Podcast: Superior Blogging Tips for Authors With Blogging Teacher, Paul Cunningham
by Joanna Penn on Might 14, 2010
Hello there every person. This can be Joanna Penn for the Creative Penn podcast and today I’m interviewing Paul Cunningham.
Paul is the Blogging Teacher and supplies posts, ideas and tutorials to aid blogger defeat the many problems they face in building a successful blog. He's also an IT skilled plus a writer. So, we’ve accomplished a podcast on fundamental blogging before on the podcast sequence so this interview is much more about a few of the innovative tactics for folks who already have a weblog, but want to increase it or grow traffic. So, welcome Paul.
PC: Many thanks Joanna, an absolute pleasure to get right here.
JP: It’s fantastic to possess you along. So, we met very last year when you arrived along to one of my seminars, which was great. So, perhaps you can begin by telling us somewhat about you, somewhat about your site and in addition about your individual composing ambitions.
PC: Certain. So, I’m Paul Cunningham. I live here in Brisbane Australia with my wife and two younger kids, and I run two weblogs. I’ve obtained BloggingTeacher.com, which is where I discuss about blogging and Internet marketing, internet layout and things like that, and ExchangeServerPro.com, that is about my day job and that’s an IT skilled. So, I’ve been blogging for the couple of a long time now so,
Office 2010 Home And Business, and found out a couple of many years back that I genuinely enjoyed blogging.
I like writing. I’ve almost certainly created millions of words in my work above the final 10 years and yeah, I also appreciate aiding folks. So, for now I’ve obtained my two weblogs in which I publish my blog posts and we’ve received some free of charge stuff there, some guides, some short guides along with a number of of people topics and they seem to be really acquired through the visitors. So, I’m functioning on making some far more detailed textbooks and guides to perform from these and my goal this 12 months would be to self publish at least one particular e-book from the few of dozen suggestions which are in hand.
JP: Completely. Okay, so I suggest I’ve been acquiring a take a look at your website and obviously you have aided me using a couple of concerns as well together with your WordPress knowledge. So, we’re heading to consider the instance of a writer or an writer that has had a free of charge weblog for any although.
So, they’ve obtained a WordPress.com weblog website and they’ve been blogging for possibly 4 or 5 months and now they’re going to take it to a brand new stage. I’ve been through prior to establishing their own hosted blog site so we really don't must go into that, but what exactly are your three best strategies for obtaining a far more professional and effective going as soon as you’ve got into the basics?
PC: Obviously you have previously talked about free of charge providers and obtaining onto an unbranded website, un-hosted web site, that’s actually important. And then, the phrase skilled – I think probably individuals are two truly good words there and when individuals hear skilled they shouldn’t think of stiff, informal and boring.
It’s truly far more about taking a weblog to the next level and treating it as seriously as you would expect individuals to take it when they come and visit. So, you know, you’ve acquired to just examine just some key things and I think probably the weblog design is among the first things that individuals fall down early on. You’ve acquired to take a look at the style and think what does it say about you. Is it truly cluttered, covered in ads and widgets and that sort of thing and after all, you know, we’re writers, we want these written phrases to stand out the most. Why distract folks from that which has a cluttered layout and, you know, that’s not really something that you have to spend a lot of money on. You are able to do really effectively with free things or even a number of the less expensive commercial things. Just ones which are truly clean and tidy I think are perfect for a writer’s website and really every person who is listening to this certainly is looking at your web internet site at the same time.
And they shouldn’t just read what you’re producing, they should have a take a look at what you’re actually doing together with your design there because there is a lot of genuinely good pointers that you'll be able to get, you know, from The Inventive Penn. It is just nicely laid out, you have got a nice simple colour scheme, you’ve got a specialist photo yourself, very couple of widgety ads and other distractions, but the ones you do they’re basically all for your individual products.
So, you know, what are we trying to complete as writers? We’re trying to create a product that we can sell so if you’re going to use that real estate on your blog site, you know, in a nice efficient way, it could also be for your personal products other than somebody else’s.
Yeah, consider a take a look at your weblog design and style and possibly take it a lttle bit more seriously along with your creating too. Establish something that is somewhat more like a routine and creating – blogging and creating 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 blog site in that genuinely erratic fashion. You should try to blog site in a much more sort of structured routine that builds a lot more momentum and gives the audience an expectation that on certain days with the week or at a certain frequency there will be new content there for them to read. And, that establishes most likely a lot a lot more audience engagement,
Microsoft Office 2007 Pro, that's a lot better for your site visitors because people will come back to a weblog that is, 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 can get out of them by actually being very deliberate about what you’re doing. So don’t just weblog in a haphazard way and chat about any odd topic, throw out a podcast every now and after that 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 obtaining from your audience.
So, if you try video 1 time and somewhere you discover that your videos work truly properly and get a lot of wonderful, positive reactions out of your readers, that is a sign that you should almost certainly do far more videos cause it is more effective for your audience. And if you find that your website post is on Tuesday, you get much more comments on your blog site post on Saturday, properly then you should possibly make Tuesday one among your blogging days. You really don't have to publish it on Tuesday, you are able to publish it in advance, but that should be the day that you publish it.
And when you’re acquiring that good, consistent site visitors, make the most use of it. Really don't waste it by getting visitors coming along, ‘yeah, that is great, I’ve read your blog post, off I go again’, you know, give them a way to subscribe and stay up to date so that they really do not have to remember to come back to you, they get those constant reminders. So, as long as you make the most use out of the little time that we all have to look after our blogs, I think you are able to really kick it up to the next level.
JP: Effectively, lots of things there. A number of inquiries. You mentioned there about a routine in blogging, which I like and I know some men and women will say, “oh properly 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 don’t necessarily do things on a certain day, but I do make certain that I’m covering all my subjects and only my matters, I guess. So, I feel like that’s a definite I would recommend also.
One question I have about momentum, clearly if you’re posting, like I try and do every two or 3 days maximum, generally every two days,
Buy Windows 7, 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 far more often if they realise that you’re putting up knew content a lot more often. And so if you are able to – I guess train is almost certainly a good phrase. If Google thinks that you’re blogging every day, you’re almost certainly heading 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, they do not need to waste resources by coming to a internet site that hasn’t obtained fresh content. There are actually big blogs and these are weblogs that post dozens of posts. That they’ve got staff writers and 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'll be able to – you’re training not just your readers but also search engines and other things like that to know what to expect from your weblog.
JP: That is fantastic. And thank you for mentioning my internet site, that was very nice. I have mentioned prior to that I bought the thesis theme, which I think is wonderful but you said that there are sort of totally free things that men and women can use which are less cluttered. What’s your most recommended web web site for individuals 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 is so clean and simple and typography based. It really emphasises the producing. 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 is a fantastic theme and it is possible to even personalise it yourself quite easily using the sort of backend controls on it. That’s a whole massive other topic that I guarantee that actually hundreds of tutorials and things out there for free of charge to help you do that including some excellent videos on the world wide web web site, the diythemes.com web web site in which they sell thesis. So, anyone who’s received several dollars to spend give that 1 some strong consideration, but if you’re looking for something for free, which is also fine, just do a number of Google searches.
Just Google “best totally free premium themes for WordPress”, a search like that. Individuals sort of lists are commonly used by odd blogs as link bait. They try and attract targeted traffic to these wonderful lists of great free resources and I almost guarantee you there will be a fresh certainly one of these best free of charge premium themes pop up every month somewhere on one of the big blogging or internet design and style web sites. And a number of these totally free things are absolutely gorgeous, they look great and they are genuinely wonderful. And they’re usually developed by really good developers who are just trying to get a foothold in the premium marketplace by giving away some totally free runs at first. So, a lot from the 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 are able to just go and download as well, and they are fine, they are excellent.
JP: No, that is good.
PC: If you desire to spend a little of money you are able to but, you know, do some search for no cost premium themes wherever it is possible to find some genuinely wonderful looking ones.
JP: Yes, that’s amazing. You also mentioned there that the only ads I have are for my individual products and I genuinely have an issue with men and women using Adwords on sites.
What’s your opinion of using Adwords and what are some of the ways that individuals can make revenue if they don’t use something like Adwords?
PC: Adsense is certainly one of those things that we all try at the start because it’s just actually 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 is called “blogger welfare” and that’s with good reason.
You’re showing these ads from Google on your website. Google is charging the advertiser. Every time someone clicks on that ad on your web website Google charges that advertiser then gives you a cut, but the cut that you get is trivial, it is several cents. Only a very small percentage of your net website visitors are even likely to click on an ad in the first place and so you’re acquiring a small percentage of the small percentage of a small percentage. That is actually just some cents. You might be lucky to make a hundred dollars a month when you really start off to ramp up your site visitors and actually what you’re doing is functioning so hard to bring site visitors and visitors to your own personal web site and then sending them away to someone else’s products for just a tiny little sliver of that money.
I think that that works wonderful if the whole point of your blog is usually to do that. If you are a weblog reviewing cameras or something like that men and women who are coming to your internet web site to read your reviews they’ve obtained that buying intent previously. They desire to buy something, they wish to read your reviews, or but there’s an ad I’ll click on it. Hundreds of thousands of those and you might actually make a decent bit of money. But for writers, why would you desire to work so hard to sell someone else’s products. You’re trying to create a e-book, something to sell and when you strip away all of that creative 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 is a product of our personal, not someone else’s product, not for two cents every time 5% of your visitors click on it. I think it is a technique – it is a model that works for some net sites, but by and large it doesn’t work effectively for bloggers and particularly I think writers.
JP: So, what are some other ways, what is far more powerful to make some income from a blog site?
PC: Well,
Windows 7 Home Premium Product Key, obviously you have obtained to possess something that you are able to sell and I don’t necessarily imply a physical thing because we are all trying to create publications, but you discuss a lot about the author platform and other ways that authors can make money and you have completed that yourself. I went to your day long seminar using a dozen or so other people, so things like seminars and training programs and speaking gigs, doors that it is possible to open yourself by acquiring your e-book there for sale and getting your blog and obtaining your name out there. That is the way to get revenue and that is the way to get a lot better revenue that helps you out a lot 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 wonderful and I truly think individuals should be concerned about, as you said, their reputation and I think their online brand and as we said if you want a expert internet site and an efficient blog, you have to create that specialist brand. Like you have the Blogging Teacher, which is a fantastic name because it’s very obvious what you do and as you say I try and do that myself too.
PC: Yeah. Appear I made that mistake earlier myself. I tried to use Adsense to fill spaces in my weblog and make somewhat 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 ten dollar sign card, I mean it was just rubbish, complete rubbish and I think you’re right. I think it genuinely damages – exactly what you said, it damages your brand.
JP: I think so and it is just not worth it and truly I would recommend following the model of a few of the bigger bloggers too, is create your personal products. Not just a e-book because we all know it’s brilliant to compose a guide and if you’re selling a lot you’re not making that much money whereas if you make a number of dollars per e-book or if you write a course that helps folks they will pay much more money for that.
And as you said my day seminar I naturally charge a lot more people far more money and again you can make a better income. So, yeah, encourage men and women to think a little outside the box as to what they can sell. Okay, so obviously that’s selling things, but you naturally have some excellent free giveaways, I have some totally free giveaways. So, can you explain the importance of getting some sort of free giveaway around the blog?
PC: Properly, there’s sort of 3 attacks that you can use that free of charge giveaway technique.
One is you’re just attracting traffic by giving it away for free 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'll be able to up sell the paid products onto to them afterwards.
So, I think almost certainly the one that I like to use because I think it gives you an actual tangible sort of feasible result that you can build on is usually to use it to build a mailing list and that is what I do. I put a nice free of charge resource, a no cost 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 which has a download link and they download it and hopefully they take pleasure in after which they are 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 definitely critical, definitely critical because it makes it really difficult without a mailing list to capture and keep an audience about the long term. It’s kind of like insurance, like you have acquired to get it prior to you need it otherwise it is too late. So, what exactly are you supposed to accomplish when you’ve finished your book and you’ve received 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 one particular. It takes only some minutes so if you have previously got a blog site, you just sign up to one of these provider like Aweber, that is who I use. MailChimp is another 1 that’s – I do not use, but men and women I speak to say their grade is up and you just create your list.
So, when you’ve actually obtained that form up there, then you just obtained to commence encouraging men and women to sign up and that totally free giveaway is one of the best incentives to accomplish that. It’s from among people things that the big bloggers have been doing for years and some people resist because creating mailing lists and marketing, they are quite uncomfortable topics for some people.
They feel a little bit awkward, ‘I’m collecting email addresses. Oh, I really do not desire to be a spammer,” and all that things. ‘Oh I do not wish to market, I really do not need to be pushy and push my content out to them,’ but you have obtained to sort of detach yourself from that mentality and think nicely yes I am a marketer, I’m creating a product that I’m trying to sell and folks are no cost to sign up. People are free of charge to unsubscribe if they do not like what you have acquired and the individuals who stay subscribe to the men and women who genuinely desire to see emails from you. And why wouldn’t you keep sending them out.
JP: Definitely and I think as long as folks do not spam their lists, you know I’m on quite a lot of lists and I unsubscribe if people keep sending me things, but I do communicate when a month with my ezine and send it out to my list then 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 then they are happy to buy once you have something that they want.
PC: And new writers have very good options because that is something that folks are expecting and individuals like obtaining newsletters, quick, precise summaries of useful information, but you’re right. You’ve acquired to use your list in the spirit in which you acquired men and women to sign up. You really don't sign them up to email your little free of charge guide on how to create your first e-book or something like that then tell them, hey buy this other product. You really do not spam them with other unrelated emails. You stay on topic and only send them what you promised you would send them that's your regular newsletter or your website posts and individuals are pretty happy with that. I was quite surprised. I thought at first, oh men and women are heading to sign and grab my freebie and then unsubscribe and I’ll never see them again, but very, very few folks actually do that. All those people who do stay subscribed, that is men and women you would have missed out on if you didn’t begin developing 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 then of course you sign up for your own list so you are able to have one particular person then you get your first unsubscribe and that kind of hurts. I also made a mistake and started with one provider that was too expensive after which I went to Aweber that's very reasonable at the same time.
So, I kind of restarted my list, but as you say it stacks up very quickly and in addition when you have a very guide and if you’re looking for the publisher it becomes part of evidence about your platform. So, men and women can say, I have these a lot of thousands of men and women ready to buy my e-book, which may or may not be true, but if you possess a list you'll be able to actually do like a screen print of Aweber and show them, search I’ve got eleven thousand people on my list.
PC: You’re right, you’re actually right and I think you probably hit on two points there. Naturally it really is a trickle, it’s a trickle at the commence. You get probably one a day, two a day, 3 a day, but even just 5 or 10 a day for that six months that you’re composing a guide. At the end of six months that really adds up to a decent list. A lot of bloggers tend to agree that as soon as you get about five hundred and start off obtaining your thousand, you’ve actually obtained a truly good list on your hands that you can market to. Because 5% of a thousand people that’s a good number of sales straight off the bat for any first time product or something like that, but you do want to pick a good service to begin with because if you go with the wrong one particular or try a totally free a single 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 individuals once you move over.
PC: You do, yes.
JP: I think I lost about 50% because Aweber has that double sign in.
PC: That’s right because – see that is to our advantage because it increases the trust. It is a little bit painful but…
JP: Properly worth doing, yes so we both recommend that. It’s excellent. I’ve just go another question and we’re running from time. There are so several things we could talk about! Yes, so one 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 don’t necessarily use RSS visitors and it is kind of niche in which people really don't understand and therefore I don’t have as numerous subscribers as I have individuals on my list for instance, which I find quite odd. So what is your best tip for building subscribers to your RSS feed?
PC: Forget about RSS.
JP: Oh, really?
PC: Yeah. Appear it is wonderful to get it there. I think you should offer it because some folks want it. It’s built into WordPress and all that sort of thing. I actually wouldn’t emphasise it as a subscription option. I’d just have it available.
I think your mailing list is truly what you should be promoting as the way to subscribe to your blog for exactly the reason that how does anyone actually use RSS? Like it’s big in the techie world and the internet world and everything. It is a fantastic technology, it’s wonderful. 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 and they haven’t obtained an RSS reader. They really don't have a very several of hundred subscriptions that they religiously check everyday like I most likely do.
Why go to all the trouble of trying to educate them about the merits of RSS and support them get set up with an RSS reader and hope that they remember to open their RSS reader everyday when they are previously an email user, they already read their email probably every day and they have that inbuilt sort of instinctive urge to, you know, an email’s come in I must 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 going to get looking at your emails.
I follow a lot of weblogs 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, but I’d be trying to get folks – add on people towards your mailing list.
JP: There you go. That helps, but then I truly do not mail my list that often versus the blog post come out every few of days, but then of course you can subscribe by email at the same time to the website.
PC: Yes, you’re right.
JP: Yeah, so maybe I emphasise that much more. No, that is very helpful. Well, then let’s skew that round to a different way then. So, if men and women need to build traffic to try and get folks to their mailing list, what would be your number one tip for visitors these days?
PC: Yeah. So we’ve by now talked about people incentives, so the moment the site visitors actually arrives, but it is actually obtaining them to sign up with these incentives because you actually want to attract the targeted traffic and you’ve basically got to go wherever your audience is. So, you’ve received 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’s not as committed and as engaging as visitors that you are able to attract from other venues.
So, if you think about discussion forums, Facebook groups, Twitter, social networks and things like that, that is where your audience is. You have just acquired to go out there and find them. So, discussion forums which can be related to your topic, you go out there and you set up an account and you start off engaging with men and women and you’ve got your little forum signature that says my name, and right here is my weblog. And you just go out there and you just be interesting and useful and be yourself and helpful and people will go, you’ve acquired a website I’ll click about the blog. They show up at your blog site and they like what they see. They see a lot more content relating to the matters that they’re interested in from that discussion forum and they’ve by now built that trust and connection with you from being in the same forum and engaging a couple of discussions with you currently. They see your freebie plus they sign up to your mailing list and they become a loyal subscriber. So, basically go in which your audience is. Find out in which they hang out on the net and after that go and get involved in those communities.
JP: That is a good idea and…
PC: Yeah, do not spam though. Really don't just get out there and go, ‘hey every person check out my weblog I think you’ll like it.’ Just go out there and be useful and friendly. It is like showing up at a party. You want to meet new friends in a new town, you show up at a party and you just don’t hang around in the corner and stare at absolutely everyone. You go and introduce yourself and talk about things and men and women will come and check you out basically.
JP: That is excellent. This really is a kind of the different thing I have just been thinking about, is doing much more on amazon.com which I haven’t been focusing on too much. You can go on Amazon and it is possible to create as an author, I’m not confident as a just a commenter, but you can create a whole page about yourself using a link to your website 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 can put a link to your site on your personal page. I’ve started getting targeted traffic that way that's quite random,
Microsoft Office Pro 2007, that is something that – obviously you’re much more in the traditional Online marketing field but I’m just trying to think a little far more about things that authors can do in which visitors are.
PC: There’s a place within the Web for basically every topic and hobby out there. You just received to go and find it and commence with Facebook and look for other discussion forums. Do Google searches, but I guarantee you’ll find your little corner of your Internet in which folks who like what you like are talking about the things you like. That’s exactly where you can sort of stick your toe in and begin to get engaged. If that means going on Amazon and leaving reviews for all the other guides in your topic, genuine ones, don’t just throw any odd sentence out there and hope men and women will click a link, but that’s a single way to accomplish it because men and women dwell all over people Amazon reviews having all kinds of discussions and arguments and almost like a competition to see who can review the most textbooks and all people sort of things. So, if that is where your folk are hanging out…
JP: Yeah, hang out there too. No, that is wonderful. So, go find your audience and I primarily do that on Twitter. That’s my fishing place, which works properly for me, but I guess everybody has to find the place where they need to do that.
PC: Yeah, that’s right. I’ve got a lot of IT individuals that I speak to on Twitter and a lot of bloggers and things like that also and you’ve obtained writers that I know it’s – you’d be surprised. I think even sometimes the hobbies that individuals really do not actually 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 the sudden all these folks interested in barbeque that you had never predicted are following you and talking to you and checking out your website. Sometimes it’s surprising I think in which you find folks which can be interested in the same thing.
JP: Yeah, totally. That is wonderful. 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. Wherever can people find you online?
PC: Yes. So, almost certainly for your things we talked about tonight, probably BloggingTeacher.com could be the best place to go and have a very 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 too. And yeah totally love to hear from any of your listeners if they’ve got follow up questions or anything that. I’ve obtained a contact form there on my internet site. Always happy to get questions by email, because that is instantly a website post that I can publish with things like that too, so I’m a lot more than happy for individuals to follow up with me if they’ve got any further questions.
JP: Brilliant. Effectively I’m sure men and women will because there are so several concerns about these topics these days. So, thank you ever so much for your time, that was excellent.
PC: My enjoyment Joanna.
Joanna: Many thanks for listening these days. I hope you found it helpful. You are able to get more information on creating, publishing options, sales and promotion for your e-book at www.TheCreativePenn.com.