31 Days to a Build Better Blog

January 26, 2010 | Filed Under Blogging Tips | Leave a Comment

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I had just finished reading “ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six Figure Income.” As I stated in that article, whether you are a complete blogging novice or a seasoned veteran, I highly recommend this book! As someone who has been blogging for quite a while (more than 8 years) and actually earning from it (although it’s not my sole source of income), I found new and interesting ideas. I can tell you that I wish this book had been available when I started. If you are new to the blogging world, you’ll save yourself some heartache and headache if you read this book.

Author Darren Rowse runs ProBlogger.net and is also co-founder of the b5media blog network. After reading Darren’s book and realizing I could find room for improvement in my own blogging, I decided to buy Darren’s workbook 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. I’ll be working through the workbook in the coming month so feel free to follow along with my progress.

Having purchased the workbook and reviewed it, I can say that I recommend you get a copy. This is not some empty sales pitch for an affiliate program I haven’t tried myself (we’ve all seen too many of those!). I’ve bought the workbook. I’ve read through it. I’m using the techniques. You should, too!

There are no shortcuts

January 26, 2010 | Filed Under Blogging Tips | 1 Comment

When you are trying to build a blog and hoping to make a little money in the process, it can be discouraging if you are not building consistent traffic. It can be especially discouraging if your traffic is going down. This is when it can be tempting to look for “the easy way.”

What do I mean by this?

You’ve all seen the sites that are clearly automated content – often scrapped from “free content” or article sites. This can be enhanced by the use of automated software that can generate a blog full of content in seconds. Or “autoblogging” software that can post RSS content to your blog on a scheduled basis. Sure, this creates content, loads of it, on a regular basis and “content is king,” right?

That is true to a certain extent. It may get you some random traffic from search engines. But it is not going to propel you to the top of the blogging world and it is not going to create a sense of community that keeps users coming back for more.

You need to sell yourself to your readers. Develop a community.

Here’s a thought – check out Technorati’s Top 100. Do you see anything there that is auto-generated content? I’m going to tell you that you won’t.

I recently read ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income. I’ve been blogging for quite some time now (this blog alone is over 5 years old) and I can honestly say I wish I had read this book years ago. Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett do a great step-by-step for someone interested in blogging for income. Certainly, there are somethings that are basic and the seasoned blogger will find that to be review, but there are some great ideas in here for even the seasoned blogger and you may find yourself re-evaluating what you have been doing.

I have digressed from my original point, but I highly recommend this book for all levels of bloggers and have included a link to the book. If you are thinking of (or already are) blogging for income then you owe it to yourself to read this. (It is even available in a Kindle edition, which is what I read. That way I could highlight and make notes and transfer that to my PC for reviewing later.)

Back to my point. Rowse and Garrett point out in this book that if you are not unique in the marketplace, you are not going to develop readers. If you do not develop readers, you are not going to grow traffic. No traffic = no income. It is that simple.

“For a blog to be successful, your content needs to be useful and unique to your readers.”

If you focus on short-cuts like auto generated content, you are not giving your readers anything unique that they can’t find somewhere else. While it may be frustrating, especially in the early going, you need to stick to your game plan (you do have a plan, right?) and not be tempted to find an easy way out. That “easy way” is not going to gain you anything in the long run.

5 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) blog posts you need to read

November 13, 2009 | Filed Under Blogging Tips | Leave a Comment

So you want to build a better blog? You’d love to earn more money from your ad space and then quit your day job. But how do you do that? We all know the simple answer – TRAFFIC! But building traffic never seems to be quite that simple.

It doesn’t have to be that way! Employing simple SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies and developing good writing habits can put you on the road to becoming a blog master. We’ve assembled some must read blog articles to tell you how to do exactly that. Read on!

Read this post »

New Video Site Released

November 12, 2009 | Filed Under Web | Leave a Comment

I always thought the Invasion Cinema site was pretty cool. They had some cool retro sci-fi movies and a blog with additional information. I even had the site in my delicious bookmarks and linked from here.

Awhile back, that site seems to have disappeared, so as an offshoot of a video testing project I had done, I decided to create a video site of my own. I tracked down the retro sci-fi movies that had been on Invasion Cinema’s site. This includes the following:

These movies are free and you can watch them on demand. I will also be adding content to include plot synopsis, cast information, and other information about the films.

While I am at it, I decided to add the classic Superman animated shorts from the 1940s. This series of animated shorts was done by Max Fleischer and I’ve always wanted to have a site with a “Superman Film Festival” flavor to it. The first film is up at http://video.butlerblog.com/2009/11/12/superman/ and I’ll be adding more later, until we have the entire series. You can view the entire “Superman Film Festival” here.