How to Be a Blogging Star
See Jane Write, the networking group for local women writers I started in March, held its second educational event Thursday, a blogging seminar I called So You Think You Can Blog (again, you know you love the name.) More than 50 people attended the event and I’ve received numerous emails and tweets from attendees who say they learned a lot and had a great time.
The seminar began with a brief talk by Trish Bogdanchik of BirminghamMommy.com on ways to monetize your blog. I was amazed by the wealth of information she was able to pack into a 10 to 15-minute talk.
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| Trish Bogdanchik of BirminghamMommy.com |
Trish recommends selling ads at about $18 – $25 per 1,000 clicks. She added, however, that you might want to charge more if your readers are affluent and more likely to do business with your advertisers than the average blog reader.
Don’t plan to rely on ads alone. Trish recommended sponsored posts and events as other ways to generate revenue.
If you are going to get serious about turning your blog into a business you must accept that you’re now a salesperson. You should also consider getting a lawyer and an accountant and a registered trademark. And be professional. Just because you blog in your pajamas doesn’t mean you should show up to meetings and networking events in them.
Trish also said it’s good to have a five year plan. Sit down and figure out where you want to be with your blog in five years and then figure out how you’re going to get there.
The feature presentation of the night was a panel discussion with Jen West of The Jen West Quest, Rachel Callahan of Grasping for Objectivity and Alabama Bloggers and Laura Kate Whitney of Magic City Manifesto. These ladies are hilarious and kept us all laughing throughout the discussion. But they’re just as sharp as they are funny and taught us all so much.
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| Our lovely panelists and I |
There was much discussion on the best blogging platform. The ladies of the panel and a few tech savvy audience members agreed that WordPress.org would probably be best if you want your blog to be a business, but emphasized that Blogger is much more user friendly. (Click here for more on WordPress.com versus WordPress.org.)
But at the end of the day it doesn’t what platform you’re using if you don’t have quality content. Jen advised against blogging on a topic simply because it’s the next big thing. Blog about your passion and stay true to your voice.
Also be consistent. If your blog is about the great people, places, and things in your city, don’t randomly start posting about famous coin collections. Jen even said that she’s found if she’s not blogging about a specific goal she’s working toward (which is essentially the theme of her blog) she sees a slight drop in her number of readers.
Facing blogger’s block? Laura Kate keeps a notebook by her side in which she records thoughts, observations, etc., that could become future blog posts. She even had it with her at Thursday’s event!
When it comes to spreading the word about your blog, Laura Kate said there is nothing wrong with some good ol’ “shameless self-promotion.”
The ladies all agreed that social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook are great ways to promote your blog, but just be sure that you’re not using those sites solely for that purpose or your followers will probably start ignoring you.
Rachel also stressed the importance of community. Network with other bloggers through meetup groups and online forums. Comment on other blogs. Respond to your readers when they comment on your posts. Make it clear that you want your readers to stick around because you care about them, not just because you care about the page hits.
There was so much information to be shared, so much to discuss, I feel as if I should have had a blogging conference instead of a two-hour seminar. Maybe I’ll include that in my own five-year plan!
Thanks for this. This is very helpful information.
I use blogger but I hope to switch over to wordpress soon.
Is it easy to transfer your posts?
I’ve been told it’s pretty difficult, especially if you have a lot of content to transfer. You should find someone who’s done it before to help you.
Great info! I definitely think you should work towards making it a blogging conference! My question is, why has blogger got a bad rap as NOT being as professional as wordpress? I love blogger and stubbornly do not want to change. What’s the big deal?
@Shawndra I’m with you on that actually. Blogger has more bugs than WordPress and not as much flexibility as far as customizing your site, but I love Blogger too because it is so user friendly. So I’m holding out and plan to stick with it for now. I look at sites like gabifresh.com and sometimessweet.blogspot.com (both very successful blogs run by blogger) and that gives me encouragement.
Wonderful info from a talented group. Sorry I missed it! Thanks for sending me a link!
Brandi, send me your email address so I can add you to the See Jane Write mailing list.