Business Blogging - How to Build A Better Blog

Blogging for Dollars: Opportunities to Blog for Others

I've been having an email exchange with Anne-Marie Nichols of www.the-write-spot.com about income for bloggers.

Anne-Marie knows from checking out the freelance writing job listings at sites like http://aboutfreelancewriting.com/, talking to other writers, and her own experiences that freelance bloggers are being paid next to nothing all the way up to $2,000 a month.

“I’ve heard from bloggers who are posting to support big corporate marketing efforts that they’re getting paid any where from $1000 to $2000 a month. However, if you look at blog job listings – Craigslist is great for this – most contract bloggers are making $200 to $500 a month to blog at smaller, websites.

Blogging and Beyond Features Ellen Britt

Blogging and Beyond
March 22, 2007
8:00 a.m. PT (11 a.m. ET)
Blogging and Beyond with The Blog Squad, Patsi Krakoff, Psy. D., and Denise Wakeman
With Guest Expert: Ellen Britt of Marketing Qi Intensive and author of Teleseminar Jumpstart

Low-Tech Promotion: Using TeleSeminars to Build YourBusiness

TeleSeminars are an easy, affordable way to attract interested prospects into your sphere of influence and grow your business. You provide valuable information, for a fee or free. You deliver the program on the telephone, record the event, get it transcribed and turn a one-time program into a profitable info product that generates income long after it's over. The Blog Squad interviews Ellen Britt who started with a few fans last year, increased her database by 2000 and made $9000 within two weeks of launching her teleseminar series Marketing Qi. 

In the second half, we check in with Ideal Client Erik Feder and brainstorm how he can implement this marketing strategy for his business.

Blogging for Dollars: NY's Top Bloggers May Go Broke

Last month a New York TV station WNBC-TV invited a group of 130 top bloggers to speak and asked how much money they made blogging. This is interesting stuff to know before Denise and I head out to the BlogHer Business conference Wednesday where we will head an Ask the Expert panel on monetizing your blog.

They asked the top 130 NYC bloggers how much money their blog makes:

17% - over $1,000/month
14% - $200-500/month
4% - $100/month
14% - less that $100/month
51% - NOTHING

According to Anne-Marie Nichols on her blog The Write Spot, BlogAd's Henry Copeland told the Wall St. Journal that "most self-employed bloggers take in between $2,000 and $10,000 a month from ad sales."

Of course it's hard to get to the truth when marketers over-hype their success and have something to sell.

BlogHer Business: Last Call for Registration

If you're in the New York area and you're a blogger or want to learn more about blogging for business, don't miss the BlogHer Business conference in New York City on March 22-23.  Registrations close on Monday, March 19.

The Blog Squad will be there. If you're attending, please stop by our Ask the Expert table on Day One to say hello.

Can't attend?  Pre-conference open BlogHer meet-up on Wednesday 03/21

In case you haven't heard, BlogHer is also holding an open meet-up for conference attendees and non-attendees alike on Wednesday evening.

Time: 6PM-8:30PM
Location: Cain Nightclub @ 544 W. 27th Street Map can be found here:
Details: There will be a no-host bar, free hors d'ouevres and some goodie bags...plus a full complement of New York bloggers

Write a Better Blog- 8 Good Tips

There's a new blogger in town and he's writing about "Quality Control Your Blog Posts." I hate it when a 25-year old is so wise...Mitch Harper appears to be both. His blog is HarpzOn.com. Read his entire post for quality reading.

1. Keep a list of ideas for your posts
2. Only write about topics your readers are interested in
3. Ask yourself "is this something I find interesting?"
4. Keep an eye on what the "big boys" are talking about - track the top 5 blogs in your field
5. Ask your readers what they want you to write
6. Keep your "crap to content ratio" low - for every 3 posts on topic, you're allowed 1 off
7. Write for passion, not for profit

All good stuff to keep in mind. Remember, nobody can monitor the quality of your posts except you. If you've absolutely got to share that you're going shopping with your girlfriends, do it only when you can share something funny, interesting, or worthwhile to readers.

Okay, now I'm going to get some more coffee. What? You don't find that interesting?

Blogs are the ultimate information product

Click here to listen to the show live on the Web.

Monetize Your Blog

Next week Patsi and I will be at the BlogHer Business conference in New York City.  We have been invited to participate in their program on Ask the Experts and will host a table to discuss how to make money with your blog.  Though we have lots of experience and ideas, we're doing some research to discover all the options there are...and are there a lot now.  When we started blogging in 2004, you were deemed a sell-out if you wanted to earn an income from your blog.

We're putting together a list of ways to monetize your blog.  We'll post it here when it's ready.  In the meantime, check out a post on Steve Pavlina's blog about how to make money with your blog. This is not your basic list of ways to add advertising links to your blog, but an essay on what is required to make money online.  He tells how he went from earning $4.12 per day to over $1,000 from his blog.  Worth reading.

Business Blog Success Stories

I love to read about businesses who have found success with blogs.  Even after blogging for nearly 3 years and experiencing my own business success BECAUSE of blogging, it's gratifying to read about others' successes as well.

Today in my Google Alerts, I was tipped off to a press release from John Kuraoka, a freelance ad copywriter.  He's been writing his Ad Blog for 4 years and knows that his consistent blogging has generated clients from around the world.  He is not dependent on the local economy for his income.

Kuraoka suggests that one key to longevity in blogging is setting manageable goals. "Especially at first, you have to set a sustainable pace," Kuraoka says. "When I started the Ad Blog, my goal was to post once a week. As I got faster, I increased that to three times a week. For the past couple years, I've posted nearly every business day."

You can read Kuraoka's full press release here.

FeedBlitz Makes It Easy to Subscribe to a Blog

I complained the other day about Scott Adam's Dilbert Blog: there wasn't a Feedblitz subscription form so I could sign up and get an email notification each time he posted something new. Thanks to reader Marc Garnaut, I learned that even without the handy subscription form, you can still sign up for a blog's feed.

Simple copy the blog or website URL or RSS URL into the box provided on FeedBlitz, and voila! You are subscribed. They are really making it easy for you now...as long as you know this. Thanks, Marc.

BlogHer Business

The Blog Squad will be in New York City for the BlogHer Business conference at the end of this month - March 22-23.  Will we see you there? We're part of the Ask the Experts segment, talking about how to monetize your blog.

From BlogHer: "We also want to let you know there are 12 more days to register for BlogHer Business. If you've been following the conference as we add speakers and populate our Ask the Experts segment, you know it's shaping up to be the business blogging event of 2007! We look forward to meeting you in NYC."