What I learned from the Free Roadmap to Become A Blogger

Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick's Free report, Roadmap to Become A Blogger is quite interesting. It's not a rehash of old stuff you can find other places, but some useful and interesting techniques and approached I'll be using very soon - some I've started already.

Before I go over my chief takeaways, let me say that I found information that will help me with Websites, blogs, and more. The report focuses on starting blogs to make money, but many of the techniques will work for plenty of other purposes.

Here are my main takeaways:

1) Forum research. To find areas where people are interested and exactly what they are interested in, check out related forums. You can just type in Google, "<topic> forum", to  find related forums.

For example I'm really into fishing for striped bass, and if you Google "striped bass forum" you find the top related forums. As I have a (money making) site on striped bass, you can bet I'll be looking these for ideas of new content areas to give readers what they want.

2) Diversify. Not all blogs or Web sites take off and do well for whatever reason. Now if you are blogging on your one true passion or career, and it doesn't do super well, you can slightly position it, but if like me you have many passions in life you might consider starting or trying several blogs/sites and then sticking with the most promising one.

I'm doing this. I have four different site up on different aspects of a passion of mine, fishing. The oldest one is doing OK, the next is doing  well so far, and we'll see how the two newest do. In the long term, I may abandon (or more likely combine) the least successful.

3) Build an email list of your readers. This really works, and many many of you reading this are coming because you are on my email list. Email lists work to build relationships, provide  value, and absolutely to make money!

4) Research within your niche by looking at Facebook groups. What are people interested in? I've done this, and will add for business topics also look in LinkedIn. I found both useful, but LinkedIn somewhat more for professional topics.

5) Use video. It's easy and cheap and people love it. I've done this, although not nearly enough, and it works. I'll be making some simple fishing videos soon to promote my fishing sites. It's really very very simple and it works. It gets you people coming to visit and see your stuff.

YouTube is the biggie, but there are also other significant video sharing sites, as well as easy ways to upload to all of them (I'm doing this!).

Click Here for the free report, Roadmap to Become a Blogger

These are my top takeaways. I have plenty more as well, and the report of free.

Do You Have a Blogging Strategy?

Well do you? I used to - not too sure about now, although I DO have a strategy overall :)

Blogging Strategy: Do You Really have One?  by Jason Van Orden

Some great stuff there.

And let me add your blogging strategy needs to be part of your overall (business) strategy as well.

I have an overall business strategy. How does my blog fit in? I need to think about this, and maybe you do too?

Thanks to @jeremyfrandsen

Business Blogging Success and Passion

You should blog on something you are passionate about and will remain passionate about. People will sense your passion. Passionate bloggers tend to be successful bloggers.

What aspects of your work are you passionate about? Make a list. Not merely what you feel strongly about, or what you strongly recommend, but what you have an active long term interest in. What parts of your work or your profession never seem like "work"? These are potential areas to blog about.

As an example, a big reason why my Blogging for Business blog is successful is because I am passionate about using blogs for business purposes and it shows. People reading my blog can sense my passion, my excitement.  Those who share my passion, whether as extreme or not, tend to become regular readers.

Passion will keep you going; it's not the 4th month that may be difficult, but the 14th month, and passion keeps you writing effectively and keeps your readers engaged.

Conversely, as a security professional I talk a lot about the importance of patching software, of keeping software up to date to avoid hackers using known flaws to compromise your systems. It's extremely important. I feel strongly about it, but I am not passionate about it. I probably couldn't blog effectively on keeping software up-to-date. For starters since there is no passion, there is not much excitement and I don't really want to do it. Readers would notice this and be less likely to become and remain long term readers. There are people passionate about patching software, indeed about just about everything, and they are potential star bloggers in those areas

Passion is extremely important in blogging. You need to blog on a topic you are and will remain passionate about. It not only will keep you going, producing great content, in the 14th month and beyond, but readers will sense your passion and be more likely to engage, take action based on your blogging, and of course become regular readers. Your blog will be more successful, however you may define success., when your blogging focus and passions intersect.

And for over 100 more tips on successful blogging, I invite you to grab your free copy of my ebook Secrets of Successful Blogging at http://www.secretsofsuccessfulblogging.com

Blogging: 5 Critical Questions Before You Start

Happy New Year! Since many new blogs get started in the new year, here are five questions you'd better ask yourself before you start.

Shouldn't be a surprise: some planning and familiarity with blogging is essential before jumping in.

1) What are your blog goals?

In order to be successful you must have goals. If you don't have any goals, how can you know if you're succeeding, if your blog is working?

I suggest going beyond just listing goals and choosing your primary goal. Your primary goal will probably shift over time, and that is alright.

So, why are you going to start this blog?

2) What is your blog's focus?

What are you going to write about? You can't blog effectively on several unrelated topics in the same blog and expect to have many readers. It's unlikely that many potential readers will share your mix of passions -- a blog must focus on only one topic for maximum success.

Conversely, instead of blogging on one wide topic, for example "marketing" or "fishing," you might chose a niche within that topic, for example "marketing small business in rural areas" or "fly fishing for trout in Montana." With a tighter niche, it's more likely you'll have passionate readers who devour your every post.

3) Who is your intended audience?

Who you are blogging for? Who do you expect and want to read your blog? What kind of content will they like? You need to know who you are writing for in order to do it most effectively.

Don't be surprised if you find an entirely unexpected secondary audience drawn to your blog as well, but detemine your intended primary audience and start writing for them.

4) What are your strengths how can you leverage them in your blogging?

Do you follow cutting edge current events in your topic? Are you really up-to-date on everything that happens, as soon as it happens if not before and really into that? Or maybe some sort of in depth analysis of timeless issues more your style and interest?

Well obviously that’s going to affect what you are going to be writing about. Are you going to be writing about breaking news or how to do things well that don’t change all that often or perhaps something else?

5) How familiar with the blogosphere are you?

I suggest before anyone starts blogging, they read a lot of blogs for at least two weeks. This is the bare minimum. Take notes, see what you like, what you don’t like about different people’s blogs and blogging styles.

See what you think might work well for you and then be prepared to experiment.

An easy way to find other blogs you may be interested in is to use one of the blog search engines, for example, technorati.com, and you can search for blogs in your topic area or areas you are interested in.

If you're considering starting blogging, by all means jump in and start. Doing just dive in headfirst however, do some planning and research first. Answers these five questions first, and your blog will likely be successful faster.

And for over 100 more tips on successful blogging, I invite you to grab your free copy of my ebook Secrets of Successful Blogging at http://www.secretsofsuccessfulblogging.com

#1 Rule For A Successful Blog

So, what is your #1 Rule For A Successful Blog?

Mitch Joel asks that question at his blog.

His answer is simple:

Finding your passion is one thing. Uncovering a unique niche is another. Attempting to turn a six-figure income from your Blog might be what drives you, but what will really keep the momentum going and your readers engaged is if you create a platform to not only share your own insights and personal thoughts, but use it as a place to really connect with those readers and enable that to turn the entire Blog into a thriving community.

Mine is simple too:

My #1 -- goals. If you don't have goals, how do you know if your succeeding (or just having fun which is fine too). Goals can be as fine grained or coarse as you want. You can have regular goals, and "stretch" or "home run" -- if everything goes perfectly goals.

The #1 goal for my first blog was simply to experiment with blogs and see if they had any business value. The #2 goal was to reposition myself not just as a techie, but as a business dude with strong technical skills. Oh, I had fun along the way too.

It's worth it to Click Here and read the whole discussion

The 2.5 Types of Blog Names

There are two basic types of names, whether it's a blog name, book name, a name for a new breakfast cereal, or anything else.

1) Descriptive names.

A descriptive name is one that makes it obvious what the name applies to, at least to the target audience/market.

I see a sign for "The Bagelry" across the street from me. You can be pretty sure it sells bagels. It probably has a place to sit and may serve coffee and drinks as well, but certainly it has bagels. "The Bagelry" is a descriptive name.

Blogging for Business is a descriptive name; My Blogging for Business blog is quite simply about "blogging for business."

Schneier on Security is another descriptive name. It's about security and written by well known security author and thought leader Bruce Schneier.  Oh, you hadn't heard of Bruce Schneier before? It doesn't matter as his target audience certainly has.

Ask the Atheist and CorporatePR are other examples of blogs with descriptive names.

2) Clever names, called "cute names" by some.

As I write this I'm at "Breaking New Grounds." Breaking New Grounds? Is that a spiritual growth center, a construction company, or  ???

Actually it's a coffee shop. Get it? Coffee - coffee grounds, and the expression "breaking new ground" as in making progress? How clever.

Boing Boing is a clever name. Whether you or I personally think it's clever isn't the issue. From the name you can't tell what it's about, but it's currently the 5th most popular blog on the planet so obviously that doesn't matter much.

icanhascheeseburger is another extremely popular blog with a clever name (personally I think it's stupid, but that's not important). You can't tell from the name that it's about cats and other fluffy animal pictures with amusing captions.

Not all blogs with "clever" names are irreverent, primarily for amusement, or silly.

For example, a shel of my former self, by Shel Holtz, my co-author for Blogging for Business (the book, not the blog), is a serious business blog on technology and communications. I have no idea what the name means, although it's clever and catchy. Maybe Shel used to be really fat and lost 200 pounds? I'll have to ask him someday.

2.5)  Viral Names
Marketing Guru Seth Godin sometimes mentions a third type of name, a name you choose because it will get talked about.

This is typically a clever name that you hopes catches on and enters the vocabulary.

Examples from Seth include his book Purple Cow; most people now know this means something that is remarkable and unique, whether it's a product, service, company, or maybe their marketing.

Another example is "Google"; it now means to look something up on the Internet.

Note that both "Purple Cow" and "Google" are basically "clever" names, but ones that have really taken off and are now used to mean much more than the book and company they originally named.

It IS tough to choose a "clever" name like these that spreads virally as they have, but if you do you can have massive results! Imagine perhaps millions of people using your blog name in daily conversation.

Examples of viral blog names are rare, but one example is "dooce". Heather Armstrong was fired in 2002 for things she wrote online about work in her blog dooce.com. "Dooce" is now widely understood to mean "to be fired from your job because of things you write online." Dooce is also a very popular blog -- a Technorati Top 100 Blog.

Another example, perhaps not as big as dooce yet but with enormous potential, is Pamela Slim's blog Escape From Cubicle Nation. "Cubicle Nation" invokes such vivid and to many of us unpleasant Dilbertesque images that I can see it really taking off - that is, taking off even more it already has.

So, you've really got two choices for a blog name, "descriptive" or "clever."

If you're amazingly lucky your blog name, whether clever or not, may skyrocket along with its/your popularity, and enter or perhaps change the vernacular. Hey, maybe it'll be bigger than Google!

Comments oh insightful readers?

32 Ways To Keep Your Blog From Sucking

No one wants their blog to suck, and Scott Hanselman has a great list to help you avoid 'Sucky Blog Syndrome.'

You may not know Scott, but he's a super popular tech programming blogger.

I even agree with most of what Scott says, although a few things don't apply to most of us, for example "Have a Code Garage Sale" makes no sense if you don't write code (i.e. program).

Here's a partial list, with details. See Scott' blog for the full list/story.
Thanks to Bob Porter for sending me the link.

•    1. Know your audience
•    2. Keep overtly personal information out of your tech blog
•    3. Don't apologize about not blogging enough
•    4. Steer clear of politics
•    5. Don't Blog Bile
•    6. Think before you blog      
•    7. Don't post throwaways
•    8. Avoid "excessive quoting
•    9. Use Spell Check

Blog Names - You Are Your Own Brand

I like people that use their own name for their blog.
They might call it 'Joe's Blog,' ' Joe Baldwin's Ramblings on Nanotechnology for Trolls and Gnomes,' or maybe just stick their name on it with no other apparent name.

Ben Yoskovitz, when asked about what he'd name his blog, says:

That's a very good question. My initial reaction would be to just use my own name for the domain -- benyoskovitz.com -- but I always hesitated to do that because my name isn't easy to spell. Still, it would have probably improved my own personal brand that way.

I like blogs where people use their name - you can't get around tying the blog and everything associated with it to the person in question, and it affords you more freedom to write about what you want, instead of having a domain name that pigeonholes you in some way.

Been currently blogs at Instigator.com, and writes some great stuff.

Dawud Miracle, another blogger I admire, has somewhat similar thought:

And, as I write, being a solopreneur, I am clear that I'm my own brand. As a business owner and as a blogger, I think people are drawn to work with me - as a person.

A blog doesn't need a name -- it can just share yours. Sometimes this makes a lot of sense.

Blog Names - Owning an Idea, Aaron Wall

A blog name is great for owning an idea.

For example, Aaron Wall of the SEO Book blog, not only named his blog "SEO Book" but has it at the domain seobook.com, and is (not surprisingly) the #1 search engine hit for SEO Book.

He also is the author of the awesome SEO Book.

In Aaron's own words:

I think the name I gave it was good for owning an idea and was right at the time. If I could name it again today I might want to chose a broader brand and/or different topic, but I don't regret the current name or niche because it being so niched allowed me to gain marketshare and mindshare.

I feel the same way about "Blogging for Business" -- great name for this blog, the name of my first book, and the focus of much of my consulting. But it is somewhat narrow, and of course I do a not more than blogging for business (not that I can claim I own the name).

So want to own an idea? Or at least gain mindshare with that idea?
Name your blog after that idea. Hey, while you're at it, why not write a book with that name too :)

New Blog Names for 6 Bloggers

If you were to start blogging today, what would you name your blog? asked Ted (that's me).

• David Meerman Scott, author of the fantastic The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly, says New Rules of Marketing.

David, I do love the name WebInkNow, and you CAN change the name of your blog without changing the URL. Give me a shout over the holidays if you want any help.

• Nettie Hartsock likes Blogthechange, meaning “Blog the Change you Want to See in the World” (Ghandi’s was “Be the Change"). I like it Nettie.

• Chris Garrett, perhaps picking on me because his name is spelled wrong in my latest book, says What No One, not even Ted Demopoulos, Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting & Blogging for Business.

Errr Chris,I can learn  plenty from you on the subject :)

• Shawn Chambers of The Plastic Spork Blog fame says, "I'd call it "CHUNK" with the main focus on condensing information of the world down to these bite size pieces specific to the needs of one person.

I'm sure Shawn wouldn't stop blogging on plastics at  The Plastic Spork though.

• Christopher Penn, who you can find all over the Internet, at awaken your superhero , the Marketing Over Coffee podcast and the Financial Aid Podcast, gives a very pragmatic answer.

"Depends highly on the topic and what I wanted the blog to do," he says, adding that "I always aim for things that will work well for keywords and optimization."

• C.C. Chapman, also all over the Internet at Accident Hash, Managing The Gray, Reality Bitchslap, etc. simply says Brain Slurpees.

My brain COULD use a nice cool refreshing drink around now . . .