before. Of course, I am being just a bit facetious because basically at heart the blogging world is pure and strictly here for the greater good. Rats! There I go again. Maybe there needs to be some research to settle this issue?
Fortunately, eMarketer and IZEA has done that and it appears as if the idea of “earned media” sounds much better as theory rather than reality. Are you really surprised?
Social media advertising company IZEA surveyed Twitter users, blog writers and other social media publishers about their openness to sponsorship of their social content. More than half said they had already monetized their activities, and almost a third more wanted to. Overall, 71.3% had been offered some kind of incentive, like cash, free products or coupons, for a blog post or tweet promoting a brand.
Asked about the idea of being paid for content, it sounded good for about 89% of the bloggers surveyed. Apparently, the economy has taken its toll on accepted payment methods because social media content generators are not so much interested in barters or coupons, they want to be paid the old fashioned way: cash. (I personally like gold bars but I am different for sure).
The most startling part of this research is as follows
In December 2009, the US Federal Trade Commission released new guidelines designed to protect readers of social media content from undisclosed sponsorships, but according to the IZEA survey more than a third of PR, social media and marketing professionals have not heard of the rules at all. Only 29.9% said they had read and understood them.
So what happened to the idealism of the world of social media? It went the way of just about every ideal that makes everyone sound so great when talking about it. Where is that? It ran headlong into reality where people have to make a living.
So how do you feel about the apparent blogger for hire social media world we really exist in? Is it OK or is it ‘not the way it is supposed to be’?
A guest post by Naomi Dunford from IttyBiz who emailed last week to remind me (Darren) that today is ProBlogger’s 6th Birthday and asked if she could write a birthday post. Here it is!.
I’ve sat where you sit.
I’ve devoured the articles and the blog posts and the link roundups. I’ve agonized over whether I could afford that video camera or that conference or that membership program. I’ve felt like a fool for even hoping this blogging thing could ever work.
I’ve sat right there and I know how scary it is.
Maybe I should introduce myself. My name is Naomi Dunford, and I was just like you.
I was desperate, scared and pregnant. My doctor had put me on bed-rest. I had to leave work because I was fainting all the time. Even before he was born, we knew our baby boy would have health problems.
We had intermittent web access because I could only intermittently afford to pay the bill. My husband was making very little money in a job working nights and it was going nowhere. Things did not look good.
Then I found Problogger.
I read all the archives. (All the archives.) Read some Copyblogger. Read some Chris Brogan. Slept. Drank a lot of tea. Had some panic attacks and spent a lot of time thinking about how cool it would be to be a problogger one day.
You’re waiting for the bit where I say it got better, right? Where I say I dove right in and created a blog and hustled my way to fame and fortune? Sadly, no.
I did nothing. Nothing. For a year.
I had my son. Went back to my job. Left work in the middle of my shift on my fourth day back. Went down to one (sub-poverty line) income. Flirted with the idea of starting a business. Got one half-hearted client. Put our son to bed by myself. Ate a lot of rice.
But I kept reading Problogger.
One day, Darren mentioned he needed businesses to sponsor his third birthday giveaway. Sitting there, nursing my son in the middle of the night, I had a crazy idea. I could be a sponsor. I had no idea what I was going to give, but the deadline of Problogger’s birthday was enough to get me going and get my blog launched.
I decided to give some marketing coaching. I had to fill out a form to say who I was and what I was offering, and I wrote that IttyBiz was the “offshoot blog of IttyBitty Marketing”. IttyBitty Marketing? Please. We’d had the sum total of one client and to this day, they haven’t paid me. But I had to put something in there. I sent it off, and then all I could do was wait.
I launched the blog. I wanted to email the people who commented to enter the contest and invite them to IttyBiz, but I didn’t have their email addresses. (I ended up clicking on all their links and personally emailing them via their contact pages, a process that took two full days. We worked straight through the night.) I did the same with the other sponsors.
I got some readers. Not a lot, but some. I got a little bit of traffic. A few other bloggers said some nice things about what I wrote. My goal was to get a thousand subscribers before Christmas. I didn’t make it.
But I kept reading Problogger.
Let’s flash forward three years.
My blog now employs six people. We have over 20,000 readers. We’ve helped more than 1000 people quit their job. As an affiliate, we sold enough copies of Teaching Sells to fund a school in Cambodia.
My husband quit his job. We’re unschooling our son. We moved to England for a while. We bought a little house. We finally got a car. We went to Cuba and Ireland and SXSW and Blogworld a few times. I threw a party in Austin and Darren came.
And we’re home. My husband kisses my little boy goodnight seven days a week.
But here’s the really crazy part.
Nothing special happened.
I didn’t just happen to get a column in the New York Times. Nobody invited me to be on Oprah. I didn’t conveniently score a book deal. Despite my repeated attempts, I’m still not married to Brian Clark. I didn’t do anything special. The gods did not smile on me.
I just kept reading Problogger.
The point of all of this?
Please don’t give up. I know it’s terrifying. I know you are under indescribable pressure to do something serious with your life and grow up and forget your crazy blogging dreams. I know that some days, this is the hardest thing you’ve ever done.
I know your family thinks you’re crazy. I know you feel completely alone. I know you feel like it’s never, ever going to work.
But what you’re reading here? It works. I promise. Please don’t lose heart.
Happy birthday, Problogger. And thank you, Darren. I am blessed to have you as my mentor and honoured to have you as my friend.
6 years ago today I imported a series of posts that I’d written about blogging on my previous blog over to the ProBlogger.net domain – ProBlogger was born. I look back on that time and while I was almost making a full time living from blogging there was so much about the medium that I didn’t yet know. I still feel I have a lot to learn but thought I’d take a few minutes out today to reflect on some of the lessons I’ve learned about blogging.
I’ve identified 5 things that I’d concentrate (I only started this video with 3 but by the end had 5) on if I were starting out again today. They all begin with ‘C’.
Thanks to everyone for making ProBlogger what it is today – 6 years on from that first day!
Transcription of – The Five C’s of Blogging: Reflections on 8 Years of Blogging
I’ve had this video transcribed below for those who prefer to get it that way. The transcription provided by The Transcription People.
Today as you, as this video goes up on ProBlogger, it’s the six year birthday of ProBlogger. Naomi Dunford emailed me last week to remind me of the birthday. I think she started blogging on my third birthday, so she remembers it every year. She reminded me of it and offered to put a guest post up on that day, a birthday post which will go up later today.
I wanted to take a few moments out today to reflect upon the six years of ProBlogger and the almost eight years that I’ve been blogging. I started in 2002, and I wanted to reflect on some of the lessons that I’ve learned and particularly how I’d go about it if I was starting out again today.
Whilst what I’m going to share today isn’t really rocket science, I think it’s good to be reminded of these things, whether we’re new bloggers or older bloggers because whilst we often know this stuff, we don’t actually always do it – and I find myself in that category as well.
If I was to start out again today, there’d be three or four different things that I would be focusing upon.
1. Content
The first one is content. Now, that’s a bit of a no-brainer in many ways. Of course you’d be focusing upon content as a blogger, a blogs not a blog really without some kind of content whether that be video or text or audio or images.
But really, your blog’s success hangs upon what you put up on to it.
As I’ve said many times on ProBloggers over the years, if it’s not enhancing someone’s life in some way, the chances are, they’re not going to come back again. That enhancement of their lives, solving problems, meeting needs in some way could be a big thing. It could be helping them to be a better Dad or a Mum, or helping them to learn something that will help their career.
It could be big things like that, or it could be small things. Giving them a chuckle, giving them a laugh. Helping them to know that they’re not the only person with a problem. Giving them a sense of community, a place for them to connect with other people. These are problems that you can be solving with your content. Your content needs to be useful in some way. And really I guess a lot of what I would be doing if I was starting out again today, is identifying the problems that people have, needs that they have and trying to work out how I can develop content that is meeting those needs on a daily basis. Just putting content on a blog that doesn’t really mean anything, that doesn’t actually help someone in some way, it’s kind of empty, and as a result, most blogs that do that don’t really reach the heights that they could.
2. Community
The second thing that I’d be putting a lot of time into and I guess I did this particularly in the early days of my first blogs was community.
Helping people who come across your blog to feel like they’re being noticed, feel like they’re being heard, and giving them opportunities to meet other readers of your blog. It’s just such a vitally important thing.
People don’t go online just to consume content any more. They’re actually going online to belong and we’re seeing this with the rise of Facebook and Twitter and social media. The popularity for many years now of forums and chat, and all this web stuff that we’re seeing, it’s all about community, it’s all about belonging.
This is what attracted me to blogs in the first place, is that one, they would give me a voice, but two, they would enable me to connect with real people who shared my passions and interests in life. And yeah, so I guess, starting out again today and even tomorrow as I continue with my blogging, community is something that really I think needs to be a priority for us.
Taking notice of your readers, valuing your readers opinion, including that in some way. Valuing that in a public way on your blog is really important.
3. Connection
The third thing I guess I’d focus on, and this is something I didn’t really focus on that much for the first few years on my own blogging, was, is, I call it, to keep the “C” theme running, the content community, I call it connection, and giving people connecting points for you.
It’s perhaps not the best word for it, but if we want to keep the “C’s” rolling, then that’s what we’ll go with. Really it’s about capturing people’s email addresses, a place where you can continue to have that connection with them, it’s about getting them to subscribe to your blog in some way, it’s about connecting with them on Twitter or Facebook, wherever it might be that’s relevant for your niche.
This is so important. I look back on those early days on my first blogs where I didn’t focus on this, and I think of all the tens and hundreds of thousands of readers that came through my blogs that I didn’t actually offer them a way of an ongoing relationship.
For many years, I was just satisfied that people were reading it, and that’s a great thing, but what if I could get those people back again? Those hundreds of thousands of people who kind of just slipped through my fingers over the years and that didn’t connect in some deeper way. Now many of them did, they went out of their way to find ways of connecting with me, and I’m grateful for that.
It was only in the last few years that I began to offer people newsletters or connection points on Twitter and Facebook and that type of thing. So, whatever it might be for your niche that’s a relevant way of communicating with them and connecting with them, go out of your way to find ways of connecting with them. Don’t rely on other people going out of their way to connect with you.
4. Cash
The fourth thing I’d say is, again, keeping with the “C” word is cash, is money, is it monetising. Now this isn’t a goal for every blogger, but for me, as someone after a year or two decided that I wanted this to be my way of making a living, I began to have to think of ways about monetising my blogs and really, it’s about sustainability.
If you’re able to sustain your blogging in some other way and don’t need to make money out of it, then that’s fine. But for many of us, we want our blogs to at least break even, we want to be able to pay for the costs of the blog. We want to be able to, you know, pay for a nice new design or the hosting and that type of thing. And for many of us we actually want to make a living out of that as well.
In this regard I’d say, experiment with different ways of monetising your blogs. Many of us start out with AdSense or an ad network or Amazon’s affiliate program, and these are great starting points, but don’t just be satisfied with, you know, doing it in one way. Actually be constantly on the lookout for new ways of monetising, and be on the lookout for ways that you can directly monetise, and you don’t have to rely necessarily upon an ad network, or some other third party to help you monetise your blog.
Be thinking all along of, ‘could I write an eBook? Could I run a course? Could I have a membership site? Could I sell myself as a Consultant? Could I write a book?’ These types of things that you can more directly monetise your site also.
5. Contribute
And I guess the last thing I’d say, and it’s not really a “C” thing at all, and it really comes down, it really incorporates all these different things is, actually do something that’s worthwhile. I come across bloggers from time to time who create blogs that kind of are, they’re just about making money and they’re not actually about contributing anything to the world that we live in. And whilst I kind of understand that on some levels, you know, we all need to make a living, I kind of went through a phase where I did that myself. I had blogs that were just creating noise, and, in the hope of, you know, getting a few readers from search engines and making a few dollars on the side. And I actually found that to be a really empty process.
Creating blogs that are just sort of spammy, adding random content on to the web may actually make you a few dollars, but make it your ultimate goal to contribute.
If we’re going to use a “C” word, perhaps it’s contribute. Do something that makes a difference in this world.
It strikes me increasingly as I do my own blogging that people are coming to read my stuff every day and I’m helping through my content, but perhaps there are ways I can contribute and make the world a better place as I’m also doing that in different ways. I, early next year I’m going to Tanzania with a charity to actually look at one of their projects and to capture the story of that in video and image and to share it on my blogs. And whilst that’s not really on topic in some ways, I kind of feel like as bloggers we have a responsibility to use the voices that we’ve been given and to use the profile that we have and the credibility that perhaps we have and to actually use it for good in some ways. And I think that’s a responsibility for us as bloggers, and I’d love to see us as bloggers really take this more seriously. And for me that’s something that I want to do over the next few years in particular.
So, there are my five “C’s”, content, community, connection, points of connection, cash and contributing something of value to the world and the blogosphere. They’re some of the, I guess, the lessons that I’ve learned. The things that I am wanting to inspire, re-inspire myself to continue to build on as I go forward in to the next six or so years of ProBlogger. And I’d love to hear some of your feedback in comments below.
Hope this has been of some value to you as you continue your own blogging.
Bear with me on this one. I was helping my good friend move yesterday and in the tedium of moving box after box of their stuff into “the room” made my mind wander. While it was wandering I hit upon guest blogging as akin to helping a friend move. Let me illustrate.
It is not your house
No matter what you think of the house, remember that it is not your house. You do not have to live there but you do have to be a good guest. So, as you are helping a friend move you carry their boxes into the house, put them where they want them to go and just be helpful. Being a helpful friend during a move comes back to you in the end because eventually you are going to have to move too.
So, you might not like the look of the blog you are guest posting for and you probably would do things differently if it was your blog. But it is not your blog and you are there to help move the boxes and put them in the right place. Do a great job guest posting and when it comes back around your friend will give you a great guest post on your blog.
Everyone has weird stuff
When you are moving a friend’s stuff you might see things that you wonder why they would even have. A stuffed alligator head, toothpick collection, or rubber band balls, it doesn’t matter because it means something to your friend. Just move it in for them so they can enjoy it.
When you post a guest post the formatting of the blog you are guesting on might be completely different than your own and it might feel weird to you. Things that you think are a given might not be like formatting of lists where the spacing might be different than you expect or there might be a border automatically added to an image and you wonder why things are done that way. You have to remember my first point about, It is not your house.
So, be a good friend, write a great guest post, don’t disturb the house, don’t stand around grab a box and get going. If you do that when you help out your friends and it will come back around to help you in the end.
“I’m having trouble deciding what topic to blog about.”
This was a statement I heard three times at the ProBlogger meet up in Brisbane a couple of weeks ago and is a problem that many PreBloggers face.
I’ve written numerous times about how to choose a niche or topic to write about but it struck me while talking to the Brisbane folk asking the question that the biggest factor in helping me to narrow in on my own niches was having a personal blog.
When I started blogging in 2002 I had no intention of doing it professionally. Instead I, like almost every other blogger at the time, started a blog (pictured below – no longer active) which was quite personal in nature. In many ways it was an extension of my brain and was simply a place to talk publicly about what I was thinking about, learning and experiencing in life.
As a result I wrote about many topics including spirituality, culture, photography, starting a church, movies, holidays, family, emerging forms of media and blogging.
It was a bizarre mix of topics and I know that some of my readers struggled to make sense of my somewhat eclectic interests – but as I look at the three blogs that I currently operate today I see the roots of them all in that first personal blog.
I blogged on that first blog for a year and a half before starting any other blogs and before I even began to think about making money from this medium but while that particular blog didn’t make much money (I played a little with AdSense on it but it never really worked) it was probably my most important blog in shaping what I now do.
Why was that personal blog such an important place for me?
A few thoughts come to mind as I look at how important that first personal blog was.
1. A personal blog can be a testing bed for ideas and niches
In many ways that first blog became a testing bed and launch pad for new blogs. ProBlogger is a great example of this. After a couple of years of blogging I began to start other blogs and experiment with making money from blogging. As I did so I also began to journal some of the lessons I was learning about blogging on my personal blog. I started a blog tips category and got to a point where I had 50 or so posts in it.
These posts were quite popular and in time I realised that my blog tips were resonating with and helping more and more people – to the point where they perhaps justified starting a blog on that topic. This led me to registered ProBlogger.net and start this very blog.
The great thing about launching ProBlogger this way was that I’d already worked out that there was an audience for the topic, I already knew that I enjoyed writing about the topic and I already had 50 or so posts that I could transfer over to the new domain.
In many ways when I started ProBlogger I was able to leapfrog over some of those startup headaches that many bloggers face because I’d already tested the idea on my personal blog.
2. A personal blog gives you a place to find your voice
Over the years I blogged on my first blog I experimented with many ways of blogging. Not only did I chop and change that topics I covered – I also wrote in different styles and voices and was quite playful and experimental in working out what types of posts connected most with readers.
3. A personal blog helps you understand blogging
The other great thing about that first blog for me was that it gave me a taste of the technology and culture of blogging. I was very overwhelmed by the technical aspects of blogging in those early days and quite intimidated about putting my ideas on the web. I was also confused about how to find readers and interact with them.
Starting a blog is the best way to learn about blogging – until you experience the process of publishing a post and having people read and interact with it you’re not really a blogger.
The great thing about learning all of this on a personal blog is that people’s expectations may not be quite as high as if you launch a ‘professional’ blog.
Are Personal blogs for everyone?
I’m not convinced that everyone should have a personal blog to help them launch their new blogs. For me it was helpful but some bloggers are much more ready to launch into niche focused blogs without going through that process.
However if you’re convinced that you want a blog but don’t know what topic to focus in on then a personal blog might be a step forward to help you find your voice, identify topics and to learn the ropes of blogging itself.
One of the excellent upcoming conferences that I’m speaking at is the Facebook Success Summit 2010. It’s run by Mike Stelzner of Social Media Examiner. I’ve been involved in Mike’s summits before and they are packed with information.
This conference is a live online conference (so there are no travel costs) that is packed with amazing speakers. All sessions are recorded so you don’t have to be on live calls to participate but can listen to those you miss later.
All up there are 22 experts sharing what they know about how to use Facebook to build their businesses. Speakers include:
Brian Solis
Mari Smith
Michael Stelzner
Justin Smith
Others from Intel, Xbox and Cisco
Topics are varied and cover everything from the ‘why’ of getting a business on Facebook through to many aspects of how to best do it effectively.
My own session (which I’ll be running with Mike Stelzner) is titled ‘Building Community with Facebook and Blogs’ and the description of the session is:
Are you looking to build a loyal community on Facebook? If so, look no further. In this session, Darren Rowse (founder of Problogger.net) and Michael Stelzner (founder of SocialMediaExaminer.com) reveal how Facebook has enabled them to build a loyal following of tens of thousands of Facebook fans who engage and promote their content and ideas. You’ll learn about the apps, widgets, and blog enhancements they use to keep their readers engaged.
More and more people are asking what search engine optimization is and what it’s all about. People who have websites either for Internet-based businesses or personal reasons all seem to understand that looking into search engine optimization as it’s called is a good idea, but not everyone seems to understand why.
Simply put, people all know how a well-built home is a good investment although only very few know how to build one properly.
It’s the same with search engine optimization; the sometimes complicated and ever-changing mathematical algorithms Google uses to rank the pages that fit any search description are encrypted and tucked away from all but the most savvy tech people, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few simple ideas that simplify the process so that business owners and recreational users alike understand why they need to hire the professionals who implement this technique.
1) Getting great business cards made up with just the right wording and graphics are all fine and well, but leaving them in the box they came in from the printer won’t get you any results. Having a professional website put together and just leaving it to its own devices on the web is the same idea. You need to work with the right content writer who understands how to use seo to alert the search engines every time someone searches for your goods and services. That’s the crux of how you get a better page ranking.
2) Seo is constantly changing to suit the changing web landscape. One of the biggest requirements is fresh content. You need to be sure that you’ve got a steady stream that alerts the search engines because they all look for fresh content and that’s the domain of the professional content writer because these experts keep on top of the tools of the trade like keyword placement and where the links go so you get the best results. Besides, most people don’t have the time to keep up with those demanding requirements.
3) Search engine optimization is not trendy. Unlike social media and even the latest trend toward using videos as a method to get some exposure, seo is like an anchor for all those other techniques because it deals directly with the frontlines in the Internet marketing battle—the message on your website. Regardless of whether you use the limited characters on Twitter or even Facebook, everything is pointing back to the foundation of your message which is the search engine optimized content on your website.
Sometimes when people see the leading words and phrases that light up and take you to another web page, they don’t always understand those conveniences are really part of the bigger search engine optimization picture and part of the researched and carefully laid out plans of a content writer that understands how to work these keywords and links to your best benefit.
When all is said and done, you need search engine optimization so that your website will get noticed and be able to compete on the web.
I’ve been blogging for over two years now and I will be the first to admit that I haven’t been the best blogger in the world. Far from it. There were several stretches where I didn’t blog regularly or I wrote posts that just didn’t cut the mustard.
The blog that I was maintaining was in the ever crowded personal finance (PF) niche. Frankly, I know a lot about financial planning (I have a master’s in it) and I thought that I would thoroughly enjoy writing about it. Man was I wrong. If you ask any expert in the field, they will tell you that everything PF has already been written. In order to separate yourself from the hundreds of PF blogs out there, you have to put your own spin on the topics or just talk about your personal experiences. Well, I wasn’t that great at putting a spin on the topics and my wife and I don’t really live a fascinating financial life.
So, I slowly continued the blog. I stuck to it for about 2 years and decided that I just wasn’t having fun with it. I still enjoyed writing, but I was just burnt out writing about personal finance. I knew it was time for a change but I just didn’t know what. I don’t really have any hobbies and everything else just seemed so saturated already.
Blogging On Something You Don’t Know
As I was enjoying a nice walk around Washington DC with my wife, something caught my eye. None of the buildings were tall. I wondered what the deal was and figured that plenty of other people may have thought the same thing. I did some quick research at home and found out that there is some crazy law that doesn’t allow the buildings to be tall in the city. Weird.
After I learned about the topic, I had other random questions/things pop into my head and they just kept coming. An endless supply of blog posts! I wrote them down on a piece of paper with the title “Things To Learn”. I knew right then and there that I needed to create a blog on the topic. I was going from writing about things that I knew inside and out to something that I had no clue about. Why would I do that?
Why Should You Blog In a Niche You Know Nothing About
You Have An Almost Endless Supply of Blog Posts
Many great bloggers started writing about things that they wanted to know more about. For example, J.D. from Get Rich Slowly started his site when he was $35,000 in debt. Obviously, personal finance wasn’t his strong point at the time but he started the blog to learn more about the subject and it has now grown to one of the most popular blogs on the web. Heck, even Darren started this blog because he wanted to learn more about making money on the web.
Personally, I have been thinking about my new blog for weeks now. To date, I have approximately 100 “things to learn” in my Wordpress drafts. You know what, the ideas keep coming too. Whether I am reading a book or having a conversation with a stranger, the thoughts keep flowing. You can do that with any niche too. Especially if you are constantly trying to learn more about it.
It Never Gets Old
Most new bloggers fizzle out after a few months because they feel like no one is listening. Hey, it happened to me a few months after I started. But, I stuck with it and my blog has made a few bucks here and there.
Believe it or not, I don’t really care if my new site has readers. I mean, there is a small part of me that likes the interaction but I am doing it more for me. I want to learn and blogging about things I am interested in gives me pleasure. The place that I want to get my interaction is from other sites like this one. I am saving some of my better posts for other blogs and I will be interacting with the readers here.
I think that by blogging in niche you know nothing about, it will be difficult run out of things to write. I mean, I bet it may get a little old after a while. If I had to guess, I would say that many of the bloggers that have been around for a long time will tell you that it’s starting to get old. I imagine the thought of quitting has crossed their mind. Even though they started out knowing nothing about the niche, now they do and it would get old. However, they are now probloggers and are making good money. How many small bloggers that burnt out posting about what they know can say that?
* * * * *
How many of you started blogging in a niche you know nothing about? Have you seen the same results that I mentioned? What other positives can you see with blogging in a niche you know nothing about?
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There’s a simple truth to life that every human being will make mistakes. Since every blogger is human, at least the ones that aren’t spambots, then every blogger will screw up inevitably. 
Bear with me on this one. I was helping my good friend move yesterday and in the tedium of moving box after box of their stuff into “the room” made my mind wander. While it was wandering I hit upon guest blogging as akin to helping a friend move. Let me illustrate.
either for Internet-based businesses or personal reasons all seem to understand that looking into search engine optimization as it’s called is a good idea, but not everyone seems to understand why.
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