Bad News for Theme Designers (or is it?)

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Darren Rowse has posted the results of a poll he ran on ProBlogger.net asking the readers who designed their blogs. The results are discouraging for theme designers focusing on doing custom work. Only 8% of the ProBlogger.net readers answering the poll (there was 2 513 of them by the way) had paid for a custom design, whereas 13% had paid for a premium theme. Most people run a free theme. Check out the full results.

So 8% of 2 513 people, that’s just over 200 potential clients for someone like me, although the poll doesn’t state how much these people actually paid for their custom theme. On the other hand, let’s say I do two themes per month, then I don’t need more than 24 clients each year, and some clients are recurring ones (obviously). It would be interesting to know what people who do buy custom themes are paying at an average, wouldn’t it?

What kind of theme are you running on your blog?

Darren Rowse Launches Personal Blog

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When Darren Rowse does something, people tend to listen. Just recently he launched the @ProBloggerDeals Twitter account, as a spinoff to ProBlogger.net which he is most famous for. He details these two new products in a post on ProBlogger.net, but you can just as well read the DarrenRowse.com launch post, and check it out for yourself.

I’m not exactly sure what I’ll blog about or how often I’ll post – but whatever it ends up being it’ll be more of a glimpse into what I’m thinking and feeling passionate.

ProBlogger.net Branches Out, Launches Deal Account On Twitter

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ProBlogger.net is launching a blog deals account on Twitter, to pass out coupon codes, discounts, special offers and more. Darren Rowse explains his decision to launch @ProBloggerDeals on Twitter like this:

I’d love to promote everything on ProBlogger but the reality is that ProBlogger.net is a blog that focuses more upon tips on how to blog rather than a blog about products or tools for bloggers.

It’s an account for promotional tweets only, and some of the links on it will be affiliate ones. Rowse is open about that, naturally, and you should be aware of it too. That being said, when he claims he’ll stick to promotions for good stuff, I tend to believe him. After all, Rowse has a great reputation.

Read more about the account, and follow it on Twitter if you’re into that sort of thing. Personally, I keep thinking how much more open and fair this sounds than Perez Hilton including promotional tweets in his ad campaigns. But maybe I’m biased.

Darren Rowse Hits 5,000

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5,000 posts that is, on popular blogging blog ProBlogger.net. Impressive to say the least. He celebrates this by posting 13 things he learned about successful blogging:

  1. Anticipate Growing Trends
  2. Solve Problems and Meet Needs
  3. Write for YOU
  4. Blog over the Long Term and Blog Regularly
  5. Be Interactive
  6. Be Personal
  7. Go Where People Are Already Gathering
  8. Build Your Brand
  9. Spot and Follow Opportunities
  10. Develop Partnerships
  11. Know Your Goals and Stay Focused
  12. Work Hard
  13. Be Lucky

Naturally, he’s got explanations to them too, so you should head over to ProBlogger.net and pick his brain on this. Congratulations Darren!

Interview: Darren Rowse on TwiTip

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Darren Rowse on TwitterDarren Rowse is frequently mentioned here on the Blog Herald, but it is usually due to his excellent blog ProBlogger. This time, however, it is all about his most recent venture, a blog about microblogging service Twitter. We wrote about the launch of TwiTip previously, and the blog is shaping up nicely, with a steady stream of content, as well as a huge amount of comments.

I was curious to know why Darren elected to launch TwiTip, and there’s no better way to saturate your curiosity than to ask, so I did just that. Read on for more! [Read more…]

More Aweber Love and Reasons to Use Them

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John Chow joins Darren Rowse in the I Love Aweber club, and highlights the new Twitter feature we’ve mentioned previously. It appears as if Aweber’s got dedicated users, always a good sign.

Speaking of which, Darren Rowse published his 8 reasons why to add a newsletter to your blog:

  1. Newsletters create Loyalty
  2. Newsletters Develop Relationships and Trust
  3. Newsletters Drive Page Views/Traffic
  4. Newsletters are Familiar
  5. Newsletters Build a Core Community and Enhance Reader Engagement
  6. Newsletters can Track and Target Groups of Readers
  7. Newsletters help build Momentum
  8. Newsletters Open Up Possibilities for Monetization

All good reasons, and more in-depth in the post of course. My personal opinion is that adding a newsletter is a good idea overall, and you can most certainly get spinoffs from it. You’ll need a plan of course, but there are most certainly possibilities here.

Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger Turns 4

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Darren Rowse’s popular blog ProBlogger turns 4 today. The blog was born on September 23, 2004, and built upon Darren’s blogging tips from his old personal blog. Naturally, Darren’s got a post up, where he reflects and gives thanks, but also hints at the future:

While looking back at the past is fun – it is what is ahead that excites me the most. Over the last few days at BWE I’ve let slip a few times that there are a few things in the pipeline that will hopefully be launched in the coming months that will see ProBlogger expand quite a bit. While I’m not ready to announce them fully I will say that it involves the ProBlogger.com domain (at present it forwards to ProBlogger.net) and will be something new and something (actually a number of things) that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. I’ll share more in the lead up to launch and will probably give my newsletter list a sneak peak and chance to beta test it before going public with it.

Congratulations Darren, and here’s hope there’ll be birthday cakes for years to come!