Podcasts about better blog

Is it ok if I want to repurpose my Instagram captions in a blog post to help drive traffic to the website? The answer is Yes and No, so let's talk about it!

How to Build a Better Blog with Bree Pair Did you know that you can actually make money with a blog? Join Danielle and Bree Pair in this conversation so you can learn how to build a better blog and earn more income. You will hear from Bree how to create content in a way that allows you to show up consistently and grow your business.  Bree Pair is a blogging coach and founder of Thrive - A blogging community built to empower and educate bloggers to make a full-time income by spending time on the right things. Her passion is helping bloggers create a strategy for growth and working with them on every side of their business to give them the confidence they need to be successful. Bree is propelled by the results of seeing bloggers go from overwhelmed to steady and sustained growth and creating the lifestyle they want. Want to learn more from Bree Pair on how to build a better blog? Listen to the Thrive Blogger & Influencer Podcast and visit thrivetogether.blog/quiz to see what type of blogger you are.  Have podcast topic suggestions? Come find me on follow me on Instagram or email me at danielle@elevatevirtualmarketing.com Ready to connect with other entrepreneurs committed to growing their business and get unique access to my podcast guests over the course of the show? Join the FREE Content Cash Machine Facebook group!

How should you take care of clothes that you treasure? How can you be mindful of the pieces you bring home? Sarah and Charlie discuss how they go about building timeless wardrobes, taking care of sentimental pieces, and the significance of dressing up! About Sarah:Sarah works at a historical society in Manhattan and previously worked as an archaeologist. She started her lifestyle blog Fewer and Better in 2021. The blog's main aim is to organise her thoughts and keep herself accountable as she attempts to live a more edited and deliberate life. Sarah lives on Long Island with her husband and child.✨Where to find Sarah:www.fewerandbetterblog.comFewer and Better Blog on InstagramFind out more about Ask Charlie:

Welcome to part two of our blogging series! In this episode, we're giving you some pro tips that help will you write better blog posts because, let's face it, we're not all bloggers. When you started in your field, you likely didn't think that creating content would be part of your marketing plan. However, in this web-driven world, good website content is a necessity. Don't worry, though; we've got you. We know all about writing successful blog posts, and we're confident our 12 blog writing tips will pay off for you! Here's what you can expect to take away from this episode:Our pro tips that will help you create excellent blog postsWhat you can expect from Google Analytics How to implement your keywords when you write a blog postOur number one, most favorite blog writing tipOur go-to tool for grammar and spellingThe best part of writing great content: repurposing it and updating it!And moreAre you ready to learn our 12 pro tips for creating better blog posts that lead to more visitors online and in your clinic? Hit the link, and let's do it!Show Notes:[00:01:55] How does Google Analytics tell me how my blog posts are doing? [00:02:30] Will knowing my buyer persona help me write better blog posts? [00:03:15] How do I use my keywords in my blog post? [00:04:16] What is intentional content? [00:09:10] Do I need to consider SEO in my blog posts? [00:12:04] What are other ways I can increase my online presence?[00:13:04] Want to suggest a topic or guest? Selected links and other resources related to this episode: Propel Marketing & DesignPropel Your Practice PodcastFree training: Five SEO Secrets to Owning the First Page of Google Without Buying AdsGoogle AnalyticsBuyer Personas: Your Guide to Better Customer Connections How to Attract the Right Audience Podcast Episode  Grammarly  How to Repurpose One Blog Post into 15+ Pieces of Fresh Content  7 ways to update old blog posts to boost SEOPropel Your Practice YouTube Channel Let's Stay Connected: Website Free SEO Training

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: How to write better blog posts, published by mariushobbhahn on January 25, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. About two years ago I started my personal blog and then branched out to the EA forum and LessWrong. My experience was overwhelmingly positive (much better than anticipated). This post is intended to encourage people, share some lessons and make it easier to start. I'd like to thank Max Räuker, Moritz Hanke and Simon Grimm for their feedback. Clarification: these tips are intended for less experienced writers. I don't claim to know everything and am interested in improving further. Feedback and discussions are welcome. Also, there is a forum post called “How to use the forum” (2018) but I don't think most people know it exists. So it makes sense to reiterate some of their guidelines. TL;DR: writing blog posts is good for lots of reasons, e.g. gaining clarity, education, interaction with others and career building. There are different tips and tricks to write better ranging from cutting content aggressively to quantifying uncertainty. The most important one is to just start writing and then iterate. If you dislike having your own blog, write posts on the forum and hop on other people's projects. Why write a blog post? You learn a lot: Aiming at writing a post is a way of gaining clarity on what you know and what you don't know. It will structure your thinking and lead you to research more thoroughly. Expecting others to read your post will likely also give you extra motivation to improve the article. Furthermore, I think people underestimate how much you can learn with 20 hours of focused googling, reading abstracts, skimming papers or videos, etc. By now, when I want to get a better grasp of a topic, I start writing a blog post. It's a positive experience: Most of my initial intuitive concerns were very wrong. The world didn't fall apart after sharing the first post and the feedback I got was positive. Most of the time, not that many people read your first posts and they are usually part of some ingroup, thus more forgiving. On the other hand, once my blog posts got better, the experience just became more and more satisfying. People responded to my posts, answered important questions, reached out via DM or mail, etc. It makes me feel like I contribute something to solving important problems, which is a great experience. You help others: We don't have the time and energy to research every topic or think about every question in detail. However, we can read a 10-minute summary to get a sufficiently good grasp of the issue. If you did a decent job with your post, most people will be very thankful for that. It might get you a job: Work trials at some EA organizations are comparable to writing a blog post, i.e. you are supposed to research a question and write down your results in a given amount of time. Having experience with that type of work is beneficial. Furthermore, your blog can already function as a signal for motivation and quality to potential future employers. I personally know of cases where people were hired because of blogposts they wrote. What should I write about? Here are some suggestions. I mostly chose example posts that are of very high quality in my opinion. I would frame them as something to aspire to, not the threshold for starting. Write about obvious things. We have a hard time understanding how large the understanding gap between experts and non-experts really is. Thus, extracting and summarizing your latent knowledge is super useful for others. A good example is Neel Nanda's post “AI alignment a bird's eye view”. Your latest research: Research speed increases by sharing your latest findings. A positive example of such a post is Ajeya Cotra's “Why AI alignment could be hard with modern deep learning”. Clarifying beliefs: Writing down bel...

Become a Better Blog Content Writer With Renae Rost Gregoire

Here are some of the tips to come up with amazing blog headings. Hope this helps. You can reach out to me on .Info@seosingh.in . .Newsletter: https://seosingh.substack.com/.Dropping daily Content Marketing tips on: .Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ishmeet2/ .. https://www.facebook.com/seosinghshow/.https://twitter.com/tweeetkaran.Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seosinghshow/.Video Version of Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/c/SeoSinghShow

Does your business really need a blog in 2021?The answer is a resounding YES!In this episode, SophieZo shows you how to use your blog to connect with your customers, boost your SEO and improve your content strategy.Blogs may have changed over the years, but they're still a vital part of your marketing strategy. Sophie is sharing tips on starting a blog or refreshing a dormant one. You'll learn how to create a blog that's helpful, informative and entertaining, and keep it on a reliable schedule to build a loyal readership. Listen now to learn more about Building a Better Blog!

Hey, it's Jon Cook with Keynote Content. Today, we're going to focus on a topic that I think is very unexpected, especially here in 2020 and coming into 2021. A lot of people were saying, "I want to start a blog. I want to write blog content for my audience." I'm going, "Wait a second, didn't the blogging go the way of the Dodo? We have videos. We have social media. We have Facebook groups. We have podcasting, all these different other forms of content. Where are people coming back to the written content?" As with many things in life, you start this pendulum swing, "Oh, my gosh." Blogging was so incredible from the mid, actually, late 90s into late 2000 and what not. And people are like, "Wait a second. Video is coming up." And now it's going to make this pendulum swing back to videos where it is. And they're like, "No, I want to start a podcast." And then it goes, "Wait a second. We have this inundation of all these videos and audio." Saying, "People taking the actual time to craft written content. How do I make sure that I get back in front of that curve when we do this pendulum swing back to written content?" Because it's easy to whip out your phone and shoot a quick video and say, "Yeah, that's great," whatnot. And it's off the cuff. It's not that well-prepared but saying, if I take the time to actually write great content on a consistent basis, from my brand perspective, from my brand voice and expertise, it shows that this is not just on a whim, but this has a lot more planning and intentionality behind it. So what I want to do with you today is I want to walk you through, here's how to create a better blog post, better blog content in a shorter period of time. Because did you know that the average blog post... Orbit Media did a survey. They found that the average blogger spends three hours and 57 minutes on one blog article or one blog post. That's insane from a period of time. For me, I do writing every day on a consistent basis. Over the last 10 years, I've written over 2200 blog articles for myself and for my clients. I'm here to tell you, you can create better blog content in a shorter period of time. And it's not that hard to cut down that prep time to create great quality blog content. Even if you're saying, "I'm crunched for time," or, "I may not even have the great ideas," or maybe even, "I hate writing," this is for you. So I'm going to walk you through. The first thing I want you to know is that you need to start with a big idea. So big idea is your first one, and that big idea is I want to help people know how to lose 10 pounds in two weeks. Even if you have no time, no exercise equipment, no, whatever it might be. Taken up all those objections, the big idea is I can help you lose 10 pounds in two weeks of healthy weight, even if you have all these things where you say it's not possible. There's no way that that can happen. I'm here to tell you, yes. So, that's one big idea. My big idea for this, show you how to create better blog content, even if you hate writing and do it in less time. So there are other different variances, but it's creating better blog content. That's my one big idea. (Transcription continues) ----- Being an expert doesn't mean you automatically have an audience, especially with so much noise in the digital marketing space. You need to break through the noise and establish your message as a rising thought leader in your industry. Jon Cook has worked with over 1,100 coaches and consultants and 800 speakers to make their messages remarkably clear and compelling to the right audience, and today he wants to help you. If you want greater clarity and even better results with your message, visit workwithjoncook.com.

In this episode, learn why content research is a crucial part of creating engaging, SEO-friendly blog posts plus get tips about how to make content research an easy and effective part of your writing and content creation process. Show notes: https://theunfinishedbookshelf.com/blog/content-etc-why-content-research-helps-seo

A picture is worth a thousand words, but if you try to use a thousand words to describe a picture—you’re going nowhere. In this episode, Amy breaks down how to write a better blog post. It all starts with the story you want to tell.

Do you struggle with creating blog content that is valuable for your potential customers?In episode 355 of the Bokeh Podcast, Elisabeth Kramer joins us to discuss simple steps to approach planning and developing content for your site. Listen in as she shares how to create content that serves your clients, along with how she developed content regarding COVID-19 for her wedding couples.The Bokeh Podcast is brought to you by Photographer’s Edit: Custom Editing for the Wedding and Portrait Photographer. You can also subscribe to the Bokeh podcast on the Apple podcast app, follow on Spotify, add to your playlist on Stitcher, or listen on Overcast.Planner vs. Coordinator (1:21)Customer Experience: Think about how you want to be served throughout the whole process. (2:42)Brand Position: Wedding Planner who is tearing down the wedding industrial complex. (9:51)Technique for Time: Regimen, Routine, and Boundaries (15:57)Timeline Challenges: It will change, so your timelines need to be flexible and collaborative. (21:19)Outsourcing/Delegation: I want to delegate, but I don’t know where to start. (25:26)Coronavirus Resources: (29:29)Resources for Wedding Vendors and CoronavirusThings to Read and Things to Do as a Couple Planning a Wedding During CoronavirusThe Wedding With the Surprise Mariachi BandWhat the Hell Is Event Insurance and Do I Even Need It?Book Recommendations: (32:36)The Pumpkin Plan - bit.ly/bp-pumpkinplanProfit First - bit.ly/bp-profitfirstDaring Greatly by Brene Brown - bit.ly/bp-daringgreatlybokehbookshelf.comCreating Content: (50:25)1. Start with a story you would tell your work friends.2. Use stories that you’re interested in to connect with your clients.Writing Articles for Your Audience: Think of your ideal client and what they need in their planning journey. (1:00:51)photographersedit.com/blog/slowseasonLinkselisabethkramer.comelisabethkramer.com/unwed/how-write-wedding-blog-vendorinstagram.com/teardownpodcastThe TeardownLet Me Write That Blog Post for YouMentioned in this Episode:Studio XIII PhotographyMarissa Solini PhotographyRachel Brookstein Photography See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode of The Freelancers Show the panel interviews Christian Lüdemann. Christian consults on Angular development and creates online training courses. Today they are talking about building online training courses and marketing. Charles Max Wood shares some of the reasons you might want to create online courses. They start by discussing how to build courses.  Christian recommends starting with an in house workshop for building courses. They can look over your work and give you valuable feedback before you get in too deep. He also explains how targeting a specific need can create more value for your course. Christian has a background in DevOps as well and uses that in his courses to create more valuable content.  The panel considers what courses to build. They recommend listening to the market and find a need. Christian explains that a course should just cover one thing but should provide a package to meet a need. With information readily available on the internet, the purpose and value of a course are in the packaging. They give an example, a webpack course would be okay but a course outlining how to find a dream developer job that included a webpack course and others is much more appealing. The panel discusses the landing site and how it is a valuable tool. Christian reminds the panel that humans are emotional beings and explains that success comes when your site and product induces an emotional response. He likes to do this by writing a story of his ideal customer and offering your course as the solution to their problems. The panel discusses other things to include on your landing page.  Getting traffic to the landing page is all marketing. Christian tells the panel about starting his blog, this built his reputation and gave him authority. He also posts on social media. These lead people to his mailing list, which then leads them to his landing site and product.  The panel considers what content to write and how to come up with blog posts that people will read. Christian shares his journey to freelancing and course creation. He explains why he chose to become a freelancer. The panel discusses how to keep courses and content up to date. Christian explains how he uses his consulting work to keep his courses current and to come up with content for his blogs.  Panelists Charles Max Wood Brad Large Guest Christian Lüdemann Sponsors Sentry | Use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentrys small plan CacheFly ____________________________________________________________ "The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is now available on Amazon. Get Your Copy Today! ____________________________________________________________   Links https://christianlydemann.com/ https://devchat.tv/adv-in-angular/ https://thebusinessofauthority.com/ 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Developer Jobs https://www.facebook.com/freelancersshow/ Picks Charles Max Wood: Ubersuggest  https://www.membershipacademy.com?aff=cmaxw  https://maximumfun.org/podcasts/adventure-zone/  Christian Lüdemann: Selling to Big Companies Blue ocean strategy Brad Large: The Seasons of a Man’s Life: An Introduction  https://www.entreleadership.com/blog/podcast

In this episode of The Freelancers Show the panel interviews Christian Lüdemann. Christian consults on Angular development and creates online training courses. Today they are talking about building online training courses and marketing. Charles Max Wood shares some of the reasons you might want to create online courses. They start by discussing how to build courses.  Christian recommends starting with an in house workshop for building courses. They can look over your work and give you valuable feedback before you get in too deep. He also explains how targeting a specific need can create more value for your course. Christian has a background in DevOps as well and uses that in his courses to create more valuable content.  The panel considers what courses to build. They recommend listening to the market and find a need. Christian explains that a course should just cover one thing but should provide a package to meet a need. With information readily available on the internet, the purpose and value of a course are in the packaging. They give an example, a webpack course would be okay but a course outlining how to find a dream developer job that included a webpack course and others is much more appealing. The panel discusses the landing site and how it is a valuable tool. Christian reminds the panel that humans are emotional beings and explains that success comes when your site and product induces an emotional response. He likes to do this by writing a story of his ideal customer and offering your course as the solution to their problems. The panel discusses other things to include on your landing page.  Getting traffic to the landing page is all marketing. Christian tells the panel about starting his blog, this built his reputation and gave him authority. He also posts on social media. These lead people to his mailing list, which then leads them to his landing site and product.  The panel considers what content to write and how to come up with blog posts that people will read. Christian shares his journey to freelancing and course creation. He explains why he chose to become a freelancer. The panel discusses how to keep courses and content up to date. Christian explains how he uses his consulting work to keep his courses current and to come up with content for his blogs.  Panelists Charles Max Wood Brad Large Guest Christian Lüdemann Sponsors Sentry | Use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentrys small plan CacheFly ____________________________________________________________ "The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is now available on Amazon. Get Your Copy Today! ____________________________________________________________   Links https://christianlydemann.com/ https://devchat.tv/adv-in-angular/ https://thebusinessofauthority.com/ 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Developer Jobs https://www.facebook.com/freelancersshow/ Picks Charles Max Wood: Ubersuggest  https://www.membershipacademy.com?aff=cmaxw  https://maximumfun.org/podcasts/adventure-zone/  Christian Lüdemann: Selling to Big Companies Blue ocean strategy Brad Large: The Seasons of a Man’s Life: An Introduction  https://www.entreleadership.com/blog/podcast

I'm very happy to announce this all new series I have called the Stronger, Longer, Better Blog series, an on-going mini-series of health, fitness, lifestyle and wellness tips taken directly from my YouTube video library. I know many people prefer to listen to content than watch it, so I really don't want any of you to miss this fun, informative and dynamic information I present as often as I can. In this first timely episode, I talk about the top ways I use with myself and my private coaching clients to better Fight the Winter Blues, properly known as Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD. I hope you enjoy these shorter, yet info packed mini-casts, and until next time, I'm here to help you live stronger, longer, and as always, better. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HELPING YOU LIVE STRONGER, LONGER AND BETTER I hope you enjoyed this episode and if you did, please share it on your social media. Hashtags #healthbydesign #designyourhealth #roralexander HEALTH & FITNESS COACHING WITH ROR ALEXANDER Set up a FREE 20-minute COACHING CALL WITH ROR www.roralexander.com/freecall Official website: www.roralexander.com Holistic & Healthy Home Transformation Program: www.roralexander.com/myhealthyhomE Follow Ror’s Blog: www.roralexander.com/blog SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS Follow Ror on YouTube: www.youtube.com/roralexander IG: @roralexander FB: www.facebook.com/ror.alex Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/roralexander HBD Podcast facebook Official Page: www.facebook.com/HBDpodcast AFFILIATE PARTNERS MEDIATION TOOLS WITH MANDALA BLOOMS www.mandalablooms.com Use code HEALTHBYDESIGN to save 10% INFRARED SAUNAS WITH RADIANT HEALTH SAUNAS www.radianthealthsaunas.com Tell them you were sent by Ror from the Health By Design podcast to save $500 on any wooden sauna model. BEDTIME BULB www.bedtimebulb.com/ror Follow the Amazon (USA or Canada) link, use the code HEALTHYLIGHT at checkout and save 15% off your order.

In this week’s episode of The iPhreaks Show, Charles Max Wood (Chuck) shares some of his thoughts and advice for keeping current. He has started a keeping current email course through DevChat.TV and describes what lessons will be taught in this course. He encourages everyone to subscribe to the email course.   This idea of keeping current is something Chuck has been thinking about for a while. He gives an intro to the subject, explaining the frustration programmers feel after the reach a level of knowledge in the developer community. They ask themselves what do I learn next? What should I be studying to stay current? Chuck counters that question with why.   Why stay current? Chuck wants those who struggle with this to find their motivation behind staying current. He explains that if you are going to spend all this time to level up yourself you should have a goal to reach for. A common answer Chuck hears in response to this question is job mobility. Chuck shares some of his early motivations in staying current. It was partly wanting to stay competitive in the job market. Another part was wanting to sound smart. The last part was loving what he did and just wanting to learn more.     Chuck gives advice for finding a job that you really want. He tells listeners to buckle down and really dive into the technologies at your current job so when you do go looking for a new one they know they can expect you to learn their technologies whether you know them or not. Another suggestion he gives is to find the company you want to work for and learn the technologies they are using. Your initiative and drive will impress them.   Learning a skill for job mobility is okay but if you learn with a specific goal in mind the job mobility will come with it. Companies today hire based more on aptitude and compatibility than if you know the specific technologies they use.    So Chuck's first bit of advice for staying current is to sit down and think of where you want to end up. Do you want to be a speaker, team lead, company engineer, blogger, podcaster or something else? He also tells listeners not to be afraid to change their end goal. Chuck explains that knowing why you want to stay current will help you know what to learn. Learning the technology a company uses is one example.    If your goal is to speak at conferences, you might want to learn what topics are in demand, how to submit a good conference proposal, learn what people want to hear or what it takes to become a keynote speaker. If your goal is to become a blogger you will need to learn how to do SEO. If you want to become the software architect for your company you may need to improve your code organizational skills.    The next question Chuck addresses is “how?”. Chuck recommends everyone get a plan. Some organizations like toastmasters have a plan already laid out. For those interested in blogging there is 31 Days to Building a Better Blog, a book that outlines step by step how to build a good blog. Courses and books can outline your plan, and if you can’t find one, write your own.    When writing your own plan Chuck recommends finding someone who is doing what you want to do and ask them to list what you need to learn to do that thing. After that, you need to sit down and write out what and how you are going to learn.   As Chuck has mentioned do not be afraid to change your goal. Chuck shares a time in college when he decided he wanted to go into patent law. He quit his IT job and took an internship. He hated it and within a few months had switched back to computers.  So don’t be afraid to scrap your plan and do what will make you happiest.   Now for the actual learning, Chuck explains that there are so many ways to learn podcasts, videos, blogs, books, and courses. He describes how he learns best and advises listeners to find out how they learn. If you know what works best for you, you can design your plan to fit your learning style. Chuck encourages listeners to try a bit of everything. He shares how his attitude toward books changed as he put their concepts into action and all because he tried everything. Also, something types are learning for conceptual learning while others are more suited for practical learning.    Chuck explains how building and playing around with what you learn. He also encourages listeners to shares their experiences through blogs, video or podcasting. This way you will have a way to demonstrate what you learned.    The last thing Chuck explains is that even after you've completed your plan sometimes these things take time. You may learn everything on your list only to find you have more things to learn before you reach your goal.  Panelists Charles Max Wood Sponsors   Sentry– use the code “devchat” for two months free on Sentry’s small plan Adventures in Blockchain React Native Radio CacheFly Links Get a Coder Job https://devchat.tv/blog/how-to-stay-current-effectively-in-2019/ JSJ 387: How to Stay Current in the Tech Field 31 Days to Build A Better Blog https://thinkster.io/ https://www.pluralsight.com https://www.facebook.com/ReactNativeRadio/ https://twitter.com/R_N_Radio Picks Charles Max Wood: Sometimes it takes time to get what you want

In this week’s episode of The iPhreaks Show, Charles Max Wood (Chuck) shares some of his thoughts and advice for keeping current. He has started a keeping current email course through DevChat.TV and describes what lessons will be taught in this course. He encourages everyone to subscribe to the email course.   This idea of keeping current is something Chuck has been thinking about for a while. He gives an intro to the subject, explaining the frustration programmers feel after the reach a level of knowledge in the developer community. They ask themselves what do I learn next? What should I be studying to stay current? Chuck counters that question with why.   Why stay current? Chuck wants those who struggle with this to find their motivation behind staying current. He explains that if you are going to spend all this time to level up yourself you should have a goal to reach for. A common answer Chuck hears in response to this question is job mobility. Chuck shares some of his early motivations in staying current. It was partly wanting to stay competitive in the job market. Another part was wanting to sound smart. The last part was loving what he did and just wanting to learn more.     Chuck gives advice for finding a job that you really want. He tells listeners to buckle down and really dive into the technologies at your current job so when you do go looking for a new one they know they can expect you to learn their technologies whether you know them or not. Another suggestion he gives is to find the company you want to work for and learn the technologies they are using. Your initiative and drive will impress them.   Learning a skill for job mobility is okay but if you learn with a specific goal in mind the job mobility will come with it. Companies today hire based more on aptitude and compatibility than if you know the specific technologies they use.    So Chuck's first bit of advice for staying current is to sit down and think of where you want to end up. Do you want to be a speaker, team lead, company engineer, blogger, podcaster or something else? He also tells listeners not to be afraid to change their end goal. Chuck explains that knowing why you want to stay current will help you know what to learn. Learning the technology a company uses is one example.    If your goal is to speak at conferences, you might want to learn what topics are in demand, how to submit a good conference proposal, learn what people want to hear or what it takes to become a keynote speaker. If your goal is to become a blogger you will need to learn how to do SEO. If you want to become the software architect for your company you may need to improve your code organizational skills.    The next question Chuck addresses is “how?”. Chuck recommends everyone get a plan. Some organizations like toastmasters have a plan already laid out. For those interested in blogging there is 31 Days to Building a Better Blog, a book that outlines step by step how to build a good blog. Courses and books can outline your plan, and if you can’t find one, write your own.    When writing your own plan Chuck recommends finding someone who is doing what you want to do and ask them to list what you need to learn to do that thing. After that, you need to sit down and write out what and how you are going to learn.   As Chuck has mentioned do not be afraid to change your goal. Chuck shares a time in college when he decided he wanted to go into patent law. He quit his IT job and took an internship. He hated it and within a few months had switched back to computers.  So don’t be afraid to scrap your plan and do what will make you happiest.   Now for the actual learning, Chuck explains that there are so many ways to learn podcasts, videos, blogs, books, and courses. He describes how he learns best and advises listeners to find out how they learn. If you know what works best for you, you can design your plan to fit your learning style. Chuck encourages listeners to try a bit of everything. He shares how his attitude toward books changed as he put their concepts into action and all because he tried everything. Also, something types are learning for conceptual learning while others are more suited for practical learning.    Chuck explains how building and playing around with what you learn. He also encourages listeners to shares their experiences through blogs, video or podcasting. This way you will have a way to demonstrate what you learned.    The last thing Chuck explains is that even after you've completed your plan sometimes these things take time. You may learn everything on your list only to find you have more things to learn before you reach your goal.  Panelists Charles Max Wood Sponsors   Sentry– use the code “devchat” for two months free on Sentry’s small plan Adventures in Blockchain React Native Radio CacheFly Links Get a Coder Job https://devchat.tv/blog/how-to-stay-current-effectively-in-2019/ JSJ 387: How to Stay Current in the Tech Field 31 Days to Build A Better Blog https://thinkster.io/ https://www.pluralsight.com https://www.facebook.com/ReactNativeRadio/ https://twitter.com/R_N_Radio Picks Charles Max Wood: Sometimes it takes time to get what you want

Episode Summary  In this week’s episode on React Native Radio, Charles Max Wood (Chuck) shares some of his thoughts and advice for keeping current. He has started a keeping current email course through DevChat.TV and describes what lessons will be taught in this course. He encourages everyone to subscribe to the email course.   This idea of keeping current is something Chuck has been thinking about for a while. He gives an intro to the subject, explaining the frustration programmers feel after the reach a level of knowledge in the developer community. They ask themselves what do I learn next? What should I be studying to stay current? Chuck counters that question with why.   Why stay current? Chuck wants those who struggle with this to find their motivation behind staying current. He explains that if you are going to spend all this time to level up yourself you should have a goal to reach for. A common answer Chuck hears in response to this question is job mobility. Chuck shares some of his early motivations in staying current. It was partly wanting to stay competitive in the job market. Another part was wanting to sound smart. The last part was loving what he did and just wanting to learn more.     Chuck gives advice for finding a job that you really want. He tell listeners to buckle down and really dive into the technologies at your current job so when you do go looking for a new one they know they can expect you to learn their technologies whether you know them or not. Another suggestion he gives is to find the company you want to work for and learn the technologies they are using. Your initiative and drive will impress them.   Learning a skill for job mobility is okay but if you learn with a specific goal in mind the job mobility will come with it. Companies today hire based more on aptitude and compatibility than if you know the specific technologies they use.    So Chuck's first bit of advice for staying current is to sit down and think of where you want to end up. Do you want to be a speaker, team lead, company engineer, blogger, podcaster or something else? He also tells listeners not to be afraid to change their end goal. Chuck explains that knowing why you want to stay current will help you know what to learn. Learning the technology a company uses is one example.    If your goal is to speak at conferences, you might want to learn what topics are in demand, how to submit a good conference proposal, learn what people want to hear or what it takes to become a keynote speaker. If your goal is to become a blogger you will need to learn how to do SEO. If you want to become the software architect for your company you may need to improve your code organizational skills.    The next question Chuck addresses is “how?”. Chuck recommends everyone get a plan. Some organizations like toastmasters have a plan already laid out. For those interested in blogging there is 31 Days to Building a Better Blog, a book that outlines step by step how to build a good blog. Courses and books can outline your plan, and if you can’t find one, write your own.    When writing your own plan Chuck recommends finding someone who is doing what you want to do and ask them to list what you need to learn to do that thing. After that, you need to sit down and write out what and how you are going to learn.   As Chuck has mentioned do not be afraid to change your goal. Chuck shares a time in college when he decided he wanted to go into patent law. He quit his IT job and took an internship. He hated it and within a few months had switched back to computers.  So don’t be afraid to scrap your plan and do what will make you happiest.   Now for the actual learning, Chuck explains that there are so many ways to learn podcasts, videos, blogs, books, and courses. He describes how he learns best and advises listeners to find out how they learn. If you know what works best for you, you can design your plan to fit your learning style. Chuck encourages listeners to try a bit of everything. He shares how his attitude toward books changed as he put their concepts into action and all because he tried everything. Also, something types are learning for conceptual learning while others are more suited for practical learning.    Chuck explains how building and playing around with what you learn. He also encourages listeners to shares their experiences through blogs, video or podcasting. This way you will have a way to demonstrate what you learned.    The last thing Chuck explains is that even after you've completed your plan sometimes these things take time. You may learn everything on your list only to find you have more things to learn before you reach your goal.  Panelists Charles Max Wood Sponsors   Elixir Mix The Freelancers Show G2i CacheFly Links Get a Coder Job https://devchat.tv/blog/how-to-stay-current-effectively-in-2019/ JSJ 387: How to Stay Current in the Tech Field 31 Days to Build A Better Blog https://thinkster.io/ https://www.pluralsight.com https://www.facebook.com/ReactNativeRadio/ https://twitter.com/R_N_Radio Picks Charles Max Wood: Sometimes it takes time to get what you want

Episode Summary  In this week’s episode on React Native Radio, Charles Max Wood (Chuck) shares some of his thoughts and advice for keeping current. He has started a keeping current email course through DevChat.TV and describes what lessons will be taught in this course. He encourages everyone to subscribe to the email course.   This idea of keeping current is something Chuck has been thinking about for a while. He gives an intro to the subject, explaining the frustration programmers feel after the reach a level of knowledge in the developer community. They ask themselves what do I learn next? What should I be studying to stay current? Chuck counters that question with why.   Why stay current? Chuck wants those who struggle with this to find their motivation behind staying current. He explains that if you are going to spend all this time to level up yourself you should have a goal to reach for. A common answer Chuck hears in response to this question is job mobility. Chuck shares some of his early motivations in staying current. It was partly wanting to stay competitive in the job market. Another part was wanting to sound smart. The last part was loving what he did and just wanting to learn more.     Chuck gives advice for finding a job that you really want. He tell listeners to buckle down and really dive into the technologies at your current job so when you do go looking for a new one they know they can expect you to learn their technologies whether you know them or not. Another suggestion he gives is to find the company you want to work for and learn the technologies they are using. Your initiative and drive will impress them.   Learning a skill for job mobility is okay but if you learn with a specific goal in mind the job mobility will come with it. Companies today hire based more on aptitude and compatibility than if you know the specific technologies they use.    So Chuck's first bit of advice for staying current is to sit down and think of where you want to end up. Do you want to be a speaker, team lead, company engineer, blogger, podcaster or something else? He also tells listeners not to be afraid to change their end goal. Chuck explains that knowing why you want to stay current will help you know what to learn. Learning the technology a company uses is one example.    If your goal is to speak at conferences, you might want to learn what topics are in demand, how to submit a good conference proposal, learn what people want to hear or what it takes to become a keynote speaker. If your goal is to become a blogger you will need to learn how to do SEO. If you want to become the software architect for your company you may need to improve your code organizational skills.    The next question Chuck addresses is “how?”. Chuck recommends everyone get a plan. Some organizations like toastmasters have a plan already laid out. For those interested in blogging there is 31 Days to Building a Better Blog, a book that outlines step by step how to build a good blog. Courses and books can outline your plan, and if you can’t find one, write your own.    When writing your own plan Chuck recommends finding someone who is doing what you want to do and ask them to list what you need to learn to do that thing. After that, you need to sit down and write out what and how you are going to learn.   As Chuck has mentioned do not be afraid to change your goal. Chuck shares a time in college when he decided he wanted to go into patent law. He quit his IT job and took an internship. He hated it and within a few months had switched back to computers.  So don’t be afraid to scrap your plan and do what will make you happiest.   Now for the actual learning, Chuck explains that there are so many ways to learn podcasts, videos, blogs, books, and courses. He describes how he learns best and advises listeners to find out how they learn. If you know what works best for you, you can design your plan to fit your learning style. Chuck encourages listeners to try a bit of everything. He shares how his attitude toward books changed as he put their concepts into action and all because he tried everything. Also, something types are learning for conceptual learning while others are more suited for practical learning.    Chuck explains how building and playing around with what you learn. He also encourages listeners to shares their experiences through blogs, video or podcasting. This way you will have a way to demonstrate what you learned.    The last thing Chuck explains is that even after you've completed your plan sometimes these things take time. You may learn everything on your list only to find you have more things to learn before you reach your goal.  Panelists Charles Max Wood Sponsors   Elixir Mix The Freelancers Show G2i CacheFly Links Get a Coder Job https://devchat.tv/blog/how-to-stay-current-effectively-in-2019/ JSJ 387: How to Stay Current in the Tech Field 31 Days to Build A Better Blog https://thinkster.io/ https://www.pluralsight.com https://www.facebook.com/ReactNativeRadio/ https://twitter.com/R_N_Radio Picks Charles Max Wood: Sometimes it takes time to get what you want

31 Days to Build a Better Blog Today’s the day to sign up for our 31 Days to Build a Better Blog course. Why? Well, it’s 50% off for a limited time. And if you register by the end of February you’ll get to be a part of our 31-day guided sprint in March. While the course has evolved, it remains the #1 reason most blogs become successful. But you need to consistently take action to implement what you learn.   The four pillars of blogging are actions and habits you should develop to grow and profit from your blog. Create great content Promote your content Enhance your relationships with your readers Monetize your blog Each day of the course you’ll be taught practical things to do for your blog, including: Setting objectives and goals Creating an editorial calendar Developing social media and email strategies Creating pillar content Optimizing for SEO Identifying and understanding your audience Strengthening reader engagement You don’t have to take the course to become an action-oriented blogger. But if you need help and want to give your blog a burst of love to get it back on track, feel free to join us. Links and Resources for The Secret to Building a Better Blog: Podcast Motor Courses Start a Blog ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Join our Facebook group. Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hey there and welcome to episode 277 of the ProBlogger podcast. My name is Darren Rowse and I’m the founder of ProBlogger, which is a site for bloggers and prebloggers designed to help them to start and grow profitable blogs. You can learn more about ProBlogger and all we do over at problogger.com. In today’s episode number 277, we’re going to talk a little bit of our secret of growing your blog. In fact, I think it’s the number one way to grow a blog and this ties into a promotion that we’ve got on at the moment on our 31 Days To Build A Better Blog course. I know many of you have gone through our Start A Blog course over the last couple of months and to continue the good work that you’ve done, we’ve decided to make 31 Days To Build A Better Blog 50% off for the next week or so until the end of February. Also in the month of March, we’re going to sprint through it. We are doing it as a group where we can support you and get bloggers interacting together. I’ll tell you a little bit more about that later in the episode. But if you do want to check out 31 Days To Build A Better Blog and grab it at 50% off, head over at problogger.com/31days. You can also find it through our courses tab over at problogger.com and in today’s show notes. Let’s get into today’s show where I do want to talk about the number one thing that is going to help you to grow your blog. In preparation for our 31 day sprint, I want to talk about why we had so much success with the 31 day program. I want to talk about the reason that they’ve been built into that course that I’ve seen help many bloggers over the years and I’ve seen help me as well. Over the years, I think it was back in 2007, I started 31 Days To Build A Better Blog and it’s been in many forms since then. In fact, I’ve counted seven different ways we’ve presented this program. Originally, it started off as a series of blog posts in I think it was in 2006–2007, and then I did that same series that evolved that every time, three times on the blog. It was completely for free. It was just a series of blog posts. At the end of the third series, I turned it into an ebook and then I updated the ebook into a second version. I think second version came out in 2012. Later on, I did it again on the podcast for free and then more recently, we’ve turned it into a course in the last year or so. There’ve been these seven different versions of 31 Days To Build A Better Blog and every time...

How One Blogger Pushed Through Her Fear We continue our Blogging Breakthroughs series with Krista O'Reilly-Davi-Digui, who has a blog called A Life in Progress. Krista knew nothing about setting up a social platform. But she overcame procrastination and fear to show up regularly. Krista shares how her first viral post "What If I All I Want is a Mediocre Life?" made a major impact, resonating with people across the world She's been invited by others to share her story. Through collaboration and connections, her number of followers grew from 1,000 to 35,000. Her work brings her joy and has given her a voice. She is just like everyone else - not perfect. She affects others by giving them a chance to be seen and heard as well. Take imperfect action, and remember to enjoy each step of your journey. The world is incredibly noisy. We don’t need more people being the same. We need honesty. Don’t be afraid to be you - raw and real. Krista’s always found a way to love herself through the freedom that telling the truth offers.   Bearing your soul and becoming an entrepreneur makes you grow. Links and Resources for How Krista Overcame Fear and Procrastination in Her Blogging: What If All I Want is a Mediocre Life? A Life in Progress Krista on Facebook Finally Deciding You’re Good Enough Can Quietly Change the World (on Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper) Podcast Motor Further Listening 263: How Mim Blogged Vulnerably to Grow a Six-Figure Blog 255: My Mid-Life Crisis and The Power of Being Vulnerable on a Blog Courses Starting a Blog ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Join our Facebook group Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Darren: Hey, there, friends. Welcome to episode 267 of the ProBlogger Podcast. My name is Darren Rowse. If this is your first time with us, welcome to you especially. ProBlogger is a space dedicated to helping you set up a blog that will be a profitable blog and also make a difference in the world that you live in and the topics that you're writing about. You can learn more about ProBlogger, particularly, our courses, our free Start A Blog course, and our 31 days to Build a Better Blog course over at problogger.com. Just look for the courses tab in the menu. Today, we're continuing our blogger breakthrough series with a story from Krista who comes to us from Canada. She has a blog called A Life in Progress, it's alifeinprogress.ca. She's going to tell us a story—a beautiful story, really, of her first experience of a viral post. It's actually a post that went viral a number of times and the impact that it had upon her blog. A bit of a theme because last week was about viral content as well but this is a very different story. I love this story because it talks about how Krista went from procrastination fear to showing up regularly and pushing through that. It is a beautiful story and I encourage you to listen to the end. I'm going to come back at the end of the story and just pull out some of the nuggets of gold that Krista mentions in this story because it is a beautiful one. I'm going to head over to Krista. Again, her blog is at alifeinprogress.ca and you can find the full transcript of today's show notes, as well as links to her blog over at problogger.com/podcast/267. Krista: Hello, I am Krista from Central Alberta, Canada. I write at alifeinprogress.ca. I help other messy humans like me show up through comparison, perfectionism, and fear so they can show up fully in their imperfect and beautiful lives. Again, you can find me at alifeinprogress.ca. I started vlogging three years ago. I had been showing up weekly to my blog for about 4 ½ months, when a post of mine went viral for the first time. I say for the first time because initially I was contacted by the BBC London about my post,

We all get writer's block, which can lead to some pretty boring blog posts. Learn how to be more interesting and get those creative juices flowing again with these five excellent tips. Click here for more info.

What You Can Learn From the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Course From a blog post series to an eBook and now a course, 31 Days to Build a Better Blog has certainly evolved. And in doing so it has helped many people. Today’s episode is based on information about the course. I created the course, which is a combination of repurposed teaching from places on ProBlogger and the blog post series, to: offer teaching that inspired action help people develop good habits give them a variety of things to try. The goal is to give you 31 modules that each contain teaching, a challenge, and further reading using a combination of videos, audio files, printable worksheets and links. There’s also a private Facebook group just for the students in the course to share what they’re doing and interact with each other on their journey. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): Who is it for? Those who already have a blog; beginners to advanced bloggers; and groups. Does it have to be done daily? No, it can be done at your own pace. How much work is it? It varies depending on the stage you’re at; it usually takes 1–5 hours a week. Tips for Taking the Course: Regularity is key Be accountable Take action We’re extending the Early Bird price of $49 until the end of June. When it turns midnight (Pacific time) on June 30, the price goes up to $99. So if you're interested, sign up now. Links and Resources for I Guarantee This Will Improve Your Blog: 31 Days to Build a Better Blog eBook Courses Starting a Blog ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Join our Facebook group Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hi there and welcome to episode 253 of the ProBlogger Podcast. My name's Darren Rowse, and I'm the blogger behind problogger.com, a blog, podcast event, job board, series of ebooks, and courses all designed to help you to start an amazing blog that will hopefully change the world, change the lives of your readers, but also change your life as well both through the blogging experience which can bring you a lot of joy and ideas. Help you to develop your ideas, but also hopefully will become a profitable thing as well, that's what we teach over at problogger.com. Today's show notes are at problogger.com/podcast/253 that’s number 253. In this week's episode, I want to touch base with you about our 31 Days to Build a Better Blog course, which I have mentioned a few times in passing over the last month or so. I've been talking about how it was coming and then last week, I mentioned that it was live and I had a number of you give me feedback that you needed a little bit more time to make a purchase. A couple of things I want to let you know, firstly we're going to extend the early bird discount a little bit until the end of the month but I also wanted to answer some of the questions today that we've had about the course and also talk a little bit about the backstory of the course as well. I want to talk today about why I first came out with 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, how it has evolved, and particularly this last step in the evolution to bring it into a course rather than an ebook. I want to talk a little bit about why I think this format has helped so many people. I hope you find that interesting for those of you who want to build a course, or a product as well. We're going to talk about what's in it, who it's best suited for, and I want to answer some of those frequently asked questions about who it is for, how much work is involved, and then also want to give you a few tips on taking this course as well. For those of you who've already purchased and there's quite a few of you who are already enrolled in the course as well. If you've been wondering about whether this course is right for you, 31 Days to Build a Better Blog,

11 Things Thomas Edison Can Teach You About Profitable Blogging If it wasn’t for Thomas Edison, you'd probably be sitting in the dark feeling quite bored. Edison was a prolific and influential inventor. He invented world-changing technologies including the light bulb, the phonograph and motion picture camera. And his views back then on emerging technologies can teach you about blogging today. Quotes from Edison and thoughts on how they apply to blogging:   Start with a need: “I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others… I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.” When building a blog, think about what problems it will solve, how it will serve people, and what changes it will bring.   Work smart: “Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.” It’s easy to fill your time with tasks that seem urgent but aren't necessarily important. Avoid distractions. Write content, update archives, and drive traffic.   Work and wait: “Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.” It takes time to build a blog to its full potential. While search engines index your blog, establish trust with readers and build a profile in your niche.   It takes work: “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” Coming up with a great idea for a new blog is just the beginning. It takes a lot of hard work to make it successful. Lots of little actions add up to a great blog.   Failure brings You closer to success: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Treat every post you write, every attempt you make to promote your blog and every tool you use as learning experiences that shape your future.   You are capable of astounding things: “If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.” You have incredible potential. You are unique. And you know something no-one else does. Tap into what makes you special, and don’t sell yourself short.   Sometimes failing is the start of success: “Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.” Even when things don’t turn out the way you want, they can still be a success. What you include in your blog can rise to something new.   Don’t give up too early: “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” Most blogs are abandoned after a month or two. The average time that it takes a blog to rise to the top is about 3 years or longer. Don’t give up on it.   Make it fun: “I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun.” Blog about something you enjoy and are passionate about. Readers pick up on your energy and love for the topic.   Have lots of ideas: “To have a great idea, have a lot of them.” Put time aside to dream, brainstorm, and wonder “What if?” Not every idea for your blog will work, so it pays to have lots of ideas. Practice the art of curiosity.   You don’t have to start with a finished product: “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” Don’t get trapped into thinking you need to start with all the bells and whistles. Most successful bloggers start with just the basics.   Links and Resources for What Thomas Edison Can Teach YOU About Profitable Blogging: What Are YOU About? [Choosing a Topic for Your Blog] What You Say is What You Are – The Problem of Blogger Inferiority Complex A Secret to Blogging Success – Build Upon What You Build Top 100 Blogs Have an Average Age of 33.8 months ProBlogger eBooks Courses Starting a Blog ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog

Tools and Techniques for Blogging While Travelling Today I tackle a question from a listener about blogging on the road. Carmen Fellows asked about technicalities such as how to get content online and ways to access your blog. How can you balance blogging while traveling for work or vacation? It depends on the situation, and sometimes it's a juggling act.   While you're away, here are seven approaches to try when it comes to blogging: Take a complete break, and give your readers a break too Work harder, and schedule as much as you can before you go Highlight previous content, or feature a “Best of” series Schedule one of more guest bloggers Blog on the road Use posts that are easy to create (polls, embeddable content, link posts, etc.) Do a combination of the above If you plan on blogging on the road, think about where you can find internet access, and whether you want to bring your computer equipment or leave it behind. There are pros and cons to bringing and using devices such as a smartphone, iPad and laptop. How much do you really need to do with your blog? Working while you're away can have an impact on what you're there to do, whether it’s to have fun with your family or speak at a conference. Allow yourself to be present. It's okay (and important) to have time off from your blog. Links and Resources for Tools and Techniques to Blog Effectively on the Road: How to Take a Break from Your Blog Further Listening Blogger Apps for Smartphone and Tablet Courses Starting a Blog ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Join our Facebook group Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hi there and welcome to Episode 243 of the ProBlogger podcast. My name is Darren Rowse and I’m the blogger behind problogger.com – a blog, podcast, event, job board, and a series of ebooks all designed to help you as a blogger to start a great blog, to grow that blog in terms of the content on it but also your audience, and the engagement you have with that audience, and then to build profit around your blog as well. You can learn more about what we do over at problogger.com. Particularly, check out our two courses once you’re there, look for the courses tab up in the navigation and there you will find out two courses, our How to Start a Blog course which is completely free. It will walk you through the steps to getting your blog up and running. And our brand new course, 31 Days to Build a Better Blog which is all about giving you a 31 different activities that you can do to improve your blogging. Head to problogger.com, look for the courses tab and you will find them. In today’s episode, I wanna tackle a question that came in this week from one of our listeners. The listener was Carmen Fellows, thanks for asking the question, Carmen. It’s all about blogging while you’re on the road. I wanna talk to you about how I approach blogging whilst I’m away, whether it’d be for vacation or for work. Carmen particularly wanted me to talk about the technicalities of doing it, how do you actually get your content up online, whether you do it on mobile or iPad or some other way. Also, I wanna talk a little bit about balancing blogging with whatever else you’re doing in your travels, whether that’d be vacation with family and friends or work. You can find today’s show notes at problogger.com/podcast/243. As I said, today’s show was inspired by Carmen Fellows who wrote in with this question via our Facebook group. She says, “Hi Darren, if you haven’t addressed this already, can you review different ways to access your blog while travelling to keep it up? For example, if I can’t get on my computer, do you find that updating via your mobile is suggested or is there a better way? I can be on the road for two to three weeks at a time and find it difficult to...

Creating a Product Library for Your Blog In today’s episode I’m tackling a question from a Facebook group member about creating products to sell on your blog. Kathy Farrokhzad of Horselistening.com is wondering how often she should create, sell, schedule, and roadmap new products on her blog. Is she doing too much in too little time? Try to publish 3-4 new products on your blog each year, whether they're courses, software, ebooks, templates or updates. You want to avoid audience fatigue. But at the same time you don’t want to wait too long between launches. Either of these two extremes may cost you customers and money. Engage your customers, but don’t burn them out. Create a schedule to plan content and products a year in advance. Figure out what products to create, redo or replace, as well as what promotions to include. The frequency of new products depends on various factors, such as how many products you can create and how many different tools need to be created. Come up with themes for your products based on popularity and whether they're easy to research and write about. You can also gear your products toward specific audiences, such as beginners or new customers. And don’t forget about your old products. Consider turning into new products by upselling and bundling them. Yes, you can do lots of regular launches. But you can also get by with just one product. Both will work, so the choice is yours.  Links and Resources for How to Create a Library of Products to Sell On Your Blog: Digital Photography School Ebooks 7 Types of Products to Sell on Your Blog Further Listening Why You Should Create a Product for Your Blog Courses Digital Photography School Courses ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Starting a Blog Join our Facebook group Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hey there friends. Welcome to episode 242 of the ProBlogger podcast. My name is Darren Rowse and I’m the blogger behind ProBlogger. At a recent conference, I had a number of people say, “I love the way you say ProBlogger.” I’ve never really thought about that before but ProBlogger is a blog, podcast, event, job board, and a series of ebooks, all designed to help you as a blogger to grow as a blogger, to grow your audience, and to build some profit around your blog as well. You can learn more about what we do at ProBlogger over at problogger.com. Today’s episode is brought to you by our 31 Days to Build a Better Blog course, which launches this month. We are currently taking a group of about 100 bloggers through this course in its beta version. We’re getting very close to being able to launch it for everyone. The feedback coming in has been fantastic so far. If you are interested in improving your blog, taking it to the next level, I really encourage you to head over to problogger.com/31days to register your interest in the course or if you’re listening to this in a week or two’s time, it should be already live and you can just enroll in the course. We’ve designed this course really to take you through a month of teaching but more importantly, some action items, which are designed to help you improve your blog whether you’re a new blogger or whether you’re more of an intermediate blogger and been going for awhile. This is a system that we’ve been using since about 2009, previously in ebook format. It’s helped tens of thousands of bloggers to really level up their blogs. I encourage you to check it out. Head over to problogger.com/31days. In today’s episode, I’m tackling a question about creating products to sell on your blog. It’s a question that came in from one of our group members on Facebook, Cathy, who was asking around how often she should she be creating new products for her particular blog. She’s been creating ebooks.

Social Media Trends – Where Should You Focus Your Energy In our last episode I covered seven trends in social media and blogging. In today’s episode I want to discuss where you should focus your energy as a blogger. There’s so much we could do.but what should we do? Don't become overwhelmed and perplexed. Instead, be inspired about where to put your effort. Should you focus on: live video? bots and messenger marketing? Facebook advertising? long-form video? Instagram stories? blog? all of the above? And how do you decide? Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) there's no right answer. The 'best spot' will be different for everyone. Just don't be pressured into doing what everyone else is doing. Consider your style, topic, audience, and objectives and goals. Get in touch with who you are and what makes you shine. Focus on conversions. Don't give up something that's already working just to start something new. Nine times out of ten it won'y be any better. Instead, focus on good SEO practices. Stay in control, and focus on building your own platform and assets rather than building on other people’s. Use your own to host a podcast or blog. Save some time and effort for new ways to  build your audience, brand, and engagement. Be cautious, but also be willing to pivot and diversify. And don’t feel as if  you have to do it all. Focus on being great at just one or two trends. What are you going to try? Links and Resources for Trends in Social Media - Where Should You Focus Your Energy?: Periscope Gary Vaynerchuk Darren Rowse on Twitter Darren Rowse in Instagram Further Listening 7 Social Media Trends I Noticed at Social Media Marketing World Courses Starting a Blog ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Join our Facebook group Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hi there and welcome to Episode 241 of the ProBlogger podcast. My name is Darren Rowse and I’m the blogger behind problogger.com, a blog, podcast, event, job board, series of ebooks, and the courses all designed to help you as a blogger to grow your audience, to create great content, to build engagement around your blog, and ultimately to build profit around your blog. I should say profit can be money but it can be other outcomes as well. However you define it, we hope to help you along that journey. You can learn more about ProBlogger at problogger.com. Today’s podcast is brought to you by our brand new course, 31 Days to Build a Better Blog which is launching around now. We’ve already opened it up to a small group of beta testers. I think there’s actually about a hundred bloggers so far who have signed up and are working through that course. It’s closed off at the moment but if you are interested in joining that beta testing group, please go to problogger.com/31days. It’s a course designed to help you over a month to give you a burst of love, bring a burst of love to your blog, to give some really intentional love and care to your blog to write some new content, to think about your editorial strategy, to think about how you can build engagement with your blog, to do some things to help you to get some new readers, and to begin to think about monetization. We don’t focus a lot on monetization in this course, it’s more about getting the foundations right that will help you to monetize but we touch on it towards the end. You can learn more about it at problogger.com/31days. We will be opening it up for a wider audience in the coming weeks. If you don’t get it on that beta test, you just signup there. We’ll let you know when it does open up. In today’s episode, I wanna talk about working out where to put your energy. This is really a follow up to the last episode, in 240. Back in that last episode,

Key Themes and Trends from the Social Media Marketing World Conference In today’s episode, I want to share seven trends people were talking about at the Social Media Marketing World mega-conference recently held in San Diego. Social Media Marketing World is probably one of the biggest social media conferences in the world.  Seven main themes came about from the conference: Facebook Armageddon: Changes have shaken up things. Be Human: It’s time for you to be real. Ask questions, and respond personally. Going Live: There are more platforms to choose from now.  Episodic Video: These are stories on steroids.  Stories Style Content: Design sequences that take your audience on a journey, and stories that provide background or behind-the-scenes action. Bots and Messenger Marketing: Bots may not be real, but they can be useful in blogging to notify people of new information and to ask them questions.  Blogging is Back: People know written content is not going away. Should you do bots, go live, or create episodic content? Or blog, vlog, or do a podcast? Which social network should you focus on? Whatever you decide, make sure you don't build your entire business around a specific social network. Links and Resources for 7 Social Media Trends I Noticed at Social Media Marketing World: SMMW FB Live YT Live Instagram Live Ecamm Live Mike Stelzner Live Streaming Pros Further Listening How Collaborations Can Accelerate Your Blog’s Growth How to Get More Traffic by Updating Your Archives 3 Principles of Building an Engaged Blog Audience Examples of Trends in Social Media Social Media Examiner’s ‘The Journey’ series of videos Gary Vaynerchuk’s ‘First in Line’ ManyChat ChatFuel Courses Starting a Blog ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Join our Facebook group Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hello my friends and welcome to episode 240 of the ProBlogger Podcast. My name’s Darren Rowse and I’m the blogger behind ProBlogger—a blog, podcast, job board, series of ebooks, and courses all designed to help you to start an amazing blog, to create content that changes your audience’s life, to grow that audience, and to build a profit around your blog. You can learn more about that at problogger.com. Today’s podcast is brought to you by a brand new course, 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, which is launching around this time, and I’m a bit vague about that because we are allowing people into it gradually. We want to test it out with a smaller group of people before we release it into the world. You can head over to problogger.com/31days and sign-up to be notified when we’re ready to welcome you into that community. We do look forward to having you involved in that because it’s a product that has lived as an ebook for many years, and has helped tens of thousands of bloggers over that time. Since back in 2009, I first did that ebook and we’ve had a couple of versions of that. Now we want to release it as a course because we think it will help you to move through the full 31 days. An ebook sometimes can be a little bit hard to do that, so a course with a few emails along the way to prompt you to keep moving through we hope will be a positive experience for you. For those who do join in that beta, we have a special offer for you as well. It’s a paid course but we’re keeping it as affordable as possible. Again problogger.com/31days to register your interest and we’ll let you know when it’s ready for more people. In today’s episode I want to share with you seven key themes and trends that I saw talked about at Social Media Marketing World a few weeks ago in San Diego. Over the last few weeks in this podcast, I’ve been sharing parts of my talk from Social Media Marketing World.

How to Develop an Engaged Blog Audience In today’s episode I want to talk about building engagement on your blog, and building a sense of community around it and your online business. Building engagement is so important for your blog. It helps word-of-mouth growth, gives you energy, builds social proof on your site, and leads to more effective monetization. When people see engagement, they want to stick around and spend money. Three ways to build engagement with your audience Show up predictably - You need to show up regularly. Show up mentally - Be prepared and ready to engage. Show up randomly - Adding an element of surprise can make a massive difference to people. Links and Resources for Principles of Building an Engaged Blog Audience: Bob  Burg Tom Shefchunas Further Listening About Why You Should Build Community on Your Blog Why You Should Make Building Community a Priority in Your Blogging How to Build a Culture of Community on Your Blog Courses ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog ProBlogger’s Ultimate Guide to Start a Blog Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hi there and welcome to episode 239 of the ProBlogger podcast. I can’t believe I got to 239, to be honest. My name is Darren Rowse and I’m the blogger behind problogger.com, a blog, podcast, event, job board, series of ebooks, and courses designed to help you as a blogger to grow your blog, to create great content, to build engagement around your blog which is what we’re talking about today, and to build profit around that blog as well. You can learn more about what we do at ProBlogger at problogger.com. Today’s podcast is brought to you by our brand new course, 31 Days to Build a Better Blog which launches this week to some of you. This is a course that’s built upon our bestselling ebook by the same name. It’s been completely updated for today and contains 31 days of teaching, more importantly, 31 activities that you can do to improve your blog. You can head over to problogger.com/31days to register your interest in the course. If you’re lucky, you might just see the page is live now. We’re going to open it up to 50 users at a time to beta test it and we’re going to do that with a bit of a discount. To be involved in that beta test, head over to problogger.com/31days. We will invite 50 at a time and gradually over time we will get more and more people in there as we get people’s feedback. Hopefully, over the next couple of weeks it’ll be live for everyone. 31 Days to Build a Better Blog launching in the next week or so, depending on how early you get on that list. In today’s episode, I want to talk about building engagement on your blog, building a sense of community around your blog and your online business. If that is something that is a goal for you, tune in for the next 5 or 10 minutes. It’s a relatively short one today. You can also check out the show notes at problogger.com/podcast/239. Building engagement is such an important part of building a profitable blog. If you’ve been listening to ProBlogger for a while now, you do know that it’s one of the pillars of ProBlogging that I talk about. Those four pillars, creating great content is the first one. Number two is driving traffic to your blog which is something you need to actually participate in. It doesn’t just happen. You need to be proactive about it. Number three is to build engagement, to build community so that the traffic that comes actually feels engaged. Then, the fourth pillar is monetization. These idea of building community or building engagement with your readers is so important. For me, it really brings everything alive. As bloggers, we often focus upon getting more readers to our blog. We want more traffic, we want more eyeballs. That’s important because we do need to build awareness ...

How Updating Your Archives Can Drive More Traffic to Your Blog In today’s episode I want to talk about a trend I’ve noticed among many experienced bloggers – tending to their archives. Many experienced bloggers are slowing down on new content, while increasing traffic to to their blog by revising posts they've already written. Individual blog posts tend to get the most traffic on your site, which means there’s gold in them thar archives. But like any asset – your car, your home, even your body – your archives depreciate. Go back to the first post you wrote. You'll probably cringe at what you see – broken links, out-of-date content, and a really awful image (assuming it even has one). If you don’t maintain your archives, they become worthless. Fortunately, maintaining your archives can slow down or even reverse that depreciation. So today I want to challenge you to pay more attention to your archives. (I'm challenging myself as well.) Go to one of your previous posts and update it. (Don't worry – your internal cringe meter will tell you what needs changing.) Even small tweaks, such as fixing the obvious errors, will help. Share your updated post with my Facebook group for input and help. Finally, add a task to your editorial calendar to update at least one post a week.    Links and Resources for How to Get More Traffic by Updating Your Archives: Social Media Marketing World conference Google Analytics; Google AdSense Amazon affiliate accounts Facebook group Examples of Updating Your Archives Case Study Update – Digital Photography School Courses ProBlogger’s Ultimate Guide to Start a Blog ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hey there and welcome to episode 238 of the ProBlogger Podcast. My name is Darren Rowse and I’m the blogger behind problogger.com, a blog, podcast, event, job board, series of ebooks, and courses, check those out especially, all designed to help you to grow your blog and to build a profitable blog. You can learn more about ProBlogger over at problogger.com. Particularly check out those two new courses, How To Start a Blog, Our Ultimate Guide to Starting a Blog which is completely free for those of you who are thinking about blogging and want to build to build a blog upon solid foundations. Check that out over on problogger.com and just look for the courses tab. And also, our brand new 31 Days to Build a Better Blog course, which we’ll be launching in the next week or two. Check that out also on the courses tab. You can pre-register to be notified when that goes live and to receive a special discount as well. In today’s episode, I want to talk about a trend that I’ve noticed amongst many experienced bloggers that may explain something you might have noticed amongst them. A lot of more experienced bloggers are slowing down how much new content they are producing. This is partly because many of them are lengthening the content, it takes a little bit longer to write. But there’s also another reason. I want to talk a little bit about one of the trends I’ve noticed amongst full time bloggers. Experienced bloggers who’ve been around for a while that might explain a little bit why they’re not publishing as much, yet they’re still building traffic to their blog. It’s got to do with looking after their archives and it’s something that I think most of us have been blogging even for six or so months should be paying attention to. This is something I talked about at Social Media Marketing World over the last week or so. I just got home from that conference. As I talked about this, I had a lot of people come out to me after my session and say this is something they’ve been doing or something they want to do more of. You can get today’s show notes over at problogger.

How to Use Collaborations to Grow Your Blog Have you ever felt that too many things need doing to build a successful blog? A student I spoke to this week who recently completed our Start A Blog course said they were a little overwhelmed by how much needed to be done. They said it felt like juggling with too many balls in the air. So today I want to share a principle that has helped me keep a lot of balls in the air, and scale my business beyond what I ever thought I could manage–collaborations. When you’re juggling alone you can only keep so many balls in the air. (The current record is 9 balls for 55 seconds.) But if you juggle with other people, you can keep more balls in the air for longer. And this podcast is all about how you can make your blogging a more collaborative experience. Links and Resources for How to Accelerate the Growth of Your Blog with Collaborations: Further Listening 7 Productivity Tips for Bloggers 3 Tips to Increase Your Productivity How to Create a Product for Your Blog Examples of Collaborative Content Creating Products Week: Before You Even Think About Creating Products, Think About This Creating Products Week: Which Product Should I Create? Courses Starting a Blog ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Join our Facebook group Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hi there and welcome to episode 237 of the ProBlogger podcast. My name is Darren Rowse and I’m the blogger behind problogger.com, a blog, podcast, event, job board, series of ebooks, and courses designed to help you to start and have an amazing blog that’s going to change the world in some way, that’s going to change the lives of your audience but also build a profit, and in doing so, change your life a little way as well. You can learn more about ProBlogger over at problogger.com. Of course, check out our two brand new courses. Firstly, our Ultimate Guide to Starting a Blog which was released earlier this year, and our soon to be released, 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. You can find the Start a Blog course at problogger.com/startablog and you can sign up to be notified when our 31 Days to Build a Better Blog course goes live at problogger.com/31days. In today’s episode, I want to talk about collaborations as a way to grow your blog, to accelerate the growth of your blog. I want to give you some practical ways that you can collaborate with other bloggers to grow you traffic, to create content, to build engagement on your blogs, and to monetize your blog. Collaborations have helped me incredibly to grow my blog, to scale it so much faster than I could’ve ever done alone, and I want to help you to do the same. You can find today’s show notes at problogger.com/podcast/237. Have you ever felt that there’s just too many things that need to be done to build your blog to make it successful? This week, I was speaking to one of the students who’ve recently completed our a Start a Blog course and they said to me that they felt like they were completely overwhelmed by how much needed to be done. The words they used were they felt like it was a juggle and that they had too many balls in the air at once. This is a feeling that I can relate too and I’m sure many of you can relate too as well because there’s so many things that need to be done to build a successful blog. You need to write content, edit that content, polish that content, and schedule that content. You need to promote that content, drive some traffic to your blog, engage on social media, set up an email list. Then when the traffic comes, you’ve got to moderate the comments and engage with the audience, there’s email lists, there’s blog design, there’s servers, there’s plugins, and WordPress that needs to be updated, then there’s the monetization and finding the advertisers,

Growing Your Blog's Income In today's episode, I want to talk about growing your blogging income, particularly when you’ve already started building some traffic and income streams on your blog. This one will be most relevant if you're at an intermediate to more advanced level. If you're just starting out you'll learn things that may not be relevant for you today, but will be good to know going forward. Series on Growing Traffic to Your Blog: 2 Questions to Ask to Help You Find Readers for Your Blog 2 Types of Content that Help You to Find Readers for Your Blog Turn Surfers into Blog Readers by Building a Sticky Blog Find Readers for Your Blog Through Commenting and Relationships Grow Traffic to Your Blog Through Guest Posting and Creating Content for Other Blogs, Forums, Media and Events Podcast on Autoresponders: How to Drive Traffic and Profit in your Blogging with Autoresponders Check out our two courses - ProBlogger’s ultimate guide to start a blog and the soon to be released 31 Days to Build a better blog: Ultimate Guide to Starting a Blog ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Join our Facebook Group Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hi there and welcome to episode 236 of the ProBlogger podcast. My name is Darren Rowse and I’m the blogger behind problogger.com, a blog, podcast, events, job board, series of ebooks, and courses, all designed to help you as a blogger to grow your blog and to build profit around your blog which is exactly what we’re talking today in today’s episode. You can learn more about ProBlogger at problogger.com. Also, check out our two new courses, How to Start a Blog course for those of you who are wanting to start a blog. You can get it at problogger.com/startablog or 31 Days to Build a Better Blog which will be launching in March which is more relevant for those of you who’ve already got a blog whether it’s a relatively new one or you’re at that intermediate stage. You can find that at problogger.com/31days. In today’s episode, I wanna talk to you about growing your blog’s income, particularly those of you who’ve already got a bit of a start with building some traffic and income streams to your blog. This episode will be much relevant for those of you are perhaps at more of an intermediate level, maybe more of an advanced level. You’ve got a start but you’re not satisfied with the level of your income. Those of you who are just starting out, you’re probably gonna hear some things that may not be relevant to you today but you might also find them useful to have in the back of your mind as you go forward. Today’s show notes and full transcript of the show are at problogger.com/podcast/236. Today’s show is inspired by a conversation I had this week with a blogger who had been blogging for a couple of years now. She built some traffic up to her blog. She’d already started to experiment with selling sponsored content on her blog. She was in sort of a style, fashion, beauty type niche and had been selling sponsored posts on the site but was not satisfied with the level that she was at. She’s been blogging for two or three years and when she started out had hoped she’d be full time by this point. Whilst she had some success so far with building the income on her blog, she came to me asking, “How do I double what I’m doing?” She really needed to double what she was doing to get to a full time level. On one hand, it was great, getting to a half time level with your blog is something that many bloggers dream of but she also had this thirst for more because she wanted to be able to give up other par- time work, children were going to school now and she had a little bit more time on her hands and so she wanted to really sink herself into her blogging, and to justify being able to do that full time rather than ...

How to Build Authority and Influence with Your Audience In today’s episode, I want to talk about building authority and influence. This topic came about from talking to a number of bloggers who've just completed our Start a Blog course. They're starting from scratch (as we all did), and want not only to be found, but also to make an impression on those who arrive at their blog. How can you be seen as a trusted authority on your topic, and a credible source of information, people don’t yet know who you are? Getting traffic is one thing, but how do you build influence? In this episode, I want to share 13 things that I’ve noticed good influencers do to build authority and credibility with their audience. Resources for How to Build Authority, Influence and Trust When Nobody Knows Who You Are New Blog Honor Roll Facebook group Courses ProBlogger’s ultimate guide to start a blog 31 Days to Build a better blog Further Reading Demian Farmworth - CopyBlogger - 10 ways to build authority as an author Shane Snow - some writing he did on the level that great writers write at This Surprising Reading Level Analysis Will Change the Way You Write Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hi there. Welcome to episode 235 of the ProBlogger podcast. My name is Darren Rowse. I’m the blogger behind problogger.com, a blog, podcast, event, job board, series of ebooks, and courses all designed to help you to start an amazing blog, to create content for that blog that’s going to change the world, that’s going to change your reader’s lives, to grow traffic to your blog, and to build profit around your blog as well. You can learn more about what we do at problogger.com. In particular, check out our brand new course How to Start a Blog, our ultimate guide to starting a blog. Check out our new course which is coming in the next few weeks, 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, which is perfect for new bloggers and intermediate bloggers who want to give their blog a kickstart. You can find our How to Start a Blog course at problogger.com/startablog and 31 Days to Build a Better Blog at problogger.com/31days or just over on ProBlogger, look for the courses tab and you’ll find them all. In today’s episode, I want to talk about building authority and influence with your audience. This topic came up as I was talking to a number of the bloggers who just completed our Start a Blog course. We just graduated 103 bloggers. They’ve just started their brand new blogs. We posted links to all of them on our site. If you want to check them out, head over to ProBlogger. Today I’ll actually link to them in our show notes as well. These 103 bloggers, just like all bloggers starting out, they’re starting from scratch. They’ve got a number of challenges. One, they need to create content. Two, they need to build traffic. But also more important than building traffic, they need to actually build influence, they need to build authority, they need to build credibility. This is one of the things that a number of new bloggers have talked to me about in the last few weeks. They can see the traffic coming in but how do they actually become someone with authority on their topic? How do they become someone who is trusted as a credible source of information? How do you build this when the traffic that’s coming in has no idea who you are? It’s one thing to get traffic but how do you build influence? In this episode I want to share 13 things that I’ve noticed good influencers do to build this authority and credibility with their audience. You can find today’s show notes at problogger.com/podcast/235. Today we’re talking about how do you build authority, how do you build influence, how do you take this traffic from giving you their attention to actually beginning to feel connected to you on this deeper lev...

How to Relaunch a Dormant Blog In today’s episode, I want to answer a question I get regularly from listeners: How do you relaunch a blog that has died or become dormant? I want to talk you through two scenarios for relaunching a blog, and give you 11 things to consider during a relaunch. Before I get into today’s show though, a couple of things. Firstly, this week on 7th February we’ve got our first ever International Start a Blog Day. For those of you enrolled in our Start a Blog Course, keep working on your launch. And secondly, coming up in March we have our brand new course – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. This is a perfect course for anyone in their first month of blogging, anyone relaunching a blog, or anyone who is blogging and just wants to give their blog a bit of a kick start. It’s a brilliant month of learning, but more importantly doing small things every day to improve your blog. Whether you do the tasks daily or tackle the course slower, it’ll give your blog a boost. Register your interest in the course at problogger.com/31days and we’ll send you an email when it launches with a special early bird discount. Further Listening on How to Relaunch Your Blog After It Becomes Dormant 10 Things I Wish I Knew About Blogging and Content Marketing When I Started A Blogger Shares How She Made $28,000 Using The 4 Stages of Warming Her Readers Up Join our Facebook group Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Good morning and welcome to episode 234 of the ProBlogger podcast. My name is Darren Rowse and I’m the blogger behind problogger.com, a blog, podcast, event, job board, series of ebooks, and courses, all designed to help you as a blogger to start a great blog, to create great content on that blog that’s gonna change your reader’s lives, to find new readers for your blog, and to build profit around your blog as well. You can learn more about what we do ProBlogger at problogger.com. You can also dig into previous episodes of the show and thousands of tutorials that we’ve published over the years. In today’s episode, episode 234, I wanna answer a question I get regularly from readers. How do you relaunch a blog that’s previously died or become dormant? I wanna talk you through two scenarios for relaunching your blog and give you 11 things to consider during the relaunch, 11 questions to ask yourself that will help you to relaunch with your best foot forward. Before I get into today’s show, I want to mention two things. Firstly, this week, on the 7th of February, we’ve got our first ever International Start a Blog Day. For those of you who have previously enrolled in our Start a Blog course, keep working on your launch and look out for emails from us of details on how to participate in that. If you already have a blog and you wanna check out some amazing new blogs, watch out on problogger.com on the 7th of February and you’ll see a massive list of some amazing new blogs. If you follow us on our Facebook page, facebook.com/problogger, I will also be featuring some of the new blogs on that day and some live videos. The other thing to mention is that coming up in March, we have a brand new course, 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, which has previously been an ebook and a series of blog posts, and a series of podcasts as well. We’ve updated it all and we’ve put it together in a course format. For anyone who is in the first month of blogging, maybe you’ve just done that Start a Blog course or anyone who is relaunching a dormant blog, this would be perfect for you and anyone who's been blogging for a while who just wants to give their blog a bit of a kickstart, maybe it's that time of the year and you wanna get things going again, this is a brilliant course that’s really going to walk you through over a month or you can take it slow if you want t...

The Tools We’re Using in 2018 to Get More Subscribers and Customers In today’s episode, I want to introduce you to a Thrive - a suite of WordPress plugin tools we’ve been using on our blogs for the past six months or so that we’re really excited about. Today’s show is brought to you by two brand new courses from ProBlogger. I’ve been talking about one of them - our Ultimate Guide to Starting a Blog - for the past month or so. It’s perfect for those people who want to get a blog launched with solid foundations. We’ve had more than 1000 people start the course already, and we’re now seeing many of them launch their blogs. We’ll be celebrating the launches on the 7th February with what we’re calling ProBlogger’s International Start a Blog day. To be included in that day simply register for the course by 31 January and launch your blog by 7th Feb. The second course we’ve developed that we’ll be launching in March isn't just for new bloggers. It's also for those of you who have been blogging for a while. It’s our 31 Days to Build a Better Blog course. Long-time listeners will be familiar with that name. I originally ran 31DBBB back in 2009 as a blog post series. Later it was turned into an eBook, which we’ve since updated. That eBook sold tens of thousands of copies. I also did a version of the series to launch this podcast. But now we’re giving it a complete overhaul and will be launching it as a course. I’ll give you more details of it in coming episodes. But it’s perfect both for new bloggers who have just set up a blog with our start a blog course, as well as more established bloggers who want to give their blog a real kick start. It’s really about developing good habits over an intentional month of blogging. This will be a paid course, although we’ve kept it as affordable as we can. And we'll be launching it to anyone who preregisters their interest at a launch discount. Links and Resources on Tools We’re Using to Get More Subscribers and Customers in 2018 Facebook Group Thrive Episode on CoSchedule Courses Ultimate Guide to Starting a Blog 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Darren : Hi there and welcome to episode 233 of the ProBlogger podcast. My name is Darren Rowse and I’m the blogger behind problogger.com. A blog, podcast, event, job board, series of ebooks, and courses, all designed to help you as a blogger to grow your blog, to get the blog started but also to grow it and to build profit around your blog as well. You can learn more about ProBlogger over at problogger.com. Now, today’s episode, I wanna introduce you to a suite of WordPress plugins, tools that we’ve been using on my blogs over the last six or so months and that we will be investing more and more time into using more of in the coming year ahead. We’re very excited about these particular tools. I brought my general manager, Laney Galligan, on to talk about those tools. I wanna talk about those in a minute but before I do, I do want to mention that today’s show is brought not by an external sponsor but by our brand new courses at ProBlogger and yes, you heard me right, courses. I’ve been talking about one of them now for about a month, our Ultimate Guide to Starting a Blog and it has been going so well. We’ve had over a thousand people start the course already. There’s another thousand or so who’ve already registered in addition to that who are yet to start the course. But what’s really exciting me is we’re starting now to see blogs launched as a result of this particular course. We’ve got a little Facebook group where we’re celebrating the launches of the new blogs. It is so exciting to see these brand new blogs coming out the other end of the course. Some are getting some great reviews of the course as well.

10 Things I Wish I Knew About Blogging and Content Marketing When I Started Today, I want to share the audio of a keynote I gave at a conference early last year about 10 things I wish I’d known about blogging and creating content for content marketing when I started. In episodes 204 and 205 I shared some recordings of keynotes I’ve given, and the response from many of you was that you wanted to hear more of that style of podcast. So today I dug out a talk I gave at the Super Fast Business conference, which is run by James Schramko here in Australia.s James, who puts on a great event, asked me to share some of my story and give some practical tips on content creation. I talk about defining what your blog is about, the three phases of creating great content, how to mix up the different types of content you feature on your blog, idea generation, creating ‘content events’ on your blog, and how to differentiate yourself in your content.    I loved doing this talk, and I hope you enjoy it too. Don’t forget to join the Facebook group Slides from the Talk For those of you who would like to follow along with the slides - here they are. 10 THINGS I WISH I KNEW ABOUT CONTENT MARKETING WHEN I STARTED from Darren Rowse Further Listening on 10 Things I Wish I Knew About Blogging (and Content Marketing) When I Started 059: What Should I Blog About? 15 Questions to Ask to Help Identify Your Blogging Niche or Focus 033: 2 Questions to Ask to Help You Find Readers for Your Blog 011: Create 10 Blog Post Ideas for your Blog [Day 11 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog] 084: How to Come Up With Fresh Ideas to Write About On Your Blog 086: How to Get into the Flow of Creating Great Content for Your Blog 087: 9 Questions You Should Ask Before Hitting Publish On Your Next Blog Post 152: How to Use Embedded Content on Your Blog [Challenge] Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hi there and welcome to episode 213 of the ProBlogger podcast. My name is Darren Rowse, and I’m the blogger behind problogger.com, a blog, podcast, event, job board, and a series of ebooks, all designed to help you as a blogger to grow your audience. You can find more about ProBlogger over at problogger.com. In today’s episode, I want to share with you an audio from a keynote I gave at a conference early last year. The topic was '10 things I wish I had known about blogging and creating content for content marketing when I started'. A bit of a mouthful, but you get the idea. Back in episode 204, 205, just a few episodes ago, I shared a couple of recordings from keynotes I’ve given at my ProBlogger events and I had so much positive response from that. People really enjoyed that format, a presentation, a talk. Longer form and also the slides from those talks as well. I wanted to do it again because many of you wanted more of that style of podcast. We’re not going to do it every week by any account. I don’t give that many talks. But I did find this one from the Superfast Business Conference. It’s a conference that is run by James Schramko. Many of you will know here in Australia. It’s run in Sydney and it was a great event. I really enjoyed getting to that particular event. James puts on a really good event, and he asked me at the event last year to share some of my story but also give some practical tips on content creation. Really, that’s what the focus of this talk is about. In it, I’ve given a few tips on defining what your blog is about but then we get a lot into content creation itself. I talk about three different phases of creating content. I talk about how to mix up the different types of content that you might want to feature on your blog. I talk about idea generation, some tips on creating content, finishing content, running content events and challenges on your blog and also how to diff...

Seems simple enough, right? Then how come so many people are terrible at it? In principle, leaving a comment on someone's blog, podcast, or social media account doesn't seem too tricky. Enter your name and other info, write down your thought, and click Post Comment. In practice, too many folks leave comments that are weak,... Listen to episode --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/copyblogger-podcast/message

Seems simple enough, right? Then how come so many people are terrible at it? In principle, leaving a comment on someone’s blog, podcast, or social media account doesn’t seem too tricky. Enter your name and other info, write down your thought, and click Post Comment. In practice, too many folks leave comments that are weak,... Listen to episode

How to Build Traffic and Profit into Your Blog On today’s episode I want to talk about a key to creating a blog with lots of traffic and profit.   The topic comes from a conversation I had this morning with a new blogger who was asking me about how to create content that would go viral and as I look back at the growth of my own blogs I think it’s an important lesson to my own business’s growth. Links and Resources on The Secret to Building a Blog with Big Traffic and Profit Facebook group ProBlogger Success Incubator ProBlogger Event 4 Techniques to Get More Eyeballs on Your Blog 31 Days to Build a Better Blog 10 Things You Can Do Today that Will Pay Off On Your Blog Forever Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hey there, my name is Darren Rowse. I’m the blogger behind problogger.com, a blog, podcast, events, job board, and a series of ebooks, all designed to help you as a blogger to grow a profitable blog. You can learn more about ProBlogger and all we do over at problogger.com. Today’s episode is episode 201. In it, I want to talk about a key to creating a blog with lots of traffic and profit. It comes from a conversation I had this morning with a new blogger who was asking me about how to create content that will go viral. As I look back on the growth of my own blog, I think it’s a really important lesson for bloggers of all stages, good reminders on how to grow a business around your blog and traffic to your blog. You can find today’s show notes with some further listening at the end at problogger.com/podcast/201. Also, join our Facebook group at problogger.com/group. Just wanted to let you know, a bit of a reminder of our events that we’ve got coming up. If you are in Australia, we do have a limited number of tickets left for our events that are happening at the end of July and the start of August in Melbourne and Brisbane. You can get more information on those events at problogger.com/events. If you’re in America and can get to Dallas, Texas, in October, we’ve got a great event coming up there. You can find out more information on that event at problogger.com/success. All of those events, Pat Flynn will be joining me and we’ve got a raft of other amazing speakers happening at all of those events as well. I’ll link to each of those pages in our show notes as well. Let’s get into talking about traffic and profit and how to build those things into your blog. This morning, I had a conversation with a new blogger who asked me a question that I do get from time to time. They ask me, “How do you get viral traffic with a blog post?” It’s not the first time I’ve been asked it. I suspect it’s not going to be the last time that I’ll be asked it. Every time I am asked this question, I find myself wondering whether I should give the answer that the blogger wants to hear or whether I should give them the one that they need to hear. In this case, I told them the one they needed to hear. But the answer that they really want with that question is for me to reveal some secret to writing highly shareable content. Now, of course there are many techniques that you can use to increase the shareability of your content. I’m going to suggest some further listening on that topic at the end of this podcast. There’s nothing at all wrong with writing shareable content and hoping for it to get viral. I actually think you should write some of that type of content but it’s not the answer to building a sustainable full time blog with big traffic. In fact, when you become obsessed with writing just that type of content, it can hurt your blog. The answer that the blogger I talked to today needed to hear is that in most cases, the reason a blog grows into a sustainable business is that they don’t have viral content. It’s actually not the viral content that helps them to grow tha...

Welcome to Legal Marketing Radio from LaFleur! In Episode 1, we talk about how to create better blog content for your law firm.

Starting a blog is easy. Making that blog successful is the hard part. With these seven simple changes, you can turbocharge your blog traffic, engagement, and profitability.The post SNM061: 7 Steps to a Better Blog appeared first on Serve No Master.

Note: you can listen to this episode above or load it up in iTunes. How to Get People to Comment on Your Blog Posts Today's episode is about how to get more comments on your blog. I share 11 tips you can use to get more attention and interaction. Today's podcast is a challenge to myself - to include as much high quality advice as I can in just 3 minutes! These are tips you can keep coming back to in future to keep improving your relationship with your readers. In This Episode You can listen to today's episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). In today's episode: How to invite comments How to write in a conversational tone, so people feel more comfortable to leave a comment How to ask a question at the end of your blog posts to increase your chances of getting comments How you can use your blog headline to get people excited about commenting The most powerful type of question you can ask for increasing comments An easy tactic you can use to get the ball rolling for comments How to respond to trolls and scammers How to respond to constructive comments to encourage those people to comment more in future How to use social media to increase blog comments Further Reading and Resources for How to Get People to Comment on Your Blog Posts 10 Techniques to Get More Comments on Your Blog 19 Ways to Build Relationships with Blog Comments - Social Media Examiner 10 Blog Commenting Tips to Get Traffic from Other Blogs - Learn to Blog Leave Comments on Other Blogs [Day 20 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog] - podcast Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hi there. My name is Darren Rowse and welcome to episode 79 of the ProBlogger Podcast. Today, I want to give you a three-minute podcast. It is another short one, but I hope it is helpful for you because it is a question I get asked all the time. How do I get more comments on my blog posts? You can find today’s show notes at problogger.com/podcast/79. So let us get into the tips. Number 1. Invite comments. You exponentially increase the chances of getting comments on your blog post simply by asking for one at the end of your post. Number 2. Write in a conversational tone. The more your readers feel like you are talking to them rather than just writing a post, the more likely you are to get comments, so write in a conversational kind of tone. Number 3. Ask questions at the end of your blog posts. Rather than just saying, “Leave a comment,” include a specific question. This gives your readers a starting point when they are thinking about what to comment on. Number 4 is building upon this idea of asking questions and it is to ask a question in the headline of your post. You would not want to do it in every single post, but when you ask a question in your blog post title, it invites your readers to start thinking about their response even before they read anything at all. It really works well. Number 5. Be open-ended with your blog posts. If you said everything there is to say on your topic in your blog post, there is much less chance that your readers are going to feel the need to comment at all. Number 6. Interact with the comments left. If you are not willing to interact in the comments why would your readers. This makes your comment section become a conversation section. Number 7. Kick off the comments with your own comment. If you are not getting many comments on a post or any at all, answer your own question or add a new point to your post by leaving a comment. This sometimes gets the ball rolling. Number 8. Deal with trolls and spanners. If comments on your post are going toxic, be willing to step in and get things back on track. An unmoderated comment section can be a real put-off to those who are n...

YOU ARE LISTENING TO EPISODE 388 WITH David Newby - BioIn the broadest sense, David Newby is a Global Developer. He develops people, movements, businesses, products, services, and programs to advance God’s Kingdom on earth. Some people also refer to him as an End-Time Revivalist. But above all, he is a servant of the Most High God, and allows God to use him in whatever way He pleases.Some of David’s most notable projects include…•State of the Kingdom Address: God’s Wakeup Call to the Sleeping Church (a book scheduled for January 2016)•DGN Coaching (a coaching/consulting business that develops people, brings them into God’s perfect plan for their lives, and helps them have a bigger impact on the world through their work)•National Day of Revival (a day of revival throughout the U.S. to bring people back to God, and back to solidarity as one people to improve the nation)•The Empowerment Zone (a community on LinkedIn where David helps thousands of people around the world become empowered to be more and achieve more in their lives)•Mission 5 Million (a movement that is dedicated to save 5 million children worldwide who suffer from malnutrition) David is continually working to enrich people, and he feels he has been commissioned by God to help usher in the End-Time Revival on earth and help bring about wealth, in the mind, body, spirit, and finances of the Body of Christ.He is also a well-respected speaker, writer, motivator, and leader in the Body of Christ, who puts everything he has on the line to protect, empower, and serve others in the Kingdom of God.David has been featured on a number of radio shows, magazines, blogs, and other forums, including, Build a Better Blog with Denise Wakeman, The Business Makers radio show with Russ Capper, and University of Phoenix’s Alumni Magazine (Phoenix Focus). He has also written for a number of organizations, including CBS, Examiner, and Ezine. You can connect with David on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter @davidgnewby to find out more about him.

YOU ARE LISTENING TO EPISODE 388 WITH David Newby - BioIn the broadest sense, David Newby is a Global Developer. He develops people, movements, businesses, products, services, and programs to advance God’s Kingdom on earth. Some people also refer to him as an End-Time Revivalist. But above all, he is a servant of the Most High God, and allows God to use him in whatever way He pleases.Some of David’s most notable projects include…•State of the Kingdom Address: God’s Wakeup Call to the Sleeping Church (a book scheduled for January 2016)•DGN Coaching (a coaching/consulting business that develops people, brings them into God’s perfect plan for their lives, and helps them have a bigger impact on the world through their work)•National Day of Revival (a day of revival throughout the U.S. to bring people back to God, and back to solidarity as one people to improve the nation)•The Empowerment Zone (a community on LinkedIn where David helps thousands of people around the world become empowered to be more and achieve more in their lives)•Mission 5 Million (a movement that is dedicated to save 5 million children worldwide who suffer from malnutrition) David is continually working to enrich people, and he feels he has been commissioned by God to help usher in the End-Time Revival on earth and help bring about wealth, in the mind, body, spirit, and finances of the Body of Christ.He is also a well-respected speaker, writer, motivator, and leader in the Body of Christ, who puts everything he has on the line to protect, empower, and serve others in the Kingdom of God.David has been featured on a number of radio shows, magazines, blogs, and other forums, including, Build a Better Blog with Denise Wakeman, The Business Makers radio show with Russ Capper, and University of Phoenix’s Alumni Magazine (Phoenix Focus). He has also written for a number of organizations, including CBS, Examiner, and Ezine. You can connect with David on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter @davidgnewby to find out more about him.

Note: you can listen to this episode above or load it up in iTunes. How to Grow Traffic to Your Blog Through Guest Posting and Creating Content for Other Blogs, Forums, Media and Events Today's episode is about how to find new readers for your blog. It's the question I get asked most by bloggers, so this is the forth of a series of podcasts on this topic. In part one we looked at two really important questions to ask before you go hunting for readers to read your blog. In part two, we talked about how to use two types of content to find readers for your blog. In part three, we talked about building a blog that readers will want to return to again and again (a 'sticky' blog). In part four, we talked about how to find readers for your blog through commenting and relationships. Today, we talk about how to grow your readership by posting and creating content for other blogs, forums, media and events. hands up by Ricardo Tavares on 500px In This Episode You can listen to today's episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). Today we talk about: 6 different channels you could be creating and guest posting content How to choose the most appropriate channels for guest posting content How to build a strong portfolio of content to show people what you can do How to pitch irresistible content to other blogs, forums, media and events How to make it impossible for people to miss your guest content once it's published Further Reading and Resources For Finding Blog Readers Buzzsumo - a tool you can use to see what content performs best for any topic or competitor Why You Have a Better Chance of Landing a Guest Post Than You Think (and How to Do It) A Quick and Dirty Guide to Your First Guest Post How to Get Your Guest Posts Accepted Every Time How to Guest Post to Promote Your Blog Stat-Driven Tips on How to Pitch to Big-Name Publishers in Your Niche Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hi there. This is Darren Rowse from ProBlogger. Welcome to the ProBlogger Podcast. This is a podcast for bloggers who want to make the world better through their writing, who want to grow their audience, and build profitable businesses around their blogs.  Today, we're going to continue our series on growing your blog's readership. I'm going to particularly focus upon techniques around creating content for other destinations on the web including, but not limited to, through guest posting.  You can find today's show notes at problogger.com/podcast/37. If you enjoy today's show, we'd love to see your review on iTunes. We had some really great ones come in so far. Here's one from James. He says, "James here from Borderless Blog. I took the challenge," he's talking about the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, "and did many of the things Darren suggested and had the best month I've had yet. I look forward to continuing to implement his advice to take my blog to the next level."  There's Carrie from Carrie Harris Photo. She says, "I've been blogging for over five years. I've learned a lot during that time. This podcast does re-energize me to take another look at my blog and find areas I can improve in terms of content, design, and layout. It's perfect for beginners and experienced bloggers. I always look forward to new podcasts from ProBlogger."  Thank you so much, Carrie, and thanks to you, James. I'd love to see your reviews, too. Do feel free to leave your blog's name. I'm more than happy to check out your blog if you do that in your review. I do read them all and value them all. Let's get on to today's episode.  Today, we're talking about how to grow traffic to your blog through creating content for other parts of the web. Also, we're going to touch on some other methods as ...

Congratulations for making it to day 31 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. If you're new to the series - check out previous episodes here. How to Plan Your Next Month of Blogging Today's episode is about how you can plan the next steps for your blog. Great blogs are built upon many small but consistent useful actions over time. We look at how you can use the last 31 days of challenges to set up healthy blog habits and make them stick.  Street of the Valley of Fire by Andi Hofstetter on 500px In this Episode You can listen to today's episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). Today we talk about: How to make healthy blog habits stick How to create content on a regular basis How to promote your blog How to grow your blog community How to keep up with blog admin tasks How did you go with today's challenge? What are the next steps for your blog? What habits will you try to establish for the health of your blog? I'd love to hear about your experience in the comments below. Want more activities? There are 7 bonus days in the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog workbook. Also keep your eye open for future episodes of the ProBlogger podcast. We're moving to a 2 episodes a week schedule as of next week. Subscribe to us on iTunes or via our newsletter to get notified of future episodes coming out. Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to day 31 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog and the 31st episode of the ProBlogger podcast. Congratulations on making it to the end of our 31-day challenge. Those of you who've been doing it on a daily basis have achieved an amazing feat by getting through this month and those of you who are still catching up, that's totally fine as well. You hopefully will have seen some real benefits from your blog. In today's episode ongoing to talk about planning the next steps, particularly looking at the next month, and trying to build some habits based upon some of the things that we've covered over the last 31 days. You can find today's show notes at problogger.com/podcast/31. Let's get into today's episode. Hi, this is Darren from ProBlogger and welcome to 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, day 31. Congratulations on making it to day 31. Hopefully, you've found some of the challenges that we've done over the last 31 days to be useful. I know I've really enjoyed putting this podcast together. It's got me back to some of the basic tasks that I've been talking about for many years that I've started to do a little bit more myself over the last 31 days and have seen some real improvements in my own blogging over this period. I hope it's been true for you. Since I created the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog program a number of years ago now, tens of thousands of bloggers have walked through it, both in the workbook but also on the blog and I guess now in the podcast. I've had the opportunity to connect with many bloggers who've been through the process and I've heard all kinds of stories about how it's helped people to improve their blogs. I'd love to hear your stories as well if you'd like to shoot them to me on Twitter or Facebook. There's one observation that I've made of those bloggers who've had the most success with this program and I wanted to share that today. The people who seem to have benefited the most have gone beyond the 31 days. They've taken these challenges, or at least some of the challenges, into the rest of their blogging. Now, not every challenge that we've covered over the last 31 days is going to be completely relevant to you, your blog, your niche, and the stage that your blog is at. That's totally fine, leave some of them behind. But some of them could be quite useful if you incorporate them into your regular blogging workflow at differ...

Tonight we talk to David Newby about his coaching, new book and his many other talents..... David is continually working to enrich people, and he feels he has been commissioned by God to help usher in the End-Time Revival on earth and help bring about wealth, in the mind, body, spirit, and finances of the Body of Christ. He is also a well-respected speaker, writer, motivator, and leader in the Body of Christ, who puts everything he has on the line to protect, empower, and serve others in the Kingdom of God. David has been featured on a number of radio shows, magazines, blogs, and other forums, including, Build a Better Blog with Denise Wakeman, The Business Makers radio show with Russ Capper, and University of Phoenix’s Alumni Magazine (Phoenix Focus). He has also written for a number of organizations, including CBS, Examiner, and Ezine.  You can connect with David on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter @davidgnewby to find out more about him. 

How to Dig Into Your Blog Statistics Today's episode is about how you can dig into your blog statistics to work out patterns in what's working and what's not working for your blog. The numbers might seem daunting at first, but I share how you can understand them and use them to uncover the secrets of how people are using your blog. Personal agenda, graphic charts and cellphone by Cristian Robert Chiribuc on 500px In this Episode You can listen to today's episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). Today we talk about: What blog statistics really matter How to use Google Analytics to track traffic on your blog How to use Google Analytics to increase traffic on your blog How to use Google Analytics to create killer content 9 questions to ask yourself to improve your site content How to use Google Analytics to measure your blog progress in a meaningful way Screen Shots from Todays Episode As promised in the episode - here's the process I went through to dig into these Google Analytics stats. Note: I refer numerous times to a previously written post on the ProBlogger Blog in which I go into more depth on using Google Analytics. You can read that post at A Powerful Exercise inside Google Analytics to Set You Up for a Successful Year of Blogging. Start by opening Google Analytics and clicking the Audience >> Overview menu item. On the next page you'll see your 'sessions' analytics like this (taken from my last month of blogging on Digital Photography School). To get a 'comparison' of this month to last month go up to the date section and put in the two periods you want to compare. Make sure you check the 'compare to' check box as pictured below and then hit 'apply' and you'll get a chart like this: While you're in this area of Google Analytics you can look at some of these areas of stats. If you click on each one you'll be able to see a larger chart: Also in the audience area there are a whole heap of other ares you can dig into in the sidebar menu. Next we're moving into the Acquisition area. Click Acquisition >> Overview menu item: You'll be given a good overview page but you can drill down further. Go ahead and click the 'all traffic' menu item and then 'channels' to show you the different areas that traffic is coming from for your blog. Click on the different channels to drill down and see more detail in where the traffic came from. For example if you click the 'social' link you'll see it broken down into the traffic coming from different social networks. The last section we'll look at is 'behavior'. Click on Behavior >> Overview for the overview page: Drill down further into the Site Content >> All Pages menu item. Listed there will be 10 most viewed pages on your blog. Click the 'show rows' drop down menu to make it show 100 instead of 10 so you can see more. This is where I'm asking these 9 questions: what posts you might want to reshare on social at some point? - if it did well once it might do well again (see above for an example of this). what types of posts/mediums get shared most? - for example I notice in our most popular posts this year were a number of cheat sheets and infographics. This gives us hints as to what kind of posts might do well in 2015. what topics are hot? - for example I noticed in our top 100 posts for social that we had a lot of posts on camera lenses that did well. This informs what we might do more of in 2015. what headlines did well? - I noticed in our top 100 posts that we saw a number of posts that talked about 'mistakes' that photographers make doing well. While we don't want to do these posts all the time they do do well on social so we'll no doubt do a few more in 2015. what posts could you extend? - some posts that have done well might lend themselves to become a series.

How to Develop a Plan to Grow Your Readership Today's episode is about developing a plan to drive new readers to your blog to grow your readership. Many bloggers I talk to think that if they write great content, readers will just show up. This simply isn’t the case. Almost every successful blogger I’ve met has spent significant time on proactive activities that will grow their readership. Coffee cups and drawings on napkins by Gable Denims on 500px In this Episode You can listen to today's episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). Today we talk about: How trying to grow your readership without a plan is hurting your blog How to work out who your ideal readers are How to find where your ideal readers are spending their time How to connect with your ideal readers What I learned from meeting Tim Ferris The secret magic of the 'servant heart' Further resources Further Reading: Finding Readers: Strategies for Building Your Audience in 2015 How to Find Readers for Your Blog 5 Ways to Attract More Readers to Your Blog: Social Media Examiner No Blog Traffic? Here's a Simple Strategy to Seduce Readers: Copyblogger How to Get the People to Your Blog: Fat Mum Slim Tim Ferris' podcast where he talks about growing an audience (the podcast is a Q&A but the part I refer to starts at about the 5 minute mark) Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to day 29 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog and the 29th episode of the ProBlogger Podcast. Today, I'm issuing you the challenge of developing a plan to grow your readership. We've done a lot of writing challenges in this series of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Writing is really important, but today, we're going to get off your blog and start to think about how we're going to drive some readers to it. I've included some tips on that in the episode. I've also got six really important questions to ask yourself as a blogger, to help you to tap into where your readers are gathering and how you can build a presence in those places, that will hopefully help you to build today's plane. There's a lot in today's episode so I've included some show notes with some further reading at problogger.com/podcast/29. Let's get into today's episode. Hi. This is Darren from ProBlogger and welcome to day 29 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. As we're approaching the end of our 31-day challenge, I want us to switch our focus a little from creating content and the day-to-day of building community on our blogs, to do something a little bit more forward-thinking and strategic  On day 12, you created an editorial calendar for your blog to help you plan content creation. Today, I want you to create a plan in another really important area of blogging, that of growing your readership. Many bloggers I talk to have the expectation that if they build it, readers will come, i.e., build, write, and create great content, and people will just show up. This magical expectation certainly hasn't been my experience. Almost every successful blogger that I've met has focused at least some of their time on proactive activities that help to grow their readership. In fact, most successful bloggers that I know spend a fairly significant time on promoting themselves rather than just writing content. Today is really about developing a plan to be a little bit proactive about building your readership rather than just focusing on content. I want you to build a plan today to get off your blog and promote your blog in some way.  Many bloggers don't do this and that's one of the problems that I see in this area that bloggers have. Another problem that many bloggers have is that they just sort of drift along in this area.

How to Write a Review Post Today's episode is about how to write a review post. Reviews are used many millions of times every day by people looking to make sense of the array of choices that they have, and to help them to make a decision. Writing reviews can help you to help those people, but also help you to grow your blog. Decision by Alan Crosthwaite on 500px In this Episode You can listen to today's episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). Today we talk about: Why writing reviews can grow your blog How to choose what to review How to write a review so that it is useful and interesting 6 questions every review should answer How to increase the lifespan of your review posts Further reading Further Reading: How to Write a Must-Read Product Review How to Write Amazing Product Reviews How to Write Genuinely Useful Reviews Online: Lifehacker Tips for Travel Writing: The Guardian 7 Tips for Writing Good Online Reviews: Better Business Bureau Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to day 28 of 31 days to build a better blog and the 28th episode of the ProBlogger Podcast. My name is Darren Rowse and today, I'm issuing you with a challenge to write a review on your blog. Some of you will be struggling already to think about how you could write a review in your blog, but don't worry, I'm going to suggest a whole heap of different types of reviews that you could write on your blog today and give you some really good tips on how to write that review. I've also got some examples of reviews that you can check out at today's show notes at problogger.com/podcast/28. Hi. It's Darren from ProBlogger. Welcome to day 28 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today, we have our very last writing challenge of the 31 days. Today, I want to challenge you to write a review post. For some of you, this won't be a massive challenge as you may regularly write them already. I know some of you probably have blogs that are just purely reviews, so today, it's business as usual for you. For many others, this will be something quite new. I keep coming across bloggers who've never written a review, even though it would be a legitimate type of posts for their blog. Let's just briefly talk about why review posts are something to consider for your blog. The main reason is that the web is used every day by millions of people looking to make decisions, choose between options, seek advice about buying something or using something. They use the web to make sense of the array of choices that they've got in front of them. This is just what we do all day every day on Google. I suspect there's a large percentage of searches that are really searches for reviews or people's opinions on the sorts of choices and decisions that we make every day, so writing a review on your blog positions you to be found at the end of those searches. Reviews are also great places for you to insert your opinions, which we found on day 19, which is something that can be really good for your blog. It sets you apart and makes you distinct.  There's also an opportunity with reviews to monetize your blog, whether that be through promoting products as an affiliate or working with brands who want to reach audiences who are in a buying- or decision-making mode. If you're writing reviews on your blog for people who are making purchase decisions, you're going to find advertisers wanting to align themselves with you more and more. This is how I’ve made my first commercial blog. It was a camera review blog, I wrote reviews and I aggregated other people's reviews from around the web. My two sources of income on that blog were advertising revenue, both through ad networks like AdSense and Chitika,

How to Update Old Posts In Your Archives (including how to find Broken Links) Today's episode is about going back into your blog archives do updates - especially paying attention to broken links. Broken links can cause many problems, including potentially exposing your readers to harm. З Днем Незалежності Україно!!! by Olena Zaskochenko on 500px In this Episode You can listen to today's episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). Today we talk about: Today we talk about: Why broken links are bad for your blog How finding broken links on your blog can create opportunities How to check for broken links on your blog What to do when you find broken links How to make checking for broken links on your blog a regular habit Other updates you could do while you're looking at older posts to bring them up to date and make them more useful to readers Tools and Resources Google Webmaster Tools WordPress Plugins, such as Broken Link Checker (Warning! This can slow down your site as it puts a lot of strain on your database. Be careful!) Xenu’s Link Sleuth Screaming Frog SEO Spider W3C Link Checker Further Reading: One Activity You Should Do On Your Blog Every Day 3 Important Questions To Ask About Posts in Your Blog Archives Updating Old Posts On Your Blog 7 Old Post Revival Techniques You Won’t Believe You’re Overlooking 25 Reasons Why Google Hates Your Blog How to Find and Fix Broken Wordpress Links: Elegant Themes Website Weight Loss: Fix Your Broken Links: About Tech Website Broken Links: Why You Should Fix Them: Dave Lucas Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hi and welcome to day 27 or 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today, we're going back into your archives to do some updating, particularly looking at broken links, but I also suggest some other things that you can do while you're there. You can find today's show notes at problogger.com/podcast/27. Hi there. It's Darren from ProBlogger. Welcome to day 27 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog where we're giving you a different challenge every day for a month, that you can go away and do that will improve your blog in some way. The idea is that by the end of this month, you're going to have about 31 different activities that you can come back to over time. Some people do one every day for the rest of their lives, or at least for the next year or so. Others just dip into them from time to time after the 31 days. It's really up to you. Today, we're going to look at broken links, and we're gonna go on a bit of a broken link hunt on your blog. While we're at it, I'm going to suggest some other things that you can be doing to some of your old posts on your blog. The thing with broken links is that when you create a link in your blog posts to another site, that link almost always will work right from the start, but over time, you're bound to start to get broken links. And that's because other people change their sites.  Some people delete their sites, some people forget to renew their hosting and the site disappears. Other people change the way their site works, so their link structure might change or they might delete a post on their blog. This can cost you on your blog in two ways because of a change that someone else's makes. Firstly, it can have an impact on your SEO. I don't really know the technicalities of it, but Google recommends that you do check for broken links. More importantly than that, it impacts the readability of your posts. If your readers are clicking links that no longer work, that's frustrating for them and they blame you for it rather than the other person. It's good to be checking for broken links. The question is, how do you do it?

  Challenge: Spend 15 Minutes Improving Someone Else's Blog Today's episode is about how to help another blogger to achieve their goals in some way. This might seem a little counter-intuitive, but if you help others you create a good impression that just might come back to help you improve your own blogging. gesticulation by Marczak Marcin on 500px In this Episode You can listen to today's episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). Today we talk about: How helping another blogger to improve their blog can end up helping you to improve your own blog 13 easy, practical, powerful ways you can improve another blog How to come up with even MORE ideas of practical ways you can improve another blog Further Reading: How to Help a Fellow Blogger: You Baby Me Mummy Five Ways to Connect with Fellow Bloggers: Daily Blog Tips Why Bloggers Need to Support Other Bloggers: The Wetherills Say I Do 10 Ways to Promote Other Blogs: Crafterminds Seven Steps to Writing a Successful Guest Post: Michael Hyatt How did you go with today's challenge? What did you do to improve another blog? What ideas did helping someone else give you for improving your own blog? I'd love to hear your feedback on this approach to growing your community in the comments below. Pick up the 31DBBB eBook at 50% Off Don't Forget You can also grab the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook with a 50% discount using the coupon code PODCAST50 during the checkout process here. Finally - if you have a moment we'd love to get your feedback on the ProBlogger Podcast with this short survey which will help us plan future episodes. Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Good day, and welcome to day 26 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog and episode 26 of the ProBlogger Podcast where today, I'm issuing you with another challenge. Today's challenge is to not focus on your own blog, but to focus on someone else's, and to improve another blog. This could lead to all kinds of wonderful relationships or collaborations with other bloggers but you also should learn something today about your own blogging. You can find today's show notes at problogger.com/podcast/26. Hi there. It's Darren from ProBlogger. Welcome to day 26 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today, I want to challenge you to help another blogger achieve their goals in some way, to improve another person's blog. Now, this might sound a little counterintuitive. You might ask, isn't this 31 days about improving my blog? Well, yes, it is, but one of the ways you can do this is to be outward-focused in your own blogging. I found over the years that sometimes when I focus on helping someone else in my blogging or other areas of my life that it comes back to help me in different ways. Some people might call it karma. I think it's just being a good human being in many ways. It's also really satisfying to do and might give you a little bit of burst of energy to see someone else reach their goals in some way. You might also learn a thing or two about your own blog by doing it. There are many ways that you can help other bloggers achieve their goals. Some of them are really big and some of them are really small. I want to encourage you to do something today. Don't just leave 50 comments on 50 blogs and help 50 bloggers. Focus upon one today. Do something as significant as you can for them. There's a whole heap of things you could do. I'll just give you a few examples, but really let your own creative juices flow and look around you at the bloggers that you interact with, that you read, and find something that suits their needs in some way. The other question to ask to help you identify what would help another blogger or achieve their goals is to ask the question a...

How to Ask Your Blog Readers a Question Today's episode is about how to ask your blog readers a question. It might be a scary idea at first, but it's quick and easy to do and can be a very powerful way to grow your blog. Do you have a question? by Chad Freeman on 500px In this Episode You can listen to today's episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). Today we talk about: Ten benefits of asking your readers questions 12 tips and ideas for asking your readers questions on your blog Examples of question blog posts How to get responses to question posts, even when you don't think you have enough readers Further Reading: The #1 Question You Should Be Asking Your Blog Readers: The Blog Maven The Essential Guide to Creating a Survey Your Readers will Love: Blog Tyrant 8 Questions to Ask to Get to Know Your Readers: Wise Ink Know Your Audience: 8 Questions You Need to Ask: Mass Transmit Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to the ProBlogger podcast episode 25 and day 25 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, where I’m giving you a different challenge every day for a month to help you to build some blogging habits that will help to grow your blog. Today’s challenge is one that I use regularly in my own blogs and I see many successful bloggers doing. Today, you’re going to write a post that asks your readers a question. It could actually be a really simple post for you to write, but it can build a lot of engagement with your readers. Today, I’m going to share a whole heap of reasons why you might want to ask questions, but also give you a series of tips on asking questions that are relevant and helpful, to build that engagement with your readers. You can find today’s show notes at problogger.com/podcast/25, where I would love to also hear how you found today’s challenge and see a link to the post that you wrote. Hi, this is Darren from ProBlogger. Welcome to day 25 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. I hope you’ve been enjoying the challenges so far. We’re actually in the final week. Today’s one is one that you could repeat over time. In fact, many of the challenges we’ve done in previous days could be something that you build into your monthly workflow, but this is definitely one that I would encourage you to use on a regular basis. It’s a writing challenge, but it’s one that doesn’t really have to take a whole heap of time today. In fact, it might be the shortest post you’ve ever written because all I’m asking you to do today is to ask your readers a question in a blog post. Your blog post might be just a question or it might be part of a blog post. There are many benefits of asking your readers questions. Firstly, it gives your readers a sense of community, participation, and belonging. There’s nothing like coming to a blog where readers are interacting with one another. It gives a sense of social proof and it makes your readers feel like they belong, that they own the blog in some sense. It also increases your blog’s stickiness. People are much more likely to come back to the blog tomorrow and in an ongoing way if they have contributed something to it. Questions are also relatively easy to ask, these posts are fairly effortless to write, although they can take some moderating and you do want to put some time into thinking carefully about the questions you’re asking. Question posts are also really helpful for you to learn about your readers and to gauge where they’re at. They can also fuel post ideas for you as you say how your readers interact with your question, and they can also open up opportunities for follow up posts. In fact, sometimes when I’ve started a series of posts with a question, that’s worked quite well. Well-worded questions also can rank really wel...

How to Use a Magazine to Improve Your Blog Today's episode is about how to use a magazine to help you improve your blog - using 'old media' to help you improve your approach to 'new media'. As well as being simple - and potentially a bit of fun - looking through a magazine has the potential to help you improve your blog in any number of ways.   Magazines for all domains by Artur Brites on 500px In this Episode You can listen to today's episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). Today we talk about: 8 different ways looking through a magazine could give you ideas to improve your blog A step-by-step process for how to analyse a magazine to get fresh ideas Further Reading Improve Your Blog by Reading a Magazine - an Exercise for Bloggers Why Reading Makes you More Creative: Creative Market 10 Ideas to Get You Inspired to Write: BlogHer How did you go with today's challenge? What fresh ideas did you get today from analysing a magazine? What will you do differently on your blog? I'd love to see what changes you make to your blog from this exercise. Share a link to your post in the comments below. Let me know what you've done differently. Pick up the 31DBBB eBook at 50% Off Don't Forget You can also grab the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook with a 50% discount using the coupon code PODCAST50 during the checkout process here. Finally - if you have a moment we'd love to get your feedback on the ProBlogger Podcast with this short survey which will help us plan future episodes. Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to the ProBlogger Podcast episode 24 and day 24 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog where today, my challenge to you is to get a magazine and to read it. It sounds like a strange task for today, but you’re going to get a whole heap of ideas from this magazine that will hopefully help you improve your blog and perhaps you’ll have a good time, too. You might want to grab a cup of coffee, tea, smoothie, settle back with your magazine and learn about blogging. You can find today’s show notes at problogger.com/podcast/24 where you also have the opportunity to let us know what you think about today’s episode. Hi, this is Darren Rowse from ProBlogger and welcome to day 24 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today’s challenge is a really simple one. In fact, many of you probably find it quite fun. It has the potential to help your blog in many ways as well. Today, you’re going to read a magazine. Yup, you heard me. Today, old media is going to help you improve your new media blog. Today, by looking through a magazine, you could find that it helps in any number of ways. You might get marketing ideas while looking at how the magazine pitches to get itself to get readers and paying particular attention to the front cover, which is what convinces people to buy the magazine or not. You might learn all kinds of things about calling people for action, headlines, and all types of things to get people to pay attention to you. You might learn about design ideas while online and offline are quite different, how the magazines laid out, the colors they used, the fonts they use could help you to understand current trends in design. You might get post ideas, particularly if you choose a magazine that relates to your niche, but even if you don’t, I often find as I’m reading magazines that don’t relate to my niche, I get ideas for how to tackle my topics by looking at how they do it. You might also learn about your niche, particularly if you choose a magazine that is from yours, might help you to keep up with the latest trends and developments in your area. I know in the photography space, I used to read photography magazines really regularly,

How to Write a Post That Contains a Call to Action Today's episode is about how to ask your readers to go beyond just reading your blog and to DO something. Readers are often ready and willing, if only you asked. 'If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place.' ― Nora Roberts Invitation by Enrique Ramos López on 500px In this Episode You can listen to today's episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). Today we talk about: Why extending a call to action to your readers is so powerful Examples of calls to action How to choose the best call to action to start with if you've never asked your readers to do anything Further Resources on How to Write a Post That Contains a Call to Action 12 Tips to Snap Readers out of Passivity with Calls to Action Hook, Line and Sinker: 7 Tips For a Killer Call to Action: WordStream How to Create a Great Call to Action: Amy Lynn Andrews Call to Action: The One Thing Every Blog Post Needs (and How to Do it): Tweak Your Biz 8 Types of CTA You Should Absolutely Try on Your Blog: Hubspot How did you go with today's challenge? What did you ask your readers to do? I'd love to see your post that calls your reader to some kind of action. Share a link to your post in the comments below. Pick up the 31DBBB eBook at 50% Off Don't Forget You can also grab the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook with a 50% discount using the coupon code PODCAST50 during the checkout process here. Finally - if you have a moment we'd love to get your feedback on the ProBlogger Podcast with this short survey which will help us plan future episodes. Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to ProBlogger Podcast episode 23 and day 23 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog where today, I'm issuing you a writing challenge. I want to see you write a post today and the post needs to call your readers to some kind of action. Calls to action are a really important part of blogging. Today, you're going to practice that. I actually want to call you to two actions today. First, I want you to write a post with a call to action and also to leave a comment sharing that post with us. You can do that at problogger.com/podcast/23 where today's show notes are and there are (as always) opportunities to leave a comment. Hi, it's Darren from ProBlogger here. Welcome to Day 23 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today is another writing challenge. It's one that I know is going to stretch some of you. It's to write a post that calls your reader to some kind of action. At some point in the life of most blogs, the blogger behind it needs or wants to ask their readers to go beyond reading and to do something. While this might not be on a daily basis, it's something that's useful to learn how to do. And so, we're going to practice that today. The action you want your readers to take could be anything. It need not be a big ask either. Your challenge is to craft a post that asks your readers to do something. The goal here is to snap your readers out of passivity. Incidentally, I think the vast majority of blog readers are probably in a very, very passive state. My estimates on my own blogs are that less than 1% or even a fraction of 1% ever leave a comment or do anything. The vast majority of people are purely reading, if that. Only you really know what suits your readers to do. It could be a whole heap of things. Here are a few that you might want to try. It could be getting them to implement some ideas that you've written about or to do something that you're taught them to do. It could be subscribing to your RSS feed or your email newsletter.

How to Pay Special Attention to a Reader Today's episode is about how to deepen engagement and interaction with your readers by making at least one reader feel a little bit special and loved. Paying readers a bit of extra attention is a great way to grow your community. Hands in heart shape framing sun by Elena Elisseeva on 500px In this Episode You can listen to today's episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). Today we talk about: Three powerful benefits paying special attention to a reader can bring to your readers, your blog, and to you personally Real-life examples of how other bloggers are doing this well Nine different ways you could pay special attention to a reader and make them feel famous Further Resources on How to Pay Special Attention to a Reader I mention Jadah Sellner in today's episode, who says "Choose love over metrics". This is the link to her World Domination Summit talk. Make Your Readers Famous The Power of Making Your Readers Famous 10 Blogging Tips to Surprise and Delight your Readers: Lifestyle Fifty The Philosophy of Great Customer Service: Derek Sivers 6 Creative Ways to Surprise and Delight your Customers: Shopify How to Crowdsource Awesome Facebook Posts from Your Fans: PostPlanner Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view It's day 22 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog and the 22nd episode of the ProBlogger Podcast. Welcome. My name is Darren Rowse. Today, we are going to spend a little bit of time paying some special attention to one or maybe a few of your readers. We're going to give them some love. This is a great day of building engagement and community on your blog. You can find today's show notes at problogger.com/podcast/22 where you also have the opportunity to share with us your reaction to today's podcast episode. Hi, this is Darren from ProBlogger and welcome to day 22 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today is all about your reader and paying them a little bit of extra attention. In the early days of ProBlogger, I used to give two pieces of advice quite regularly. In fact, I probably gave them too much, but they were catchphrases for me. One of them was to make your readers famous. The other one was love your readers to death. Both of these really were about the same thing, about deepening engagement and interaction with your readers in some way or another. Today, your challenge is to do just that or (at the very least) make one of your readers feel a little bit special, a little bit loved. On day five of our 31-day challenge, we did this by emailing a reader. Today, I want you to take it a step further and publicly pay attention to one of your readers. Day five is all about shooting them a private note, something that was in private completely just between you and them. Today, I want to challenge you to pay attention to one of your readers in a public way. This has three main benefits. Firstly, it has an impact upon your reader by taking a little bit of time today to step out of your busy routine and show that one reader that you value them could have a real impact upon that one person. That may sound like a little action, but if you do this on a regular basis, it adds up. You never quite know who that person is and how your action today might have an impact on them and has on-going benefits. I actually did this with one of my readers back in 2005 and that reader became a business partner, just because I paid them a bit of attention. The second benefit of doing this is that it has an impact on your other readers as well. When you publicly value one reader in front of everyone else, it shows that you have a genuine interest in your readers. It's infectious. It goes to help create a positive and inclusive culture on your ...

New media pioneer and entrepreneur Darren Rowse — creator of both Digital Photography School and ProBlogger — joined me to chat about the opportunities that 13 years of blogging have provided, his new podcast, and the importance of having the right mindset as a writer.   Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You By   Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting. Start getting more from your site today! This sage blogging veteran and educator has blazed an inspiring path for enterprising online publishers. His step-by-step blog series — 31 Days to Build a Better Blog — went from zero to viable business in no time, and now it’s a podcast every content creator can listen to … for free. In this file Darren Rowse and I discuss: Why You Should Write Like You Talk How a Book Deal Was Born from a Blog Series How Writing Offline Can Boost Your Word Count The 3 Types of Writer’s Block All Bloggers Eventually Face How Public Accountability Can Light a Fire Under Your Ass Why You Need a Balance Between Dreaming and Doing How to Get the Maximum Impact From Your Writing Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes ProBlogger.com Digital Photography School Darren Rowse Speaking at WDS Problogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Problogger Podcast Problogger on Twitter Kelton Reid on Twitter The Transcript How ProBlogger s Darren Rowse Writes Voiceover: This is Rainmaker.FM, the digital marketing podcast network. It’s built on the Rainmaker Platform, which empowers you to build your own digital marketing and sales platform. Start your free 14-day trial at RainmakerPlatform.com. Kelton Reid: These are the Writer Files, a tour of the habits, habitats, and brains of working writers, from online content creators to fictionists, journalists, entrepreneurs, and beyond. I’m your host, Kelton Reid: writer, podcaster, and mediaphile. Each week, we’ll find out how great writers keep the ink flowing, the cursor moving, and avoid writer s block. New media pioneer and entrepreneur Darren Rowse, creator of both Digital Photography School and ProBlogger joined me to chat about the opportunities that 13 years of blogging have provided, his new podcast, and the importance of having the right mindset as a writer. The sage blogging veteran and educator has blazed an inspiring path for enterprising online publishers. His step-by-step series, 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, went from zero to viable business in no time, and now it’s a podcast every content creator can listen to for free. In this File, Darren Rowse and I discuss why you should write like you talk, how a book deal was born from a blog series, how writing offline can boost your word count, the three types of writer’s block all bloggers eventually face, and why you need a balance between dreaming and doing. If you enjoy The Writer Files podcast, please do us a favor and leave a rating or a review in iTunes to help other writers find us. Thanks for listening. Darren, thank you so much for joining me on The Writer Files. I really appreciate you stopping by. Darren Rowse: You’re welcome. Kelton Reid: For listeners who may not be familiar with your incredibly inspiring story, who are you, and what is your area of expertise as a writer? Darren Rowse: Yes. I’m Darren. I live in Melbourne, Australia. I’m a dad — that’s probably the number-one thing in my life at the moment. That’s one of my major defining parts of me, I guess. In terms of the writing side of things, 13 years ago, I wasn’t a writer at all. I would have said I was a communicator. I did some public speaking, but had never really written before. I stumbled upon blogging after a friend shot me a link to a blog and just fell in love with the medium. That was November 2002, and within 10 minutes, I knew I needed to have a blog even though I had no idea what one really was. I muddled my way through setting one up, and so that became my journey of writing. I discovered that my love of communication extended into that written field. Why You Should Write Like You Talk Darren Rowse: But I came to it with no experience and no real expertise in anything, I would say. That first blog was a personal blog. I wrote about anything and everything and just gradually over time found my voice. I don’t really know what my voice is, but I found it and began to realize that people were responding to me writing like I talked — in a very conversational tone — and I also discovered that I love to teach people and help people to learn and to find their potential in different areas. That personal blog began to transition into me writing tutorials on anything and everything and on a whole heap of different niches. Gradually, over time, I grew an audience. For one reason or another, people seemed to connect with what I was doing and began to break out those topics onto separate blogs. I’ve been blogging for about 13 years, but it transitioned into a number of blogs, two of which remain today. One’s ProBlogger, which is a blog about blogging, which is sad, but it turns out a lot of people wanted to learn about that. Then the other one’s on photography, so Digital Photography School. It really started out as me teaching my friends how to take better photos with these great cameras that they had that they never switched out of automatic mode. I just began writing really simple tips and tutorials on how to hold cameras and what aperture is and what shutter speed is. I’ve really focused my writing on how-to content and in those two fields. Although, I’ve transitioned those two blogs into me really being more of a publisher than a writer because I feature a lot of writers now on those blogs, too. Kelton Reid: Yes, as well-known as those sites are — and I’ll point, obviously, to both in the show notes — I’ve heard you speak at Authority Intensive with Copyblogger, and just your starting, as a mindset, it’s truly inspiring I think for writers. Writers should always seek out those sites. ProBlogger, obviously, has been a pioneering voice clearly. It speaks for itself. But also, I think your speaking should be sought out as well. I found some of your replays, which I will also post in the show notes, from some of your speaking engagements, and I think for writers, those are also a true inspiration. I’ll skip on as I’m hoarding the mic here. Where else can we find your writing in addition to ProBlogger and Digital Photography? How a Book Deal Was Born from a Blog Series Darren Rowse: Yeah, so they’re kind of my home bases, but out of those two blogging experiences, other opportunities have come to write, and I never would have expected some of the things that came along. The biggest one, and one of the earliest ones, was an opportunity to write a book. I got an email one day from a guy who claimed to be at Wiley in the US, and he said, We’d love to publish a book with you. I really thought it was a joke, because I’d never had book writing on my radar at all, but that was true, and it was real. It felt a little bit big and hard for me to write a book, so I coerced Chris Garrett, who is now at Copyblogger as well, to write it with me, and so we co-authored the ProBlogger book. That’s probably where you’d find the biggest chunk of my writing in one place, although Chris wrote half of it as well. I didn’t really enjoy writing it, but it was a great experience, and it’s now had three editions, so it seems to have connected well. Then the other places that I’ve written would be in ebooks, and this is the other opportunity that came out of both sites was to initially update and collate a lot of the content that I’d created into one volume in an ebook on ProBlogger called 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, which really emerged out of a series of blog posts. Then on Digital Photography School, I also wrote a portrait ebook, which is no longer on the market. I got actual photographers to write our new portrait books, but that was I guess my first foray into ebooks on that site. To this day, we’ve published about 30 ebooks as well, but most of them have been written by other authors who have expertise in particular topics. Kelton Reid: That’s cool. I know that the story behind 31 Days to Build a Better Blog is a pretty amazing one, which will kind of dovetail into the next question, which is what are you presently working on? Darren Rowse: It did emerge from a series of posts that I wrote in 2007, and it really led to a lot of life for the blog. I repeated it in 2009, I think it was. My readers started to basically say, We want you to put it into a book for us, because we love this series of posts, but we want to keep going over it again and again. I designed it as a very practical here’s something to learn, but here’s something you can do today, and it was really about developing habits of blogging and good blogging. I put it into that ebook, and I was really dubious about whether anyone would buy it because it was all on the blog for free. I updated it a little and added a little content, but it sold thousands of copies every day for the first week that I launched it. It really opened my eyes to this new way of communicating through ebooks. That was back in 2010, I think. So that ebook, we updated it in 2012. And more recently, I’ve turned it into a podcast series, so that’s probably the main thing that I’m working on this month. There’s a whole heap of other things that are always on the go for us. We run an event here in Australia as well, so that’s six weeks away now, for 700 bloggers this year. That’s kind of on my mind as well. I’ve always got these little preliminary stages of thinking for books and other projects as well, so I’m not writing a whole heap this month, but there’s dreams and thoughts there to write again on a larger scale. Kelton Reid: Very cool, and the podcast itself is fantastic, I will say. Congrats on the early success of that. I have checked out the first week or so of it, and it’s inspiring, so writers should also seek that out. Darren Rowse: There’s some good writing challenges in there for people. Kelton Reid: Absolutely, and anyone who wants to take their blogging game to the next level. Let’s talk a little bit about your productivity. As a truly prolific blogger and online publisher, how much time per day would you say you are reading or doing research? Darren Rowse: I would say at the start of this year, that was an area that had been suffering. For me, I’d become so busy that I wasn’t really filling my cup and staying in touch with the industries that I was kind of working in because I was producing so much, and it started to impact my output, and also my health as well. I was so busy. So I made a concerted effort to change the daily structure that I had, and that included putting a walk right into the middle of my day for at least half an hour, sometimes as much as an hour. That’s an area where I’ve filled up with listening to podcasts and audiobooks, and that’s really new for me. I hadn’t listened to a book ever before those walks, and podcasts, I’d only ever listened to a few. That’s probably where I’m getting most of my research and input at the moment. I do read quite a bit during the day of blogs, but not so much in terms of books. If I’m doing a new project, or if I’m preparing for a presentation or a new ebook, that’s when I do a lot of my research. I tend to batch my research. I don’t tend to be someone who’s just researching for the sake of keeping up with things. I tend to be someone who needs a purpose for that research. I need a problem that I’m trying to solve, and that’s where I go into research mode. I quite enjoy it, but not just for the sake of doing it. There needs to be a reason. Kelton Reid: Before you actually sit down to write, do you have any pregame rituals or practices that help you get into the flow? Darren Rowse: Coffee is a big part of that, but that’s just to do anything, really. I don’t have a whole heap. I would say I probably like to have a clean desk, so that’s one thing that I tend to … It’s not clean at the moment, so I obviously don’t have a big project. But a clean desk, a clean white board, and a new notebook probably are the three things that I like to have. I do tend to procrastinate until those things are done. I have also been known to faff around a little bit and look at what tools and apps are out there and chop and change those a bit before I start writing. But I don’t really have any rituals as such. Kelton Reid: I think I know the answer to this next question, but I’m going to ask anyway. Do you write every day? Darren Rowse: I would say I probably don’t write every day anymore, and that’s something I have some regrets around. I tend to be someone who writes, most days, something, whether it be short blog posts or articles. I do tend to batch my writing. So Monday mornings are a time where I write quite a bit, and I try and write multiple blog posts for the week. If I’m writing a larger, like a book or an ebook, I tend to put aside a week to write it and clear everything else out, and that’s what I do with the podcasts. I set aside a week to record 31 episodes. I have a fairly short attention span, so I find if I’m writing for a year, I lose interest too quick. So I need to really chunk out a lot of stuff quickly. I do write something every day — emails — but yeah, it’s not on those projects. I tend to chunk it a bit more. Kelton Reid: I see. So do you commit to a certain amount of time, then, excluding that social media stuff, which I know you’re in kind of constant contact with that stuff, but … ? How Writing Offline Can Boost Your Word Count Darren Rowse: Yeah. I tend to write offline when I can. So I do go to a café quite a bit to write if I need to do that, and they don’t have Wi-Fi. I could get on with my phone, but I tend to avoid doing that unless I have to. I find that once I get in the zone of writing, I can go anywhere from an hour to four hours without any problem and almost get lost in it. I love that space. I love being in that zone and just firing. It does get a little awkward when you’re not drinking coffee in the café. Typically during the day, I’ll work in 50- to 60-minute bursts, but I go with the flow if it’s firing. Kelton Reid: Nice. Are you a morning person, or do you like to write at night? Darren Rowse: Creativity-wise, I’m very much a writing in the morning person. However, I have noticed around 4:30 in the afternoon, about half an hour before I’m supposed to get back with the family and stop working, that’s often a time that I get inspiration bombs. I don’t whether it’s because there’s that looming deadline — and I do work well with deadlines — but that’s often another time that I just need to put aside a little time to just vomit out anything that’s in my head that I need to get out. Kelton Reid: Yeah. Do you like to listen to music at all while you’re writing, or do you prefer the silence? Darren Rowse: I enjoy music, but not while I’m writing. I love white noise, so the cafe’s a place that it just flows for me a bit more. They do have music there, but I don’t notice it at all. Kelton Reid: Yeah. Darren Rowse: It’s just in the background. It’s just there. Kelton Reid: There’s something about that coffee shop noise that seems to work very well for writers. Darren Rowse: Yeah. I think it’s also being around people — and I’m not looking at the people — but just being aware that there are other people, for me, makes me aware that there are people that are going to read what I’m writing as well. There s something about that social environment without actually talking to anyone. As an introvert, I kind of enjoy that connection without being intensely connected, and I think that infects my writing in some ways as well. A lot of people reflect back that they feel like I’m talking to them, and sometimes I do look at the people around me and pretend that they’re the person I’m writing to. There s something about that I haven’t quite defined yet, but it’s really important for my writing I think. Kelton Reid: Do you believe in writer’s block, Darren? The 3 Types of Writer s Block All Bloggers Eventually Face Darren Rowse: I would say that I’ve suffered from something maybe like writer’s block, but as I’ve thought about it over the years, I’d say there’s three types for me. I’d say I get ideas block, which is where I can’t work out what to write about. I think many bloggers who’ve been blogging for a year or two feel, one, I’ve written it all before, I’ve got nothing left to say, What could I write fresh today? or Everyone else has already written about it. I haven’t got anything unique to say. So that blockage of finding a unique angle and a freshness to your topic, I think, is one thing I’ve suffered. The second type for me is writing block, and that’s where the words just aren’t flowing. You’ve got the idea, and you know the topic you want to write about, but you just can’t make it come out in a sensible way. Then, for me, the third one is completion block, and that’s where the first draft’s done, but I’m just so distracted or on the next thing that I’m really into, or I’m too tired, or I’ve lost the passion or interest for what I’m writing about to complete it. That’s probably the area I’ve struggled with the most over the years is that lack of revision and editing, so that’s why I hired an editor to basically oversee that and crack the whip for me in that. I think for me — writer’s block — I don’t know what that is, but for me there’s those three things. For me, the key is to work at which one of those three things I’m suffering right now and then to make appointments with myself to put extra time and energy and to get help in those areas. Ideas block I had probably two years into my blogging, so I just built into my week time to brainstorm ahead of time when I wasn’t supposed to be writing. So I have now got a bank of ideas sitting there, and I also involve my team in that brainstorming time. I haven’t had ideas block for quite some time because I’ve built that into my week. The writing block, again, regularity of writing helps with that as well. Making appointments on Monday mornings when I do a lot of my blog post writing, that sort of helped to unlock that. Then the completion block, I have times in my week, usually in the afternoons, where I set aside time to edit and revise because I don’t need to be quite so creative there, but I need to be a little bit more analytical. Kelton Reid: Wow. Let’s talk about your workflow a little bit. What hardware or typewriter model are you presently using? Darren Rowse: There’s not been a typewriter in my life for many years, but I just use a MacBook Pro when I’m out and about and an iMac on my desktop. I just love the fact that they talk to each other now with iCloud and Dropbox and all those wonderful tools that connect them. Kelton Reid: Yeah. I’m a huge fan myself. Do you have some favorite software that you use for writing? Darren Rowse: I try to keep things pretty simple. I’ve tried a lot of the writing tools. I can’t even remember the names of most of them, but these days I tend to write a lot of my stuff in Evernote. If it’s a larger project, I’ll set up a notebook for that and then break it down into sections or chapters in different notes and then have other notes for outlines and to-do lists and all that kind of stuff. I find it’s pretty simple to use, and a lot of the other tools, it got too complicated for me. Evernote seems to work quite well, and I like that I can share it with my team as well to be involved in that process. For blogging I use a little tool called MarsEdit as well, which is kind of like a document creator that you can put your images into and format everything in the app, and then you can upload it to your blog and don’t have to edit it in the blog. Kelton Reid: Interesting. I’ll have to get that link from you. Do you have any organizational hacks? Darren Rowse: Evernote has kind of changed things for me on that front. I tend to whiteboard in the early stages of a project. I like to be able to visualize it. I occasionally will mind-map using a little tool called MindNode. I also have been known to use Post-It notes spread out all over my floor, so whatever it takes to visualize how things fit together. I think in terms of the organization of my writing, I had some training 20 years ago in public speaking, and it was all based around breaking your talk down into two-minute modules and to really creating modules that chop and change and take people through different phases of what you want to present. I think that’s flowed into my writing. I tend to write in very small, short, sharp sections, and a module might be a metaphor or a story or a teaching point and then sort of chopping and changing those. I tend to visualize my writing in that sort of style. They’re probably the tools I use the most. I would say I also use Wunderlist as an organizational tool as well, so I’m very big on lists and setting myself to-do lists to check off during the day. Kelton Reid: Procrastination, the beast of procrastination — do you find yourself leaning into that or do you have some other kind of best practices? How Public Accountability Can Light a Fire under Your Ass Darren Rowse: I find I do procrastinate, but it’s not just a lazy kind of, Eh, I ll get it done. It s more of a prioritization and listening to my energy levels as well. I tend to work best when I’m excited about something, so I tend to listen to that more than I used to and go to the places where I’ve got energy. But I also work very well to deadlines. It stresses me out when something’s looming, but I know that that’s when I’ll do my best work, so that’s important. The other thing I’d say with procrastination, for me, and getting things done, is that accountability is a big thing. I respond really well when other people have an expectation of me. It’s not just an internal expectation of myself. I don’t really respond well to that at all. I respond if other people are waiting for something. So if I really need to get something done, I publicly announce when it will be ready, and I’ve done that quite a few times. I Tweeted with the podcast that I just launched. I publicly announced that it was coming on the first of July before I had recorded an episode, and that motivates me a lot, because I don’t like to be seen missing a deadline. Kelton Reid: That’s right. How do you unplug at the end of a long day there? Darren Rowse: I have to stop working at 5pm. That’s just a family rule, and so that helps as well, and I find the shenanigans of family life pretty much force me out of work mode at that time. I do work once the kids go back to bed, and our kids are fairly young, so I can get back to work at sort of 7:30. But I tend not to do creative stuff at that time because I find if I allow myself to try and get creative at night, I don’t sleep. If I do more admin logistical stuff in the evenings, social media scheduling and all that kind of stuff, I find that almost puts me to sleep. I also always try and give myself at least half an hour between the last work I do and bed just to decompress a little, and that usually involves TV. Kelton Reid: Just a quick pause to mention that The Writer Files is brought to you by the Rainmaker Platform, the complete website solution for content marketers and online entrepreneurs. Find out more and take a free 14-day test drive at Rainmaker.FM/platform. Let’s talk about creativity some. I know you just mentioned creativity, inspiration, finding your passion and your energy. How do you define creativity? Why You Need a Balance Between Dreaming and Doing Darren Rowse: I think creativity for me is the process of turning a new, imaginative idea into reality, so for me, it’s got two parts. It’s about thinking and doing. The problem I see many people falling into the trap of is that they focus on one or the other. I think we all probably have a tendency to focus on one or the other, but we need to work on the other one. So for me, creative thinking and idea generation is what I love to do. I could sit there all day brainstorming, coming up with ideas, and dreaming of what could be, but for a while there, it didn’t really translate into doing a whole heap. So that’s the area that I have to work on. For me, it’s about completion. Again, that theme that came up earlier. I can think of ideas all day. I can start them, but not complete them, so that’s the area that I need to work on. For other people, I think they’re doers, and they don’t give enough time to the thinking and the dreaming and the imagining of what could be, so they end up doing and creating things that perhaps aren’t as imaginative as they could be. For me, creativity’s about finding the sweet spot between creative thinking and actual implementation and doing. Kelton Reid: Yeah. It’s interesting. You brought up before that you have a team that helps you get to that completion phase, but not everybody has both spheres, do they? Darren Rowse: No, and for me, until three years ago, I didn’t really have a team at all. One or two people I occasionally outsourced stuff to, but that was a big tension. Now I guess the tensions are that I ve got to manage people, and that’s not a skill that I really have and I need to grow as well. It really came down to just forcing myself to be organized and making appointments with myself to do those things I needed to do, which didn’t come naturally for me as a creative, airy-fairy kind of guy. Kelton Reid: We may have covered this already, but when do you feel most creative? Darren Rowse: I think there’s a number of things. Conversations with people often stimulate a creative moment for me, whether that be me having conversation with a friend, but also online, I find any sort of social media discussion stimulates ideas and creativity. Often when I do a webinar or even a podcast like this, I find, even preparing for this podcast. I had ideas and that creative thinking. I found myself going off on tangents in my thinking, so I think conversations are a big part of it for me. Getting input from podcasts and blogs and that type of thing. I also find that it’s when I’m not thinking about my work that I’m getting the creative ideas as well. So the shower — I know a lot of people say they get their best ideas in the shower. That’s me, but what I found is I was having my showers sandwiched by kid time. My kids would be there, and then I’d have a shower, and I’d get an idea, and the kids would be there. So I’ve started having showers later in the day so that I can then go and take those ideas that I have and implement them straightaway. I think the other part for me is just being healthy. This year I’ve really worked on my health a lot, and I’ve found myself being much more productive, but also much more creative. So I think all those factors play into when I’m most creative. Kelton Reid: Would you say that’s your creative muse at the moment? How to Get the Maximum Impact from Your Writing Darren Rowse: Yeah, I think so. I tend to get into little obsessions with things. So at times it’s photography, and at times, it’s health and walking, or those types of things. I think I need to keep mixing up that thing that I’m into, and when I do have a thing that I’m obsessed by, that often sparks and brings … I guess it just makes me feel alive. And when I feel alive, I’m more creative. It’s not that I do those things to make creativity come. It just is a byproduct. Kelton Reid: Just going back to the procrastination piece, Austin Kleon talks about productive procrastination and having multiple projects going all at once so that when you’re procrastinating on one project, you’re really being productive on another project. It kind of melds in with that thinking. You’ve seen so much writing, so much online writing and online publishing. What, in your mind, makes a truly great writer? Darren Rowse: I guess it depends on the medium and the style, but for me, I really respond to writers who are taking me on a journey, and I feel like they have thoughtfully taken me from one place to another. In my writing, what I am always trying to think about as I sit down to write is, What change am I trying to bring about in my reader? Whether that be a change in the way they feel, they think, whether it be giving them a new skill, giving them a sense of not feeling like they’re the only one, or a sense of belonging, or some new insight. I don’t want my readers to come away from the things that I write in the same state that they were when they started reading it, because that’s just wasting their time and mine. But if they go from point A to point B, that, to me, is success for my writing. I guess I’d translate that into most formats of writing, whether it be fiction or non-fiction. If I’ve changed as a result of reading a great book, then that’s great. That’s success. The same goes to how-to content that I focus on or other mediums. You want to be changing people, take them on a journey. Kelton Reid: Yeah. Do you have some favorite authors right now? Darren Rowse: To be honest, at the moment, I’ve not been doing as much reading as I should because I’ve been focusing more on podcasts. But I guess those audio books that I ve started to listen to, it’s been an interesting journey. I’m still not sure whether I enjoy the audio format or not, but I’ve reading — or listening to — Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, and I’m enjoying that. I’m still towards the beginning, so I’m not ready to talk about it yet. Another book that I’ve been listening to is Tom Rath’s Fully Charged, which is all about having a full charge for your life, and that’s been interesting. This year I’ve also gone back. I’ve tried to make this year a year where I go back to books I’ve read before that have had some impact upon me. So I’ve gone back to Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point, which started the journey for me, I guess, in some of my thinking. Then also, a book by an Aussie author, Gregory David Roberts, called Shantaram, which is sort of a fictional biography of his journeys as an escapee from a prison and went to India and had all these adventures, and no one really knows how much of the story’s true and how much of it’s not. It’s a whopping, massive book. It’s huge, but I just can’t wait for him to bring out a sequel. Although it’s been 20 years now, so maybe it’s not coming. Kelton Reid: You pull some really, really great quotes for your speaking engagements. Do you have a best-loved quote at the moment? Darren Rowse: Yeah, probably the one from the last year for me that I just keep coming back to and do use quite a bit in my speaking is John Schaar’s, The future is not someplace we’re going, but one we’re creating. The paths are not to be found, but made. The activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination. I’ve been using that quite a bit to encourage people to not just let their future happen to them, but to chase their dreams and take steps towards making their dreams and their futures a reality — the futures that they want rather than just falling into a future that maybe isn’t what they want. Kelton Reid: All right. Let’s do a couple fun ones. You may have already answered this. Do you have a favorite literary character? Darren Rowse: I’m not sure I would call my favorite literary character’s great works literature, but the ones that came to mind were all children’s characters. I don’t know if you ever came across the series called Biggles. It was a series of books that I read when I was probably eight or nine, and he was a pilot flying Sopwith Camels in World War I and World War II. There must have been heaps of these books, but he was always on an adventure. For me, that was probably my first experience of reading that just fired my imagination. Tintin — I don’t know if you ever came across Tintin? Kelton Reid: Oh yeah. Darren Rowse: Those were sort of graphic novels, I guess, in some ways, those comics are. My son has just started reading Tintin, and he is obsessed with it. I think Spielberg made the movie. So they’re probably two characters that come to mind because they bring out memories in me, but I can now also see the same thing happening in my children as they begin to read those books. Kelton Reid: If you could choose one author from any era for an all-expense-paid dinner to your favorite restaurant, who would you choose? Darren Rowse: Gosh. This is the third time this week I’ve been asked to have dinner with someone that I’ve wanted to meet. I always struggled with this question, but probably the one that comes to mind is one that I suspect you’ve not heard of, but another Aussie called Anh Do who wrote a great book called The Happiest Refugee. He’s a comedian, an Aussie comedian, one of the best-known Australian comedians. He comes from Vietnam originally and came to Australia as a refugee. I think he’d be pretty funny to have dinner with. He’s also just written this powerful story of overcoming challenges and doing some really amazing things. He’s also written a children’s book of the same topic, and my kids have really been impacted by that book. I’d love to sit with him and spend some time with him and hear his story from his mouth, and I guess, more so feedback the impact that he’s had on my kids learning about some really important lessons of life. Kelton Reid: Nice. Where would you take him? Darren Rowse: He’s got a Vietnamese background, so I do enjoy that food, so I’d let him choose some nice Vietnamese restaurant. Kelton Reid: Let me ask you, who or what has been your greatest teacher? Darren Rowse: I’d say my dad, probably. Dad was a pastor of a church, and so he spoke every week, and I saw him get up in front of people and communicate. He really didn’t have any agenda in self-promotion or anything other than really trying to serve people and make their lives better. I think that’s probably come across. I’ve picked that up in a lot of what I do. I’m perhaps not quite as humble as him, at times, and it’s hard to be in the social media environment where it’s me, me, me and promote yourself, promote yourself. I certainly didn’t see any of that in my father at all, and so that is a nice reminder to be a bit more grounded, perhaps. I try to live that. His heart for trying to help people and make people better through his communication is something that I try and live out as well in both my speaking but also writing. Kelton Reid: Nice. I skipped a question, which I’ll circle back to. Do you have a writer’s fetish at all? Darren Rowse: I don’t know that I really do. Most of my fetishes are probably more camera-related than writing. I like the look of all those typewriters that people have, but for me, I don’t have room on my shelves because I’ve got cameras everywhere. Kelton Reid: Got you. Can you offer any advice to fellow scribes on how to keep the ink flowing and the cursor moving? Darren Rowse: Yeah. I think for me, it’s about practice. You improve so much when you do. The rhythm of writing regularly — as much as I’m not in a daily rhythm at the moment, I think having certain times in the week where I write and edit and come up with ideas certainly is important for my writing and output. Write something meaningful to you that you know has the potential to change someone’s life. For me, that’s as much about being an effective communicator, but also it comes into the writing process as well. If I know that what I’m writing has the potential to really help someone, then I’m bringing much more energy and creativity to that process. Then fill your cup. If you’ve just got to keep giving input if you want to produce and so don’t let yourself get dry. Find the inspiration that you need in all areas of your life. I think the better your life is going, the better your output. Unless you want to be a poet or write angsty stuff. Maybe you need a bad life to do that. I don’t know. Kelton Reid: Where can fellow writers connect with you out there? Darren Rowse: I think probably the best place is ProBlogger, on Twitter @ProBlogger and then ProBlogger.com has all the different aspects of the ProBlogger brand, so it’s kind of a portal into the rest of the podcast and the blog and the ebooks and the different aspects of what I do. Kelton Reid: I do encourage writers to find the podcast, and it is available on iTunes and other reputable podcast publishing platforms. Darren Rowse: That’s right. Kelton Reid: Very good. Darren, thank you so much. You’re a huge inspiration to me and I know to lots of other writers both online and off, so thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me and do your Writer File. Darren Rowse: Thanks. Nice to chat with you. Kelton Reid: Thanks for tuning into The Writer Files. Now, go turn some of those crazy dreams into something that we can read. For more episodes of The Writer Files and all of the show notes, or to leave us a comment or a question, drop by WriterFiles.FM. You can always chat with me on Twitter @KeltonReid. Cheers. See you out there.

How to Conduct a Policy Review For Your Blog Today's episode is about some policies or operating standards you might like to consider for your blog. Having policies can save you time, help you to make better decisions, and make you more transparent to your readers. Terms & Conditions by Chris Yates on 500px In this Episode You can listen to today's episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). Today we talk about: Why you need blog policies and operating standards 6 areas to consider having a blog policy for (plus one BONUS area) How to get specific information about your legal requirements as a blogger Further Resources on How to Conduct a Policy Review For Your Blog Information about Creative Commons licences Information about the DMCA Further Reading: The ProBlogger Privacy Policy DisclosurePolicy.org Writing your First Pages: About, FTC Blogger Disclosure, Privacy Page: Art of Blog Blogging and Social Media Policy Example: About Money How to Create a Privacy Policy for your Blog: Road to Blogging Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to the ProBlogger Podcast episode 21, where today, we're talking about policy, which seems a little out of place in some ways, but it's a really important area to think about. My challenge to you today is to develop a policy or some sort of an operating procedure for a particular area of your blog, and I'm going to suggest seven different areas to ponder. You can find today's show notes at problogger.com/podcast/21. Let's get into today's episode. Hi, this is Darren Rowse from ProBlogger. Welcome to day 21 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. We're on that final home stretch now, just 10 days to go. Today's challenge may sound a little odd, but I think it's really important to do. It's to spend some time looking at some policies, operating standards, or procedures for your blog. This sounds very corporate, but it's actually important. For some of you, it's actually a legal requirement for you to put some attention into some of these things. Some of you live in jurisdictions where you are required to have a privacy policy or where you're required to have a disclosure policy if you're working with brands in some way. For others of you, it may not be a legal requirement, but it might just be good form to be transparent with your readers on how you operate. For others of you, it's not so much about how you look or whether you're complying with the law. It's actually about putting processes in place that help you to deal with issues that might crop up so that when you are faced with these issues, you've already made the decision on how you respond to them. Hopefully, it'll become clear which of these fits in with the different policies I'm going to talk about in a moment. I want to go through seven different areas—in fact, I want to suggest seven—that you might want to consider creating a policy in. I do touch on six of these in the workbook for 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, but I want to suggest a seventh as well. The first one is copyright. Are you willing for other people to use your content in some way? This might mean you put a Creative Commons license on your blog, and there's a variety of different types, so you might want to do a little bit of research on that today.  If you're not willing for other people to use your content, that's okay. You might want to brush up your copyright notice. You probably want to do a little bit of research on that and there are posts on ProBlogger on that topic. You want to also put into place processes if you are using guest posters on your blog to ensure that they own the copyright of the material that they submit. For instance,

How to Improve Your Blog by Solving a Reader's Problem Today's episode is a writing challenge and is all about how you can spot and solve your readers' problems, which is a powerful way to grow your audience. Do it well and you'll make a positive impression on people, create a memory and give people a reason to come back, and give people a story to tell others. Businesswoman with a worried frown busy thinking by Lars Zahner on 500px In this Episode You can listen to today's episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). Also - if you have a moment we'd love to get your feedback on the ProBlogger Podcast with this short survey which will help us plan future episodes. How to spot the problems your readers are struggling with right now How to anticipate your readers' future problems 5 ways you can solve your readers' problems Tools Mentioned in this Episode There are a variety of keyword research tools available but I’m going to recommend you read Rand Fishkin’s "Beginners Guide to SEO", which has a section on keyword research. He recommends starting with: Google AdWords Keyword Planner Tool Google Trends Microsoft Bing Ads Intelligence Wordtracker’s Free Basic Keyword Demand The team at Moz also have good tips about how to do Keyword Research. Further Reading on Solving Readers' Problems Content isn't King - Here's What Is! Survey Your Readers and Discover Who They are and How You Can Be More Useful to Them Blog Post Idea: Answer a Reader Question The Surprisingly Simple Secret to Knowing What Your Readers Want Also check out these previous 'writing challenges' in this series at: Write a List Post Write a Link Post Come up with 10 Blog post Ideas Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to the ProBlogger Podcast episode 16 and day 16 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, where I'm giving you a challenge every day for 31 days, which helps to build some habits for good blogging. Today's challenge is a writing challenge. You're going to write a post today that solves one of your reader's problems. I'm going to tell you how to identify problems and then give you the challenge to go away and write that post. I'd love to see the post that you do write today. You can go to the show notes at problogger.com/podcast/16 and share the post that you write as a result of today's podcast. Today's podcast is a really important one in many ways. This is what I build my business around, solving problems. I hope you enjoy it. Hi, this is Darren from ProBlogger and welcome to day 16 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, where we're going through 31 different ways to improve your blog. I challenge you every day to spend about 15 or so minutes working on a different activity. Today is another writing challenge. We’ve already had a few of these and I always hear back from readers that they love the writing challenges. After all, we are bloggers. Your writing challenge today is a little bit general. It's not to write a certain type of post, but it's to do something for your readers. It is to solve a problem for them. This is the backbone of my blogs, really. If I have to narrow down what I do every day, my goal is to solve at least one reader problem. Not just a problem for one reader (although that's part of it) but to solve at least one problem that might apply to multiple readers, at least one every day. I know that if I'm solving my reader's problems I'm making a positive impression upon people, that I'm creating a memory for them, and giving them a reason to come back. I'm also giving people a story to tell others.  If you think about it in your life and I think about my life, if someone solves a problem for me, it has an impact on how I see them.

How to Improve Your Blog by Partnering with a Blogging Buddy Today's episode is all about finding another blogger (or bloggers) to help you improve your blog. Blogging doesn't have to be a solo venture - in fact it can be incredibly social and when we grasp this idea of doing it together it can lead to all manner of great things. In this Episode You can listen to todays episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). Why having a blogging buddy can help you to improve the quality of your blogging Areas that you can work on with another blogger 3 ways to find a blogging buddy Head to the ProBlogger Facebook Page to connect with other ProBlogger readers - you might just find a buddy there. Further Reading on Finding Blogging Buddies Building Your Online Tribe: Jeff Goins Shares his Top Tips and Tools The SITS Girls tell us how to Find Your Blogging Tribe in this first part of a several-post series. How to Form a Bond with Fellow Bloggers - Twelveskip Kat from the How They Blog Podcast talks us through how to start and run a mastermind group during her chat with Trina Holden Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to the ProBlogger Podcast. My name is Darren Rowse and welcome to episode 15 and day 15 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today, we're talking about blogging buddies, teaming up with another blogger to help improve both of your blogs in some way. Today's show notes are at problogger.com/podcast/15. Hi there. It's Darren from ProBlogger here. Welcome to day 15 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today, we're going to talk about finding yourself a blog buddy. I'm an introvert. I've declared this many times on my blogs before. While I enjoy the company of other people very much, I get my energy by spending time alone. Blogging and podcasting are great mediums for me in this respect. I get to interact with people, but I had a bit of a distance. I get to monitor how much time I spend by myself. However, one thing I've learned over the last 13 years is that sometimes I need to push myself out of my comfort zone, out of my solitude, and into the presence of others because when I do, my blogs actually grow faster, the quality of my blogging increases, and the impact that I have upon my readers grows as well when I work with other bloggers. I learned this very early on back in 2002 when I started blogging. Even in my first weeks, I remember I stumbled into the company of a very small group of other wonderful bloggers who helped me through those first really tricky weeks of blogging. You probably remember those times where you had so many questions, doubts, fears, and so little knowledge about what you're doing. I had no idea what I was doing and it would have been very easy for me to give up blogging many times in those first few weeks, but with the support of that small group of other bloggers—friends, really; it was no formal group—I got up and running, and I started walking on my own feet. Gradually, I grew the knowledge. Some of the doubts and some of the fears—not all of them—began to disappear. I began to understand what I was doing. There have been many times over the years since this has been the case for me as I've faced different challenges. I remember the times where I've been burnt out and struggling to create content and people have given me ideas, support, and encouragement. I remember times where I couldn't seem to find readers for my blogs and other bloggers helped me by promoting my blog to their readers really generously. I remember starting new blogs at different times and just being completely out of my depth with the technicalities. I remember switching platforms from Blogger to Movable Type and then to WordPress and having no idea what I was doing.

How to Create an Editorial Calendar for your Blog Yesterday I challenged you to come up with at least 10 blog post ideas for your blog. Today we're going to take those ideas and begin to form an editorial calendar around them - specifically we're looking to create an editorial plan for next week on your blog. As I share in this episode this something I resisted doing in the early days of my blogging but having started to do it a few years ago it transformed my blogging on many levels so if you're yet to do it I can highly recommend you give it a go. In Today's Episode You can listen to today's episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). 10 Quick Benefits of creating an Editorial Calendar How to Create a Simple Editorial Calendar for Your Blog A basic weekly format for an Editorial Calendar that you might want to try (with a different type of post on each day) Tools you might want to check out to help you create your editorial calendar By the end of this challenge you now should: know what you need to create have some starting points for each post have a plan of when you’ll create each post Tools Mentioned in this Episode and Related Reading Here are the editorial calendar tools I mentioned in today's episode: Coshedule Editorial Calendar Plugin Edit Flow DivvyHQ Google Drive/Documents And here is some further reading on the topic: How to plan an editorial calendar [recording of a webinar] Behind the Scenes: My Low Tech Editorial Schedule 3 Ways Scheduling will Make You a Better Blogger The Complete Guide to Choosing a Content Calendar: Tools, Templates, Tips and More - Buffer Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to the ProBlogger Podcast episode 12 and day 12 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today, we're talking about creating an editorial calendar for your blog. I'm going to share with you why an editorial calendar is useful, some tips on how to set one up, and I'll share some tools that you can use. You can get today's show notes at problogger.com/podcast/12 where I will share those links to all those tools mentioned in today's show. Hi, this is Darren from ProBlogger. Welcome to day 12 for 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Yesterday, you came up with 10 blog post ideas. I suspect many of you would have come up with more than 10, which is great because it's going to give you a great head start on today's challenge. Today, we're talking about editorial calendars. Specifically, I want to challenge you to create an editorial calendar for the next week of your blog. Not this week but next week. Some of you have already got an editorial calendar and today is the perfect day to assess it and to do a review of it. If you're like most bloggers who simply sit down to write, come up with an idea, and then hit publish all on the same day, this could be a blog changing exercise for you. I know it was for me. To be honest, this was a bit of a process for me to get my head around. I'm a pretty spontaneous kind of person. For the first few years of my blogging, I pretty much did it as I just described. I sat down, I came up with an idea, I'd write the post, and then publish it almost immediately. But I found a lot of value in switching gears and starting to think ahead. I know that probably is going to relate differently today to each personality type but bear with me and give it a go just for one week, see what happens. Ultimately, today is about setting up a publishing schedule for next week and to determine what you publish on which days. Let me give you a few benefits of an editorial calendar, even a simple one. As I said yesterday, this is going to help take the pressure off idea generation when you sit down to write which, hopefully,

How to Come Up with Hundreds of Blog Post Ideas for Your Blog Day 11 is one of my favourite days and one that is going to pay off over the next few days and weeks of blogging. It's all about answering that question 'what should I blog about today???' that may bloggers struggle a lot with each day when they sit down to blog. The idea today is to spend some time ahead of time answering that question so that next time you sit down to blog you can get straight into creating some great content. You can listen to todays episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also love to get your reviews). In todays Episode A trap that many bloggers face when it comes to coming up with ideas for their blog Two reasons why brainstorming ahead of time what to write about is so important A process I used on Digital Photography School to come up with hundreds of blog post ideas (enough for my first couple of years of blogging) A variety of other techniques and suggestions for coming up with blog post ideas - some which are based upon some of the previous episodes in this podcast series including setting up alerts and subscriptions you set up yesterday, emailing a reader, heading to the forum or group you've joined, social media accounts etc How to tap into your own problems, questions and challenges to get content ideas The challenge to set up an ideas collection system (I mention I use Evernote) A couple of visuals from the exercise I suggest today: 1. describe the change you want to take your blog readers through: 2. break down that change that you wish to bring: Your Challenge Today Brainstorm at least 10 blog post ideas that you could use in the days and weeks ahead. If you can come up with more - please keep going while they're flowing but do capture them! Don't get into writing the posts yet - just brainstorm. Tomorrow we'll take the ideas to do something with them so tune back in then with your ideas ready. Further Reading on Todays Challenge How to Consistently Come up With Great Content Ideas for Your Blog How to Build a Blog that Has Lasting Impact Upon Its Readers 5 Sources of Ideas for My Blog Posts Discover Hundreds of Post Ideas for Your Blog with Mind Mapping 27 Killer Strategies for Brainstorming Blog Post Ideas - JeffBullas.com Brainstorming: Generating Many Radical, Creative Ideas - MindTools.com Video: 6 Creative Ways to Brainstorm Ideas 7 Quick Ways to Brainstorm for Blog Post Topics - Random Little Faves And Sarah Schultz even has a free printable and great post at Why Brainstorming is Essential to Blogging. Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to the ProBlogger podcast, episode 11 and day 11 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today, your challenge is to come up with at least 10 blog post ideas for future posts on your blog. In today's episode, I'm going to share with you one technique that I used to come up with hundreds of ideas for the first couple of years of my blog at Digital Photography School. I'll also share some alternative techniques that you might like to use to get some inspiration. Today's topic is so important. Many bloggers get stuck at this idea stage of creating content, so hopefully, it will give you a head start on that. Today's show notes, with some further reading and the tools mentioned in the show, are at problogger.com/podcast/11. There's also an opportunity on those show notes to connect with what others are doing in the challenge.  Before we get into it, a couple of answers to questions I've had over the last few days. One is around how frequently should you be doing these challenges. I know some of you are doing them on a daily basis as I'm publishing them. But if you don't have time, don't feel that you have to do them daily. I know some of you are doing them every second ...

How to Build Your Profile and Drive Traffic to your Blog Through Forums and Social Media Groups In todays episode I challenge you to focus a little attention today on joining an online forum and/or social media 'group' as a way of growing your blog's profile, finding readers and learning more about your niche. You can listen to todays episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). In this Episode In this short episode I share: 3 questions to ask to help you find new readers for your blog 3 reasons why joining a forum or group can help grow your blog Some tips on how to find and participate in a forum or social media group in a way that helps your blog improve Further Reading Relevant to this Podcast How to create a reader profile, avatar or personal for your blog Episode 3 of our Podcast: 11 ways to Promote Your Blog Finding Readers Week: Corinne Talks Commenting, Engagement, and Are Forums Right for Your Blog? How to Use Online Forums to Promote Your Website - Shout Me Loud 7 Ways to Benefit from Facebook Groups over at Socially Sorted LinkedIn Groups: Getting Started How did You Find this Challenge Are you already a regular contributor to forums and/or social media groups? What tips would you add to those in this episode? What do you find works best? What would you avoid doing? I'm looking forward to learning from your experience in comments below! I'd also love to hear your feedback on this podcast if you could spare a moment to leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher. UPDATE: please scroll down to the comments section and check out the amazing and generous advice of Paul who shares some meaty tips on getting the most out of forums. It's great stuff! Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to the ProBlogger Podcast episode 9 and day 9 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today, your challenge is all about building your blog’s profile and finding some new readers by doing one of a couple of things, either joining a forum relevant to your blog or a social media group, either a Facebook or LinkedIn group, perhaps. Today’s show notes are found at problogger.com/podcast/9. But first, a quick word from our sponsor, 99designs, the best place for new business or blog to build their brand. If you’re looking to launch a new blog or project and need some high quality but affordable design work done, then 99designs is where you should head. Start your next design project at 99designs.com/problogger and get a $99 upgrade for free. Hi and welcome to day 9 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, a ProBlogger podcast that gives you 31 different ways to improve your blog over a month. Today, I want to challenge you to join a forum that relates to your niche and then to start participating. One of the most common questions that I’m asked by bloggers is how do I find readers for my blog. It’s the number one question we get asked. There’s a lot of potential answers on a micro level, lots of different techniques that we could suggest, but what I generally start with is some bigger picture answers.  Ask yourselves these three questions: Who are you trying to reach? What type of person are you trying to reach? The more you can get clarity around that question, the better. Ultimately, creating an avatar or a persona or a reader profile is a good thing to do. Once you know who you’re trying to reach, ask where are they gathering already? Are there blogs, are there forums, are there social networks that they’re already gathering? The more you know about that, the better position you’re in to go and participate in those places. That’s the third question. How can I participate in those places? So, who am I trying to reach, where are they already gathering,

How to Build An Effective Social Media Strategy for Your Blog Today is day 8 in our 31 day challenge and it's a really important one that I know many of you will get your teeth into. You're going to do a social media audit on your blog to assess how your social media accounts are going and to plan a way forward to use them more effective. You can listen to todays episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). In this Episode My confession with social media and how I'd let some of my social media accounts slip Some suggestions for working out which social media accounts you should be focusing upon Some suggested questions to ask yourself today about one of your social media accounts as you conduct your audit The challenge to create an editorial calendar for your social media account How making appointments with myself to make sure I implement what I plan Tools mentioned in todays podcast include: Canva Picmonkey MeetEdgar Buffer Further Reading There are so many posts on the ProBlogger blog on the topic of social media but here are a few that you might like to check out: How to Socialize Your Blog Posts for Maximum Effect How to Build an Efficient Social Media Workflow to Increase your Traffic Facebook: Boost Your Organic Reach with These Tips Case Studies of Popular Pages (and What They’re Doing to Get Great Engagement) Not on Instagram? Your Blog Could be Missing Out 7 Powerful Tips for a Winning Twitter Sales Strategy And here's a few others from other sites around the web Hubspot: The Social Media Content Calendar every Marketer Needs Buffer: How to Create and Schedule a Social Media Marketing Plan Inc.com: How to Choose the Best Social Media Sites to Market Your Business Tell us How Your Social Media Audit Went Today I'd love to hear how you found todays challenge in comments below. What social media accounts are you most active on? How could you improve what you do with your social media accounts? What's one thing you'll do differently with your social accounts going forward? Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hello and welcome to the ProBlogger Podcast episode 8 and day 8 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, where your challenge today is to do an audit on one of your social media accounts and to come up with a plan for the future of that account. Including the creation of an editorial calendar. Show notes for today's episode are at problogger.com/podcast/8.  First, a word from our sponsor, 99designs, the best place for a new blog or an older blogger to build their brand. If you're looking to launch your blog or a project that needs some high quality but affordable design work done, then 99designs is where you should head. Start your next design project at 99designs.com/problogger and $99 upgrade for free. Hi. It's Darren here from ProBlogger. Welcome to day 8 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today, we’re going to talk about social media. My challenge to you is to choose one of your social media accounts, to do a bit of an audit on, to do some analysis, to ask some tough questions. Most bloggers are pretty active on social media but it's pretty easy to just drift along with it and not use it as effectively as you could. In fact, it's pretty easy for it to start hurting your blogging as well, whether it be using social media as a distraction away from blogging itself, whether it's just getting off target in terms of the topic—letting automation get in the way of useful tweeting—or standing to use social media in a more dated way.  This is the case for me. I recently realized that I'd let ProBlogger’s social media accounts sleep a little. Social media has always been important for ProBlogger and it's always sent...

Writing Challenge: Create a Link Post for Your Blog It's time for another writing challenge - today is all about creating a 'link post' for your blog. Link posts used to be the bread and butter of bloggers but have become less popular over the last couple of years - but I think they still have real benefit for your blog - so I challenge you to create one today. Once you've published it I'd love to see what you've created in the comments of these show notes below. You can listen to todays episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). In this Episode The way things were with link posts and why they were good for the blogosphere Why link posts have become less popular Reasons to consider using link posts on your blog 6 types of link posts to try (choose one for todays challenge) Examples of the 6 Types of Link Posts Let me also give you some quick examples (all taken from the archives of ProBlogger) on the 6 types of 'link posts'. Build Upon the Points of Others - How to Build Your Blog's Audience with Long Form Evergreen Content (where I built on the ideas shared by Tim Ferriss in a podcast) Take the Opposite Point of View - 9 Reasons Why I AM an Amazon Affiliate - where I bounced off a post by another blogger who took the opposing view Build a Resource on a Topic - Four Blogging Tools to Make your Content Go Further or Where to Find Free Images Online Speedlinking/WrapUp - 11 SpeedLinks for Professional Bloggers and Web Workers (it's an old one as I've not done it for a while) One Question Interviews - 14 Bloggers Share Their Daily Blogging Routine (where I emailed some other bloggers to ask them to answer a simple question) Further Reading - Follow These Six Steps to Make Plenty of Time to Write (and Enjoy it Too) (this post had numerous 'further reading' links scattered through the post. Other Tools/Links Briefly Mentioned in todays Episode BuzzSumo Flipboard Evernote Also check out Feedly as a good RSS reading tool. Share Your Link Post In Comments Below On day 2 of this challenge I challenged you to write a 'list post' and many of you wrote and then shared links to the lists you wrote. You did so well and I enjoyed reading them. Today I'd like you to share you newly published 'link posts' in comments below. Please only share newly written posts and please also take a moment or two to surf around some of the links that others share so we can get to know other bloggers taking this challenge. Can't wait to see your posts! Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to the ProBlogger Podcast episode 7 and day 7 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today, your challenge is to create a link post for your blog. It’s a little bit retro, something I used to do in the early days of my blog, that’s disappeared a little bit from the blogosphere, but we’re going to bring it back today and I look forward to seeing your posts. You can find today’s show notes at problogger.com/podcast/7.  Before we get into today’s episode, I want to just draw your attention to our wonderful sponsor, 99designs, who make it easy for your next project to get off the ground with a quality, affordable design. To get your logo, business card, mobile app, blog template, or other blog creatives up and going, visit 99designs.com/problogger and get a $99 upgrade for your next design for free. Hi, this is Darren from ProBlogger. Welcome to day 7 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, where I’m giving you 31 different challenges to help improve your blog. Today, we’re going to write a blog post. It’s been a few days since we’ve done one. I think day two, we did a ‘write a list’ post and today we’re going to write a link post. A link post is a post where you are simply linking to another b...

How to Get Your Blog Mobile Friendly Welcome to day 6 of the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge where today we're going to talk about making your blog mobile friendly. While to get your blog completely mobile friendly will take you longer than a single day today you can come up with a plan to do so if you've not already. This task is VERY important. We're getting to the point where half of your blog's readers are probably viewing your blog on mobile devices and if your design isn't good you could be losing them and also running the risk of falling in Google's search rankings! If you're already mobile friendly - todays a great day to review your design not that front. In This Episode Why a mobile friendly design is so important for you to have in place Questions to ask when reviewing your blog design on mobile 2 Tools from Google to help you assess how your blog is performing on mobile devices My Confession with Mobile Friendly Blogs 3 Suggested ways forward if your blog is not mobile friendly - plugins, responsive themes and custom design Some suggestions for those of you who already have mobile friendly blogs Tools and Resources Test Your Blog Google's Make Your Website Work Across Multiple Devices Site (see the 'tool' on the right sidebar where you can add your URL to test your site. Google's Mobile-Friendly Test WordPress Plugins WP-Touch WP Mobile Pack Jetpack Responsive Themes I've used Studio Press who offer fully responsive designs. Need Technical Support? If you're feeling overwhelmed by the idea of installing and getting plugins set up or installing themes talk to the team at WPCurve who offer WordPress support and do small jobs. You can either sign up for a monthly plan to get ongoing support or hire them to do a one off job. Note: I am an affiliate for StudioPress and WPCurve. I've also been a user of both services and recommend them genuinely fro that experience and from knowing the teams behind them well. Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to the ProBlogger Podcast episode 6 on day 6 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today, your challenge is to make your blog mobile-friendly. It's a challenge that will probably take you more than today, but you can do some great groundwork to get you well underway. Today's show notes are at problogger.com/podcast/6 First, a quick word from our sponsor, 99designs, the best place for new businesses to build their brand. 99designs makes it easy to get your next project off the ground with quality, affordable design. To get you a logo, business card, mobile app, blog template or more, visit 99designs.com/problogger and get a $99 upgrade for free. Hi, this is Darren from ProBlogger. Welcome to day 6 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, where we're teaching you 31 different things that you can do to improve your blog, and then challenging you to go away and do it. Really, the doing part is the most important part of this 31-day challenge, so I hope you are taking action. Today's challenge is a big one. Yesterday's was pretty small in many ways, but it had a big impact, but today's is a bigger challenge, and it may actually take you longer than one day to implement, but I want you to make some decisions today that you can go away and implement. Today's challenge is to make your blog mobile-friendly. I know some of you have already done this and I've got some things for you to do as well, but it's a really important challenge. We're approaching a time where more people will read blogs on their mobile devices than desktops. In fact, for many blogs, it's already happened. I know on my blogs, I checked this morning on Digital Photography School, half of my readers exactly 50% are now viewing the blog on mobile. On ProBlogger,

How to Convert a Casual Blog Reader into a Loyal Long Term Raving Fan It's day 5 of our 31 Day Challenge and today is a pretty simple one that could take you just a minute or two (although you could take a few moments extra and do it multiple times to extend the impact). The task - is to email one of your blog's readers! You can listen to todays episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we'd also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). In This Episode I share the 3 things I would always do in the early days of my blogging any time anyone left a comment on my blog I share the impact that I saw doing this had on my readers (and how even 10 years later some of those readers still comment today on ProBlogger) I suggest how you can extend todays exercise to make an even bigger impression on your readers - if you have a few more minutes Todays exercise is super simple. In fact last time I talked about it on ProBlogger someone commented saying it wasn't worth doing. But here's the thing - this kind of action adds up over time. Like I say in todays episode - do this every day for a year you'll have made an impression upon hundreds of people - each who could become daily readers to your blog and whom have their own networks that they might just promote you to. While we'd all love a big rush of overnight traffic as a way to grow readers the reality is that this one by one converting of 'surfers' into loyal 'readers' is the way that most blogs grow and this is one way to do that. Give it a go and let us know in comments below how you found the exercise! Further Reading I mentioned this same idea in a post on ProBlogger - The Power of Personalisation. Also check out this great presentation that Pat Flynn gave. He did this same talk at the ProBlogger Event last year and it had a big impact and talks about how to convert casual readers into raving fans. I think today's exercise very much fits into an activity that could play a part in doing just that. Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to the ProBlogger podcast, episode 5 and day 5 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today, your challenge is a simple one. It won't take you long, but it has the potential to bring a lot of life to your blog, particularly if you build it into your daily blogging workflow. You can find today's show notes at problogger.com/podcast/5. First, a word from our sponsor, 99designs, the best place for new businesses and blogs to build their brands. If you're looking to launch a new blog or project and need some high quality but affordable design work done, then 99designs is where you should be heading. Start your next design project at 99designs.com/problogger and get a $99 upgrade for free. Hi, this is Darren from ProBlogger and welcome to day 5 in 31 Days to Build a Better Blog where we're going through 31 different activities that you can do to improve your blog. I'm giving you a little bit of teaching and then a challenge to go and do every day over this month. Today's task is probably one of the most simple things that you can do. In fact, it's so simple that many people don't do it because, well, it's just a small action and what impact could it have? But I'm here today to tell you that this is one of the things that I did in the early days of my own blog that still has an impact today, 12 years later. The challenge today is to email one of your readers. That's it. Just shoot an email to one of your readers. It's all about building community on your blog. Making an impression on a single reader by giving them some personal attention. It's an exercise in building community on a micro level. You're just reaching out to one person today. This might sound a little bit too small. One reader, I want a thousand readers.

How to Improve Your Blog by Watching What Other Bloggers Do It's day 4 in our 31 days to build a better blog challenge and today is one of my favourites - in fact it's something I do very regularly in my own blogging. It's all about spending time on another person's blog in your niche to observe what they do (and don't do) to see what you can learn (no magnifying glass required). This exercise can be done in 10-15 minutes (although you can take longer if you wish). Listen to this episode to find out how I do it. In this Episode Much of this episode is a series of questions for you to ask as you look at the blog that you've chosen to analyse. You might like to get the blog's page loaded up and then run todays episode for a bit while I run through some questions and then pause the episode as you do the analysis. Here are the areas to analyse that I run through: Questions to ask about how the blog you observe handles content Questions to ask about how the blog engages with their readers Questions to ask about how the blog uses social media Questions to ask about who the blog is designed Questions to ask about how the blog monetizes/sustains themselves Questions to ask about how they use email/newsletters Questions to ask about how they are getting traffic to their blog Other questions that might help you identify opportunities to work with this blog I also share 2 words of warning with this exercise. Further Reading This podcast is based upon this post on the ProBlogger Blog where some of the questions I run through are included so you've got them written somewhere. Mentioned in this episode were two tools for looking at the traffic of other blogs. They are Alexa and Compete. These don't give you exact stats and I don't find them 100% accurate as I analyse my own blogs but they can give you a bit of an idea of how a blog's traffic might be trending. For Alexa just add the url of the site in the top right corner where it says 'Browse Top Sites or Enter a Site' and then click 'Find'. For Compete just enter the URL in the front page but note that for full stats you need to pay these days so you won't get a heap of information. Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Welcome to the ProBlogger Podcast episode 4 on day 4 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. Today, your challenge is to analyze another blog. You're going to learn so much from this challenge and learn a whole heap about how to differentiate yourself as a blogger, too. Today's show notes are at problogger.com/podcast/4. First, a word from our sponsor 99designs the best place for new bloggers to build their brand. 99designs is the blogger's number one choice for quality graphic design. To get your logo, business card, or any blog creative you might need, visit 99designs.com/problogger and get a $99 upgrade of services for free. Hi, this is Darren from ProBlogger. Welcome to day 4 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, where each day we're giving you a little bit of teaching and a challenge to go away and to improve your blog. Today is one of my favorite activities and it's something that I do semi-regularly on my blog. I go through periods where I actually do it every day but at least once a week I do this activity. I never come away from it without learning something that I can go away and improve my blog on. The activity is this, to analyze another blog in your niche. You can do it with a blog that's not in your niche but you probably get more value by doing it with a blog on your niche. The idea is really simple. Put aside 10, 15 minutes longer if you can, and just watch what another blogger is doing. It's about watching, listening, observing, learning, how other bloggers approach what they do. Not so that you can copy them, but so that you can perhaps notice what someone else is ...

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS* Welcome to the very first episode of the Boss Girl Creative Podcast!! Have comments or questions? Tweet/IG using the hashtag #BOSSGIRLQA or call in: (707) BOSS-GIRL* Join the BGC Crew!TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE* What it means to be a Boss Girl and a Boss Girl Creative * A short history on Taylor and Lauren* What blogging can do for you * Turning blogging into a source of income* Rewards of blogging * Investing in yourself and your brand TAYLOR SAID"Even though we all may be in a different market, we all are creatives and we all are trying to do our thing and be fellow Boss Girls." Taylor Bradford"I don't want to be pigeon holed into one category because what fun is it to just be one kind of blogger when you can be all kinds of bloggers!" Taylor Bradford"My biggest thing that I have enjoyed is adding my blogging series and being able to provide education to fellow bloggers." Taylor Bradford"No matter what creative field you're in…you can reach your community and your customers through blogging in a way that you really can't through any other platform." Taylor Bradford "I personally want to be as transparent as possible because I want you to know, this is possible, if this is your dream…this is possible and there are women in our field doing that. Taylor Bradford"You have to grow, you have to put yourself out there, you have to think about your brand, your community, you're investing in yourself, investing in time to figure out what can take you to the next level. Taylor Bradford"Invest in yourself, invest in your brand and invest in your business." Taylor Bradford LAUREN SAID"I like being a lifestyle blogger because you can kind of do whatever you want!" Lauren McBride"Getting paid to do something I love, writing about something I love, it doesn't even feel like work." Lauren McBride"When I ever won Maxxinista of the Month last August, that was my dream and I never would have thought I would be able to collaborate with TJ Maxx." Lauren McBride"When you get things [collaboration opportunities] like that and see what doors it opens, it gives you that push to continue and then you are almost hungry for it." Lauren McBride"There isn't a rulebook…we have learned via trial and error but if there is a way to do that easier and more effectively, we want to provide that." Lauren McBride"You have to invest in yourself. You have to put the time in and you have to be continually growing." Lauren McBrideRESOURCES AND LINKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODEB-School: www..marieforleo.com/bschool/Instagram: www.instagram.comPinterest: www.pinterest.comTwitter: www.twitter.comSHOUT-OUTS*Links below may contain Affiliate Links. Purchasing through them help support Boss Girl Creative.*Sits Girls31 Days to Build a Better Blog - Darren Rowse aka PROBLOGGERMatch.comPottery BarnMaxxinista of the Month - TJMaxxThe Breakfast Club MORE FROM TAYLORPink Heels Pink Truck - pinkheelspinktruck.com MORE FROM LAURENLauren McBride Blog - www.laurenmcbrideblog.comCONNECT WITH US ON INSTAGRAMTaylor - @pnkheelspnktrkLauren - @laurmcbrideblog#bossgirlcreative #bossgirlQAHELP SPREAD THE BOSS GIRL LOVE!It would be amazeballs if you shared Boss Girl Creative Podcast with your fellow Boss Girls on twitter. Click here to tweet some love!If you love this podcast, head on over to iTunes and kindly leave a rating, a review and subscribe!FEEDBACK + PROMOTIONYou can ask your questions and leave your comments by either calling (707) BOSS-GIRL, emailing hello@bossgirlcreative.com or go to the Boss Girl Creative Facebook group.

Listen to me share some ideas and reasons why blogging can be a good way for adults on the autism spectrum to make money. ProBlogger 31 Days to a Better Blog

This Week’s Episode Before I launched the Creative Yarn Entrepreneur Show, I sent out a survey to a few online friends for feedback on show topics. Kathy Kelly from the Crochetbird blog asked about ways to engage with blogging community. Thanks for the suggestion, Kathy! In this episode, I share 6 suggestions for engaging other bloggers.  6 Ways to Engage with the Blogging Community Commenting Participating in challenges Joining link parties & blog hops Finding blogger groups Attending blogger events and meetups Connecting with bloggers on other forms of social media Each of these different ways of engaging has its own benefits and challenges. Deciding which ways work best for you will depend on your goals. 1) Commenting Commenting on other blogs is a great way to engage with bloggers. Unfortunately, due to spam, trolls, malware, etc., some bloggers don’t allow comments or have so much security to cut through that it makes commenting near impossible. Include a link to your blog in the comment form, and, if appropriate, include a specific link to a post that’s relevant. When possible, include a substantive comment. Try not to include links within the comment unless they are highly relevant to the discussion and/or you already know the blogger. (The best analogy I’ve heard about this is that including links in the comment is like a party guest jumping up in the middle of dinner to shout, “Come on over to my house for dinner instead!”) 2) Participating in challenges There are several types of popular blog challenges, including: Daily blogging challenges DIY challenges, like Me Made May or the Seamless Pledge. Yarn-related challenges, like Knit Picks’s 52 Weeks of Dishcloths.  Blog improvement challenges, like ProBlogger’s 31 Days to Building a Better Blog or the Ultimate Blog Challenge. You can join in a current group challenge, or follow along with another blogger’s personal challenge, or work through an old challenge. Challenges can help you improve or diversify your blogging skills while engaging with other bloggers. 3) Joining link parties & blog hops Link parties and blog hops are organized activities that take place on a regular basis. A host (or hosts) write a blog post and participants can add links to their blog post directly in to the post. Link parties come and go so ask for recommendations or use search to find a party. Each link partu has its own culture and rules. Generally speaking, you are expected to visit several of the other posted links and comment. It’s often the norm to visit every blogger who comments on your blog as well. 4) Finding blogger groups You can find blogger groups on every social media platform, so choose a setting where you feel comfortable. Some of these groups are private or secret, so you can discuss some of your blogging concerns more privately. Others are public. Most of these groups combine elements of blog support (discussions about tech issues, posting ideas, etc.) with cross-promotion. Some are open to all bloggers and others are focused on specific types of bloggers. Some groups you may want to consider are: Blogging, The Blog Hub, French Blogs, and Self-Hosted WordPress on Ravelry. Facebook groups with the words “blogging,” “bloggin,” or blogger in the title. HubSpot shared a list of 20 LinkedIn Groups Every Marketer Should Join. You can also click these links to find LinkedIn groups with blogging or blog as keywords. There are also blogging communities for specific cultural or social groups. You can also ask your fellow blogger friends for recommendations or see which groups they promoted on their blogs. 5) Attending blogger events and meetups In person meetups and events can be a great way to connect with bloggers. Events can be the places to introduce yourself to a blogger with a large following or finally get to meet your online friends face-to-face. She Owns It: Celebrating Supporting & Connecting Women Entrepreneurs has a great list of events, most of which are relevant to bloggers, here. If you live in or near a major metropolitan area, you can probably find a local group of bloggers via MeetUp.com or Craigslist. You can also engage with other bloggers at yarn industry events, like The National NeedleArts Association trade shows. You can meet bloggers from your region through local or regional fiber events. You can find a calendar of such events here on Knitter’s Review. Large events may include workshops or other training opportunities that can help you improve your blog. Face-to-face meetings, especially the larger events, may involve more costs. Some very large events can be overwhelming for introverts. 6) Connecting with bloggers on other forms of social media Most bloggers have a presence on other forms of social media. You can engage bloggers on whatever platforms you are mutually involved in, including Ravelry, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest. Engage authentically with the bloggers you follow by commenting, sharing/reTweeting their posts, and writing feedback via social media. It’s nice to include links when you can (though, for space reasons, that can be a challenge on Twitter!) Some blogger groups have their own hashtag. For example, Blogs by Latinas and Latina Bloggers Connect use #LatinaBloggers. Using a hashtag can help other bloggers in your group identify your Tweets to share and comment. Before you engage with other bloggers… Consider why you want to engage with bloggers. Are you trying to improve your own blogging? Groups might be best for you. Do you want to monetize your blog or become a pro blogger? Events and meetups might be best for you. Are you looking for new blogs to follow? Link parties/blog hops and challenges might be best for you. Do you want to increase your following? Commenting, link parties/blog hops, challenges, and connecting with bloggers on social media may be the best way. You may find that just one, or a combination of these ways works well for your goals, comfort level, time restrictions, and budget. If you enjoyed this episode The Creative Yarn Entrepreneur Show is no longer broadcasting. Episodes are available as a service to the yarn community. This episode originally aired in September, 2014. Be aware that content may be outdated. If you'd like to chat with other yarn-related business owners, join the Creative Yarn Entrepreneurs Facebook group. Support Marie's work by buying one of her books, Make Money Teaching Crochet: Launch Your Business, Increase Your Side Income, Reach More Students (Amazon | Gumroad) or Design It, Promote It, Sell It: Online Marketing for Your Crochet and Knit Patterns (Amazon | Gumroad).  

Jason Haines, a winner of our 2014 Super Social Media Awards for Best Blog, talks about how to use a blog to show off the course and your work. Check out his blog at Turfhacker.

The MinistryGeeks discuss how to set up a blog and some popular plugins to add features.

EPISODE TITLE: 003 Custom URL Shorteners for Bloggers, Better Blog Branding, Analytics and Increased Click Through Rates - BlogPodcast.comIN THIS ESPISODE: In this episode we talk about URL Shorteners, A Wordpress the redirection plugin and a better way to manage your short URLs to enahnce your Branding, Analytics, Organization Efforts and gain control over your shortened URLS.SHOW TITLE: Blog Podcast - Blogs, Blogging & Content Management by BlogPodcast.comSHOW DESCRIPTION: The Blog Podcast is about blogging, micro blogging & content management. We bring you interviews, tips, news and tutorials that help you become a better blogger, marketer and publisher. CMS/Blogging Platforms discussed include: Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, Posterous, Tumblr, Twitter and more. SHOW CONTACT INFO:URL: http://BlogPodcast.comPODCAST RSS FEED: http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogpodcastcomHOSTS: The Blog Podcast is hosted by Breht Burri.PRODUCED BY: PodcastStudios.comSHOW MESSAGE LINE: 206-338-7510EMAIL: hosts@BlogPodcast.comURLS MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/redirection/ (Developer's Blog)http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/  (Redirection Plugin)http://www.vanityurlshorteners.com/#the_list (List of "Early: adopters)http://www.watchmouse.com/en/SPI/2011/status_url_shorteners.php (Report On Shorteners)SHOW SPONSOR INFO:TooBaRoo Internet Marketing & Website Developmenthttp://toobaroo.comemail:toobaroo@toobaroo.comphone: 816-365-9207LINKS MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/redirection/ (Developer's Blog)http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/  (Redirection Plugin)http://www.vanityurlshorteners.com/#the_list (List of Early: adopters)http://www.watchmouse.com/en/SPI/2011/status_url_shorteners.php (Report On Shorteners)

Business blogging expert Denise Wakeman is an online marketing advisor and founder of The Blog Squad. With more than two decades of business and online marketing experience, she helps authors, speakers, service professionals, and small business owners optimize and leverage great blogs as well as strategically use social media tools to gain visibility, build credibility and manage their online reputation. Denise has been using the Internet as a marketing tool since 1996; she writes regularly on 3 blogs and has co-authored many blogging programs including "Build a Better Blog," “Better Business Blogging” and “The Blog to Book Project.” She frequently speaks at conferences and workshops about business blogging and how to create massive online visibility as well as gain expert status through social marketing. You can learn more about Denise at www.DeniseWakeman.com. We appreciate you tuning in to this episode of Your Partner In Success Radio with Host Denise Griffitts. If you enjoyed what you heard, please consider subscribing, rating, and leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your support helps us reach more listeners and create even better content!Stay ConnectedWebsite: Your Partner In Success RadioEmail: mail@yourofficeontheweb.com