Turning Your Blog Into a Business with David Risley

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Monetizing Blogs

David Risley got a very early start in the blogging world at a time when Google was a promising startup, and AOL CDs were still sent by the truckload. He’s managed to build a six-figure business, and currently shares the tools of the trade over at Blog Marketing Academy.

When did you first start blogging?

I started about 15 years ago, before blogging was even a word. It was a very manual process back then. Raw HTML files and the whole thing… but it was still the essence of what blogging is – writing and publishing articles. I got started as a technology blogger, and was motivated by a magazine article on how to build a website in 20 minutes or less. I thought that’d be cool, so I set up a basic site on my ISP’s free 5MB of web space they gave me. The rest is history.

What moment did you realize you could make money from blogging, and possibly generate a full-time income?

Back in the day, the idea of web advertising was kinda new. But, I began to see people with tech sites do it. For example, I had a chat with Anand Lal Shimp, from Anandtech.com, way back before he was a big deal in the tech space. He was beginning to host some advertising on his site. At the time, I was on Geocities (remember them?), but I made the decision to move my site over to Pair Networks so that I could get rid of the Geocities “no advertising” rule. From there, I decided to pursue some advertising revenue with the site. [Read more…]

Content Marketing with Noelle Schuck, Editor-in-Chief at iAcquire

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Content Marketing

Content marketing is all the rage these days – but what exactly is it and how can it be scaled to be profitable? We had the opportunity to interview Noelle Schuck, the Editor-in-Chief at iAcquire, a NYC and Phoenix-based digital and content marketing agency. As the Editor-in-Chief, she manages content journalists, SEO strategists, and editors who create custom content on behalf of clients, publishers, and their audiences.

What’s it like leading a team? How do you manage your time, and stay on track? Any particular tools you recommend?

I manage 21 people on iAcquire’s Editorial team: four content strategists, three assignment editors, seven writers, six editors and one infographics specialist. We also use a network of freelance writers. Our editorial team is one branch of our agency’s holistic digital marketing offerings. Our role is to create relevant, informative, and timely content to clients across multiple industries.

We are a high-volume business, so every one of us has to be an expert at time management. For years, I was a big Dayrunner devotee and never left home without my big, bulky planner. Now I’m in heaven with the project management, time management, and task-oriented apps that fit on my iPhone and iPad. As an organization we have all migrated to Google apps (Gmail/Google calendar) and Trello. [Read more…]

Getting Paid to Write with Allison Boyer

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How to write

Allison Boyer is a freelance writer who is most known for her work with New Media Expo. New Media Expo or NMX for short, is the world’s largest conference and tradeshow for online content creators. Make sure you stay tuned for the end of this post as Allison has a special surprise for Blog Herald readers :-)

How did you first get involved with freelance writing/blogging?

When I was a senior in college, I kind of freaked out because I suddenly realized that I didn’t want to write for a newspaper or teach. What else do you do with an English degree? I had no idea. What I did know is that I enjoyed the part-time freelance work I did from time to time. So I decided to give it a go as a full time freelancer. From there, blogging kind of fell into my lap when I just happened to get a job working for a blog network. The pay was horrible, but I really loved the conversational style. So, I slowly phased out other types of writing jobs and started working exclusively as a blogger, both for clients and for my own blogs.

One thing I noticed early on is just how difficult it can be to break through all the noise, and establish consistent work for yourself. What’s some advice you have to those wanting to make a career out of writing or blogging for a living?

What worked for me is to start on the very lowest rung and climb up. No one wants to work for $10 an hour, but hard work pays off in the end. If you’re a new writer, it doesn’t matter what you think you are worth. People who hire bloggers need to see a return on their investment, so you have to prove yourself first. If you do an amazing job every single time without fail, you’ll soon find that you don’t have to look for work anymore. Opportunities will come your way because people recommend you. And remember, it’s about more than just being able to write. Without a strong work ethic, it doesn’t matter how well you write. [Read more…]

Interview with Patrick O’Keefe, Author of Managing Online Forums

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Is there a difference between building a community versus building an audience? If so, what are they?

They can be the same thing. A community is an audience. Some would grasp tightly to the idea that an audience watches and doesn’t contribute or interact, but that isn’t really true. Performers interact with audiences all the time. With my hosting of Soda Tasting, I’m building an audience, but I’m also building a community. It really can mean the same thing.

That said, if you wanted to draw a firm line, you could say that when you are the primary “performer,” you are building an audience. But if you are cultivating interactions between others, more so than interactions with you specifically, you are closer to building a more traditional community.

All communities, big or small, have that feeling of connection, and being part of something bigger. How do you foster that connection?

It helps to have a focus, to understand why you exist and who you exist to serve. What’s your goal? Who do you want to be? When I started KarateForums.com, we had a simple goal, which was to be a martial arts community that was work friendly (generally family friendly) where respect was very important. That goal has informed everything that we’ve done and 12 years later, the result is a community I am very proud of, where people speak to each other in a way that is incredible to watch and easy to appreciate. [Read more…]

How Google Glass Can Benefit Content Creators with Sarah Hill

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Google Glass

On June 28, 2011, a new social network by the name of Google+ emerged. One feature called Hangouts made it stand out from the rest. For free and without any additional software, you can start or join a group video chat with up to 10 people. Later, the ability to stream live and record Hangouts was added. One person early to use them was Sarah Hill, a 12-time Emmy award winning anchor for KOMU-TV based out of Missouri.

Hangouts enabled her to offer a different perspective of the news room, allowing Google+ users from around the world to see what goes on behind the scenes. Eventually, Sarah moved on to work with the Veterans United Network where she tells stories about veterans, and military families. Recently, Sarah got her hands on Google Glass which is leading the charge in the next generation of wearable computing. In this interview, we talk about how Glass can benefit content creators, the future of content creation, and more.

How did you get involved with being one of the first recipients of Google Glass?

I volunteer for a project called “Veterans Virtual Tours”. We provide online tours to aging and terminally veterans who would like to see their memorial but are too sick to travel. I saw the Google+ post about Glass and decided to share my #ifIhadglass wish. [Read more…]

Interview with New York Times Best-Selling Author Chris Brogan

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Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan is CEO and President of Human Business Works, an education publishing and media company helping professionals become the best they can be. His book “Trust Agents” co-authored alongside Julien Smith, is a New York Times Best Seller, and the duo also went on to write “The Impact Equation”. When Chris isn’t busy speaking or working on his next project, you can find him blogging about social media, business, and more. In fact, Advertising Age ranks his blog number three in the world for social media/marketing.

When did you first get started blogging? In what ways has the landscape changed since then?

I started back in 1998 when we called it journaling. There weren’t comments. There wasn’t RSS. And more people wrote about a passion instead of tried to write to get attention only.

The design of your site is pretty fantastic. I’m a little jealous actually. Is great design important, or does the saying “Content is king” ring true?

Great design IS important. It’s the equivalent of an Armani suit and a Rolex vs a backwards ball cap and a tee shirt. Design actually triggers trust opinions.

What are some of the biggest mistakes bloggers make?

Bloggers write far too often from the opinion that others want THEIR opinion and not useful information, and MOST bloggers end posts horribly, without any good resolution or next action. Endings are most bloggers’ problems. [Read more…]

All About HubPages – An Interview With Jason Menayan

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This is an interview with Jason Menayan, the Director of Marketing at HubPages.

Q: For our readers that are unfamiliar with HubPages, why don’t you give them a brief description.

HubPages is a social content community where authors write about what they know and love, with over 900,000 topical articles (what we call “Hubs”) published by over 170,000 authors. The breadth of topics, vibrancy of our content base, and constant weeding out of substandard content ensures that great-quality content enjoys quick provisional ranking by the search engines, and a steady stream of revenue-generating traffic for years after publication. Our authors earn via Google AdSense and other advertising-/commission-based vehicles, with many earning hundreds of dollars a month on what they’ve already published, and more than a handful that are earning thousands every month. We’re the 57th largest site in terms of US traffic (according to Quantcast) and get more than 28 million visitors monthly. [Read more…]

SeededBuzz.com helps bloggers grow their traffic and popularity

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SeededBuzz

SeededBuzz is a site that promises to help bloggers promote themselves.

Blog posts are promoted using what are called Seeds, which are summaries of a blog post that has been written on a topic that you think other bloggers may want to also write about. The idea is other bloggers read these Seeds, get inspired and write about the same topic, and link to the Seed owners post in doing so.

The blogger that has then written about the Seed can then submit their post on the same page as the Seed that inspired them, under what is called Buzz. The idea is both Seeds and Buzz attract visitors and link.

As a way of discovering new topics to write about this looks like a great idea. Seeds that have attracted Buzz and valuable backlinks should also find that their search engine rankings get a welcome boost. Quality links are never easy to come by.

Other community features I like include the ability to receive and offer Guest Posts, and the tagging of Seeds that inspired you for a later date. [Read more…]

RevResponse: A Great Way To Earn With Your Blog

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One of the main issues professional bloggers face is the dilemma how to monetize their sites. There are plenty of different ad networks available and they all promise the golden pot at the foot of the rainbow. As part of a promotional campaign, I had the pleasure of interviewing Karen Noonan from RevResponse (1). I must honestly admit that the answers were not only satisfying but also stimulated me to look deeper at the offering of RevResponse. More even, I am embedding RevResponse on one of the main sites I manage.

Read the interview with Karen and give RevResponse a try if you are looking for a different way to earn money with your blog, this could be the dark horse you were looking for.

Hello Karen, thanks for your time. First of all, could you in short introduce RevResponse to our readers?

RevResponse.com is a performance based B2B specific affiliate network which gives related website publishers an exciting new way to generate revenue while providing their users with free content of real and tangible value. Simply put, web publishers and/or bloggers join RevResponse, we give them access to a library of hundreds of free business and technology related magazines, ebooks, downloads, webinars, etc. Then, RevResponse partners promote the offers in that library to their audience via blog post, newsletter inclusion, ad space, text link, etc. Lastly, we pay the partners when their users request the free resources.

What makes us different from typical ad networks that display links of questionable interest to readers, or affiliate networks that pay only when users part with their hard-earned money, RevResponse pays website publishers to present free content that’s of genuine value to site visitors.

One of the first things visitors to the RevResponse site notice is the $1.50-$2.50/lead. These numbers seem rather high, how is the conversion generally and also, it seems that some of these leads seem higher than leads from eg. Amazon. Where’s the catch? [Read more…]

Interview: Tom Rusling, Text Link Ads

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text-link-ads-logoHere, Thord interviews Tom Rusling at Text Link Ads.

Let’s start with you. Who are you and what do you do at Text Link Ads?

I am the Senior SEO Strategist. In that role, I offer resources to Text Link Ads clients that are looking to add a layer of strategy and/or on-page site optimization to their link building campaigns. TLA is by design a self serve network: clients can enter our system and find a huge array of links to choose from. However, often clients are looking for guidance around things like:

  • Which keywords should I be targeting?
  • How many links should I be buying?
  • How fast should I be purchasing links, and how much should I vary my anchor text?

And of course, many clients feel like the links they have acquired with us are not working effectively for them. Often my most important role is to help clients identify technical problems on their site which are impeding the benefit of their link building. Such examples could be incorrect use of redirects, duplicate content issues in all its many vast and wonderful forms, lack of page targeting and keyword dilution, etc. They always come into the conversation blaming the links, but invariably the client and I are able to analyze the problem and identify the source of the problem is something on-page.

[Read more…]