5 Skills Every Blogger Needs to Excel

On the surface, writing a blog and maintaining it may not seem like that hard of a job. You set up an account, pick a theme, write some posts and hit “publish”. Pretty much anyone can do it so long as they know how to use a computer and understand the basics of the Internet. However, there is a difference between just blogging and blogging well. If you want to do the latter, you’re going to have to learn a few additional skills to help you excel. The...

Why Choosing a Blog Niche Might Not Be a Good Idea

There are a few pieces of advice that tend to come as standard when you look for help with blogging. “Write compelling content”, “network in your niche”, and “stay consistent” are probably the most common words of wisdom you’ll receive. “Pick the right niche” ranks right up there with them as well. Choosing the right niche, in the case of blogging, usually just means that you should pick a topic you’re passionate about, which also happens to have a large audience. It’s advice I’ve given myself...

Shut Up and Podcast

Last week I attended Affiliate Summit in New York. While I was there I was able to attend the Podcasting 101 session with my Geek Dads Weekly co-hosts Daniel M. Clark and Joe Magennis. They were part of the session along with Trisha Lyn Fawver of Affiliate Marketing Fanatics. Trisha is on the Affiliate Marketing Fanatics podcast with Mike Buechele. The panel was moderated by Lisa Picarille, who has such a fantastic voice and who is the co-host of the Affiliate Thing podcast with Shawn Collins....

How to NOT Get Paid to Write Online (And Make Money Doing It)

Fresh out of college, I landed a job writing one-page sell sheets for a marketing company for $50 each. On a rare excellent day, I might do as many as two of these. Soon after, I found a freelance gig that would pay me $300 per article I wrote for an inter-organizational newsletter. I got to interview people for that one. It was more work, but better money. Eventually, I hooked up with a pretty big industry magazine and was being paid $1300 for...

Become a Playful Blogger and Inject Some Energy into Your Blogging

Is your blogging getting a little dry? Perhaps it is time to become a bit more playful as a blogger. One of the things that I’ve learned over the years is that the more I ‘play’ and experiment with my blog the more I learn that helps me to make my blog better. Experimentation helps you not only learn what works in the blogging medium – but also what works with your audience. Notes Watch the full sized version at Become a Playful Blogger Video shot on a Panasonic Lumix DMC GF1 (aff) – here’s...

Philly Is Not the “City of Blogger-ly Love”

Imagine you live in Philadelphia and you have a blog. You are like about 99.9 percent of the world’s bloggers so you make no money and the blog is a labor of love. Now imagine that you are going to be charged $300 for the privilege of having your blog start from the City of Brotherly Love. Yup, that’s right, Philly is hitting bloggers with a this and other measures. If you haven’t had enough of the government on every level getting into everyone’s...

Why Your Blog Doesn’t Make Money

Darren Rowse doesn’t make his money from Problogger. Brian Clark doesn’t make his money from Copyblogger. Chris Brogan doesn’t make his money from his blog, either. Neither does Sonia Simone. Not a single founding member of Third Tribe earns the bulk of their income from the blogs that are practically (or in Chris’ case, literally) synonymous with their names. Yes, they make some money directly from those blogs. But revenue directly from the...