What do you find most difficult as a blogger?

Recently I have been checking on some blogging forums and have noticed how varied the difficulties are that bloggers face (particularly new bloggers). Those with technical skills sometimes find it difficult to find inspiration for posts whereas those with experience with writing may struggle to get to grips with running their blog and customising it the way they want.

Don’t be alarmed if you are being overwhelmed with the many aspects of being a blogger. There is a learning curve and things do start to get easier as time goes by. However, because I have been blogging for years, I have a bad habit of forgetting how difficult some things are, so yesterday I asked Blogging Tips Twitter Followers ‘What do you find most difficult as a blogger?’. The replies were quite interesting so I thought I would share them all with you and give my own opinion on the subject

LadyLitigator:
Getting people to not only visit but also leave their imprint with an intelligent comment or reaction.

There are numerous ways to increase comments on your blog posts. Commenting on other blogs may help, particularly if you refer to a related article of your own in your reply. Getting traffic to your blog is obviously a major factor too because if no one is reading, no one is commentating.

Encouraging a higher quality of comment is a little bit more difficult. Generally speaking, the higher the quality the article is, the higher the quality of the comments. Though there are many factors to be considered. For example, Is your article the first to break a news story, do people strongly agree/disagree with your opinion or are you perhaps discussing something which people are really passionate about (sports/religion/politics etc)?

You also have to appreciate that many people aren’t in the habit of writing long or high quality comments. Just like in traditional discussion forums, many people will simply reply with a ‘good article’ or ‘I disagree’ type comment without going into any great detail beyond that (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

adamwbrown:
Choosing a topic to start blogging on is proving a challenge, lots of ideas, but need to take ACTION.

There are lots of great articles online which give you advice on how to choose a blog niche. But my advice to anyone who is unsure about what topic to blog about is this : Blog about something you are passionate about!

If you are passionate about a subject you will not only enjoy blogging more, it will be reflected in your posts, which increases the chance of your blog becoming successful. I made the mistake of starting a website in a subject I wasn’t interested in a few times. In the beginning it wasn’t too bad but after a while I found updating those sites to be a real pain in the ass and they were sold on soon after.

It’s very tempting to start a blog in a niche with high CPC and commission rates but I would encourage anyone who wants to find success with a blog to write about something which they love.

If you are struggling to figure out what subject you are passionate about then ask yourself these questions: What websites do you regularly visit, what magazines and books do you enjoy reading, what topic do you love debating about with others?

Dana_Lu:
Dealing with trolls and spammers in a “professional” manner.

Personally, I’ve had to deal with spammers more often than trolls. With spam the main problem is trackback spam however most trackback spammers tend to spam pages with a PageRank so it happens on older posts more. Which is why I had to switch comments off on posts here which are older than 30 days (thankfully it seems to have resolved the problem).

The other type of spam I get on BloggingTips is low quality comments. I have stressed many times that comments here have the nofollow tag attached and I have explained why there is no benefit in promoting your blog via comments for search engine benefits. Yet everyday someone inevitably leaves a comment using their blogs name instead of their own name (which means I have to reply to a comment from ‘Great BBQ Deals’ instead of ‘John’!). I know it’s petty but unless the comment is really good, I am less inclined to reply to people who do this.

With regards to Trolls, I’ve only had the odd clash with them. However, if the problem got worst I would take a zero tolerence with them. At the end of the day, it’s your blog. So why you should have to deal with people who are abusive, racist and downright ignorant.

If you do have a problem with Trolls I suggest adding a message in the comment area stating that abusive messages etc will not be tolerated. This might discourage trolls from writing comments in the first place. Check out the comment area from one of Tim Ferriss’s posts to get an idea of what I’m talking about

yudhaganesha:
Finding inspiration

I think that everyone finds Inspiration in different places.

If you are developing a blog primarily to make money then you may find inspiration from bloggers who have found success via a blog. If you are looking to become a writer then you may be inspired by those who started off as a blogger like yourself and then got a publishing deal.

You might be inspired by someone who isn’t even a blogger e.g. perhaps a friend of yours has built up a successful business from scratch and his success has inspired you to do the same online.

I do think that inspiration can come in many shapes and sizes though. Only recently I was inspired to work a little bit harder because the payment for my upcoming holiday was due!

Transtextuel:

Patience. I need to think that I will yield the results of my blogging business within months or even years. Difficult.

I think that you are one step ahead of a lot other bloggers by realising this. Many new bloggers believe they will be making thousands of dollars with their blog within a few months. True, some bloggers have achieved this but most bloggers don’t start making good money with their blog until their blog has been established, which can take a year or two.

It can be frustrating working on your blog week in week out without seeing a direct return, which is why so many people stop posting on their blog within a few months of launching it. The people who find success with their blog are the ones who persevere and work out a long term strategy for their blog.

vj1987:

Writer’s block, it sucks, it can breathe the life out of you.

The best writers in the world also suffer from writers block so don’t be too disheartened when it happens to you. I find it difficult to write when I am really tired and in the past I have taken 30 minutes to write a post which would normally take me 5.

To get the most out of working online you need to be productive with your time. Therefore, if I’m struggling for ideas for a post I do some research. I browse the web, read articles, take notes and sometimes save a quick draft of a post idea. I then get away from the computer, either to sleep, go to the gym or just get out the house for a while.

The time away from the computer gives me time to relax but it also gives me time to let the ideas for posts sink in. When I come back to the computer afterwards I am normally in a better mindset to write with the creative juices flowing more.

ApexKid:
Coming up with topics that are interesting, or getting traffic to my blog.

Who’s to say what an interesting topic is. There are people out there who will find this article interesting but there are also people who would be bored to tears reading this. Everyone has different interests and hobbies. If you are writing about something which interests you then I’m sure that there will be someone out there who finds the subject interesting too.

Don’t cater to the masses, cater to your own interests and your knowledge and love for the subject will show in the post.

makoho:

Determining the moment a post is finished and should be posted, read, and left to itself.

This is something which I have struggled with in the past. I think that a post is complete when you have covered every point you wanted to address in the post. If the article is long but you haven’t covered everything, it may be worth finishing the article and covering the other points in a 2nd or 3rd article.

Time is a big factor though. Due to being in a rush, I have published posts which were far from complete. Likewise, when I have found myself with too much time the posts have sometimes been too long and drawn out.

Over time I believe that this will become less of an issue. You will see what posts readers respond to and get a better idea of what length they prefer.

What do you find most difficult as a blogger?

I hope you have enjoyed the list. Though this discussion is by no means over. Please let us know what aspect of blogging you find difficult. Also, If there is something which you are really struggling with, let me know and I will do my best to write a step by step guide to help you progress

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What do you find most difficult as a blogger?

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How To Promote Your Personal Brand on SocialMediaV

July 31, 2009 | By Charnita Fance In How to make money, Make money with | Comments(0)

If you’re looking to find companies and/or people to network with or if you’re looking to be found, SocialMediaV aims to help you with that. It’s a simple way to search for all types of brands whether large or small, as well as another great way of getting your name out there and promoting your hard work. Since building your brand is very important, SocialMediaV is a defintely a tool you’ll want to use.

Adding and setting up your brand on SocialMediaV is quite simple.

Choose your type. What type of brand would you like to monitor?
Enter your name, email, country and agree to the terms.
Click the activation link in the email that you should receive instantly after clicking the submit button.
Wait for another email confirming your account activation and also giving you your password.
Now once logged in you’ll want to create your brand. To do this, click on “create brand” in the top right corner of the page.
Enter the information asked for. If you are tracking a personal brand, the form will look just like the image below. As you can see, it’s pretty self explanatory.

Next you’ll be able to add a photo and links to all of your social profiles that you’d like associated with your brand. If you have a lot of profiles like me, this could take awhile. You’ll need to pick a site from the drop down list on the left and then enter the URL on the right. The nice part is that once you pick a site it is removed from the list — making it easier to keep up with the sites left on the drop down list.

Once you get through that, you’ll see your brand listed at the top of the home page along with your photo, title, country, and a few links. Note: It took me about 20 minutes to add all of my links, after which they all seemed to “disappear” after I clicked submit. Not sure what happened there.

You’ll see four tiny icons under your picture that are great for networking purposes. The first one is a contact form (which helps protect your email), the second one seems to take you to a blank page right now, the third one creates a little widget for promotion and the fourth one a sharing and bookmarking widget from AddToAny.com.

The widget that they provide is extremely tiny but it definitely will come in handy for email and forum signatures (that allow html), blog sidebars, etc. It’s also nice that anyone can use your widget. You never know, someone may be nice enough to help promote your brand.

So, what is your take on SocialMediaV? Useful or not?

How To Promote Your Personal Brand on SocialMediaV

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Attack of the Serial Blogger

July 31, 2009 | By Larry Brooks In How to make money, Make money with | Comments(0)

The eternal challenge of blogging is to lure readers back for more. Branding helps — your reader knows what to expect so they stay with you. Provided, of course, that you continue to deliver.

You get about two or three shots for that to happen, then they’re gone. When you set the bar high, it’s incumbent upon you to leap over it each and every time.

Once your brand is solidly in place, there’s an even better way to hook more readers, at least in the short-term: go serial on them.

If you want a ratchet up branding and reader acquisition — and who doesn’t? – consider delivering a multi-part blog series that goes deep into the heart of your chosen field of expertise. Something that demonstrates that you are The Authority on the subject.

Nothing says authority quite like a series.

I’m living this one myself — I’m launching a 10-part series that’s actually more of a short training course or book than a blog. And that’s a good thing, because my readers will, if all goes according to plan, be both hooked and hungry as the series progresses.

Individual posts in a series do need to stand on their own. And yet, they must also propel the reader into the next one. A tricky piece of outlining, that. An effective series is a whole that exceeds the sum of the parts, and make no mistake, it is the whole that sets you apart from your blogging competition.

Anyone can write a post. But only an expert can craft a series.

The Next Level of Branding

Not all that many blogs have adopted a series strategy. That’s because a large percentage are more journal than journalistic, more commentary than truly instructional. Opinion is fine, but that doesn’t make you an authority — demonstrated expertise does.

The more focused within a given niche your blog, and the more your voice resonates with authority, the more suited to a series it is. Readers want content beyond affirmation and commiseration, they want mentoring.

Chances are that if your blog legitimately comes from a place of expertise, then there are most likely certain aspects of your avocation or product realm that can’t be adequately covered in a single post. So think big. Carve out a slice and then serve it up as a series that puts it all into a neat little contextual box for your readers.

The deeper you go, the clearer you make it, the more solid your branded identity becomes.

A Deeper Realm of Value

For example, you can’t (or at least I can’t, nor can anyone I know of) explain the intricasies of structuring a novel in a single post. It’s as complicated as learning to fly, and nobody wants a seat on that two-passenger airplane unless the writer has been through ground school.

And the ground school of writing a novel is WAY bigger than a blog.

But one can cover the 10,000 foot big picture of storytelling in, say, a 10 post series delivered in a sequence that builds with both logic and compelling applicability. Once the big picture is clear, all the details to follow will arrive in context to it.

In a world in which content is king, context is queen. Together… they rule.

Serial blogging is the on-steroids version of the eternal wisdom we bloggers have had drilled into us from Day One: it’s all about the value of our content.

And sometimes more is better. Use a series to not only make content accessible, but to give it context, as well, and your brand as an authority will get the royal treatment.

Photo credit: Tony Hanna

Attack of the Serial Blogger

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Create a Blog to Sell Your Writing Services

July 31, 2009 | By angela.booth In Make money with, Make money writing | Comments(0)

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5 Quick Ways to Improve Your Blog

July 31, 2009 | By Jonathan Bailey In How to make money, Make money with | Comments(0)

Let’s say that you have a few hours free and you want to dedicate it to your blog. It’s not enough time to take on a major project such as building a new theme or completely redoing your categories/tags (at least not if you have a large site), but you want to do something to make your blog better.

If you find yourself with that blessing, here are five things that you can do right now to improve your blog, all of which take less than an hour and some only take a few minutes.

Best of all, doing these things will, in most cases, have an immediate or near-immediate impact on your site. Making it more approachable with better content.

So here are some ways you can improve your site right now.

5. Tweak Your Theme

You might not have the time you need to overhaul your theme completely, but what about tweaking it a bit? Why not see if you can improve your site’s typography, thus making your text easier to read? Maybe it’s time for a better logo?

Though, in a perfect world, the look of a site would not impact the way it is read, appearance matters a great deal on the Web, especially when it affects readability. Take a few moments to look at your site, analyze what its weakest points are visually and address them.

Even if it is as simple as adding new RSS buttons, it can be a huge help.

4. Run a Site Speed Test

How fast does your site load? What’s slowing it down the most? If you don’t know, run a site speed analysis and find out. Then all you have to do is eliminate whatever is slowing you down and you should notice a drastic difference in your site’s speed ,all without moving hosts or paying more money.

If you have files that are slowing you down but can’t remove them, consider hosting them on Amazon Cloudfront or Rackspace Cloud to greatly increase their download speed cheaply. Also, be sure to optimize images as needed to keep them from dragging your site down.

3. Tweak/Add Static Pages

Though most people read blogs for the day-to-day content, most people become regular readers, at least in part, due to something available on the static pages of your site.

If you check your traffic stats, you’ll likely find that your static pages are among the most popular on your site but, since they aren’t being constantly written, they fall out of date.

Take a few moments to update or add to your static pages. Write a little bit about yourself, include a picture if you can to forge a more human connection and add pages that compliment your regular blog topics. It works great.

2. Add a Feature

Though adding features to your blogs recklessly can get you in trouble, especially with your site’s speed and appearance, if you have been wanting to add Twitter interaction or a new widget, now is a great time.

Since WordPress and other blogging platforms make it so easy to add plugins, widgets and other elements, if you want to try out a new tool or service, you can do so with relative ease and safety. However, be sure to closely monitor how it affects your site and ensure that it does more good than harm.

1. Brainstorm

Though brainstorming isn’t as immediate with its gratification, it is something you will see benefit from tomorrow and for a long time moving forward.

The problem is that, if you’ve been blogging long enough, idea generation and blog post writing are likely part of the same process. If you don’t constantly have ideas ready when you wake up in the morning, you spend time coming up with ideas that should have gone to writing and crafting the perfect post.

If you brainstorm in advance, you’ll find that your posts are much higher quality. They are better thought out, have much tighter writing and tend to wonder off course less. If you post every weekday and you take an hour now to come up with 15 good ideas, you’ll have three weeks of high-quality posts in your future.

What can improve your site more than that?

Bottom Line

When it comes to making your site better, it doesn’t take a lot of time, just a lot of heart and willingness to sacrifice a few moments to spend on things that are not directly related to blogging.

Best of all, these are just some of the things you can do to make your site better. There are plenty of other things that you can improve on the quick. You just have to beilling to look around.

5 Quick Ways to Improve Your Blog

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Hyphens: Over-used or Under-used?

July 29, 2009 | By Patti Stafford In How to make money, Make money with | Comments(0)

The new rule for hyphens seems to be: “When in doubt, hyphenate—or just omit them altogether.” But this is not a good rule of thumb to live by. Believe it or not, hyphenating in the wrong place, or the wrong instance, can give a whole new meaning to your words.

In this day and age of blogging, many rules of usage have gone out the window. Maybe you’re not concerned with becoming a published author, so you feel it doesn’t matter whether your blog posts are correctly punctuated. But perhaps you do care about how you are perceived by your readers.

Not every reader is discerning when it comes to punctuation. But those that are can make instant evaluations about the level of care you put into your post.

The punctuation mark I plan to cover today is the hyphen. We don’t give much thought to the hyphen these days, but it’s still an important part of writing and conveying a message. The younger generation has become accustomed to omitting it. With the use of text messages, the English language is mutilated beyond recognition on a daily basis.

Recently, I was reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss. Truss opened my eyes to the importance of properly using a hyphen, and how a misplaced hyphen can change the meaning of a phrase or sentence.

So, why do we need hyphens? Hyphens help avoid ambiguity or vagueness.

A re-formed rock band is not the same as a reformed rock band. Re-marked has a different meaning to remarked.

Numbers that are spelled out should be hyphenated: twenty-three, fifty-eight.

Fractions written out should also be hyphenated: two-thirds, four-fifths. But there is an exception: When a fraction is used as a noun, do not use a hyphen.

A two-thirds vote is needed.

Two thirds of the community voted.

Linking nouns with nouns or adjectives with adjectives is done with a hyphen: London-Brighton train, American-French relations, long-term, skin-deep.

Do not use a hyphen between an adjective and an adverb that ends with
-ly. “Superbly talented chef” does not need a hyphen.

When qualifying another noun: Stainless steel is not hyphenated unless you are speaking of a stainless-steel kitchen. Novels can be written in the 18th century or they can be 18th-century novels. The bus can leave at seven o’clock or you can catch the seven-o’clock bus.

Some prefixes need to be hyphenated: un-American, anti-American. It’s funny that Woodrow Wilson said the hyphen was “the most un-American thing in the world,” and you’ll notice that un-American is hyphenated.

Hyphens are used to break words at the end of a line. This is not generally needed with writing online—or in programs such as Word that use word-wrap—but in the publishing world the hyphen is still needed for printing procedures.

Words that need to be divided should only be done between syllables.

Never divide single syllable words like laugh, brought, save.

Never break a one-letter syllable from the rest of the word:

a-dore, e-mit, i-ris should never be hyphenated.

Hyphenate after two letters at the end of the line, but never carry a two-letter ending to the next line.

Acceptable: be-lieve, re-call, in-vite.

Not acceptable: tight-en, shov-el, over-ly.

Words with a double consonant can be divided between the consonants: shim-mer, oc-cur, ship-ping.

Never divide a proper noun or proper adjective: Polish, Yonkers, Canadian.

The hyphen has a dual problem. We tend to hyphenate words that don’t require it and jam together words that do. Both situations can make your meaning unclear or less readable.

Image credit: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/97/250133728_1feee80d2f.jpg

Hyphens: Over-used or Under-used?

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Market Your Tweets Locally with GeoChirp

July 29, 2009 | By Kristen Nicole In How to make money, Make money with | Comments(0)

Growing your Twitter community is a major obstacle for many new users. And doing it the right way can make all the difference in the world when it comes to appreciating Twitter or merely getting lost in a sea of spam and unrelated tweets. GeoChirp is a new Twitter application that lets you search tweets based on geographic results. This is one of many ways you can seek out other users that will be of value to you at any given point in time on Twitter.

As a Twitter/Google Maps mashup, GeoChirp provides search results on the local level, displayed on a map. Search any keyword you like, and you’ll see the results appear accordingly. From there, you can view the tweets, learn more about the users that created the tweets, and choose to follow them if you’d like.

What’s useful about this approach is that it can be used in a variety of situations, including travel. For instance, if you’re attending a conference or are visiting another city, you can find local restaurants, events and people that are in the area. If you’re simply looking for more Twitter users in your current hometown, GeoChirp can help you on this end as well.

To this end, you can easily glean recommendations for a variety of locally-based activities through GeoChirp, or merely seek out useful Twitter users with whom you can converse on topics that are of interest to you.
As far as personal or professional branding goes, GeoChirp can offer a level of targeted marketing for you, enabling you to hone in on the types of users that you may want to reach out to as well. If you’re holding a retail sale or opening a new restaurant, tweet about it to the users that it will effect on a local level. Find them first on GeoChirp.

We’re likely going to see services like GeoChirp continue to make the shift into the enterprise realm as more brands look to Twitter for marketing. Localizing that marketing potential is yet another way in which Twitter and its supported apps will continue to evolve and offer value as an advertising platform for brand building on all levels.

Market Your Tweets Locally with GeoChirp

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WordPress.com Gravatar Widget

July 29, 2009 | By Kevin Muldoon In How to make money, Make money with | Comments(0)

WordPress.com have added a great new widget which lets you easily add an about me box to the side of your WordPress.com blog.

The widget is called Gravatar Widget because it displays the users Gravatar image and puts it in the about box.

Many themes come with a standard About Me area which can be edited via the sidebar.php template however a widget is much more preferable as it allows you to switch between themes more easily (i.e. without having to hard code things again).

Here is what the configuration screen looks like:

This is a great little plugin which I’m sure many WordPress.com bloggers will use. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like there is an equivalent for self-hosting WordPress.org users. The closest I found was the About Me plugin but that doesn’t offer the same functionality.

WordPress.com Gravatar Widget

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Blog Themes Club Membership Price Drop For 3 days only!

July 29, 2009 | By Kevin Muldoon In How to make money, Make money with | Comments(0)

There are only 3 days left until the launch prices for Blog Themes Club end and prices go back up to our normal rates (which we still believe to be competitive).

To celebrate the end of our beta (launch) period we are dropping the price of all our membership packages. This offer is only valid Today, Tomorrow and Friday. On Saturday (August 1st) the cost will return to $49 for a 3 month membership, $79 for a 6 month membership and $99 for a 12 month membership.

For the next 3 days membership prices will drop to:

3 months membership – ~~$49~~ ~~$29~~ $20
6 months membership – ~~$79~~ ~~$49~~ $35
12 months membership – ~~$99~~ ~~$69~~ $50

Blog Themes Club members currently have access to 4 premium WordPress themes however our new Artemis theme should be released within the next few weeks with our 6th theme hopefully being released before the end of September.

All members also get premium forum support, access to all our WordPress themes,
access to changes & updates to our themes and access to new Blog Themes Club designs.

Til the end of the week a 3 month membership only costs $20 which works out at $5 per premium theme. Over the next 2 months we will be adding at least two more themes so I’m sure you will agree that this is a fantastic deal. Make sure you don’t miss out as it is only available for the next 3 days.

To place an order please visit our Membership Order Page. To find out more about our themes please visit Blog Themes Club.

Theme Recap

Here is a quick recap of all of the Blog Themes Club themes.

Anima
Anima WordPress Theme

A beautiful yet simple WordPress Theme which is incredibly easy to modify.

Demo | More Info

Invictus
Invictus WordPress Theme

A bold yet elgant red and black based WordPress Theme which boasts a useful mutl information tab. This is the theme which powers Blogging Tips itself!

Demo | More Info

Kronos
Kronos WordPress Theme

A clean and functional blue and grey design which would be suitable for a variety of blogs.

Demo | More Info

Profectus
Profectus WordPress Theme

The Profectus theme is the ideal CMS solution for aclient and boasts it’s own options area and a seperate page for your blog too. We are currently using it on Blog Themes Club to highlight how it can be customized for your site.

Demo | More Info

Artemis