Pro-Blogger Project: Part 2

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Progress report for Week One:

I wrote 5 blog posts last week:

Although there isn’t really a write or wrong number of blog posts you should write a week, the general rule of thumb is update often to get your readers to return more often, but not so often that they become overwhelmed by the content. I remember reading on John Chow’s blog that he doesn’t recommended posting more than three new blog posts a day. Then again, a technology blog that updates snippets on all the latest technology in the market might need to post more frequently than that. So it all boils back to your blog topic and your readers.

My target is usually one blog post per day. Sometimes I write less because I have nothing to write about and sometimes more because a lot has been happening.

Last week, I also submitted four blog posts to various blog carnivals, although only one has made it to print so far:

Carnival of Baby Humour
Family Funnies
Carnival of Kids Health
Carnival of Family Living

Below is one that I submitted last week which is in print now:

Skeptical Parent Crossing

As of today, my Feedburner subscription count is up to 42 subscribers and my daily visitor count is about 150.

Finally, I re-read the Blog Profits Blueprint and made a short summary of the more salient points. In case you don’t have time to read the report, here’s the summary:

There are 3 main steps to becoming a Pro-Blogger:

Producing quality content for your blog
Marketing your blog to increase readership
Monetisation of your blog

1. Quality Content:

How to article
Definition article
Present a theory or argument
Resource – free report, white paper, e-course
List Article – e.g. top 10 ways to…
Technical Blueprint

The following list was not from the Blog Profits Blueprint but I found it on the side bar of Dave Pollard’s Blog under the header “What Blog Readers Want to See More”. I thought it was a good list to keep hold of in the event that I get stuck for ideas on what to write about.

Original research, surveys etc.
Original, well-crafted fiction
Great finds: resources, blogs, essays, artistic works
News not found anywhere else
Category killers: aggregators that capture the best of many blogs/feeds, so they need not be read individually
Clever, concise political opinion (most readers prefer these consistent with their own views)
Benchmarks, quantitative analysis
Personal stories, experiences, lessons learned
First-hand accounts
Live reports from events
Insight: leading-edge thinking & novel perspectives
Short educational pieces
Relevant “aha” graphics
Great photos
Useful tools and checklists
Précis, summaries, reviews and other time-savers
Fun stuff: quizzes, self-evaluations, other interactive content

2. Blog Marketing:

a) Easy Methods:

Comment marketing
Forum marketing
Trackback marketing
Blog Carnivals
Press release marketing
Blog link exchanges
Content exchanges
Writing guest articles
MySpace.com marketing, BlogCatalog.com or MyBlogLog.com marketing
Social media marketing
Article marketing

b) More Time Consuming Methods (which yield better results)

Peer Relationships:
- Send links
- Introductory email
- Email notification of good blog posts
- Interviews
- Podcast interviews
Free Report
Audio/Podcast/Teleseminar
Video/Screencasts
Software
Pillar Series

3. Monetisation:

Affiliate Marketing – Clickbank, Paydotcom, Amazon
Direct Advertisers
Adsense
TextLink-Ads, Textlinkbrokers, linkworth
Paid Reviews
Contextual Ads/Text Ad Brokers – Bidvertiser, Yahoo Ad Network
Advertising Brokers
– specific: adbrite, advolcano, blogads, blogkits, chitika, federated media;
- general: commission junction, azoogleads, linkshare
In-text – intellitxt, kontera
RSS advertising – Feedburner, Text-link-ads

If you want more information on each of these points, I highly recommend downloading the Blog Profits Blueprint.

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