Blogging Jobs: How Much is Blogging Worth?

by

Blogging Jobs by Lorelle VanFossenIn “Blogger Jobs: What Are They Looking For?” we talked about what jobs are out there and what blog owners and companies are looking for when they hire a blogger. Blogger Jobs: How to Apply For a Blogger Job? covered how to apply for a job as a blogger, with some good tips on what to do – and not to do. Today, I want to look at a very serious issue: How much are they paying bloggers to blog?

The issue of the blogging pay scale is very important, not just because I’m one of the workers in this new industry who expects to be able to pay the rent or meet a mortgage, but also because I represent the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of people who want to make money blogging.

In a NY Times article on the blogging sweatshops by Matt Richtel (Print Version) the description of people of one of the hottest jobs in the world has writers churning out mass volumes of content working around-the-clock to make enough money to survive. It’s called blogging.
[Read more…]

Don’t Miss this Free Blog Monetization Teleseminar Call

by

Denise from The Blog Squad emailed me to let me know about a free live interview with Darren Rowse and I wanted to share the news with you.

The Blog Squad is pleased to have snagged busy pro-blogger Darren Rowse for an interview about what makes his blog so successful with nearly 48,000 subscribers!

Darren of course is Mr ProBlogger (and my partner in crime on the ProBlogger Book) and what he doesn’t know about blog monetization isn’t worth knowing.

The call is free (registration required) and takes place Thursday, June 26 at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Not sure if there will be a recording made available for anyone who misses it.

More details and registration are here.

Submit Stories and Get Money with Glamorati

by

Glamorati is having a headline writing contest, announced in the News from the Glamorati blog. In June, all you have to do is submit stories to Glamorati, and you’ll receive $5 for each published story. Here’s how it works:

Participants will receive $5 for each published submission and the grand prize is $500 which goes to the contestant with the most number of points (published submissions = 10 points and comments on the site = 1 point)

So what you need to do is find a funny, interesting, or weird pop culture story to submit, which shouldn’t be so hard since pop culture is all that by itself. You’ll need a Glamorati account, but that’s no biggie.

So that’s it? Find a story, submit, it gets published, you get $5 and the chance of the $500 grand prize? Ryan Caldwell of Glamorati, won’t this be expensive?

Yes, but probably not as expensive as developing the site in the first place. ;-)

Ouch. Or not. On a more serious note, Ryan explained:

Since headline writing is so important to blogging, I thought this contest would be a natural fit for the blogging community.

Good luck on the contest, Ryan. Be sure to check out Glamorati and the contest post in the News from the Glamorati blog.

Disclosure: I did the Glamorati design.

Groundbreaking Blog Viral Marketing: Obsidian Blackout Event

by

JC Hutchins, 7th Son Obsidian podiobook anthologyJC Hutchins has been breaking rules even before he started his blog in an attempt to give away his science fiction novel, 7th Son, which publishers didn’t want, as a free podiobook, one of the first audio books published as a weekly series of podcasts. He has come up with a variety of interesting viral campaigns to promote his book, blog, podcasts, and writings, turning his unpublished book into the most popular podiobook series in history, and becoming a specialist in the true sense of social networking and marketing. His innovative online self-marketing techniques attracted St. Martin’s Press, and his book will finally be published in 2009.

Tapping the creativity of his fan-base, Hutchins is breaking rules again by asking people to become victims and make history.
[Read more…]

If You Don’t Write With Keywords, Will It Hurt Your Blog?

by

Recently, I got the following comment on :

I just set up my blog and I am still trying to get everything in line. When I write original content, does it have to be about the subject of my blog? Will it hurt to have content not related to the title and keywords of my blog? Any input would be greatly appreciated!

My first thought was “whose going to hurt whom?” Honestly, who are you hurting if you don’t blog right? You.

If you don’t care about monetization, getting found, establishing a reputation or expertise, and your blog is not your resume, then who cares? No one is hurt because your blog is all for you and no one else that influences your ability to pay your rent.

If your blog’s purpose is to make money and establish your professional online reputation, by not blogging with search term, keyword-rich content in a consistent form within your blog’s purpose and intent that puts the reader first, you are the only one hurting you.

There are two answers I can give to this person.
[Read more…]

Business School for Bloggers: How to Make Money With Your Blog

by

I am frequently asked about how to make money on the web, especially how to make money with your blog. I find a wide variety of answers around the web, some of them get rich quick schemes, PageRank games, and SEO illusions, but there is only one answer that I want to shout to the roofs, but few people listen.

Blogging as a business is business. It takes business training and skills to make money with your blog.

That’s it. That’s the secret. John Chow, Guy Kawawasaki, Darren Rowse, Seth Godin, these princes of blogging didn’t get rich with their blogs by just having blogs. They used their business sense and know how to make their blogs work for them. They understood that a blog is just another tool in the business arsenal, a business card and resume all wrapped up in one, offering a business a powerful communications tool. In order to make your blog work for you, you have to understand how business works.

To have a “successful” blog and to make your blog work for you, you have to have skills and training in advertising, marketing, economics, finance, writing ability and language skills, public relations, networking, everything any business needs. These are the skills you bring it to your blog to make it a success, earning the money you deserve.
[Read more…]

Is there a deliberate effort to hack a large number of blogs for SEO and cash?

by

Tony Hung, former editor here at The Blog Herald, believes that there is. He writes:

Some enterprising hackers have put together a scheme whereby they hack a number of blogs, so that they can create their own network pages and links back to a few select blogs, to pages that are not easily visible. It takes advantage of the organic and real page rank of all of the sites in question, and probably makes some bucks for the hacker involved.

Tony has been able to use the “river of news” feature on memetracking site Tailrank to find a number of blogs that appear to have been hacked in this method.

I have seen something similar occur on my company’s website over at Bryghtpath LLC. We were contacted last month by Google informing us that links to spyware/malware were detected on our company blog – and then we were being delisted until we had notified them that it had been removed. We’d been hacked.

I’m sure this news will evolve throughout the day – I suggest that you ensure that your sites are clean and fully patched with the latest versions of your blogging software of choice.

Blogging is About Writing – and Not

by

Blogging is about writing. That is a fact. You can video blog, podcast, and do all kinds of fun things with your blog, but it is the writing that makes or breaks a blog. What you say in the blog posts, descriptions of visual and audio elements, and what words you offer search engines for their indexing to help people find your blog.

However, blogging is not just about the writing, albeit it is a large part. Blogging today is about so much more. Are you ready? Do you know all the things you have to know about blogging before you start blogging? Or after?

Whether you are a new blogger or long time blogger, these are the things you are going to have to learn about in order to blog in today’s world.
[Read more…]

Micropatrons, Welcome!

by

A few months back, Jim Kukral (whom I know to be an avid Blog Herald reader) wrote to us about a new ad/tipping system he has developed, ScratchBack, which basically allowed people to send small amounts of money to a publisher in exchange for a text link or image. I thought of it as a mix between text links and tagboards. But the more important question I had was whether micro-tipping systems like these were viable.

So here we are trying it out. As announced by our Marketing guru, David Peralty, on XFEP and as shared by Jim Kukral himself on the ScratchBack blog, we are implementing ScratchBack widgets on several Splashpress Media blogs. We’re initially starting out with a few sites, such as Blogging Pro, Forever Geek, 901am, Blog Search Engine and Gadzooki–actually those sites where it’s easy enough to add the 200px-wide widgets. The Blog Herald is included. You might notice the widget on the middle sidebar of the site, labeled Patrons, right below the News column.

So if you’d like to tip us, please feel free to do so. For $5 you get a Google-friendly (as they say) link from us, and you get that warm fuzzy feeling that you’ve helped us Splashpress Media folks spread the good news about new media.

It’s a bit like advertising with us, but at less expense. Do consider, of course, that direct advertising has its benefits. For one, our current ScratchBack setup is an auto-scroll one. This means that older links are pushed down as new ones come. So you’re not assured of how long your link stays there. Also, we’ve set it up such that there are only five slots, so link space is limited.

This brings me to the question whether to go for fixed duration vs. auto-scroll. And there’s also the issue of whether to stick to five spots or increase to accommodate more tippers. Then there’s also the question of whether $5 is a good price point to start with, or to vary it depending on the popularity of each site. And then there’s the placement of the widget itself. Too high up on the site and it can be too obtrusive. Too low and it would be practically invisible.

The big consideration is to find a balance such that the tipping system doesn’t dilute the value of the direct advertisements (so we don’t piss off our advertisers) but still be valuabe enough for micropatrons to send in tips. Any ideas or suggestions would be welcome.

So again, micropatrons are welcome!

What Are You Not Doing With Your Blog

by

When Aaron Brazell put his blog up for sale, he got a rude awakening of what he was not doing with his blog that would have made his blog more marketable, thus worth buying.

Recently, I started thinking about what I’m not doing with my blog that I should. I do a lot already, and I also am an advocate of organic marketing, natural marketing and viral techniques rather than grasping and desperate. So what more could I do to increase the diversity of those who read my blog, keep readers happy, and continue to be a source for information on blogging and WordPress?
[Read more…]