www.inkthinkerblog.com — If you want to maximize your investment in your blog, both timewise and financially, follow these tips from professional bloggers Darren Rowse of ProBlogger and Tim Flight of GPS Review.
Darren says…
- Take a long term approach
- Don’t give up your day job too quickly
- Diversify, but don’t spread yourself too thin. I’d rather do 3 quality blogs than 10 average ones.
- Content rules. Features/tools/metrics are all fun and useful, but ultimately it’s about giving people useful content. If you do that your blog will grow.
- Don’t be afraid to promote yourself.
- Keep the Ego in check (the balance between self promotion and humility is important)
- Love your first readers to death
- Find your voice. Don’t imitate others — be yourself. Work your ‘mojo’
Awesome advice from a guy who knows! It’s all about focusing on your readers. For content, what do they need, and how can you give it to them better than anyone else? Figuring this out entails both providing high-quality content and doing it in your own style.
There’s a lot of competition out there, so what’s going to bring people to your blog rather than someone else’s? And what’s going to bring them back? Keep this in mind when you promote your blog, in tandem with figuring out how you can let new readers know that you’re there and can help them
I’m coming up on a year and a half of blogging here at Inkthinker, and I’m still working on striking a balance with these tips — but I’m sticking it out because I know it will be worth it! And I hope that’s not just for me, but also for my readers.
Tim says…
Know when to treat your blog like a business and know when to not treat your blog like a business.For example I’ve found it necessary to create a business plan, hold regular brainstorming sessions (what we called meetings in my cubicle job) with anyone who can be a sounding board or just listen to my ideas even if they don’t understand what I’m talking about. Create a budget, reinvest some of your earnings back into your site. So treat your blog like a business.
On the flip side of the coin…. People who read and visit websites are generally doing it with the assumption that what they are getting is free. If you start to get greedy and fill your site with ads, visitors will notice will likely think less of your content. Be genuine. Give back to your readers.
Business vs. not business is a tricky line to maintain. Bloggers have costs. So is it coldhearted to recoup them? I vote no, but then again, I ain’t making much from this venture. However, I’m personally moving in the direction of monetizing my blog, and one big step is getting it out of Blogger and hosting it on my own domain.
But, as Tim points out, going too far in the direction of monetization can be invasive and can drive away the readers you so love. And blogging can and should be a labor of love in many ways — but that doesn’t mean you have to do it for free, either.
Keep in mind that payment can come in many forms, not the least of which is personal satisfaction. There’s also exposure for your writing and your business, the opportunity to hone your craft, a way to increase your name recognition (and your search engine ranking), a chance to garner referrals from readers if you offer a service you also blog about, and also a way to earn money if you decide to take it in that direction.
The bottom line? Your readers should be first and foremost. Without them, you’re just talking to yourself. So make sure that respect for your readers recognition that they’re effectively your customers is what drives your business decisions about your blog.
(Darren and Tim’s Tips and advice have been repurposed with permission from a private forum discussion about full-time blogging.)
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