Podcast: Advanced Blogging Strategies for Authors With Blogging Teacher, Paul Cunningham
by Joanna Penn on Could 14, 2010
Hello there every person. This can be Joanna Penn for that Inventive Penn podcast and nowadays I’m interviewing Paul Cunningham.
Paul will be the Blogging Teacher and offers content, tips and tutorials to assist blogger overcome the many issues they face in developing an effective blog site. He's also an IT expert and a writer. So, we’ve carried out a podcast on simple blogging before on the podcast sequence so this interview is a lot more about several of the advanced methods for folks who have already got a blog, but desire to boost it or develop targeted traffic. So, welcome Paul.
PC: Thanks Joanna, an absolute satisfaction for being right here.
JP: It’s excellent to have you along. So, we met final year whenever you arrived along to one of my seminars, which was great. So, maybe you can begin by telling us a bit about you, a bit about your site and also about your own personal creating ambitions.
PC: Positive. So, I’m Paul Cunningham. I dwell right here in Brisbane Australia with my spouse and two youthful little ones, and I run two weblogs. I’ve got BloggingTeacher.com, which is where I discuss about blogging and Internet marketing, internet design and things like that, and ExchangeServerPro.com, that's about my day task and that’s an IT specialist. So, I’ve been blogging to get a handful of a long time now so, and found out a few years back that I genuinely enjoyed blogging.
I like producing. I’ve most likely written millions of words in my job about the last ten decades and yeah, I also get pleasure from helping people. So, for now I’ve received my two blogs where I compose my blog site posts and we’ve acquired some free things there, some guides, some quick guides along with a few of people matters plus they appear to be truly received from the visitors. So, I’m doing work on creating some far more comprehensive publications and guides to complete from these and my target this year would be to self publish at the least 1 book from the several of dozen ideas which might be in hand.
JP: Completely. Okay, so I imply I’ve been acquiring a look at your blog and obviously you’ve aided me using a few of questions at the same time together with your WordPress expertise. So, we’re going to take the instance of the writer or an writer that has had a totally free blog for any although.
So, they’ve got a WordPress.com weblog web site and they’ve been blogging for perhaps 4 or five months and now they’re going to consider it to a new level. I’ve been via before establishing their own hosted blog site so we do not have to go into that, but what exactly are your 3 best strategies for getting a far more expert and powerful heading the moment you have received to the principles?
PC: Obviously you have currently talked about free services and getting onto an unbranded website, un-hosted web site, that’s actually important. Then, the term expert – I think possibly individuals are two genuinely good phrases there and when people hear professional they shouldn’t think of stiff, informal and boring.
It’s genuinely far more about taking a blog to the next level and treating it as seriously as you would expect folks to get it when they come and visit. So, you know, you have obtained to just look at just a few key things and I think most likely the weblog layout is one among the first things that folks fall down early on. You have acquired to take a look at the design and style and think what does it say about you. Is it actually cluttered, covered in ads and widgets and that sort of thing and after all, you know, we’re writers, we want individuals published words to stand out the most. Why distract folks from that which has a cluttered style and, you know, that is not genuinely something that you should spend a lot of money on. You can do actually nicely with free things or even some of the less expensive commercial things. Just ones which might be truly clean and tidy I think are perfect for any writer’s blog site and actually everyone who is listening to this clearly is looking at your web site at the same time.
And they shouldn’t just read what you’re composing, they should have a take a look at what you’re actually doing along with your style there because there is a lot of really good pointers that you are able to get, you know, from The Inventive Penn. It’s just nicely laid out, you’ve received a nice simple colour scheme, you have obtained a professional photo yourself, very few widgety ads and other distractions, but the ones you do they are basically all for your own personal products.
So, you know, what are we trying to perform as writers? We’re trying to create a product that we can sell so if you’re heading to use that real estate on your website, you know, in a nice efficient way, it may possibly too be for your own personal products other than somebody else’s.
Yeah, consider a have a look at your blog style and almost certainly take it a bit more seriously together with your writing as well. Establish something that is a little far more like a routine and writing – blogging and writing are basically the same thing. They sort of both happen in fits and bursts and when inspiration strikes and when time allows, but you shouldn’t try to website in that genuinely erratic fashion. You should try to weblog in a a lot more sort of structured routine that builds more momentum and gives the audience an expectation that on certain days from the week or at a certain frequency there will be new content there for them to read. And, that establishes almost certainly a lot a lot more audience engagement, that's a lot better for your traffic because individuals will come back to a blog site that’s, you know, delivering at a sort of reliable rate.
Probably a third tip I’d say is try to make all of your blogging effort, your content and so on, the maximum effect and use you are able to get from them by actually being very deliberate about what you’re doing. So really don't just blog site in a haphazard way and speak about any odd topic, throw out a podcast every now after which and probably put a photo on there and that sort of thing. Actually pay attention to what you’re doing yourself and what sort of reaction you’re acquiring from your audience.
So, if you try video one time and somewhere you discover that your videos work truly effectively and get a lot of excellent, positive reactions out of your readers, that’s a sign that you should almost certainly do a lot more videos cause it’s much more powerful for your audience. And if you find that your blog site post is on Tuesday, you get much more comments on your website post on Saturday, effectively then you should possibly make Tuesday one among your blogging days. You really don't have to create it on Tuesday, you can create it in advance, but that should be the day that you publish it.
And when you’re acquiring that good, consistent targeted traffic, make the most use of it. Really don't waste it by obtaining visitors coming along, ‘yeah, that’s wonderful, I’ve read your website post, off I go again’, you know, give them a way to subscribe and stay up to date so that they really don't have to remember to come back to you, they get people constant reminders. So, as long as you make the most use from the little time that we all have to search after our weblogs, I think it is possible to genuinely kick it up to the next stage.
JP: Properly, lots of things there. A number of concerns. You mentioned there about a routine in blogging, which I like and I know some individuals will say, “oh nicely I have to wait for inspiration or whatever. But I sort of do – I do a lot of them in advance and I do generally one particular podcast a week, but I really do not necessarily do things on a certain day, but I do make certain that I’m covering all my matters and only my matters, I guess. So, I feel like that’s a definite I would recommend too.
One question I have about momentum, obviously if you’re posting, like I try and do every two or 3 days maximum, generally every two days, does Google come back according to a schedule or do you train Google to come back regularly or doesn’t it matter?
PC: It does matter. Google will come to your website a lot more often if they realise that you’re putting up knew content far more often. And so if you'll be able to – I guess train is almost certainly a good word. If Google thinks that you’re blogging every day, you’re almost certainly going to get noticed, scraped by Google or called by Google every day and your new content will show up faster. Whereas if you’re doing them in bursts,
Microsoft Office 2007 Pro, they do not need to waste resources by coming to a website that hasn’t got fresh content. There are truly big weblogs and these are blogs that post dozens of posts. That they’ve acquired staff writers plus they post dozens of times a day covering all the latest news, Google hits them up every couple of minutes sometimes just to make certain that the absolute latest content is in the index and can be ranked and that sort of thing. Yeah, training Google that is possibly a good way of thinking of it. If you are able to – you’re training not just your viewers but also search engines and other things like that to know what to expect from your blog site.
JP: That is fantastic. And thank you for mentioning my website, that was very nice. I have mentioned ahead of that I bought the thesis theme, which I think is wonderful but you said that there are sort of totally free things that people can use which can be less cluttered. What’s your most recommended internet web site for folks to get good themes?
PC: Well, I will say thesis, I love it, I use it myself and it is perfect for writers because it’s so clean and simple and typography based. It truly emphasises the creating. It costs a little bit of money, not a lot.
JP: No, it is actually seventy dollars or something isn’t it?
PC: About seventy dollars, yes. Totally worthwhile. It’s a amazing theme and you are able to even personalise it yourself quite easily using the sort of backend controls on it. That is a whole massive other topic that I guarantee that truly hundreds of tutorials and things out there for free of charge to aid you do that including some great videos around the net internet site, the diythemes.com world wide web website in which they sell thesis. So, anyone who’s obtained several dollars to spend give that 1 some strong consideration, but if you’re looking for something for totally free, which can be also fine, just do a couple of Google searches.
Just Google “best totally free premium themes for WordPress”, a search like that. These sort of lists are commonly used by odd weblogs as link bait. They try and attract traffic to these wonderful lists of wonderful totally free resources and I almost guarantee you there will be a brand new certainly one of these best totally free premium themes pop up every month somewhere on one of the big blogging or net design and style internet sites. And a number of these free things are totally gorgeous, they appear wonderful and they are genuinely fantastic. And they’re usually developed by really good developers who are just trying to get a foothold in the premium marketplace by giving away a few free of charge runs at first. So, a lot of your time you’ll find premium theme sites like woothemes.com. They sell dozen of premium themes at a price but they also leave their original totally free ones that you'll be able to just go and download also, and they are fine, they’re great.
JP: No,
Microsoft Office 2007 Standard, that is good.
PC: If you wish to spend a bit of money you can but, you know, do some search for no cost premium themes in which you are able to find some genuinely wonderful looking ones.
JP: Yes, that is great. You also mentioned there that the only ads I have are for my individual products and I actually have an issue with men and women using Adwords on sites.
What’s your opinion of using Adwords and what are a number of the ways that folks can make revenue if they really do not use something like Adwords?
PC: Adsense is certainly one of these things that we all try at the commence because it is just genuinely easy to sign up. You get the little bits of code from Google and stick them on your website and like magic these ads appear. But there’s a nickname for Adsense, which can be called “blogger welfare” and that is with good reason.
You’re showing these ads from Google on your site. Google is charging the advertiser. Every time someone clicks on that ad on your world wide web site Google charges that advertiser after which gives you a cut, but the cut that you get is trivial, it’s a few cents. Only a very small percentage of your internet web site visitors are even likely to click on an ad in the first place and so you’re obtaining a small percentage of the small percentage of the small percentage. That is truly just several cents. You might be lucky to make a hundred dollars a month once you actually start to ramp up your traffic and truly what you’re doing is working so hard to bring traffic and visitors to your individual internet site and after that sending them away to someone else’s products for just a tiny little sliver of that money.
I think that that works excellent if the whole point of your blog would be to do that. If you are a website reviewing cameras or something like that folks who are coming to your net web site to read your reviews they’ve received that buying intent by now. They need to buy something, they desire to read your reviews, or but there’s an ad I’ll click on it. Hundreds of thousands of individuals and you might actually make a decent bit of money. But for writers, why would you want to work so hard to sell someone else’s products. You’re trying to create a guide, something to sell and when you strip away all of that inventive passion and the joy that we feel when we’re doing these things, that is what we’re doing. We’re creating a product to sell and that’s a product of our very own, not someone else’s product, not for two cents every time 5% of your visitors click on it. I think it’s a technique – it is a model that works for some internet sites, but by and large it doesn’t work well for bloggers and particularly I think writers.
JP: So, what exactly are some other ways, what is much more effective to make some income from a blog?
PC: Well, naturally you’ve received to possess something that you'll be able to sell and I don’t necessarily imply a physical thing because we are all trying to create guides, but you speak a lot about the writer platform and other ways that authors can make money and you’ve carried out that yourself. I went to your day long seminar having a dozen or so other men and women,
Microsoft Office 2007, so things like seminars and training programs and speaking gigs, doors that you can open yourself by acquiring your e-book there for sale and having your blog site and obtaining your name out there. That is the way to get revenue and that’s the way to get a lot better revenue that helps you out much more in the long term in terms of reputation and things like that, then any Google banner ad or whatever will ever do for you.
JP: Now, I think that’s excellent and I genuinely think men and women should be concerned about, as you said, their reputation and I think their online brand and as we said if you want a professional site and an efficient blog site, you have to create that specialist brand. Like you have the Blogging Instructor, which can be a excellent name because it is very obvious what you do and as you say I try and do that myself also.
PC: Yeah. Look I made that mistake earlier myself. I tried to use Adsense to fill spaces in my blog site and make a little of money and it was selling all kind of crap. It was selling click this and fill out this survey and we’ll send you a no cost 10 dollar sign card, I suggest it was just rubbish, complete rubbish and I think you’re right. I think it really damages – exactly what you said, it damages your brand.
JP: I think so and it is just not worth it and really I would recommend following the model of some of the bigger bloggers too, is create your individual products. Not just a e-book because we all know it’s brilliant to publish a book and if you’re selling a lot you’re not making that much money whereas if you make a couple of dollars per e-book or if you publish a course that helps folks they will pay a lot more money for that.
And as you said my day seminar I clearly charge much more people more money and again you'll be able to make a better income. So, yeah, encourage folks to think a bit outside the box as to what they can sell. Okay, so clearly that’s selling things, but you clearly have some fantastic totally free giveaways, I have some no cost giveaways. So, can you explain the importance of having some sort of free of charge giveaway around the blog site?
PC: Effectively, there’s sort of three attacks that you can use that no cost giveaway technique.
One is you’re just attracting traffic by giving it away for free of charge and hoping people will go, ‘that’s wonderful,’ and link to it and share it around. The second is you’re trying to build a mailing list and the third is you might be trying to use it as something that you can up sell the paid products onto to them afterwards.
So, I think possibly the one particular that I like to use because I think it gives you an actual tangible sort of feasible result that you'll be able to build on is to use it to build a mailing list and that’s what I do. I put a nice free resource, a totally free guide or something like that. So what folks do is they fill out a form with their email address and say yeah I will have that please and it sends an automatic email to them having a download link plus they download it and hopefully they appreciate then they’re on my mailing list.
[See this recent article from Writer’s Digest Jane Friedman– Authors should build their mailing lists now]
The mailing list is I would say totally critical, totally critical because it makes it genuinely difficult without a mailing list to capture and keep an audience above the long term. It is kind of like insurance, like you have acquired to get it just before you need it otherwise it’s too late. So, what are you supposed to accomplish when you have finished your guide and you have got no mailing list to market it? You’re not heading to sell very several of them. You’re heading to possess to work genuinely hard to attract all that visitors and so it’s easy, like it is just so easy to start off a single. It takes only a few minutes so if you’ve by now received a blog, you just sign up to one of these provider like Aweber, that is who I use. MailChimp is another 1 that’s – I really do not use, but individuals I chat to say their grade is up and you just create your list.
So, when you have actually received that form up there, then you just received to begin encouraging folks to sign up and that free of charge giveaway is one among the best incentives to accomplish that. It’s from one among individuals things that the big bloggers have been doing for years and some folks resist because building mailing lists and advertising, they are quite uncomfortable subjects for some individuals.
They feel a little bit awkward, ‘I’m collecting email addresses. Oh, I don’t desire to be a spammer,” and all that things. ‘Oh I don’t wish to market, I don’t want to be pushy and push my content out to them,’ but you have obtained to sort of detach yourself from that mentality and think well yes I am a marketer, I’m creating a product that I’m trying to sell and people are no cost to sign up. Men and women are no cost to unsubscribe if they really do not like what you’ve obtained and the people who stay subscribe to the people who genuinely desire to see emails from you. And why wouldn’t you keep sending them out.
JP: Absolutely and I think as long as men and women really do not spam their lists, you know I’m on quite a lot of lists and I unsubscribe if folks keep sending me things, but I do communicate the moment a month with my ezine and send it out to my list after which like I’m doing a launch for my Blogging for Authors course (now available) and that will go out to my list. But as you say you treat your list with respect and give them lots of value and after that they’re happy to buy whenever you have something that they want.
PC: And new writers have very good options because that’s something that folks are expecting and people like finding newsletters, brief, precise summaries of useful information, but you’re right. You’ve acquired to use your list in the spirit in which you received men and women to sign up. You don’t sign them up to email your little no cost guide on how to create your first e-book or something like that and then tell them, hey buy this other product. You don’t spam them with other unrelated emails. You stay on topic and only send them what you promised you would send them which is your regular newsletter or your blog posts and people are pretty happy with that. I was quite surprised. I thought at first, oh individuals are going to sign and grab my freebie and after that unsubscribe and I’ll never see them again, but very, very couple of folks actually do that. All those individuals who do stay subscribed, that’s individuals you would have missed out on if you didn’t start off creating your list.
JP: Yes, and we all started with zero. That is the other thing. I remember when I started my list and I literally had zero folks and then of course you sign up for your personal list so you are able to have 1 person after which you get your first unsubscribe and that kind of hurts. I also made a mistake and started with one particular provider that was too expensive after which I went to Aweber which can be very reasonable at the same time.
So, I kind of restarted my list, but as you say it stacks up very quickly as well as once you have a e-book and if you’re looking to get a publisher it becomes part of evidence about your platform. So, men and women can say, I have these a lot of thousands of individuals ready to buy my e-book, which could or might not be true, but if you possess a list you can actually do like a screen print of Aweber and show them, glimpse I’ve received eleven thousand individuals on my list.
PC: You’re right, you’re actually right and I think you probably hit on two points there. Obviously it genuinely is a trickle, it’s a trickle at the begin. You get perhaps a single a day, two a day, three a day, but even just 5 or ten a day for that six months that you’re writing a e-book. At the end of six months that really adds up to a decent list. A lot of bloggers tend to agree that when you get about 5 hundred and start getting your thousand, you have actually received a really good list on your hands that you can market to. Because 5% of a thousand men and women that is a good number of sales straight off the bat for any first time product or something like that, but you do desire to pick a good service to begin with because if you go with the wrong 1 or try a free one particular or something like that, it can be actually painful to try and bring this data too.
JP: Oh yeah, cause you lose a lot of folks whenever you move over.
PC: You do, yes.
JP: I think I lost about 50% because Aweber has that double sign in.
PC: That is right because – see that’s to our advantage because it increases the trust. It’s a little bit painful but…
JP: Properly worth doing, yes so we both recommend that. It is excellent. I’ve just go another question and we’re running from time. There are so several things we could talk about! Yes, so a single thing that I’m really interested in personally, because I think that authors and writers and men and women who find my blog are not very techie men and women and do not necessarily use RSS viewers and it’s kind of niche where folks don’t understand and therefore I really don't have as many subscribers as I have people on my list for instance, which I find quite odd. So what is your best tip for constructing subscribers to your RSS feed?
PC: Forget about RSS.
JP: Oh, really?
PC: Yeah. Look it’s wonderful to possess it there. I think you should offer it because some people want it. It’s built into WordPress and all that sort of thing. I really wouldn’t emphasise it as a subscription option. I’d just have it available.
I think your mailing list is actually what you should be promoting as the way to subscribe to your weblog for exactly the reason that how does anyone actually use RSS? Like it is big in the techie world and the world wide web world and everything. It is a excellent technology, it’s fantastic. I can’t fault the technology, but your average person doesn’t – hasn’t even ever heard of it. They haven’t heard of it plus they haven’t acquired an RSS reader. They really do not have a very several of hundred subscriptions that they religiously check everyday like I possibly do.
Why go to all the trouble of trying to educate them around the merits of RSS and assist them get set up with an RSS reader and hope that they remember to open their RSS reader everyday when they’re previously an email user, they currently read their email possibly every day plus they have that inbuilt sort of instinctive urge to, you know, an email’s come in I need to deal with it. They will be reading your email. They won’t be letting it stack up until there is a thousand emails in their inbox. They are heading for being looking at your emails.
I follow a lot of blogs by RSS because I know how it works and it is convenient but I’m days behind on my RSS feed sometimes. I’m not reading what individuals wrote the day they wrote it, I’m reading it sometimes a week later. It just takes me that long to catch up whereas my inbox, if there is a dozen unread items that bothers me and I go and sort it out. So, yeah I think have it there, offer it,
Office Standard 2007, but I’d be trying to get folks – add on men and women towards your mailing list.
JP: There you go. That helps, but then I actually do not mail my list that often versus the blog site post come out every few of days, but then of course you can subscribe by email as well to the blog.
PC: Yes, you’re right.
JP: Yeah, so possibly I emphasise that much more. No, that is very helpful. Properly, then let’s skew that round to a different way then. So, if folks wish to build visitors to try and get folks to their mailing list, what would be your number 1 tip for targeted traffic these days?
PC: Yeah. So we’ve currently talked about those incentives, so as soon as the traffic actually arrives, but it’s actually finding them to sign up with these incentives because you actually need to attract the traffic and you have basically acquired to go in which your audience is. So, you have obtained to go and find them.
You can’t just weblog in isolation and hope men and women stumble across you in Google searches and things like that because search engine targeted traffic is only a percentage of your – should only be a small percentage of your targeted traffic, it shouldn’t be relying on it. And it is not as committed and as engaging as traffic that you can attract from other venues.
So, if you think about discussion forums, Facebook groups, Twitter, social networks and things like that, that’s wherever your audience is. You have just obtained to go out there and find them. So, discussion forums that are related to your topic, you go out there and you set up an account and you commence engaging with folks and you have obtained your little forum signature that says my name, and right here is my website. And you just go out there and you just be interesting and useful and be yourself and helpful and people will go, you have got a blog site I’ll click around the weblog. They show up at your weblog and they like what they see. They see a lot more content relating to the topics that they’re interested in from that discussion forum and they’ve already built that trust and connection with you from being in the same forum and engaging a few discussions with you by now. They see your freebie and they sign up to your mailing list plus they become a loyal subscriber. So, basically go where your audience is. Find out in which they hang out around the net then go and get involved in people communities.
JP: That is a good idea and…
PC: Yeah, really do not spam though. Really don't just get out there and go, ‘hey absolutely everyone check out my website I think you’ll like it.’ Just go out there and be useful and friendly. It’s like showing up at a party. You need to meet new friends in a brand new town, you show up at a party and you just really don't hang around in the corner and stare at every person. You go and introduce yourself and discuss about things and men and women will come and check you out basically.
JP: That’s excellent. This can be a kind of a different thing I have just been thinking about, is doing a lot more on amazon.com which I haven’t been focusing on too much. It is possible to go on Amazon and you can create as an author, I’m not certain as a just a commenter, but you are able to create a whole page about yourself using a link to your blog site actually on amazon.com. So, for authors it is a fantastic idea to go and leave a review on a guide that you’ve read that is similar to yours then you'll be able to put a link to your website on your personal page. I’ve started acquiring visitors that way which can be quite random, that is something that – naturally you’re far more in the traditional Internet marketing field but I’m just trying to think a little a lot more about things that authors can do exactly where readers are.
PC: There’s a place on the Web for basically every topic and hobby out there. You just got to go and find it and begin with Facebook and search for other discussion forums. Do Google searches, but I guarantee you’ll find your little corner from the World wide web in which individuals who like what you like are talking about the things you like. That’s where you are able to sort of stick your toe in and begin to get engaged. If that means heading on Amazon and leaving reviews for all the other textbooks in your topic, genuine ones, really don't just throw any odd sentence out there and hope folks will click a link, but that’s a single way to do it because men and women live all over these Amazon reviews having all kinds of discussions and arguments and almost like a competition to see who can review the most guides and all individuals sort of things. So, if that is exactly where your folk are hanging out…
JP: Yeah, hang out there too. No, that is fantastic. So, go find your audience and I primarily do that on Twitter. That’s my fishing place, which works nicely for me, but I guess everyone has to find the place where they want to do that.
PC: Yeah, that’s right. I’ve obtained a lot of IT people that I speak to on Twitter plus a lot of bloggers and things like that also and you have obtained writers that I know it’s – you’d be surprised. I think even sometimes the hobbies that individuals do not genuinely bring to the surface, sometimes they keep hidden amongst their Twitter friends will suddenly come out as soon as they see you appear on Twitter as the greatest barbeque chef in the world or something like that. All of a sudden all these people interested in barbeque that you had never predicted are following you and talking to you and checking out your website. Sometimes it is surprising I think where you find individuals that are interested in the same thing.
JP: Yeah, totally. That’s great. Wow, there’s been some brilliant information there Paul. It’s been so good. So, we have to wrap now, we’re out of time. Where can people find you online?
PC: Yes. So, most likely for that things we talked about tonight, probably BloggingTeacher.com is the best place to go and possess a look. You'll be able to also find me on Twitter as Paul Cunningham, all one word, but you’ll find that link on bloggingteacher.com as well. And yeah definitely love to hear from any of your listeners if they’ve acquired follow up concerns or anything that. I’ve acquired a contact form there on my world wide web site. Always happy to get concerns by email, because that’s instantly a blog post that I can write with things like that at the same time, so I’m a lot more than happy for people to follow up with me if they’ve obtained any further questions.
JP: Brilliant. Effectively I’m sure men and women will because there are so numerous queries about these subjects these days. So, thank you ever so much for your time, that was wonderful.
PC: My pleasure Joanna.
Joanna: Many thanks for listening today. I hope you found it helpful. It is possible to get far more information on producing,
Office Standard, publishing options, sales and promotion for your guide at www.TheCreativePenn.com.
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