Podcast: Innovative Blogging Tips for Authors With Blogging Teacher, Paul Cunningham
by Joanna Penn on Could 14,
Genuine Windows 7, 2010
Hi every person. That is Joanna Penn for that Inventive Penn podcast and right now I’m interviewing Paul Cunningham.
Paul is the Blogging Teacher and offers content, ideas and tutorials to help blogger defeat the numerous challenges they encounter in creating a successful blog. He's also an IT professional and a author. So, we’ve accomplished a podcast on standard blogging ahead of within the podcast sequence so this interview is far more about a number of the advanced strategies for folks who already have a weblog, but wish to enhance it or increase site visitors. So, welcome Paul.
PC: Thank you Joanna, an absolute satisfaction to get here.
JP: It is excellent to get you along. So, we met previous yr once you arrived along to one of my seminars, which was wonderful. So, maybe it is possible to start by telling us a bit about you, somewhat about your internet site and also about your own personal composing ambitions.
PC: Positive. So, I’m Paul Cunningham. I reside here in Brisbane Australia with my wife and two young kids, and I run two blogs. I’ve obtained BloggingTeacher.com, which can be wherever I chat about blogging and Internet marketing, internet style and things like that, and ExchangeServerPro.com, which can be about my day task and that’s an IT professional. So, I’ve been blogging to get a handful of decades now so, and discovered some decades back that I actually loved blogging.
I like writing. I’ve possibly created numerous phrases in my work above the final ten decades and yeah, I also take pleasure in helping individuals. So, for now I’ve received my two weblogs exactly where I write my website posts and we’ve obtained some free things there, some guides, some short guides along with a handful of of those topics and they seem to be actually acquired from the visitors. So, I’m doing work on generating some far more thorough textbooks and guides to do from individuals and my goal this 12 months is to self publish at the least 1 book out of the couple of dozen ideas which might be in hand.
JP: Totally. Okay, so I imply I’ve been acquiring a examine your weblog and clearly you have aided me with a couple of queries too with your WordPress experience. So, we’re heading to take the example of the writer or an writer that has had a free of charge blog site for any even though.
So, they’ve got a WordPress.com website site and they’ve been blogging for possibly 4 or five months and now they are going to get it to a fresh stage. I’ve been via before setting up their own hosted weblog so we don’t should go into that, but what exactly are your 3 prime strategies for obtaining a more specialist and powerful heading when you have received into the basics?
PC: Clearly you’ve by now talked about no cost companies and acquiring onto an unbranded internet site, un-hosted web site, that’s genuinely essential. After which, the word professional – I think almost certainly these are two actually good words there and when individuals hear professional they shouldn’t think of stiff, informal and boring.
It’s actually a lot more about taking a weblog to the next stage and treating it as seriously as you would expect men and women to consider it when they come and visit. So, you know, you have acquired to just look at just a few key things and I think probably the blog site design and style is among the first things that people fall down early on. You have obtained to look at the layout and think what does it say about you. Is it genuinely cluttered, covered in ads and widgets and that sort of thing and after all, you know, we’re writers, we want individuals published phrases to stand out the most. Why distract folks from that having a cluttered design and style and, you know, that’s not truly something that you should spend a lot of money on. You can do really properly with totally free things or even a few of the less expensive commercial things. Just ones which might be really clean and tidy I think are perfect to get a writer’s website and truly every person who is listening to this certainly is looking at your internet internet site too.
And they shouldn’t just read what you’re composing, they should have a take a look at what you’re actually doing with your style there because there is a lot of really good pointers that you are able to take, you know, from The Creative Penn. It is just nicely laid out, you have received a nice simple colour scheme, you have received a expert photo yourself, very number of widgety ads and other distractions, but the ones you do they are basically all for your own products.
So, you know, what exactly 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 weblog, you know, in a nice powerful way, it may possibly also be for your own products other than somebody else’s.
Yeah, consider a have a look at your weblog style and most likely consider it a bit more seriously with your producing also. Establish something that is a little much more like a routine and writing – 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 website in that really erratic fashion. You should try to weblog in a a lot more sort of structured routine that builds much 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 possibly a lot much more audience engagement, which is a lot better for your site visitors because men and women will come back to a website 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 it is possible to get out of them by actually being very deliberate about what you’re doing. So really don't just blog in a haphazard way and talk about any odd topic, throw out a podcast every now after which and possibly 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 getting from your audience.
So, if you try video 1 time and somewhere you discover that your videos work genuinely well and get a lot of excellent, positive reactions out of your visitors, that’s a sign that you should possibly do much more videos cause it’s more powerful for your audience. And if you find that your blog post is on Tuesday, you get much more comments on your blog site post on Saturday, well then you should possibly make Tuesday certainly one of your blogging days. You really don't have to publish it on Tuesday, you are able to create it in advance, but that should be the day that you publish it.
And when you’re finding that good, consistent traffic, make the most use of it. Don’t waste it by getting visitors coming along, ‘yeah, that is excellent, I’ve read your weblog 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 individuals 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 you'll be able to really kick it up to the next level.
JP: Well, lots of things there. Several queries. You mentioned there about a routine in blogging, which I like and I know some people 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 1 podcast a week, but I really don't necessarily do things on a certain day, but I do make positive that I’m covering all my matters and only my subjects, I guess. So, I feel like that is a definite I would recommend also.
One question I have about momentum, certainly if you’re posting, like I try and do every two or three 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 internet site a lot more often if they realise that you’re putting up knew content far more often. And so if you can – I guess train is almost certainly a good word. If Google thinks that you’re blogging every day, you’re most likely 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 want to waste resources by coming to a web site that hasn’t received fresh content. There are truly big blogs and these are weblogs that post dozens of posts. That they’ve obtained staff writers and they post dozens of times a day covering all the latest news, Google hits them up every several of minutes sometimes just to make sure that the absolute latest content is in the index and can be ranked and that sort of thing. Yeah, training Google that is probably a good way of thinking of it. If you are able to – you’re training not just your visitors but also search engines and other things like that to know what to expect from your website.
JP: That is wonderful. And thank you for mentioning my 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 free of charge things that folks can use which are less cluttered. What’s your most recommended web site for people 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 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. Completely worthwhile. It is a amazing theme and you can 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 really hundreds of tutorials and things out there for totally free to aid you do that including some great videos within the web site, the diythemes.com net site wherever they sell thesis. So, anyone who’s acquired several dollars to spend give that one particular some strong consideration, but if you’re looking for something for free, that is also fine, just do a couple of Google searches.
Just Google “best free of charge 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 targeted traffic to these wonderful lists of wonderful totally free resources and I almost guarantee you there will be a new certainly one of these best free premium themes pop up every month somewhere on one among the big blogging or world wide web style net sites. And a number of these no cost things are absolutely gorgeous, they search wonderful and they’re really wonderful. And they are usually developed by genuinely good developers who are just trying to get a foothold in the premium marketplace by giving away a few 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 free ones that it is possible to just go and download as well,
Office Home And Student, and they’re fine, they are wonderful.
JP: No, that’s good.
PC: If you need to spend a bit of money you are able to but, you know, do some search for free of charge premium themes exactly where it is possible to find some genuinely excellent looking ones.
JP: Yes, that is fantastic. You also mentioned there that the only ads I have are for my very own products and I actually have an issue with folks using Adwords on sites.
What’s your opinion of using Adwords and what exactly are a few of the ways that men and women can make revenue if they do not use something like Adwords?
PC: Adsense is one of people things that we all try at the start because it’s just truly 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, that's 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 couple of 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 several cents. You might be lucky to make a hundred dollars a month whenever you really commence to ramp up your targeted traffic and actually what you’re doing is working so hard to bring targeted traffic and visitors to your individual internet site after which 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 weblog is usually to do that. If you are a blog reviewing cameras or something like that folks who are coming to your internet site to read your reviews they’ve obtained that buying intent previously. 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 those and you might actually make a decent bit of money. But for writers, why would you need to work so hard to sell someone else’s products. You’re trying to create a guide, something to sell and once you strip away all of that inventive passion and the joy that we feel when we’re doing these things, that’s what we’re doing. We’re creating a product to sell and that is a product of our 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’s a model that works for some world wide web sites, but by and large it doesn’t work well for bloggers and particularly I think writers.
JP: So, what are some other ways, what is a lot more effective to make some income from a website?
PC: Nicely, certainly you’ve received to get something that you are able to sell and I really don't necessarily indicate a physical thing because we are all trying to create guides, but you talk 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 using a dozen or so other men and women, so things like seminars and training programs and speaking gigs, doors that you are able to open yourself by getting your book there for sale and having your website and acquiring 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 genuinely think individuals have to be concerned about, as you said, their reputation and I think their online brand and as we said if you want a skilled internet site and an effective blog, you have to create that professional brand. Like you have the Blogging Teacher, that's a excellent name because it is very obvious what you do and as you say I try and do that myself as well.
PC: Yeah. Appear I made that mistake earlier myself. I tried to use Adsense to fill spaces in my weblog and make a lttle bit 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 indicate 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 a number of the bigger bloggers too, is create your own personal products. Not just a book because we all know it’s brilliant to create a book and if you’re selling a lot you’re not making that much money whereas if you make several dollars per book or if you compose a course that helps men and women they will pay far more money for that.
And as you said my day seminar I naturally charge much more folks more money and again it is possible to make a better income. So, yeah, encourage people to think a bit outside the box as to what they can sell. Okay, so naturally that’s selling things, but you obviously have some fantastic free giveaways, I have some free of charge giveaways. So, can you explain the importance of obtaining some sort of free of charge giveaway about the blog site?
PC: Nicely, there’s sort of 3 attacks that you can use that totally free giveaway technique.
One is you’re just attracting targeted traffic by giving it away for free and hoping individuals will go, ‘that’s fantastic,’ 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 are able to up sell the paid products onto to them afterwards.
So, I think most likely the one that I like to use because I think it gives you an actual tangible sort of feasible result that it is possible to build on is to use it to build a mailing list and that is what I do. I put a nice no cost resource, a totally free guide or something like that. So what people 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’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, completely critical because it makes it genuinely difficult without a mailing list to capture and keep an audience more than the long term. It is kind of like insurance, like you’ve obtained to get it prior to you want it otherwise it’s too late. So, what exactly are you supposed to accomplish when you’ve finished your book and you have acquired no mailing list to market it? You’re not heading to sell very numerous of them. You’re heading to get to work actually hard to attract all that targeted traffic and so it’s easy, like it’s just so easy to start a single. It takes only a few minutes so if you’ve already got a blog site, you just sign up to 1 of these provider like Aweber, that is who I use. MailChimp is another a single that’s – I really do not use,
Windows 7 Starter Key, but folks I chat to say their grade is up and you just create your list.
So, the moment you have actually got that form up there, then you just got to start off encouraging people to sign up and that totally free giveaway is among the best incentives to accomplish that. It’s from among individuals things that the big bloggers have been doing for years and some folks resist because constructing mailing lists and marketing and advertising, they’re quite uncomfortable matters for some people.
They feel a little bit awkward, ‘I’m collecting email addresses. Oh, I don’t wish to be a spammer,” and all that things. ‘Oh I really do not wish to market, I don’t want to be pushy and push my content out to them,’ but you have got 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 individuals are free of charge to sign up. Folks are totally free to unsubscribe if they really don't like what you’ve obtained and the folks who stay subscribe to the people who genuinely want to see emails from you. And why wouldn’t you keep sending them out.
JP: Definitely and I think as long as men and women don’t 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 once 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’re happy to buy whenever you have something that they want.
PC: And new writers have very good options because that’s something that men and women are expecting and people like finding newsletters, quick, precise summaries of useful information, but you’re right. You have got to use your list in the spirit in which you received people to sign up. You really do not sign them up to email your little free 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 is your regular newsletter or your blog posts and people 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 then unsubscribe and I’ll never see them again,
Microsoft Office Standard 2007, but very, very number of folks actually do that. All individuals men and women who do stay subscribed, that’s folks you would have missed out on if you didn’t start building your list.
JP: Yes, and we all started with zero. That’s the other thing. I remember when I started my list and I literally had zero folks and after that of course you sign up for your individual list so you are able to have a single person and then you get your first unsubscribe and that kind of hurts. I also made a mistake and started with a single provider that was too expensive then 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 book and if you’re looking to get a publisher it becomes part of evidence about your platform. So, folks can say, I have these numerous thousands of individuals ready to buy my guide, which may possibly or might not be true, but if you have a list you'll be able to actually do like a screen print of Aweber and show them, appear I’ve acquired eleven thousand individuals on my list.
PC: You’re right, you’re actually right and I think you most likely hit on two points there. Naturally it actually is a trickle, it’s a trickle at the begin. You get probably 1 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 book. At the end of six months that genuinely adds up to a decent list. A lot of bloggers tend to agree that the moment you get above five hundred and start off finding your thousand, you have actually obtained a actually good list on your hands that it is possible to market to. Because 5% of the thousand men and women that’s a good number of sales straight off the bat for the 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 totally free one or something like that, it can be really painful to try and bring this data too.
JP: Oh yeah, cause you lose a lot of men and women whenever you move more than.
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: Nicely 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 a lot of things we could talk about! Yes, so a single thing that I’m genuinely interested in personally, because I think that authors and writers and people who find my blog are not very techie folks and really do not necessarily use RSS readers and it’s kind of niche in which people really do not understand and therefore I don’t have as several subscribers as I have men and women on my list for illustration, which I find quite odd. So what is your best tip for developing subscribers to your RSS feed?
PC: Forget about RSS.
JP: Oh, actually?
PC: Yeah. Glimpse it is wonderful to possess it there. I think you should offer it because some men and women want it. It’s built into WordPress and all that sort of thing. I genuinely wouldn’t emphasise it as a subscription option. I’d just have it available.
I think your mailing list is really 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 is big in the techie world and the world wide web world and everything. It is a excellent technology, it is 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 got an RSS reader. They do not have a several of hundred subscriptions that they religiously check everyday like I probably do.
Why go to all the trouble of trying to educate them about the merits of RSS and aid them get set up with an RSS reader and hope that they remember to open their RSS reader everyday when they are already an email user, they by now read their email probably every day plus they have that inbuilt sort of instinctive urge to, you know, an email’s come in I have 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 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 people 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 men and women – add on men and women towards your mailing list.
JP: There you go. That helps, but then I actually really do not mail my list that often versus the blog site post come out every several of days, but then of course you'll be able to subscribe by email as well to the blog site.
PC: Yes, you’re right.
JP: Yeah, so maybe I emphasise that a lot more. No, that is very helpful. Nicely, then let’s skew that round to a different way then. So, if folks desire to build traffic to try and get individuals to their mailing list, what would be your number one particular tip for traffic these days?
PC: Yeah. So we’ve already talked about those incentives, so once the targeted traffic actually arrives, but it’s actually finding them to sign up with individuals incentives because you actually wish to attract the targeted traffic and you’ve basically got to go in which your audience is. So, you’ve received to go and find them.
You can’t just weblog in isolation and hope folks stumble across you in Google searches and things like that because search engine visitors is only a percentage of your – should only be a small percentage of your traffic, it shouldn’t be relying on it. And it’s not as committed and as engaging as targeted traffic that you are able to attract from other venues.
So,
Microsoft Office 2010 Home And Business, if you think about discussion forums, Facebook groups, Twitter, social networks and things like that, that is in which your audience is. You have just received to go out there and find them. So, discussion forums which are related to your topic, you go out there and you set up an account and you begin engaging with people and you have received your little forum signature that says my name, and here is my website. And you just go out there and you just be interesting and useful and be yourself and helpful and folks will go, you’ve got a weblog I’ll click within the blog site. They show up at your weblog and they like what they see. They see much 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 and they become a loyal subscriber. So, basically go in which your audience is. Find out where they hang out on the web and then go and get involved in people communities.
JP: That is a good idea and…
PC: Yeah, don’t spam though. Do not just get out there and go, ‘hey everyone check out my blog I think you’ll like it.’ Just go out there and be useful and friendly. It is 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 don’t hang around in the corner and stare at absolutely everyone. You go and introduce yourself and speak about things and individuals will come and check you out basically.
JP: That’s excellent. That is a kind of a different thing I have just been thinking about, is doing far more on amazon.com which I haven’t been focusing on too much. It is possible to go on Amazon and it is possible to create as an author, I’m not positive as a just a commenter, but you are able to create a whole page about yourself using a link to your weblog actually on amazon.com. So, for authors it’s a great idea to go and leave a review on a guide that you’ve read that is similar to yours and after that you'll be able to put a link to your website on your own personal page. I’ve started getting traffic that way which is quite random, that is something that – obviously you’re far more in the traditional Online marketing field but I’m just trying to think somewhat a lot more about things that authors can do exactly where visitors are.
PC: There’s a place around the World wide web for basically every topic and hobby out there. You just received to go and find it and begin with Facebook and glimpse for other discussion forums. Do Google searches, but I guarantee you’ll find your little corner with the Web exactly where men and women who like what you like are talking about the things you like. That is wherever you can sort of stick your toe in and start to get engaged. If that means heading on Amazon and leaving reviews for all the other publications in your topic, genuine ones, really do not just throw any odd sentence out there and hope folks will click a link, but that is a single way to complete it because people dwell all more than individuals Amazon reviews obtaining all kinds of discussions and arguments and almost like a competition to see who can review the most books and all these sort of things. So, if that is exactly where your folk are hanging out…
JP: Yeah, hang out there too. No, that’s 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 every person has to find the place exactly where they want to do that.
PC: Yeah, that’s right. I’ve obtained a lot of IT individuals that I speak to on Twitter plus a lot of bloggers and things like that too and you’ve acquired writers that I know it’s – you’d be surprised. I think even sometimes the hobbies that men and women 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 a sudden all these individuals interested in barbeque that you had never predicted are following you and talking to you and checking out your weblog. Sometimes it is surprising I think where you find people which are interested in the same thing.
JP: Yeah, definitely. That’s great. Wow, there’s been some brilliant information there Paul. It is been so good. So, we have to wrap now, we’re out of time. Exactly where can individuals find you online?
PC: Yes. So, most likely for your things we talked about tonight, most likely BloggingTeacher.com may be the best place to go and have a appear. It is possible to also find me on Twitter as Paul Cunningham, all one term, but you’ll find that link on bloggingteacher.com too. And yeah completely love to hear from any of your listeners if they’ve acquired follow up questions or anything that. I’ve received a contact form there on my internet internet site. Always happy to get queries by email, because that’s instantly a website post that I can write with things like that at the same time, so I’m much more than happy for folks to follow up with me if they’ve obtained any further queries.
JP: Brilliant. Effectively I’m confident men and women will because there are so many concerns about these subjects these days. So, thank you ever so much for your time, that was excellent.
PC: My pleasure Joanna.
Joanna: Thanks for listening right now. I hope you found it helpful. It is possible to get much more information on creating, publishing options, sales and promotion for your book at www.TheCreativePenn.com.