Lessons about blogging
I’ve just read an article about blogging written by Darren Rowse on ProBlogger. It’s been there for a while but it still has many useful tips on how to go about blogging. It’s rather long but well worth reading.
Read it here “18 Lessons I’ve Learned About Blogging.”
Activity or Productivity?
Chris on his blog The Qwertyrash Blogs asks the question: Are you Productive or Active? (Sorry – this link no longer works.)
…years ago, I learned that there is a difference between productivity and activity. Productivity either makes you money, or directly has the potential to. Anything else is activity.
In BlogLand, productivity is writing posts and promoting your site. I’ll let you say putting ads on it, but that’s all. All else is activity.
Reading other blogs, while important, will not bring in any money. Making comments and links, also important, may bring in some traffic, but in themselves will not bring income. Productivity is mainly gained through posting and promotion, claims Chris.
While I agree with Chris I would counter his argument to say that, for me, reading other blogs is still quite an important part of my day. I am still very much in a learning curve. Each day I learn more about this thing called blogging. It’s my apprenticeship stage in the craft.
Similarly, just over a decade ago when I started writing seriously I went to seminars, workshops, subscribed to writing magazines and read every book on writing I could get my hands on. That was my apprenticeship in writing. Now I have a fair handle on the craft I am very selective in what I read or the seminars I attend. With my writing I am now in the stage of applying all that learning.
Still, Chris has a good point. Sometimes we are so active doing related tasks we forget the important basic aspect of blogging. Activity is not productivity.
Updated November 2013.
Making money from your blog
Some writers are turning to blogs to not only promote their print publications but they are using advertising on their blogs to bring in extra income. Many bloggers are writing regularly in order to generate traffic so as to develop income from their blogs. Tales of bloggers bringing in huge incomes from blogging abound. What many who jump on the bandwagon don’t realise is the long-term effort required to generate just a modest income, if any.
Tony Lawrence in his posting “Just two posts a day” suggests that the reality for most bloggers is that they will never make any income from the writing. Most bloggers, he suggests, write a few dozen posts over several months and wonder why their income from ads is zilch. He takes a very long term view of blogging. It is not until a blogger has posted many thousands of posts that the traffic generates enough income to be regarded as anything like a reasonable income for the effort and time expended. He has posted over 12,000 posts over several sites. This is a rather daunting statistic for anyone just setting out on the blogging pathway, but it has taken him 9 years to achieve this.
One step at a time.
One post at a time.
His concluding comments are encouraging – and challenging.
My suggestion is that you treat your blogging efforts like you treat your 401K investments. Small, regular investments now can pay out big dividends later. I’ve made this suggestion to dozens of people: start now, write about what you love. Do it well, and do it every day. For the first few years, you probably will generate very little income. Don’t think about it. Your day will come. If you keep plugging, chances are you will get a pay off. Maybe not: you may be dull, uninspiring, and completely uninteresting. If you don’t see the numbers starting to climb after a year or so, maybe you should forget it: this just isn’t your “thing”. But you aren’t going to find out unless you start doing it, are you?
So.. are you ready to write your two posts for today? I’ve done mine..
Well.. not yet.
But then, I have written nearly 30 posts over the last 5 days. That may seem a lot, but then, I do have 3 blogs to feed daily.
Promoting your blog
Many bloggers are just happy to occassionally add new posts to their blog. Every couple of days, or perhaps once a week, they write another short blog on their chosen topic. They do nothing more to promote their blog. And then they wonder why no-one is reading their pearls of wisdom.
Sheila Coggins has written a short article listing her Top 10 Tips on Promoting Your Blog: How to Gain and Keep Blog Readers. She includes things like writing quality content, posting regularly and ping backs.
To read the whole article click here.
Professional Blogging Tools
Darren on ProBlogger has posted a very comprehensive list of tools to use to help professional bloggers – 130 of them in fact. Many are applicable for use by ordinary bloggers too. My son does all the techie stuff for my blogs so I don’t have to worry about that side of things. (Onya Sim’)
To read Darren’s post on The A – Z of Professional Blogging click here.