You don’t need to be a big-time blogger to need to outsource some aspect of your blog. A beginning blogger with a serious business plan might want to contract a designer to create a skin for their blog. A entrepreneurial blogger might want to outsource some writing, or have an agency provide social media strategy for the blog.

There are plenty of reasons why you might outsource some aspect of your blogging. But once you’ve identified the need, how should you proceed?

Don’t make your first step trying to find good candidates! Before you go hunting for help, you need to do your homework. Here’s the process I’d recommend.

1. Define what you want.

“I need help with my blog content” is not a clear directive. If you’re going to source help, you need to know what to look for, which means you need to have a clear idea of what, specifically, you want.

Don’t just think in terms of contractor skillsets. Think in terms of your audience. So you want to have a new interface designed for your blog. Great. But what do you want it to do? Do you have a visual identity you want the design to reflect or match? Are there interactive elements — like social media buttons or a subscription box — that, in accordance with your readership objectives, you want to prioritise in your design? Do you have user and usage stats that can help to drive the technical specifications you provide to a designer?

Work out what you think you want, and why, before you start thinking about who might do the work.

2. Make it measurable.

The word ‘measurable’ really gives the game away — if the first step in this process was to define specific objectives, the next one is to make them measurable.

Some tasks are difficult to measure — the “success” of a new homepage design might seem like one of them. But look a little closer and, whatever the task you’re setting, you’ll likely find ways to assess the results. Perhaps you’ll assess your current traffic metrics and set new goals that you expect the new site design to help meet. Perhaps you’ll require the designer to show you the results of usability testing.

Alternatively, your goals might be internal — related to your time or operations. Maybe you want to save time — say, two days a week — by outsourcing some of your blog post research and writing tasks. Fine. But make sure you’re prepared to track the time you spend managing your contractor, to make sure that you haven’t simply replaced two days’ writing with two days’ contractor management!

As part of setting measurable goals, don’t forget to apply a timeline to each! This is the most basic way for you to assess whether your outsourced work is on track.

3. Set a budget.

Now that you have an idea of what you want, and what benefits you need it to bring, you should be able to translate those benefits into a dollar value, and decide on the investment you’re willing to make to achieve that goal.

You might want the new design for your blog to increase average per-session pageviews by 1.5 within the first three months. Great! What will that do for your advertising revenues in that time? And how much can you afford to invest to generate this return?

Setting a budget is an essential step in the process. This will help you to qualify candidates early in the process, and save you from spending time talking to “prospective” contractors who really aren’t in your market at all.

4. Seek recommendations.

Unless you have experience in a given market space or discipline and believe you have the skills to select good talent off the bat, you might consider asking peers and colleagues for talent recommendations. Whether you’re outsourcing blog content production or your accounting tasks, personal recommendations are the best way to have some assurance that you’ll get what you expect.

Alternatively — or additionally — you might call for expressions of interest through your blog, your social networks, your professional networks, and other likely sources. To me, these approaches are still better options than advertising blindly on freelance networks, or scouring the web in an effort to find that needle in a haystack — good help that you can afford and trust. Recommendations are best.

5. Research the provider.

However you obtain recommendations, research the provider before you contact them. Conducting your own research is important — you never know what information a quick web search will turn up. Hopefully it’s the same information the contractor in question will provide to you, but if it’s not the kind of detail they’d likely share, you’ll be glad you looked into their work yourself.

If the contractor is local, your peers or colleagues may know them, so again: ask around. Encourage people to be candid and to give you their honest opinions, but also be sure to find out the bases for those assessments. Try to remain as open-minded and objective as possible at this point, so you can create a shortlist of at least two — but hopefully three or four — providers you believe might suit the job.

6. Make contact.

Make careful observation of each shortlisted candidate from the moment of your first contact. Everything they do and say will provide clues as to how well you may be able to work with them. If something makes you uncomfortable, try to work out what it is and why it’s a problem.

Again, it’s important to try to remain reasonable and objective at this point. The fact that your potential designer is wearing a suit and tie doesn’t mean he’s not as creative as the previous candidate, who rolled up to the meeting in ripped jeans and cool runners.

Try to get all the information from the candidate that you’ll need to make your outsourcing decision. The things I want to have in hand when it comes time to assess my options include:

• contact details
• competent past work examples
• a pitch, brief, or written document that explains what they’ll provide, for what value, and shows that they understand and agree to my expectations, goals, and time and budget constraints
• great references from current clients
• personal experience with the candidate (it doesn’t matter whether I’ve met them to discuss the job over coffee, or over Skype: I want to meet them one way or another!).

Now, the hiring decision is all yours. To make sure you’re protected, though, you might want to ensure:

• you both sign a legally binding written contract that explains the work and the work arrangements
• your contractor has any insurances you feel are necessary
• you’ve discussed and agreed upon any copyright and intellectual property considerations
• you’ve had the contractor sign a non-disclosure and/or anti-competition agreement if you feel that’s necessary.

These steps aren’t substitutes for good research and gut instinct, but they may help you if your research and instinct don’t pay off for some reason.

Have you outsourced any aspects of your blog? How did the process work for you?

About the Author: Georgina has more than ten years’ experience writing and editing for web, print and voice. She now blogs for WebWorkerDaily and SitePoint, and consults on content to a range of other clients.

This Post is from: ProBlogger Blog Tips.

How to Outsource Your Blog… Or Part of It

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Over in Third Tribe this week there was a discussion in the forum about using speaking opportunities at offline events to help grow your email newsletter list. Leon shared how he used MailChimp’s Chimpadeedee application to collect email addresses after a presentation. I’ve not used that app but it reminded me of a time that I did something similar when I was starting out 6 years ago at an event I spoke it.

You might think you can’t do this because you never speak at events – but the reality is that 6 years ago I didn’t get invited to speak at places either – so I volunteered to speak at a local community event. Here’s the story I shared in Third Tribe about it.

I think too many people forget about ‘offline’ as a way of growing their online. I’m a big believer in leveraging current networks and opportunities, whether they be online or offline.

For me when I was just starting out I did something similar – I did a free workshop at a local library on how to use a digital camera. The library did free workshops run by local people every Thursday night so I volunteered.

At the end of the session I had arranged for the library to have one of their computers online and available and had a place where people could leave their email address to be contacted with more tips/updates.

There was no mailchimp app back then but it worked a treat and I had 20 out of 30 people sign up. To this day 3 of them still contact me from time to time to say hi and to let me know that they still subscribe to my newer photography blog 6 years later!

Keep in mind – this was 6 years ago when my first photography blog was in its infancy – 20 new readers might not sound like a lot but when you’re in the early days they’re invaluable (from memory I only had 100 or so people reading the blog at the time so it was a 20% increase) as they each have their own network and over the years that follow could bring along hundreds of others (not to mention all the pages they might view over the coming years).

This Post is from: ProBlogger Blog Tips.

How to Grow Your Blogs Readership Through Offline Events

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Over the last week or so we’ve featured a series of posts here on ProBlogger that explore questions surrounding the theme of ‘content’.

As the posts were spread out over 10 days I wanted to sum it all up with links all in the one place – so if you missed one – here they are!

• Source Quality Content… Continuously
• Blog Content Strategy 101
• Content Producer’s Copyright Checklist
• Big Content Monetisation Ideas for the Little Guy
• 5 Ways to Build Your Blog’s Voice
• Use Content Channels to Boost your Readership

Thanks to Georgina Laidlaw for putting together the series.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Essential Reading on Content for your Blog

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The first five articles in this series have made the case for some important concepts: treating content as an asset, seeing your posts as tools for meeting your (and of course your readers’ goals), and so on.

The natural corollary to all this is the notion that while your blog is a content product, it’s just one of a number of channels through which you can put your content tools into action to promote the product itself. The best recommendation for your blog is your blog content, and your voice. How can you use it to reach more people?

Reaching Further

You have content — and lots of it. Use it wisely and not only will you enjoy an improved return on your content investment, which we talked about when we discussed content strategy, but you can expand your promotional efforts without a whole lot of extra work.

The idea is to take content you’ve already written, or small segments of it repurposed as required, and distribute them across other channels. This approach provides various opportunities to leverage your previous hard work, but also your headspace: if you’ve just written a post for your own blog, you might be in a good position to turn out related items — snippets, tips, or updates — for other channels, while the creative fires are still aflame. These channels include the following.

Social networks

While I’m no fan of the incomplete-teaser-as-tweet style of social network update that many major newspapers seem to champion, I do like to use a crafted version of my opening sentence, the post’s headline, or its key point as a brief, catchy announcement on social media.

Other blogs

We’ve discussed guest blogging as a way to expand your readership (and, on your blog, to offer variety, meet your goals, and reduce the pressure on you). You may not be able, or willing, to republish a post from your blog directly on another, but you may be able to reframe it, expand on a specific point it makes, or tackle the same topic from an alternative angle, very easily and quickly.

This variations-on-a-theme approach leverages your existing content and knowledge while providing in-post cross-link opportunities if they’re allowed by the blog on which you’re a guest. In any case, a reader who comes from your guest post on another blog to find a similar post that builds on that information on your own blog is likely to get the impression that you’re passionate and informed on your topic of interest.

Related websites

Presenting a key quote or idea from your blog as a comment on another author’s work on a website whose readership you’d like to attract is another possibility for content redistribution. You can use the same tactic in forums on the topics your blog addresses. Choose your topics, blogs, and posts wisely and you may find that a short paragraph from your latest post makes the perfect contribution to a larger conversation on the topic elsewhere online.

Other media

Earlier in this series, we talked about republishing your content in other formats, like print periodicals. While these kinds of opportunities may not be thick on the ground, they are out there, and they can make a good way to extend your content’s lifecycle and make the most of what you’ve written. Perhaps you could pull the key elements from a number of your posts and synthesize them into an authoritative piece on a given sub-topic?

These are just some of the ways you can reuse your existing body of work to promote your blog through different channels. Tell us about your experiences with content-as-promotional-tool.

About the Author: Georgina has more than ten years’ experience writing and editing for web, print and voice. She now blogs for WebWorkerDaily and SitePoint, and consults on content to a range of other clients.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Use Content Channels to Boost Your Readership

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A Guest Post by Johnny B Truant.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re blogging to make money, or to express yourself. So why would you ever give something away? If you’re in this as a business, giving stuff away without charging for it seems counterintuitive. If you’re just out there writing for the sake of writing, then what you want are readers… and how is giving stuff away going to get more eyes on your blog?

The answer is that what goes around comes around. What you give comes back to you. What you sow is what you reap, and all of that. It’s not just platitudes. It works.

I was thinking about this because I’m in the middle of a promotion where I’m setting up self-hosted WordPress blogs for free. (In fact, if you want one, click over and go get one.) This isn’t an experiment. It’s the third time I’ve done it. I continue to do it because each time I do, my statistics go way up, my RSS readership grows, my Twitter followers grow, and I meet a bunch of new people who may end up being customers later. And thanks to the fact that I’m an affiliate for website hosting (which my free blog setup folks would have to buy regardless), I make money too.

All of my best tips come down to giving things away.

• Want to grow your mailing list? Write a great report or e-book — and then instead of charging for it, give it away to people who sign up for your list.
• Want to reach a new audience? Write a really good blog post, ideally one that is immediately actionable for people who read it. Reveal your best tip or tips in that post. Then, give it to someone else as a guest post rather than running it on your site.
• Want more referrals? Give a greater percentage of sales to your affiliates. I’m not quite gutsy enough to do this myself, but Dave Navarro told me once publicly that he gave affiliates 100% of the sale price on a certain product and then paid the transaction fees (which would normally come from the sale price) out of his own pocket. He “lost” money on his own product, but built a list in his shopping cart of people who liked his stuff well enough to buy it — a list he could promote to later.
• Want more goodwill, better Karma, or more raving fans? Then do something for charity. Twice that I know of, Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz.com has rallied her audience to raise money for a cause. The first time, she raised relocation expenses for a female reader who needed to get out of a physically abusive relationship. The second time, she raised over $12,000 for Cambodia — enough to build a school. The benefit to her? Tons and tons and tons of “good feelings” out in the blogosphere about her, which converted casual fans into die-hards.

I could keep going. There are tons of ways for any blogger at any level to increase either business or readership by trying the experiment of temporarily swapping “what can I get out of this?” thinking for “what can I give that people would really want and love?” thinking.

The really cool thing is that if you plan a little in advance, there’s usually a way that you can benefit too. If you’re smart, “giving it away” can get you a lot more than you’re probably getting right now.

Give it a shot. And if you’ve done it, let’s hear how it worked out in the comments!

P.S: If you’re still trying to figure out how to get your start in blogging in order to try this stuff? Well, now’s the time because I think I mentioned I know a guy who’s doing a mutually beneficial free blog setup promotion right now.

——
Johnny B. Truant blogs at JohnnyBTruant.com and is one of the two guys behind The Charlie and Johnny Jam Sessions.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Boost your Income and Popularity by Giving Stuff Away

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Over on the ProBlogger Facebook page Alix Spurlock asked:

How do I get inspired to write when I have < 5 readers? It seem kind of futile.

Image by -nathan

This is one of the hardest parts of starting a new blog for many bloggers. After putting the effort into choosing the right blogging platform, thinking about a topic to write about, choosing a theme/design and putting effort into your first posts – you look at your stats and you find that hardly anyone is reading.

The Night I Almost Gave Up Blogging

I remember the feeling clearly from my first few blogs.

I remember sitting at my computer one night starting at my first photography blog (no longer active) with my finger hovering over my mouse as I decided whether or not to kill the blog completely because despite putting hours into it every week it was getting no comments, few visitors and only making a couple of dollars a week.

I shudder to think what would have happened if I had in fact killed that blog – because it went on to become the blog that earned me a full time living and led to me starting ProBlogger and my 2nd and more successful photography site.

How to Keep Inspired as a Blogger

I’m not going to make this post a ‘how to find readers for your blog’ post as I’ve talked about that numerous times before (I’ll link to some of those at the end of this post). Instead I’d like to talk about ‘inspiration’ a little because it’s actually something that I think is applicable to more than just bloggers with not many readers – bloggers with blogs of all sizes struggle to stay inspired.

1. Write for You – one of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned as a blogger is that I need to blog about things that interest and inspire me. I’ve started more blogs than I can remember and many of them were started more out of dreams of large readership and profit than any genuine interest that I had in them. Those blogs are all dead now and the only that remain (and the only that were profitable) were blogs that I started because I wanted to explore the topic and read them. ProBlogger is perhaps the best example of this – it was the blog I wanted to read that nobody else was writing. I was writing as much for me as anyone else so even when nobody else was reading it at least I was learning something.
2. Celebrate the Small Victories – often as bloggers we get distracted by the stories of big bloggers having big victories. Massive product launches, millions of readers, loads of comments, mentions in mainstream media, recognition and awards…. While it’s great that bigger blogs are achieving such big things sometimes as a smaller blogger your own experience can seem so small by comparison. The big wins of other bloggers can be quite inspiring, but so should your own smaller victories. In fact the small victories that you have can be harnessed to help you create momentum to grow your blog. Read more about this at Success in Blogging is Made of Little Victories.
3. Get Excited, about Something Else – what gets you excited and inspired outside of blogging? As I look at my own levels of inspiration for blogging I’ve noticed that it is often when I’m feeling inspired about some other aspect of life that my energy for blogging can also increase. For me this often comes out of reading a book on some unrelated topic, or watching a movie or documentary, or having a great conversation, or doing something with my family that energises me. We all get excited by different things but get yourself in a positive frame of mind in some other area of your life and it might just impact other areas where you’re feeling a little low – like in your blogging.
4. Take a Break – I asked my followers on Twitter what inspires them in their blogging and the most common response that came back was ‘take a break’. I’ve found this to be true too. it may have something to do with my last point about doing something else that excites you but I find that even a short break in the middle of the day can help me to come back to the task of blogging refreshed. I also find on a bigger picture level that taking regular longer breaks (weekends off and longer vacations) can also help (although sometimes it does take me a few days to get back into the swing of things after a couple of weeks off).
5. Involve others – I’ve written numerous times about approaching blogging in tandem with others whether it be through finding a blogging buddy or starting some kind of blogging alliance. There’s something very powerful and motivational about having someone to bounce ideas off, to be accountable to and to collaborate with.
6. Start a content project – I find that I’m often the most inspired when I’m starting something new. The problem with this is that the temptation is often to start a new blog which doesn’t really help take your existing one further. Instead of starting a new blog I recommend starting some kind of new internal content project ON your blog. This might be anything from a series of posts, a competition or perhaps writing a report or eBook for your readers. The good thing about doing this is that you’re not only doing something new that might energize you – you’re also doing something that potentially could bring in new readers to your blog and that will be of benefit to those you already have.
7. Begin a learning project – something that I used to do when I got either bored, unmotivated or uninspired with my blogging was to commit myself to learning something new about blogging. This might include doing some free research on the web a topic like SEO, blog design etc or it could even be investing a little money into some kind of teaching resource. This is actually one of the reasons I started 31 Days to Build a Better blog – as a tool for bloggers to invest a full month in learning about small things that they could do on their blog to bring it life. While the lessons were designed to help people the main purpose of it was to see what would happen when people committed to improving their blog in some small way every day for a month. Much of the feedback I’ve had from people who completed it was that they saw it as a way to kick start their blog and get it back on track after periods of feeling uninspired and unmotivated.

Those are 7 ways that I’ve managed to keep myself inspired and motivated to keep blogging for 8 years – but I’d be keen to hear your suggestions also. You might also like to check out the suggestions of some of my followers on Twitter in this collection of their responses to my question on the topic.

Tips on Getting Traffic

As promised above – here are some links to some posts I’ve written on growing your traffic (which will hopefully also help you to be a little more inspired – there’s nothing like new readers to keep you moving forward with your blog)!

• 9 Things to Do to Make Sure Your Next Blog Post is Read by More than Your Mom
• How to Find Readers for Your Blog
• 7 Considerations on Generating Traffic to Your Blog
• Using Social Media to Grow Your Blog’s Traffic

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Keep Inspired When Blogging Gets Tough

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A guest post by Jodi Friedman from MCP Actions.

Do you have contests on your blog? Do you ever wonder why so many blogs are doing contests now? One of the reasons is that, when done right, they are a win-win scenario. You can increase your traffic and readership, create excitement, and help promote companies and products.

If you are new to contests, you may be lost and wondering how to get started. Having run very successful giveaways for both national companies and smaller businesses on the MCP Actions photography blog, I have learned skills to make them even more effective. You can see some of my past blog contests and winners announced here.

Before running a contest, work on building your blog traffic and your presence ion social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. While there is no magic number, you want confidence that you will get entries, making it worthwhile for you and the sponsor.

Next, you need to find companies that want to give away products or services. After doing contests for a while, companies find you. But to start, you may want to try the following:

• Contact your advertisers – this is a great opportunity for more exposure than a simple banner.
• If you have affiliate ads on your blog, contact these companies. Again it is a great way to get them more exposure.
• Have a button on your website or blog that leads to a page explaining the benefits of donating prizes for a contest. You can see one in the right column of my blog.
• Make a list of items you feel your readers would like to win. For example, since I run a photography blog, prizes I look for range from lenses for SLR cameras, to Photoshop products, to camera bags, to marketing materials for photographers.
• Once you identify these items, contact the company via email or even phone, and explain what you are hoping they will donate and what you will give in return.
• Clearly show your web statistics, using a tool like Google analytics.
• Explain how the contest will be conducted, links you will provide to their site and any advertising you will include.
• Describe how you plan to publicize the contest.
• If they agree to donate prizes, make sure to keep them posted during the contest. They may end up sending traffic your way too.
• Send a thank you note when the give-away concludes.
• Use your own products for a give-away – if you sell a product, chances are your audience wants to win it. So make sure to give them occasional opportunities to win.

Once you have prizes, you need to organize the contest. How? What? When? Where?

• Where to host?
• Blog – My contests work best directly on my blog, using the comment section for entries.
• For short length contests, Facebook and Twitter are also great venues.
• Forums – if you have a forum, this is an excellent place for holding contests. But remember, not everyone will be able to see it. It can be a great way to get people to join the forum if you publicize it well at other venues.
• Mailing list/Newsletter – you can utilize your newsletter for contests, though where to have people enter can be trickier.
• When to have the contest? How long should the contest last?
• When to start and end a contest: there is no magic to this. So much depends on your traffic.
• I like to start contests on my peek volume days, Tuesday and Wednesday. And I usually end them on a Sunday, which is my lowest traffic day. I often take Saturday and Sunday off from blogging, so this is a “free” space on my blog. Plus it gets people coming to check when they might not otherwise.
• I occasionally have vendors ask if they can do a 1-day contest, which I will allow. The perk to a one day contest is people feel they need to participate right then. Also, no other posts cover the contest up on my blog. This format works great on Facebook and Twitter as well.
• I shy away from 2-day contests, since they would begin and end in prime time on my blog. I have not found a reason to end at a time of high traffic since these posts are often not filled with content.
• Again, this is what works for me. You may find something completely different works well for you.
• How people will enter?
• Darren wrote an article about competitions and said that keeping it simple is most important. And I agree with this, especially on the entry side of things.
• On my blog, I ask a simple, yet meaningful question (or sometimes a few). To enter, people answer the question(s) and add your entry to the comment section.
• Of course if you want to have a photo contest, for example, then you need clear instructions on where to upload photos to, etc.
• Consider offering additional entries for spreading the word, joining your Facebook Page or following you on Twitter.
• How can you publicize the contest? Of course there are dozens of ways to get the word out. Assuming it is a blog contest, I usually do the following:
• Make sure to link to the company providing the prize(s). Remember, you need to add value for the sponsor.
• Post to Twitter.
• Post to Facebook.
• Post to any other social media networks you use.
• Give extra entries to others that post to social networking sites.
• For my biggest contests, I will send out a newsletter, but I reserve that for just a few times a year at most.
• Thousands a day read my blog so many see the contest just by their regular visits or RSS.
• Ask the person donating the prizes can also send out a post or tweet and Facebook about it.
• When will the contest winner(s) be announced?
• Make sure to let your audience know where and when you will announce the winner(s).
• You can announce winners in a blog post, or to get people on your social networking sites, consider occasionally announcing winners on Twitter of Facebook.
• Announcements can be short or you can use them as an opportunity to talk more about the products and company that sponsored the give-away.
• How will you pick the winners?
• In picking the winner, you can choose based on content, voting or random draw (and possibly other ways but these are the ones I have used).
• For content, this could be picking the “best” photo or the “favorite” comment. This is subjective and sometimes can lead to frustration. But I see this done a lot on blogs.
• Voting: On the rare occasion that I do a photo contest, I usually narrow down to the 10-15 best entries (in my opinion). Then I open it up for voting. The perk to this type of contest is contestants help spread the word for you. They tell friends, family and social networking contacts to come vote. This can be very viral.
• Then there is luck… Picking based on random drawing. Most of my contests are this type. I use either a random picker (like random.org) or I have my kids pick X amount of numbers between 1 and the end number of the contest. This gets my children involved and makes things more personal. For huge prizes, like camera lenses and such, I tend to use the online picker so I can show the results in a screen shot.

This post was an overview on running contests. While it is not a full e-book on how to run contests, I hope you picked up some useful information. Please share what works for you in the comments and expand on ideas explained here too.

This post was written by Jodi Friedman, who runs a successful Photography and Photoshop Blog. Jodi is the popular creator of Photoshop actions and Online Group Photoshop Trainings for Photographers. MCP Actions provides great products and resources for both hobbyist and professional photographers who want to improve their post processing and take their photography to the next level. If you are serious about the quality of your images or your photography business, visit MCP Actions.

You can also find Jodi on Facebook, Twitter, and through her RSS Feed.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

The Win – Win Scenario: Holding Successful Blog Contests

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A few weeks ago I asked readers to submit video blog tips to share with the wider ProBlogger readership. The idea was that we’d get a variety of useful blog tips on how to blog – but that we’d also get a bit of a snapshot of some of the faces and voices of the community here at ProBlogger.

To this point we’ve had 30 blog tip videos submitted and over the next few days I’m going to feature them (10 at a time) here on ProBlogger.

Before I get to them – a HUGE thanks to those who submitted these videos. There are some great tips in them and it is great to see such a variety of techniques and creativity used in the production of the videos (I also found it really inspiring to see all your faces – it’s amazing how wonderful it is to see and hear the people who read this blog in this way) – so thanks!

please click through on the links to visit the blogs of those who created these videos and if you find one that resonates with you please share the video with your own network.

by Nate Riggs

by Julie Weishaar

by Eric Dobson

by Susan

by Brett

by Ciprian Rusen

by Paul Cunningham

by Greg Friese

by Nick Stewart

by David

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Blog: 10 Great Blog Tips from Our Readers

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Late last week I spent a fascinating hour with Holly Becker from decor8 – an amazing interior design blog that is read by over 35,000 readers a day.

Today I’d like to share that interview with you as an example of a blogger who has made a living from blogging by building a niche focused blog.

decor8 has opened up many doors of opportunity for Holly. She makes a full time living from the blog (and also employs a regular columnist as well as her husband to run the back end) and it has led to other exciting possibilities including a book deal.

In this podcast interview Holly:

• shares the story behind starting decor8
• gives insight into how she keeps coming up with fresh content ideas
• shares what type of posts work best at drawing in readers to comment
• talks about her decision to bring on a regular columnist
• reflects on dealing with negative comments
• answers the question of ‘what is a conversion’ for you when a reader hits your blog
• share how she’s built her readership
• reveals how she makes a full time living from her blog
• talks about her other ventures, including her ‘blogging your way’ e-course and up coming book

I love hearing stories like the one Holly shares because it’s yet another example of a blogger who makes a good living her blog (and it’s not a blog about making money on the internet!). I also loved chatting with Holly because she’s all about enhancing the lives of those who read her blog by producing a high quality and inspiring blog.

The interview is just on 51 minutes long so grab a cup of coffee and sit back to enjoy Holly’s insights on blogging!

here’s the podcast:

While you’re listening check out her blog and enjoy!

PS: you can grab the mp3 of this interview for later here – Interview with Holly

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Interview with Full Time Blogger – Holly Becker from decor8

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A Guest Post by Kosmo from The Casual Observer.

I am the founder and editor-in-chief of The Casual Observer, a site that has the goal of bringing an eclectic mix of fresh content to its readers every day.  We currently have ten authors contributing on a regular basis, with a handful of others writing an occasional article.  In a blogosphere dominated by niche-oriented, single author blogs, what makes The Casual Observer tick?

Why Multiple Authors?

When I started the site, I had no intention of involving multiple authors.  While I always intended for the site to contain an eclectic mix of content, I originally anticipated that I would write all the content.  The site took a slow turn toward being team written when a friend of mine mentioned that he was taking a trip to the 2009 Masters golf tournament.  I liked the idea of allowing the readers to see what goes on at Augusta, so I asked him to write a guest article.  I liked it so much that I asked him to come on board and write a weekly sports column.  This was in spite of the fact that I am a sports fanatic.  I liked what Johnny brought to the table in terms of writing talent, and his sports interests varied enough from mine to be complementary.

Over the course of the last year, I have approached other authors (or had them approach me) to write on various topics.  This has allowed me to move closer to my goal of provide diversity of content similar to that of a newspaper or magazine rather than the niche content that most blogs contain.  I knew from the start that this would be an uphill climb for readership, but my own varied interests made this more fun than a niche site.

Another reason for having multiple authors is the ability to produce more frequent content.  From day one, I have wanted to publish a new article every day, allowing readers to find a new edition of The Casual Observer at their virtual front door, much as they found the printed newspaper at their physical door.  With a full time job and two kids under the age of 3, this would be extremely difficult if I was the sole author.

How it Works

Very quickly, I laid out a document detailing the relationship between The Casual Observer and authors.  The basics were that the authors were considered independent contractors rather than employees (an important distinction in US tax law), that they retained copyright to their works, and that they should refrain from content that could be construed as defamation of character.

At the same time, I created a profit sharing agreement.  The gist of the profit sharing agreement is that after overhead costs (such as hosting) are deducted, advertising revenue would be shared proportionally, based on the number of articles an author wrote.

Am I putting the cart ahead of the horse by having a profit sharing agreement before there are actual profits?  My thought process was that it was better to have an agreement in place up front than to try to hammer one out three years down the road.  It’s much easier to get an agreement on how to split potential future income than actual current income.

Bumps in the Road

Has the path been smoothly paved and lined with fresh flowers?  Not always.  There are some problems that go along with multiple author blogs.

First and foremost, the other authors will miss deadlines.  It is a foregone conclusion that life events will sometimes prevent an author from getting an article submitted.  An author may even go on hiatus for a while when their life gets busier than usual.  When this happens, I try to put myself in the author’s shoes.  A non-paying writing gig is going to take a backseat at times.  It’s important to be able to fill these content voids when necessary.

Much more disturbing is the potential for plagiarism.  I was actually forced to sever the relationship with a former writer when I found evidence of plagiarism.  I was reviewing the current submission when I had a sudden case of déjà vu.  Where had I read this before?  Ah,yes.  CNN.  Multiple paragraphs had simply been copied and pasted.  A quick review of previous articles quickly found that they too had been copied from other sources.  At that point, I realized that I was probably a bit naïve to have complete trust in the honestly of my writers.  I now have a policy of randomly checking articles for originality – even when the author is a close friend.  I hate doing this, but it’s necessary to protect myself from copyright infringement claims.

What’s next?

I have been very pleased with the way The Casual Observer has progressed.  We currently have nearly 500 articles in our repository – ranging from sports to fiction to Middle East politics.  While I don’t anticipate a surge in the number of authors, I remain on the lookout for writers who could provide fresh content that would further enhance the reader’s enjoyment of the site.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

The Casual Observer: Anatomy of a Multi-Author Blog

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