These small victories interviews are with members of ProBlogger.com and are all about highlighting some of the small wins that real bloggers have – our hope is that they’ll inspire other bloggers at similar stages to not only celebrate the ‘big wins’ and those that have already gone pro – but to focus upon the smaller things that take us forward as bloggers.

This video only goes for just over 9 minutes so sit back and enjoy.

Transcription of Interview with Jeremy Vohwinkle

For those of you who prefer to read than listen – here’s a transcription of the video by The Transcription People.

Lara: Hi ProBlogger readers, this is Lara Kulpa again, the Community Manager from ProBlogger.com and I have with me today Jeremy Vohwinkle from Gen X Finance. How are you Jeremy?

Jeremy: Hi, I’m great thanks.

How Jeremy Got Started

Lara: Wonderful. So, tell us a little about your blog and your background and why you started.

Jeremy: Okay, sure. I’ve been working in finance for a number of years and, through my course of, you know, helping people with their finances, I would spend a lot of time researching different financial topics and what happened is I noticed a lot of times I would stumble on sites that weren’t necessarily big media sites or official finance sites and I kind of wondered, “Who are these people and why are they writing about finance?”

So I did a little research and I noticed that most of these people were running what I guess people called blogs at the time; this was back in 2006, and I was clueless. I had no idea what a blog was. If you asked me, I would have said it’s what some teenager writes when they get home from school or something. So, I had no idea this was the same sort of thing.

So, I researched Word Press and just kind of how the whole process goes and I figured “Okay, I’m pretty good with computers. I bet I can set this up myself.” So, I had sat around thinking about what I want to write about and obviously finance was at the top of my list because that’s what I do for a living and I pretty much am borderline Generation X myself and I worked with pretty much the same people in that demographic, so it just came to me “Let’s do Generation X Finance”. Not very inspiring, but that’s how I came about it. And, to be honest, it was just a part time thing after work. I just wanted to kind of hone my skills in, in terms of what’s going on in the world of finance because things are always changing; the laws and the stockmarket and
things like that, so it really was a way for me to just stay up on what’s going on in current events.

That being said, you know, I just, I really got kind of sucked into it and the more I read other blogs, the more I was excited to write about my own and it just kind of fed off itself.

Lara: Yep, that happens.

Jeremy: Yep. So, I mean that’s kind of where I got started and I went from being completely clueless to now this is my full time job and I make a living writing about finance. So, it’s been a pretty amazing journey.

Jeremy’s Small Victory #1

Lara: That’s fantastic. So, what was the small victory you shared with us in the ProBlogger community?

Jeremy: Well, there is a couple of them. One of them actually stemmed from ProBlogger itself. When I first got started – this was probably 2007 I think, so I was only a few months into my blogging career I guess you could say. He, you know, Darren hosted a group writing project and I didn’t know what this was but I thought ProBlogger’s a big site so if I can somehow maybe get a link or something on the site, that would do wonders for my blog.

So I sat down and I kind of, you know, I hammered out a post in maybe an hour. I just, I submitted it and, you know, that was it. I didn’t expect a whole lot from it but I wanted to take part in, you know, what other people were doing.

What happened after that was kind of amazing because it, over the coming months, I received a lot of other sites linking back to my site. So that, the fact that I was mentioned on ProBlogger really evolved into getting dozens if not hundreds of links to this one post and, as I watched my stats, I realised that now this post was my most popular post on my entire site. And it was with this a light bulb kind of went off and said “Okay, if I can write one post that gets so much interest and in turn has started making me money, I bet I can take this blog to the next level.” I was doing it just as a hobby at the time but this was a real turning point where I decided that I have to look deeper into blogging and what I can do to actually get more popular, get more links and maybe turn that into some money. So, that was probably my biggest small victory.

Jeremy’s Small Victory #2

Jeremy: But the other one, which didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, was meeting, kind of not meeting, but interacting with other bloggers in the personal finance kind of blog space. There were a number of us that kind of got started right around the same time, we all had similar subscriber bases, we had similar traffic levels and we kind of just informally reached out to each via email and, I don’t know if it was 2007, 2008, but someone came around and said “You know, maybe we should form sort of a blog alliance or maybe we should kind of unofficially form a blog group or something like that.” And we kind of said “Okay, let’s do that.” And, being as original as we are, we called ourselves ‘The Money Writers’, which again not too exciting but we write about money, so it just made sense.

We set up a site ‘themoneywriters.com’, we just kind of pooled all our feeds together into one handy location and we set up an email group so that we could just communicate easily back and forth with each other. And, essentially, early on it was just kind of a virtual water-cooler. You know, we would talk about what people are talking about on finance blogs, what, what’s going on in terms of advertising, we’d bounce ideas off each other in terms of you know “How are you making money on your site?” and “What are you writing about that’s successful?” and things like that.

But eventually it kind of evolved into a more official group where we were pitching advertising to, you know, the whole group. So someone might come to us saying “I want to place an ad on your site” and we’d say “Well, you get a discount if you place ads on all of our sites.”

Lara: Wonderful.

Jeremy: So, this kind of collaboration allowed us to, all of us take part in advertising that we may not have had an opportunity to in the past. So that was a big stepping stone in terms of starting to propel our blogs into the pro-blog status.

Lara: Right.

Jeremy: But I think more important than that was simply having a group of trusted bloggers that you can, you know, talk about things with because, when you blog on your own, it’s kind of a solo job for the most part. You’re writing, you’re just trying to get links, you’re trying to do some social media stuff but you don’t really have a close connection with a lot of people, so having this kind of network where you can confide in people and you can kind of vent or, if you’re, got writer’s block, you can kind of get ideas from people. That was a huge, a huge benefit and to this day, if I didn’t you know kind of become part of this group, I don’t know if I would’ve had the energy to keep up with this for the past four years. I don’t know if my site would be making as much money as it is now. So the simple act of, you know, joining a small group of other bloggers has done wonders for the long run.

Lara: That’s wonderful. I know Darren has talked about blogger alliances before in the past.

Jeremy: Yep.

Lara: And it’s always been a really great idea to find people that are in the same niche as you and working together is clearly, it definitely gives you some level of victory together.

Jeremy: Oh yeah, for sure.

Lara: That’s great. So, last but not least, do you have any words about the ProBlogger community that you’d like to share with the readers of Problogger.net?

Jeremy: Yeah, certainly. Probably to kind of feed off of what I just talked about, which was forming that kind of blogger alliance. If you don’t have that personal alliance, I think the ProBlogger community is the, probably the next best thing because you have a group of people that all basically are sharing the same sort of goals. These bloggers wouldn’t have signed up if they’re not serious about taking their blog to the next level and if they’re not serious about making more money or propelling their blog to a new status. So, if that’s kind of what you’re looking to accomplish, you might as well sign up because you’re going to have people that you can bounce ideas off of, you can get people to, you know, share links, you can expand your reach by joining other social networks. It’s just, it’s a great way to kind of meet other people and really get the support that you need as an individual because, you know, it is hard work, there’s a lot of competition and every little bit of help you can get is going to make all the difference in the world.

Lara: Awesome. So I will cut this off here and thank you so much, Jeremy, for doing the interview with us. We’ll see you in the forums.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Interview with Jeremy Vohwinkle – ProBlogger.com Small Victories Series

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When the internet first became popular, many people loved the idea of creating a new identity online. Name, gender, age, hobbies …anything and everything could be fabricated. But in the era of Web 2.0, people have a new fixation–authenticity. Nowadays, your readers want to know that you are who you say you are, and for a lot of bloggers that includes using your real name.

But some folks, for one reason or another, just aren’t comfortable attaching their given name to a blog. Perhaps they’re blogging about sex or eating disorders or unfair corporate policies, but whatever the subject, the one thing they all have in common is a behind-the-scenes writer who wants to blog freely but not have to worry about some of the potentially negative consequences of blogging.

As one of those anonymous bloggers, I want to share with you the reasons why some people choose to blog this way, a few different methods to hide your identity, and a couple of things to keep in mind if you decide to go the anonymous route. Because this article is just a basic primer, we won’t talk about proxy servers, re-routing, and all the other technologically elite methods of making your online trail invisible. As the title says, this is simply a “quick and dirty” guide for people who want to know how to get started.

Why Blog Anonymously?

1. Privacy & Safety—An anonymous blog allows for the most complete separation between your blogging life and your personal/professional life. For example, the once anonymous author Belle De Jour completed her PhD and began her career as a scientific researcher while blogging about her other job as a sex worker. Being public with her identity from the get-go would almost certainly have limited her career options. As another aside (and this is especially true for bloggers who write about sensitive subjects like sex, sex work, and pornography) blogging anonymously helps to control the risk of stalkers—those people who are determined to pay you unwanted and uninvited attention. Finally, anonymous blogging makes it clear that you’re only writing for yourself; your place of employment needn’t worry about people thinking you’re a “representative” of them.
2. Honesty—Anonymous blogging allows some people to be more than honest than they might be if their real name was attached. For example, if you’re writing a blog about relationships, you may not want your name attached to that essay about your terrible date over the weekend. A blog identity that’s separate from your personal identity gives you a bit of breathing space that lets you write more openly and honestly.
3. Personality & Character—Writing under a different name allows you to express different aspects of your personality, including parts that may not be appropriate to show at other times. In the same way that Superman was a cooler version of Clark Kent, your blog identity can be a cooler version of you. For example, my alter-ego Treacle is mellower, sexier, and more outgoing than the chick who shows up at my dayjob. Writing an anonymous blog gives me permission to play because I’m not dealing with the constraints of my already established “mundane” personality.

Ways to Blog Anonymously

1. Full-on anonymity—This style of anonymous blogging uses an obviously fake name (think John Doe), no photographs, no birthdate, no city, no hobbies, nothing identifying whatsoever. This is actually how I started blogging, and I don’t recommend it. Unless you are really, really, really good…it’s hard for people to feel attachment to a question mark.
2. Semi-anonymity—In this type, you use a false name but share some identifying details. This is how I blog right now. Treacle isn’t my given name, but the photos of me are real. So are other details like my hobbies, interests, relationship status, and so on. You might call this “everything but anonymity,” as in I share everything but the name on my driver’s license.
3. “Secret identity” anonymity—I know of quite a few anonymous bloggers who do this. In this style, you choose an authentic sounding first and last name, complete with its own Twitter, Facebook, mailing address, activities, and so on. A side effect of creating a new and fully-formed identity is that people believe they’re already interacting with the real you, and so don’t go looking for it. But the downside is that if it ever comes out you created a fictitious personality and put it out there as your own, your readers can feel massively betrayed. You also have to start doing this from the very beginning of your blog for it to work effectively.

How to Blog Anonymously?

First of all, you want to set up a separate e-mail address just for your blog, register your blog’s domain name anonymously (I think most folks do this anyway), and consider using software like Tor to make your IP address untraceable. Some bloggers refuse to blog from their personal or home computers; they’ll only use the libraries computer, for example. Other bloggers write while offline, and then copy and paste the entire post into the blog while Tor is turned on. You should also consider setting up separate Twitter, Facebook, and Paypal accounts and perhaps even buying a P.O. Box if you’ll need to send or receive goods later on.

Second, spend some time thinking about your pseudonym. Whatever you pick, that will be the identity always associated with your blog. In the same vein, spend some time thinking about your boundaries. What are you okay with sharing? What is absolutely off limits? What are you unsure about right now but will revisit a month or two down the road? For example, I never share the names or any identifying details of friends, family, and intimate partners on my blog. I don’t even make up pseudonyms; I just call them by nouns like “The Boyfriend,” “The Best Friend,” or “The Cousin.” You want to work out the answers to these questions before you start posting.

Third and finally, just keep your mouth shut. If you don’t want anyone to know who you are, don’t tell anyone. Plain and simple.

What are Some Other Things to Consider?

1. The only foolproof way to keep from being found out is to never blog at all. Therefore, you should start blogging under the assumption that you’ll be discovered one day. It’s depressing, I know, but it’s important to think about. One day, someone will recognize you and very possibly expose you. So, before blogging about anything, think about the potential consequences of that exposure. Whether it’s losing your jobs, losing your kids, or losing your freedom be prepared for the worst possible outcome.
2. Anonymous blogging is not a free pass to be an asshole. Aside from the possibility that you’ll eventually be found out (see above), you are what you blog. Nice, nasty, or in between the people you attract are going to reflect what you write.
3. It’s easier to start out with a lot of anonymity and open up over time than to do the reverse. If you’re not sure exactly how much you want to share just yet, start out by sharing a little less. You can always give more, but you can’t take anything back once it’s out there.

I hope this article helps you understand a little bit more about why some people prefer the anonymous approach, and, if you’re thinking about blogging anonymously, I hope it gives you a solid place to start. If you have any questions (about lingerie or anonymous blogging!), feel free to write me at thelingerieaddict@gmail.com.

About the Author: Treacle is a 25 year old knickers junkie who started blogging because her friends threatened to tape her mouth shut if she didn’t stop talking about her underwear. She welcomes lingerie lovers of every nation and persuasion to her blog, The Lingerie Addict.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Anonymous Blogging 101: a Quick and Dirty Primer

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Food blogs and bloggers have become a new staple of online food writing. They are everywhere, but bloggers themselves are still struggling to gain legitimacy. From photo-blogs like Tastespotting.com, with more than 10,000 contributors, to mass-aggregating food-review sites like YelpYelp, today’s food bloggers cover everything from a home-cooked lentil soup to three-star Michelin restaurants.

Despite the recent interest in food writing, and food shows like Top Chef, food bloggers have had a hard time earning the same respect as their print-publication counter-parts. If you think Julie and Julia is all there is to food blogging, keep reading for a brief breakdown of food blogging’s challenges, obstacles and successes.

Rising Influence

Blogs have gained more credibility and visibility but the meteoric rise of food blogs can be credited to their sense of community. A major reason Tastespotting leads to increased blog publicity is due to the TwitterTwitter and FacebookFacebook buzz featured images receive from other bloggers, said Sarah J. Gim, co-founder and moderator of the site.
With Twitter, message boards and other points of entry, more people are documenting the food they eat, Gim added.

But as interest increases, so does competition. Words alone are no longer good enough to be involved in the conversation. “It always helps to see an image of a dish that you’re describing,” said Davina Baum, managing editor of Chow.com. “The descriptions are so subjective. You could read a description and imagine the flavor in your mind totally different than how the writer experienced it. With an image, you can see it and the ingredients and how they’re prepared and how they’re interplaying.” Posts with pictures on Chow.com usually get many more hits and responses. Even renowned Chicago chef Rick Bayless, of Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, sometimes Twitpics his meals.

A few high profile bloggers have parlayed their visibility into book deals, such as Former Chez Panisse Pastry Chef David Lebovitz, Pim’s Pim Techamuanvivit and recently, Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen. A few more have been able to go into blogging full-time such as Gim. Still others have turned food blogging into a full-time writing career , such as Carly Fisher of Chicago Brunch Blog who now blogs for NBC Chicago.

However, these bloggers are the exception. Phil Lees, of The Last Appetite and a Wall Street Journal contributor, wrote on his site: “I briefly made a living from my blogs alone but this was because I was living in one of the world’s poorest nations…”

Food Bloggers vs. Traditional Media

While traditional media-outlets comp meals and attempt to keep the identities of their reviewers secret, that’s not usually the case with food bloggers. The Wall Street Journal reported that some restaurants provided complimentary meals and hosted special events for food bloggers in order to get positive press. Publicists have long offered these freebies to the traditional media as well, but it was generally considered taboo to accept.

While not all bloggers can get discounts and comps, the few who demand these rewards can put food bloggers in a questionable light. To set an ethical standard, Brooke Burton and Leah Greenstein of SpicySaltySweet.com and FoodWoolf.com, respectively, created a Food Blog Code of Ethics to combat the image of bloggers being “unfair, highly critical, untrained and power hungry individuals empowered by anonymity.”

The blog, Eater.com, has a section called Adventures in Schilling which calls out companies for questionable freebies such as when Calphalon and Williams-Sonoma offered bloggers a “food stipend” along with other gifts in exchange for coverage. The Federal Trade Commission has also made it illegal to give money or gifts (but not products) to bloggers without being transparent about it.

Conclusion

Questions continue to pop up about how “professional” a food blogger really can be. After all, some say, they don’t have the ethical auspice of an established brand to hold them to standards. The truth is, established sites like Yelp, Chow and Eater are taking big steps to establish the “lowly” food blogger as an invaluable part of the food industry hierarchy. Even independent bloggers are becoming more and more important as a resource for the food hungry and curious. Bloggers might be vying for respect with established media outlets, but they are certainly here to stay.

More food-related resources from Mashable:

- Smarter Food: How Social Media is Making Our Cities Tastier
- Tasty Tweets: 55+ Foodies to Follow on Twitter
- Top 15 Social Media Resources for Foodies
- 15 More Fantastic Social Media Resources for Foodies

Image courtesy of iStockphotoiStockphoto, gbrundin

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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FormspringFormSpring.me is a nifty little app that lets you answer anonymous (or credited) questions from your social network. It’s caught on like, well, a virus among certain groups; it bears almost all the hallmarks of a truly infectious application, including self-reference and just a dash of mystery.

Since the app’s inception, users have been asking for the ability to post their Q&As elsewhere on the web. The app has been letting users post their answered queries to TwitterTwitter and FacebookFacebook for a while, and TumblrTumblr and Bloggerblogger integrations are also available. But today, Formspring’s floodgates are opening for full WordPressWordPress support.

Also new today is Formspring’s option to share Q&As on MySpaceMySpace. Users who also have MySpace accounts can now publish their Formspring answers to their MySpace profiles and will, moreover, be able to find their MySpace friends on Formspring.

This app launched just seven months ago; it already gets around 50 million unique visitors each month. Even more exciting, around 40% of Formspring’s 13 million users currently share their Q&As on other sites.

In a release, Formspring CEO and Co-founder Ade Olonoh said, “These integrations with MySpace and WordPress will help us continue to build our rapidly growing global audience. Even more importantly, bringing MySpace and WordPress into the fold lets our users have the ability to share their opinions and insights with their friends and followers through all of the top social media and blogging platforms.”

To us, this integration makes perfect sense, especially for Wordpress users. When your online contacts ask you thought-provoking questions and you give careful — and sometimes long-winded — answers, the Q&A ends up reading like a blog post, anyhow.

What do you think: Will these new integrations help Formspring.me grow?

Last week at an event about blogging that I attended I asked the above question to 10 bloggers and jotted down their responses:

• 2 said ‘click on an ad’
• 2 said ‘buy my product’
• 1 said ’subscribe to my RSS feed’
• 1 said ’subscribe to my newsletter’
• 4 said they didn’t know

There’s no wrong or right answer to the question – every blog will have a different ‘conversion point’ to it – but it’s a great question to ask yourself from time to time.

Your answer will inform numerous aspects of your blogging including:

• How you design your blog – your call to the conversion you’re after should be prominent, above the fold and eye catching
• What you blog about – your blog posts should, at the very least, relate to your conversion goals and, at best, should lead people to wanting to take the action you’re after.
• Your promotional activities – knowing what you want people to do when they arrive on your blog can inform your decisions on where and how to promote your blog.

So what is the number 1 thing that you want people to DO when they arrive on your blog?

PS: tomorrow I’m going to flesh this out a little more and share a few tips on getting people to take the action you want them to do.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

What is a Conversion for Your Blog?

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These small victories interviews are with members of ProBlogger.com and are all about highlighting some of the small wins that real bloggers have – our hope is that they’ll inspire other bloggers at similar stages to not only celebrate the ‘big wins’ and those that have already gone pro – but to focus upon the smaller things that take us forward as bloggers.

Transcription of Interview with Carleen Coulter

For those of you who prefer to read than listen – here’s a transcription of the video by The Transcription People.

Lara: Hi everybody, this is Lara Kulpa from ProBlogger.com and as part of our new series on small victories I have with me today Carleen Coulter. Hi Carleen.

Carleen: Hi. How are you?

Lara: I’m wonderful. How are you?

Carleen: I am doing very well.

Lara: Good. So how about you give our listeners a little bit of a background?

Carleen: Okay. My name is Carleen Coulter. I’m the author of multiple blogs but my primary one is beautyandfashiontech, the words beauty and fashion followed by T-E-C-H .com.

Lara: Okay.

Carleen: I also have a blog, girl gloss and run some affiliate sites and I also run a little non profit blog for my dog.

Lara: Oh.

Carleen: Yeah, he doesn’t try to make any money.

Lara: So …

Carleen: Oh, go ahead.

Lara: No, no, no, you go, go ahead.

Carleen: I basically started blogging, I’d say it was about three and a half, four years ago now. Kind of did it on a whim. I just one day started reading some other blogs and said, hey, I’d kind of like to try that and started doing it. I’m actually an attorney by profession.

Lara: Oh, wow, nice. Very nice.

Carleen: So it’s … yeah, you know, it makes for a nice combination. I kind of like writing about things that aren’t legal topics from time to time.

Lara: I can’t blame you there.

Carleen: Yeah. The legal stuff gets kind of dry.

Lara: Yeah. So when you put your … put in your application to be featured in the series, what was the small victory that you were talking about?

Carleen: Well actually I had kind of a small victory and then more of a medium victory. The small victory was when I first started doing this, my, my now husband, he was then my boyfriend, was really kind of teasing me about it. He, you know, he would go, “So you’re writing about makeup, you think you’re going to make some money from this.” Because I told him, well, you know, I’d kind of like to make a little money, extra money on the side.

Lara: Right.

Carleen: And, you know, he said, “You’re never going to make money on that. You’re falling for some make money online thing.” And I said, “Well, you know, I’ll try and see what happens.” So after maybe, I don’t know, a month or two, you know, I start showing him, “Oh, here, look. I’m at least making, you know, a buck a day on AdSense.” He’s like, “That’s not money. That doesn’t count.” And so I think I was about three months in and two things happened. First, I got my first AdSense cheque. So I actually, you know, made enough to get to that hundred dollar mark.

Lara: Absolutely.

Carleen: And then I also sold a $1500 ad contract for a six month ad contract.

Lara: Wow.

Carleen: And so he comes home and, you know, I proudly show him this $1500 and that pretty much shut him up after that. And he simply said, “Yeah, you can do more of this.”

Lara: Yeah, sure, absolutely. That’s awesome.

Carleen: Yeah. So that was … that was the small victory. The medium victory was really from there it kept growing and … when I first … I was … I’m originally from Nebraska and I moved out to Illinois to be with my husband and I took a cut in pay. I lost a part-time teaching job that was extra income from that and the cost of living out here is kind of ridiculous.

Lara: Yeah.

Carleen: So, yeah, I moved out here, I really kind of needed extra money and was looking to replace my teaching income and what happened was by about the one year mark I had done that. So that’s kind of my medium victory is that, you know, things grew. I replaced all that lost income, actually increased it quite a bit and in the end last year my husband was laid off of his job and that actually probably saved us. I mean …

Lara: Wow.

Carleen: My income at that point covered the mortgage and we got by okay. And, fortunately, he’s re-employed now.

Lara: Right. That’s fantastic. You know, a lot of people talk about how they think that everybody is trying to get into the blogging thing and the making money online thing because of the way the economy is of course in the United States and things are getting rough around here and we’ve been battling this whole thing for a couple of years now and it’s really nice to hear that within such a relatively short period of time, if you look at the grand scheme of things, I mean, a year, but that’s not asking a lot, to be able to put in the effort for a year’s time. And …

Carleen: Yeah, you know, yeah, I think it … the key is putting in the effort.

Lara: Right.

Carleen: I mean, it’s definitely work.

Lara: Oh, yeah, absolutely. It’s … there’s nothing … Darren recently had a post about how unsexy it is and …

Carleen: Yeah, that’s a good way to put it.

Lara: Yeah. You know, there’s nothing … there’s nothing out there saying that this is one of those like set it and forget it kind of Ronco rotisserie things, you have to really put in the effort, and that’s fantastic. So let me ask you this, being a member of ProBlogger.com and coming to the site and everything, what are some things that you think have helped you along the way?

Carleen: Well, first off, I have to say that ProBlogger, ProBlogger.net, the actual blog, was instrumental from the get go for me. When I first started blogging and started realising, oh, I could actually make some money from this, I think I read every single thing on there. I mean, yeah, I mean, Darren was like … he was a God to me. I was like, “Wow, this is just amazing. It’s a great site.”

Lara: Yep.

Carleen: So when ProBlogger.com the forum and everything started, I immediately wanted to be part of that. And I think it’s a very useful place, especially … I think it’s particularly probably good for new bloggers and then there’s some established bloggers in there who are quite active.

Lara: Yep.

Carleen: So it’s a nice mix of people. You get new people in there with fresh ideas and questions. I mean, I’ve learnt from people’s questions.

Lara: Yeah.

Carleen: You know, people ask questions that I never thought of and I thought, okay, that’s interesting. And then I also learnt from the answers.

Lara: Right.

Carleen: And then, like I said, there’s experienced people in there too who bring their own wealth of knowledge.

Lara: Right, right. One of the things that I hear a lot from people, now that we’ve been sending out the weekly newsletters and kind of pointing people in certain directions each week, one of the responses I keep getting is that people are feeling almost like wallflower-ish. You know, they go in there and they’re kind of like, you know, “There’s so many people with such great information I feel like I have nothing to add,” you know. To which my answer is always, “Well, you know, your learning process can be somebody else’s learning process as well,” which kind of goes along with what you just said.

Carleen: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I mean, I can’t, I can’t say how many times I’ve seen somebody either in, in the ProBlogger forum or another forum ask a question where I just … it might be a very basic question and it’s something I’ve never thought of before.

Lara: Right.

Carleen: And I get something out of that and I say, hey, I really learned something from that. Also you can’t … you can’t discount the, just the social interactions and getting to know people.

Lara: Right.

Carleen: I’m always one that’s always loved forums because I’m just pretty social and, you know, if you’re kind of a wallflower you really can, you know, get to know people just by going in forums, asking a few questions, throwing in your thoughts and, you know, don’t worry about being new or maybe not having been blogging that long or anything. You know, I think everybody has something valid to add.

Lara: Fantastic. Well, Carleen, thank you so much for talking to us today. And go ahead and tell everybody what your URL is again.

Carleen: The primary site is beautyandfashiontech.com. The first part is easy, beauty and fashion T-E-C-H .com.

Lara: Okay, great. Well thanks so much and we’ll see you in the forums.

Carleen: Yeah, thank you for having me.

Lara: Absolutely. Bye bye.

Carleen: Bye.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Interview with Carleen Coulter – ProBlogger.com Small Victories Series

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What tips would you give a beginner wanting to make money blogging?

It’s always an interesting question to answer – particularly when you’re asked to limit your tips to just a few sentences so the person can use it as a sound bite. The problem in condensing the advice into just a few quick tips is that for every tip there are plenty of successful blogs out there who didn’t do what you’re advising and still have had success.

Image by Wessex Archaeology

Having said that – here are a few of the foundational tips that I would give to those starting out. They’re not ‘rules’ and not every successful blog has followed them – however I think they are solid advice and should apply for most bloggers. They’re presented in no particular sequence.

1. Choose a topic you know about and have an interest in writing about

It is much easier to sustain a blog over the long haul if you have a genuine interest in the topic. It’s also easier to gain the trust of others and be seen as an authority if you know what you’re talking about.

2. Choose a topic that is in demand and has potential for profit

IF your goal is to make money from your blog (and it isn’t for everyone) you’ll probably want to do some thinking about the topic you’re going to write about. Most profitable blogs have a niche that they focus upon (here are some reasons why). Beyond your own interest in the topic there are other factors that you might want to consider when it comes to profitable niches including its popularity and whether people are searching for that information, how many competitors there are in that niche (and how strong they are), what income streams might be available on the topic, whether the topic is a long term one or a fleeting trend etc. For more reading on choosing a topic check out How to Choose a Blog Niche.

3. Produce content that meets peoples needs or solves problems

The content on your blog needs to mean something to people, it needs to solve a problem that they have (whether it be ‘I need to how to….’ or ‘I’m bored and need a laugh’ or ‘I want someone to tell me how xxxxx applies to my life’). Do this and people will keep coming back and they’ll tell others about you too. Read more on this in a post I wrote about ‘Usefulness’ as a principle of successful blogging.

4. Build traffic by participating on other sites and building a network

Building great content on your site is just half the battle but especially in the early days you can’t just rely upon a ‘build it and they will come’ mentality. Later on you might find that you can focus less upon promoting your blog but in the early days you need to get off your own blog and be willing to interact on other parts of the web (other blogs, social media, forums etc). Build a presence on sites where the type of reader that you want are already gathering, build relationships with other blog/site owners and be as useful to others as you can where ever you go. Read more on this topic at The Myth of ‘Great Content’ Marketing Itself.

5. Produce Content that People Want to Pass on

The bulk of your content will want to be solid content that focuses upon meeting the needs of your readers – however it can be well worth your time also throwing into the mix content that is designed to be more about attracting new readers through word of mouth. It is hard to define this content and many times it just happens but be aware of what content in your niche is being passed around on social media sites and you’ll begin to see opportunities to write some of your own. Often this content is funny/playful, controversial, statistics/research based or ‘list posts’ that are mega resources (50 ways to….’ or ‘50 ….. to watch’ type posts. Ultimately it is the type of content that someone reads and where their first reaction is to make them think – ‘I need to send this to….’ or ‘I need to tweet this’ or ‘I’m going to bookmark this on Delicious’.

6. Develop a ‘hook’ or ‘hooks’ that will keep those visiting your blog for the first time coming back again

Some people will naturally keep coming back to your site after their first visit, but a very large percentage of them will never return unless you ‘hook’ them in some way. Many bloggers rely upon people subscribing to their RSS feed to ‘hook’ readers and while this can help only some visitors will know how to do this. Other options for this include creating an email newsletter or getting readers to sign up to join/become members. Once people sign up for these you have their permission to remind them about your site and continue to draw them in. Further reading on this topic: How I use Email Newsletters to Drive Traffic and Make Money.

7. Build Community

People no longer just come online to download information or read the expert opinion of others. The web is not a passive place, people want to interact, create, discuss and belong. A blog is a great way to broadcast information but it is also a fantastic tool for building a sense of belonging and interaction, so make the most of that. You might want to add other areas to your blog for this type of interaction (a membership area or forum) but much of it can happen right in your blog posts as well. Ask questions, feature what your readers are doing, run interactive projects, do polls, host debates, give your readers a place to show off what they’re working on. The more you get your readers to ‘do’ the more they’ll feel like a member rather than just a ‘reader’. Get more tips on building community on your blog here.

8. Experiment with Different Direct Monetization Streams

One of the wonderful things about the blogging space today is that bloggers now have a myriad of ways to monetize their sites. Back when I started in this business things were much more limited and most bloggers just used AdSense and Amazon affiliate program because there were not many other options. Those can be great starting points to begin to learn about running ads and affiliate programs on your blog but don’t limit yourself to them. The key is to experiment with different ‘direct income streams‘. Try some different ad networks (whether they be contextual ads, impression based ads etc), try selling your own ads and play with different affiliate marketing campaigns. Play with using different ads and affiliate programs in a variety of ways and positions on your blog (for example in your RSS feed, in posts, in your sidebar, in your header etc).

9. Plan for Indirect Income Streams Early

One of the biggest trends in blogging over the last couple of years is bloggers also experimenting with making money ‘because’ of their blog through more indirect income streams. It’s not just about running ads on your blog – there can often be other things you can do including selling your services as a consultant, running training programs, developing eBooks or other resources, starting a paid members area/forum, selling premium content services etc. Not all of these will apply to every niche but more and more bloggers are now discovering the power of developing their own products and services to sell to blog readers.

10. Don’t Give Up Your Day Job…. Yet

Making money through blogs can be very profitable and a lot of fun, however it is not a fast process and there are no guarantees. It almost always takes years to build up and there are many many bloggers who’ve been at it for that long who make very little money (if any) despite their best efforts. I think there is something to be said about investing a lot of time into a blog if you want it to grow, however I’d advise very very careful consideration if you’re thinking about opening up time by giving up other employment. I personally took 2-3 years to move my blogging from a hobby, to a part time job to a full time thing (and even when I went full time there were times where I took on other work) and most full time bloggers I chat with today have similar stories. Further Reading: A Reality Check about Blogging for Money.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

10 Foundational Tips for Bloggers Wanting to Make Money Blogging

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If you’re into blogging then you might as well aim to be the best blogger you can be. There’s no point trying to be a D-list blogger or you might up even lower down the alphabet than that. Of course, we all start our blogging journey at Z but you may as well shoot to be an A-list blogger at the top of your game and reap the benefits that will naturally flow from that.

You want to be an A-list blogger don’t you? Then check your vital blogging signs and see if you’re telling the world that you’re blogging like you mean it.

If you want to make it into the A-list you owe it to yourself to check if you’re showing the signs. Every time your blog visitors  visit your blog or come across your comments or tweets they’re jumping to conclusions about your level of competence and how trustworty or interesting you are. It sounds harsh and they’re probably not doing it consciously but both blog readers and other bloggers are on the look out for blogs that are going to stand the test of time and will still be around in years to come.

Have you ever made a new friend, hung out with her for months, shared your highs and lows, started to rely on her for everything and loved her more than anyone only to hear one day that she’s moving to China? I haven’t experienced that exact scenario either but I’ve got a feeling it would suck. Unfortunately, it happens a lot in blogging circles. I’ve only been blogging for 16 months but during that time I’ve seen bloggers who’ve been at it for two or more years, who’ve invested hours of their time into blogging, just stop overnight.

If you’re a blog reader you’re often looking for a long term reading plan, someone you can trust who’s going to be around to help or entertain you for years to come. If you’re a blogger you’ve probably realised that having strong connections is vital. Since it takes time to build a strong relationship with other bloggers you want to make sure that they’re going to stick around so you help each other out for years to come. Blogging’s definitely a long term commitment so you need to connect with bloggers who will stand the test of time.

Most of all if you’re a blogger you might as well present yourself as an A-list blogger. If you want to make it into the A-list it’s essential to show these signs. If you’re a long way from the A-list then now’s the time to start faking it until you make it, otherwise you may never get there.

7 Signs of an A-List Blogger in the Making

1. Professional blog design

I know two well known blogs by A-list bloggers with tens of thousands of RSS feed subscribers that don’t have their own domain name and template blogs. It’s probably the same basic blog template they set up years ago and when you first see their blog it definitely doesn’t say “warning you are entering the zone of an A-list blogger”. But these two are big exceptions. Every other A-list blogger I’ve come across has their own domain name and a unique blog design which makes them look professional.

Professional blog design isn’t essential to success but the odds get harder if you haven’t invested in your blog or website design. What I like about the web is that it allows small businesses to rival much bigger businesses by presenting themselves as well as they do. If you want to compete on a level footing with the A-list bloggers making sure your blog is designed as well as their blog is will help.

2. A well-defined topic and regular updates

A-list bloggers dominate their niche. They decide on the focus of their blog and stick to it so there can be no confusion. When a new reader gets to their blog they learn immediately what it’s about and there’s a sizeable archive of blog posts focused around that topic to back it up.

When A-list bloggers go on holiday they make sure that their blog is updated while they’re away and most of them update their blogs at least once a week, probably two or three times a week and often daily. That’s what readers have come to expect and you need to make sure you show them you’re doing it.

3. Consistent branding across all social media

Use your professional web design to set up a clear and instantly recognizable brand for yourself. A photo of yourself is the best way to get yourself recognised and provide the personal element people need to build trust on the Internet. Pick a good head shot or get one taken. Decide if you want a serious image like Darren Rowse, a fun shot like Seth Godin or go for a friendly smile like me and Pat Flynn. If you visit Darren’s Twitter page you’ll see he’s also got the Problogger logo and another fun photo wearing his trademark glasses. Include some of your branding, logo or branded colors into your image or personalise your Twitter page so it reflects your blog branding.

4. High visibility

A-list bloggers seem to get everywhere. They’re always being interviewed, being retweeted, popping up on Facebook or being mentioned by other A-list bloggers. Repeat exposure is good. Often it can take several times of seeing your name or blog name before people feel curious enough to actually take the next step and visit your site. Make yourself visible across social media by leaving comments on blogs related to your topic. If you start to retweet other bloggers or interview them they may do the same for you. If you keep this process up you should slowly become more visible, easily recognised and known for your topic and expertise.

5. Friendly

A-list bloggers help their readers out by giving them excellent information and often go a  step further emailing them special updates, replying to comments, giving free webinars or going to blogging conferences where they can meet readers en masse. Like all of us A-list bloggers have unique personalities and they use it on their blog and in life to make connections with people. Blogging’s all about community and connections and the A-list bloggers are friendly leaders of their communities. They often use video and podcasts which let readers to feel a deeper connection with a blogger than they can just through reading their blog posts.

6. Writing style

The main stay for most bloggers is still words. You don’t need to be a great writer to have a great blog, you can learn how to write well for people who will be reading it on a screen. Improve and hone your writing slowly by writing regularly. A-list bloggers understand the importance of every word on their posts and avoid taxing their readers by using words unnecessarily. They format their blog posts so they’re easy to read online with numbered or bullet-pointed list and clear headers with sub-headers to allow people to skim read and break up long passages of text. Writing headlines is a key skill and the A-list bloggers learn how to draw readers into their blog with compelling headlines using questions, how to posts or ever-popular numbered lists.

7. Blogging connections

Look out for another blogger who’s on about the same level as you and hook up with them. Together you can help propel each other to the top by commenting on each other’s blogs, sharing guest posts, promoting each other’s blogs and motivating each other to keep blogging even when you don’t seem to be getting anywhere. I don’t rate your chances of becoming an A-list blogger without connections. Show that you’re connected to a wide variety of interesting people by replying to questions or asking them on Twitter, replying to your readers’ comments, writing guest posts for other blogs and inviting up and coming bloggers to write a guest post for your blog.

No man is an island and no A-list blogger is either. Nor should you be. Check that you’re showing the 7 signs of an A-list blogger in the making so you can start climbing your way up the blogging alphabet by the shortest possible route.

Do you show the signs of being an A-list blogger in the making or do you know another blogger who is?

Annabel Candy writes empowering tips for life and work at her newly designed blog Get In the Hot Spot. Subscribe to her RSS feed or choose   free email updates for regular helpings of useful, inspiring writing that will teach you how to succeed in life and online.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

7 Signs of an A-List Blogger in the Making

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If you’re looking for a blogger to hire – the ProBlogger Job boards remain one of the most effective and affordable places to find the. For just $50 your ad for a blogger will be seen by tens of thousands of bloggers.

• the RSS feeds are subscribed to by over 2000 readers
• each job is sent out to my Twitter followers (close to 100,000 people)
• jobs are posted on the ProBlogger LinkedIn group news section (1900 members)

Current advertisers feed back that the quality and number of applicants is high – as a result we have quite a few regular and repeat advertisers.

If you’re looking to place an ad – here are some tips on how to advertise for a blogger.

Looking for a Blog Job?

If you’re looking for a blogging job there seems to be a lot more people looking to hire at the moment.

In the last 7 days alone we’ve seen 24 new blogging jobs added to the ProBlogger Job Boards (there are only 18 listed now as 6 were quickly filled and removed by advertisers).

To stay up to date with the latest blogging jobs simply follow me on Twitter and/or subscribe to the job board RSS feed.

If you’re applying for jobs – here’s some tips for bloggers on how to apply for jobs.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Have Your Blogging Job Advertisment Seen by Tens of Thousands of Bloggers

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