Over the past few years I’ve had success with guest posting and uploading videos on YouTube, but the one thing I’ve struggled with was my blog. There were two reasons:

1. Illustrations are very time consuming to make.
2. Thinking what to write used to stress me out!

I’m not sure about you but I totally failed at blogging, I set a plan to produce a fresh post every Friday and before I knew it the next Friday was here already and I had nothing to publish! There are many minefields online when you’re using images and text content, and when I was blogging, I started to drift away from the main theme.

A lot of new bloggers could probably relate to this. When you start a blog, you end up trying to find out how to rank on Google, gain traffic, and so on. That leads you to websites like problogger.net, and you read them so much that you start to talk about their subjects on your blog. Why would a designer want to know about pay per click on my blog? He can come here for that!

A few months back I looked at my blog and I didn’t like what I had published. I made a quick decision to convert it into a squeeze page and build an email list. Then, instead of blogging, I’d send the occasional newsletter.

It worked, but the traffic and community around the website lost its buzz. Back when I was publishing every Friday I did start to see that day was popular in terms of traffic stats, so I was getting that weekly return traffic. I knew that I had to get some more momentum on the website if I were to launch a series of products. The solution was Tumblr.

Why Tumblr works for lazy people

On joining Tumblr, you instantly become a member of a vast community of very creative people. You can select your favorite topics and hunt through fresh, quality posts. Within minutes I managed to follow 100 top bloggers and the five topics that I wanted to keep “A Sitting Duck” based around:

• art
• comics
• design
• gaming
• illustration

Once you have logged in, set your tags, and started following some relevant people, the dashboard shows you posts on your subject, and basically helps you become a curator for your niche! Through the re-blog feature, you can publish other people’s hard work straight to your blog instantly. They get exposure from their work being shared, and you have something for your regular visitors to look at. It’s a win/win situation.

I’ll continue to publish drawings and ideas, but the main benefit of Tumblr is that I always have the backup of the reblog feature, which makes blogging fun again, and a stress-free experience.

I’ve already started to see my traffic climb again and people are keen to see fresh blog posts, which is a huge boost!

Why reblog?

Tumblr has a one-touch button that lets all members instantly reblog a post from another publisher on the platform. I’ve seen posts that have been reblogged over 50,000 times in a day! Reblog is kind of like Twitter’s retweet function, only that it seems more permanent, as the post is actually published on the domains of bloggers who have reblogged it.

As a character designer myself, many people ask me if I’m afraid of letting my ideas getting stolen. As far as I’m concerned, you’re better off having people see your work and share it than hide it in a sketchbook. It’s always best to get copyright advice first, but I think you need to get your stuff out there to build an audience!

Tumblr: a good choice for relaunch

The best part about my relaunch is that I’ve owned my domain for over three years now, and I’ve built up stacks of great links. Relaunching the blog has given all my metrics a kick, and I’ve joined a community which has over 30 million members, so the opportunity to grow my audience is huge.

Is your blog going off track or dead? Would you rather become a curator for your site and keep the momentum going than leave it to stagnate? As always I look forward to your comments.

David Edwards is the founder of www.asittingduck.com and today has released a brand new video on YouTube called “Milkshake Cat”.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How I Brought My Blog Back to Life with Tumblr

Hacktivist groups Lulzsec and Anonymous are on the prowl again. Their actions have generated lots of attention for hacking, and you can be sure that many bored kids and shady characters are interested to start hacking too.

What if your blog was the target of a rookie hacker, honing his skills to make it to the big leagues? All of your hard work building a better blog, growing traffic and readership, and making money with your blog would be jeopardized—or, worse, lost forever.

Thankfully, WordPress is pretty secure out of the box and they provide frequent security updates. Even better are the following super-simple actions that you can take to make WordPress ten times more secure. (Not scientifically verified! Your mileage may vary.)

Move wp-config.php up one level

The wp-config.php file contains all of your WordPress configuration information and settings. It’s game over if hackers gain access to this file—they would be able to inject malware into your blog pages, or *gulp* delete all of your blog content.

A little-known feature of WordPress is that you can move the wp-config.php file one level above the WordPress root. On most Linux servers, wp-config.php would be located in:

~/home/user/public_html/wp-config.php

Simply FTP into your server, and then move wp-config.php above the public_html directory so that it is located in:

~/home/user/wp-config.php

This way, wp-config.php is outside of the public-facing web root, and no longer accessible to scripts and bots that hackers may employ over the Web.

There are no other settings to configure—WordPress will automatically know to look for wp-config.php one level above. Easy, right?

Caveat: This tip will not work if you install your blog in a subdirectory (e.g. public_html/blog) or as an add-on domain in cPanel (e.g. public_html/yourblog.com).

Time required: 1 minute

Delete the ‘admin’ account

The default Administrator account on WordPress has a username of ‘admin’. Every n00b hacker would know that, so using ‘admin’ as the username is like having a back door to your house that every thief knows about. Do not ever use this as the main account. Choose a different username when installing WordPress.

If you have been using the ‘admin’ username, go into the Dashboard » Users » Add New User screen. Create a new user with the role of Administrator. Now log out, and log back in as the new user.

Go to the Users screen again and delete ‘admin’. You can transfer all of the content created by ‘admin’ to your new user account before confirming deletion.

Time required: 1 minute

Update WordPress, plugins, and themes

WordPress makes it so easy to update itself, plus plugins, and themes, to the latest version. It’s so easy that you (almost) deserve to get hacked if you don’t stay updated. Spending one minute installing updates will save you hours or days of frustration and headaches if you ever do get hacked.

Plugins and themes should also be updated regularly. All plugins and themes from the WordPress directory integrate with the automatic update feature. Many premium plugins and themes also have automatic updates, which is another great reason to invest in a high-quality theme framework for your blog.

Time required: 1 minute

Install WP Security Scan and Secure WordPress

Finally, plugins that deal with security are another great way of reducing the likelihood of your blog getting hacked. Two really good plugins that do this are WP Security Scan and Secure WordPress by WebsiteDefender.

WP Security Scan comes with several tools to help make your blog more secure:

• The Scanner checks the permissions of the WordPress files and highlights any with the wrong permissions. FTP into your server and change the permissions accordingly.
• The Password Tool tells you the strength of your password, and also generates random and super-strong passwords that you can use.
• The Database tool allows you to backup the WordPress database and change the database prefix. Use it to change your database prefix to something like ‘7yhj2_‘. This makes it difficult for hackers to guess your database table names when trying to perform SQL injections.

Secure WordPress takes a different approach and helps improve security by removing clues that can help hackers detect vulnerabilities in your system. The plugin’s settings screen is a simple list of checkboxes that do everything from removing login error messages, removing WordPress version numbers and even blocking malicious URL requests. I recommend activating all the checkboxes, unless you have a specific need for one of the features that it blocks.

Time required: 2 minutes

Stay vigilant

The steps above will drastically improve your blog security and prevent it from becoming a target of opportunity for rookie hackers. However security is an ongoing process, and also involves practicing security as a habit.

Stay vigilant and make it a point to keep up with the latest security news for WordPress, especially if you use it to run your business. You should also learn as much about security as you can. The ProBlogger archives are full of great posts that contain much more information on keeping your blog hacker, spammer and spyware-free and even planning for a blog disaster!

Now, please take five minutes and perform all of the steps above. I wish you good luck and hope your blog stays hacker-free!

David Wang blogs about his journey to generate the majority of his revenue online at The ClickStarter. He is also a WordPress evangelist and recently launched a free online course called Getting Started with WordPress. Follow David on Twitter – @blogjunkie

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Take 5 Minutes to Make WordPress 10 Times More Secure

Talk about a niche market!

When I first started blogging about my three legged dog Jerry back in 2006, never in my wildest dreams did I think helping those facing amputation for their dogs would be my full time job five years later. But then again, I never expected the little website I created to keep friends and family informed about Jerry’s progress to become the largest online community for canine amputees and their people either.

Jerry was the Chief Fun Officer of the design firm my wife Rene and I grew for nearly ten years. After his amputation we sold the business—and our home, along with most of our belongings—and bought an RV to travel the country making the most of our remaining time with Jerry, and searching for the next big thing. We considered a number of different ventures during our three years on the road, but that thing turned out to be right under our noses, and the Tripawds Blogs community was born.

We had been building Jerry’s dog blog all along, with lots of helpful canine cancer resources and loads of information about amputation for dogs. And we were doing our best to monetize the site with your typical affiliate programs, text link ads and PPC campaigns. For details about the fledgling Tripawds site, don’t miss my submission for the 2008 ProBlogger Video Mashup. My movie is the only one featuring a talking dog.

Canine Amputees Sprite, Wyatt, and Calpurnia, By Jim Nelson of Tripawds.com

Tripawds has come a long way since then. Jerry is no longer with us, but his legacy lives on at tripawds.com which now hosts 650+ three legged dog blogs with more than 2,600 registerred members and more joining every day. It’s the club nobody ever wants to join; but a fun one nonetheless, where members commisserate, share their treatment plans and help each other cope with difficult decisions. And its success would not be possible without a few things that make the community what it has become: WordPress Multisite, discussion forums, and social networking.

Forums create discussion

In the early days of the Tripawds blog, we started to receive frequent requests from people for advice about their dogs. As much as we wanted to help, replying individually to all these emails got old, fast. We decided to create discussion forums so members could answer each other’s questions directly. This allowed people seeking advice to get more than just one opinion, increased traffic and user registrations, and added valuable content to the site.

Shortly after installing the Simple:Press Forums plugin for WordPress, our membership quickly grew from a handful of followers to hundreds of devoted individuals actively participating by welcoming new members, sharing advice and directing others to informative content. Now with more than 4,400 topics and 59,500 posts the Tripawds forums not only provide a helpful resource—and valuable search bot fodder—but they keep visitors on the site longer; as long as ten minutes per visit on average.

Tripawds provides dedicated forums for canine cancer care, nutritional advice, coping with loss and much more. And when the community demanded an “Anything Goes” forum we obliged, creating a place for members to discuss whatever they wanted. To boost sales through certain affiliate partners, and help our members save on pet supplies or supplements for their dogs, we started specific Anything Goes forum topics where we frequently post coupon codes, sale notices and other promotions we find through our affiliate advertisers.

The network creates community

In late 2009, with a discussion forum and live chat room, the next logical step for growing the Tripawds community was to offer members their own blogs. That’s when I discovered WordPress MU; now an optional core function of WordPress known as Multisite. Migrating from our plain vanilla WordPress installation to the multi-user blog network was no easy task, but now it is as easy as clicking Create a Network. Well almost, there are a few extra steps but not many. With a basic understanding WordPress, you too can make your own blog network.

We chose to use our Multisite network to offer free blogs to members, following the freemium model. We give users 25MB of upload space for their free blogs which display banner ads. For a nominal fee—payable by monthly, quarterly or annual PayPal subscriptions—these ads are automatically removed. Upgrading to a Tripawds Supporter Blog also automatically increases the user’s upload quota to 1GB and gives them access to additional premium themes and plugins.

With network-wide user avatars, searchable blog/user directories, and widgets throughout the main Tripawds site that display most recent blog posts and comments, a true sense of community has developed among our members. It is heartwarming to watch friendships develop, and recurring payments from auto-renewing Supporter subscriptions are nice too. We use various WordPress Multisite plugins from WPMU Dev to make this all possible.

You don’t have to host user’s blogs, however, to take advantage of the power WordPress Multisite offers, especially if you don’t want to deal with the demands a growing network will put on your server. Hint: shared hosting won’t cut it! You can use Multisite to host a number of your own sites from one WordPress installation. Using a Domain Mapping plugin, each site can even have its own URL. The first thing we did after creating our network was set up a number of Tripawds Featured Blogs. These are dedicated sites where we review various products ranging from the best gear for three legged dogs and recommended nutritional supplements, to books, downloads and Tripawds t-shirts.

Everyone is on Facebook

Jerry’s fan base first started to grow on the Tripawds YouTube channel, where one of his movies is quickly approaching 1.5 million views. We use Twitter to announce all new featured blogs posts, as well as for celebrating the triumphs of some amputee dogs and mourning the loss of others. As for Facebook, I was a holdout. I refused to be assimilated. Then I finally realized how many people were sharing news about their three0legged dogs, or asking for advice, and the Tripawds Facebook page was born. Jerry now has more than 2000 fans.

Facebook adds a whole new sense of community, with friends, photo sharing, and instant gratification. That’s why we use it primarily to drive traffic to Tripawds where people usually register right away to see if anyone is in the chat room, where we are usually waiting to welcome them to the community.

Realizing that most visitors on Facebook are seeking fast answers, we created a custom landing page to help them out. The tab anyone sees before “liking” the Tripawds page includes links to our most helpful resources and RSS feeds from the blogs and forums.

Ebooks, podcasts, and more

Social networking for three-legged dogs doesn’t end on Facebook. I frequently participate in various dog-centric group discussions on LinkedIn. And our latest endeavor is Tripawd Talk Radio using the free BlogTalkRadio broadcast tools. Rene and I co-host this program periodically to profile amazing survival stories or interview veterinary oncologists and rehab specialists. We use the Tripawds discussion forums to announce shows and solicit questions for guests. Then we make the podcasts available in our Downloads blog after each show.

Another download we now offer was more than three years in the making. For those who don’t care to spend time searching the vast amount of content in our blogs and forums, we published Three Legs and a Spare, the first in a series of canine amputation handbooks. This 108 page PDF includes hundreds of direct links to the most helpful blog posts, videos and forum topics Tripawds has to offer. While the majority of content in this ebook is available for free on our site, the primary value is in its consolidation and organization of information.

The last suggestion I have for anyone creating a community is t-shirts. Members like to feel like they belong, and they love to show their pride. Cafe Press makes that simple. We had a basic CP Shop for years, with limited product availability, and even fewer purchases. Not until we upgraded Jerry’s store to a Premium Shop did we start to see regular revenue from the vast selection of three legged dog t-shirts and gifts we now offer.

Building a community of support

Finally, if you have a cause website don’t be afraid to ask for money. We held a community support ChipIn campaign to compensate for our additional hosting costs the first year after outgrowing the capacity of our old shared account—a clear case of too much traffic and bandwidth usage being a good thing.

Running our own server isn’t cheap, but active community members understand that. Others wanted to know how they could help after the campaign so we created different PayPal subscription levels for ongoing contributions. We also created a Support page that lists the various ways members can help, from naming their own price for a dog bandanna to clicking numerous different affiliate banners for shopping online.

With an audience that is often distraught over caring for their dog, however, we do our best to steer clear of any blatant promotion. Instead, we only provide links to products we believe in and always provide full disclosure about affiliate partnerships.

So if you’re interested in building a community for something you’re passionate about, consider using WordPress Multisite, discussion forums, and social networking to build a following. And if you think your cause isn’t grand enough to make it worthwhile, think again. Did you ever think there was such a site for three legged dogs?

Do you have a niche blog? How has community-building helped your blog succeed?

Jim Nelson is co-founder and chief administrator of the Tripawds Blogs community and discussion forums. Together with his wife Rene, Jim published Three Legs and a Spare - A Canine Amputation Handbook, the first in a series of helpful ebooks from Tripawds.com.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Build Community for Niche Site Success

If you run a business that sells a product or a service, you need a strong online presence. If you’re considering blogging, or if you are blogging and it’s not doing what you want it to do, then you might look into a different blogging platform to help you achieve your online goals—Compendium.

Seeing that the distinction between blogs and websites has become blurred in recent years, many online visitors don’t even realize whether they have landed on a blog or a website. In fact, static websites are becoming less desirable, since a blog has a fluid ability to target specific visitors with the most up-to-date and relevant information.

Email and searches continue to dominate the online market, so you have to be equipped with the best ROI-producing tool available. Compendium’s blogging platform targets organic keywords in search engines, helps businesses acquire new customers, and serves as a hub for your social media strategy.

Compendium’s platform involves a SEO strategy approach that targets the organic side of the search engine results page (SERP), and is designed to win keyword searches.

If your business has these three qualities, then Compendium may be a great fit:

• a business domain with some age/authority
• an understanding of analytics and how you make money online
• an understanding of what types of key phrases blogs are best suited to win vs. PPC or traditional SEO tactics.

As of March 2011, Compendium’s pricing ranges from $3,500 to upwards of $50,000 a year, based on the needs of the client. Their packages are scalable based on keyword selection and services, as well as any upgrades that you might request.

Why would you want a blog as a business?

1. To increase search engine traffic
2. To create an online community of fans of your product or service
3. To increase awareness of your  product or service
4. All of the above.

No matter what your company’s blogging goals are, Compendium’s platform is set up to make them happen.  Of course, Compendium’s approach to Third Generation blogging has to do with more qualified search traffic and lead generation online. There are millions of searches around almost every business, topic, industry, etc. every day, week, and month. If your business has a product or service, then someone is out there searching for you.

In my business, we write content for a number of blogs, but our favorite platform to write on is Compendium and here’s why.

Please note: I mentioned in my ProBlogger post, How to Brand Your Blog’s YouTube Channel that I have another website called Floppycats.com, and I purchased the Compendium platform for that site. All the photos and examples below are taken from Floppycats.com’s Compendium blog).

Strategy

• Compendium has nearly 500 relationships with savvy marketers and business leaders all over the country. These leaders are just like you—they want to increase their ROI without a lot of effort.  So when you have a platform through Compendium, you are set up with an Account Manager who can share tips and ideas among clients, allowing you to save time and money.  It’s like having a marketing firm behind your blog that is also well-versed in SEO.
• Compendium helps you offer a conversion point or a call-to-action (CTA) to your blog These CTAs can include requesting more information, signing up for a free demo, downloading a document, or even a “buy now” option.
• Compendium helps to create a blog that has strong key SEO elements like informative page titles, consumer-focused keywords, recent and frequent updates, strong inbound links, and relevant content.  Their platform allows your blog to target thousands of organic keywords in a search.  It automatically organizes your blog’s keyword-rich content into lots of unique landing pages that are found in an organic search.

Monetization

• Many of Compendium’s clients are generating 400% marketing ROI with only minutes of effort each day.
• Compendium’s easy-to-use blogging and search engine optimization (SEO) tools help you achieve aggressive lead generation and revenue goals with less time and money than other marketing activities.
• Compendium llows you to make a true investment in your marketing dollars. The more content you create, the deeper and richer your search results become. In other words, the blog data never goes away; rather, it gets compounded and enhanced with new content.  It’s not like PPC marketing that you pay for, where it’s up and then it’s gone forever.  What’s more, 80-90% of all clicks happen in the organic section of a results page.

Optimization

• Compendium can be set up on any domain, even WordPress.
• You won’t find an easier or more efficient way to target a huge search market and get the highest return on their marketing efforts.
• Search engines look for the following when determining the rank of organic search results:
  1. titles
  2. keywords
  3. recency/frequency of content creation
  4. links
  5. volume
  6. relevance
• Compendium partnered with two industry-leading SEO companies (Distilled and SEOmoz) to make changes to their platform to enhance organic search benefits.  You may have read a recent article about the Google Algorithm change that affected many blogs and many companies’ efforts to bring in search engine traffic.  Search engine algorithms love Compendium’s system, and Compendium clients are unscathed by such search engine modifications.

Social Networking

• Compendium’s platform includes social media integration that allows you to push content to your company’s accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin, all from within the platform.
• There are upgrades available with the system that allow for your blog to be built entirely on user-generated content.  It’s one of the most incredible marketing strategies I have seen to date.  To explain it would require a whole other blog post, so here’s a link to one I wrote a few months back explaining it.

Analytics

• Compendium’s platform allows you to log in at any time, track how the platform is driving traffic to your website, and see how your different calls to action are converting.
• The Account Manager who is set up for your account also integrates your blog with Google Analytics, so you will benefit from Compendium’s own internal tracking system, as well as an external tracking system.

Content report

Link activity report

Link activity chart

Ease of Use

• You do not have to be technically savvy to use Compendium.  If you can login into an email account, you can login into Compendium and create a post.
• The Compendium gods were on our side when they delivered the Keyword Strength Meter! It’s one of my favorite things about Compendium (see image below).  The Keyword Strength Meter is a bar that appears at the top of every post as you’re composing it, and goes from red to green, helping you know when you have used the optimal number of keywords for a specific post.  In other words, you don’t have to worry about whether or not you have used the proper number of keywords, or guess what the search engines will like.
  

  The keyword strength meter in action

• You can schedule your posts to release on the blog on different days and times. In other words, you could write five posts on Monday and schedule them to post on every day that week without having to sign into the system again (WordPress has this capability as well).

Protection

• Compendium is backed by SaaS security.  There’s no IT or plug-ins necessary.  Compendium is a fully hosted SaaS company, so Compendium hosts all of its clients’ blog pages.  Compendium is built on an enterprise-level structure with all the security necessary to work with even the largest corporations.
• One of the clients that we write for mentioned to me that they chose Compendium because of the security measures involved—they knew their content would be protected on Compendium, whereas they couldn’t obtain a similar level of protection on other blogging platforms.
• Compendium is not an open-source platform (on an open-source program anyone can develop plug-ins or add-ons to the platform). Compendium is specifically built for enterprise and the security that they require.  This includes features like SSL (for users signing in—think of a bank-like sign in), backups, redundancy, 24-hour monitoring, SLA (service level agreements), and more.  All of these features, and the architecture on which Compendium is built, are far easier to control and monitor than freeware, giving an added level of security to this platform.
• Compendium allows for unlimited users that are all attached to an administrator.  When a user submits a post it doesn’t go directly onto the company’s blog. Rather, the admin of the blog gets an email notification letting them know there is a new post ready to go. The administrator can then go in and read, edit, or decline the post, and offer feedback to the author without leaving the system.  If your company has a PR department that would like to review the posts before they go live, then Compendium is a great option because it allows the user to input the posts and the PR department to edit and approve them as needed, without excessive back-and-forth comments with the writers.

Customization

The platform can look however you want it to—and you can have it easily match your website.  I use my Compendium blog as a way to find potential subscribers for my main site, which is on WordPress.  That may seem funky, but it has allowed more people to find me.  It also allows me to post things with which I wouldn’t want to bug subscribers to my main site, but that I still think are worthwhile to have on my site in some manner.  Below is a screen shot of the home page of my Floppycats.com website and a screen shot of my Compendium blog site.

The site on WordPress

The site on Compendium

Updates

Compendium is constantly improving the product, making enhancements every week to service the needs of clients.

The main reason I like Compendium is because with any business, it is important to get referrals as well as retain clients you already have.  It has been my experience that when Business Blog Writers write on the Compendium platform, we are more likely to retain the client, because the content we provide on that platform actually works, delivering the results the client was looking for. Therefore they find the value in continuing their content creation agreement with us.

If you are interested in checking out Compendium, you can request a demo through the website. One of their fantastic sales representatives will schedule a time to show you a demo of their software.

Does your company use Compendium?  How do you like it?  What advantages have you seen from it?

Jenny Dean is a 31-year-old-business owner and entrepreneur from Kansas City. Jenny is currently working on Business Blog Writers, a company that supplies blog content specifically for company’s blogs, Floppycats.com, an informational website about Ragdoll cats and Antioxidant-fruits.com, an informational website about the antioxidant powers of fruit. Follow Business Blog Writers on Twitter or on Facebook.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Inside the Compendium Blogging Platform

He caught up with me over email last week to talk about Incsub’s brand new offering: Blogs.mu.

So what’s the difference between, say, Blogs.mu and WordPress.com?

Well, the main difference is that at Blogs.mu you become the blog provider, and you have a huge amount of flexibility and functionality that you just won’t get anywhere else.

It’s like WordPress.com in a box really, only better! Once you’re up and running you can create and host as many blogs as you want, at your own domain.

You’ve been able to do this for a while using WordPress MU but that’s been pretty hard as you need to setup hosting, run installation, download and configure themes and plugins etc.

Now though, we do that all for you… and you are free to grow your blog network or community in whatever niche you like – and, of course, run your own advertising!

It’s white label blog networks if you will… kinda like Ning.com for blogging.

So, you say users can run their own advertising, how does that work?

Blogs.mu Supporters (starting from 5 cents per blog per month) can run their own advertising across the entire network just by dropping in any ad code – it’s simple and very effective (or at least we like to think that!)

Every blog theme has 4 ad ‘spots’: under the post title and above the content, under the content and above the comments and at the top of each sidebar – as well as across a footer slot, for running JS contextual ads like Kontera or similar.

And you can set display rules for your ads too – like ‘only show them to IE browsers’ or ‘only show them to search engine visitors’ so you can make money like WordPress.com too… without annoying your users.

So what’s with the MU, are you big in Mauritius?

Heh, very funny, the MU actually stands for MultiUser – as in WordPress MU – also known as WPMU. We love the platform and have been on it from the start – one our WPMU Sites (Edublogs) is older than WordPress.com by 3 weeks… so we know what we’re doing.

And yeh, we did the obvious as well and setup WP.MU too – it’s an installation service for people who do want to get down and dirty with the guts of it all.

So we hope we’re covering every base!

And how do you think Problogger readers could best use Blogs.mu?

Well, I’m hoping there are a heap of ways that established and aspiring probloggers could use Blogs.mu. First up, if you’ve got an active community then this is a great way to get them writing in your space (you could even configure your site to a subdomain of your existing site!)

Another way would be that it’s a really affordable and powerful way to run your own 10 or so blog network.

Either way there are tons of advertising opportunities – and we’re looking into incorporating eCommerce, membership subscriptions, ‘pay to blog’ features and more pretty shortly.

Also, we’ve got some forums up and running for existing and prospective users (it’s completely free to join) at forums.blogs.mu so if any of your readers would like us to consider or build in specific features – we’d love to hear from them!

Check out Blogs.mu for yourself.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Interview with Blogs.mu founder James Farmer

It is for that reason that I’m really excited about a brand new service that has just launched – Blogs.mu.

Blogs.mu is essentially your own blog network in a box. It allows you to set up your own WordPress.com type community using the powerful WordPress Multi User platform – this opens up many possibilities both for existing and new bloggers.

There’s a lot to be said about Blogs.mu so I’ll let you peruse their site to learn whether it fits with your needs but a few highlights include:

• Let your readers start blogs or just limit it to starting your own on sub domains
• Run advertising on it
• Using it on your own domain
• Lots of Themes built in
• Plugins pre installed
• Import previous blogs into Blogs.mu
• Support forums

The service is free with loads of features but you get extra capabilities and unlock some of the above features (and others) by becoming a Blogs.mu supporter. Support packs start out at $9 a month for a 10 blog pack.

Blogs.mu has been developed by Inscub – a team with a heap of experience using WordPress MU who have helped set up and run some massive WPMU blog networks. I’ll have an interview with James Farmer from Inscub later today to talk more about Blogs.mu – but in the mean time it might be well worth your time to sign up and reserve your Blogs.mu community name and preferred url before someone else does.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Start Your Own Blog Network or Community with Blogs.mu

I’ve read thousands of blogging applications over the last few years. And while explaining what I look for in a blogger is pretty much like trying to pinpoint what one looks for in a mate – generic and unhelpful for any prospects – I can very clearly describe what prompts me to put an application in the “no” pile before I even finish reading it. Unfortunately, these are the applications I get more than any others. Eight out of ten applications inevitably go into the trash because of the following.

1. Write in no caps.

Yes, you’re only applying to a blog, but we still publish all our posts with capital letters and proper grammar. Hit that shift key when you start a sentence, and refer to yourself as I, not i. This is a real, paying gig, so be professional.

2. Use the word blog incorrectly.

A blogger is so much more than a writer, so if you don’t understand this, at least don’t announce it. You can use blog as a verb. I blog frequently is fine. You can also refer to our site as a blog. After all, we are looking for a blogger. But never call a post or an article, a blog. Don’t tell me you can write several blogs for us per day. Don’t say you’ve attached sample blogs. When in doubt, just use write or articles or site instead.

3. Provide one link to your blog as writing samples.

It is human nature to be proud of every post on your blog. Selecting just a few for sampling purposes might feel like I’m asking you to pick a favorite child. However, it is not possible for me to look through your entire repertoire. By selecting two or three of your best posts, you are showing me that you know how to identify great content, and that you’ve put some thought and effort into the application. I also use the samples to determine how well you understand the type of posts that fit well on our site.

4. Let me know I can request writing samples.

Nothing tells me that you’re sending out mass emails to any publisher around like an email that says “writing samples can be provided by request.” My job posting only asks for two things: topic ideas and writing samples. Don’t write me a long cover letter explaining why you’re perfect for the job, attach your resume (which I didn’t ask for), and then say that I can request writing samples. Why would I bother hiring anybody I already know I’ll need to ask twice for anything?

5. Spell our site name incorrectly.

If the job description says Wise Bread, please don’t write Wisebread.

6. Ask me the next day whether I’ve gotten your application.

My autoreply message specifically says that we can’t respond to every single applicant, but that we appreciate every application and will consider each one carefully. During a recruiting round, I get hundreds of applications a day, on top of the daily load of regular emails. I honestly don’t know if I’ve gotten your application. Most likely I haven’t even read it yet. All I can do is tell you the exact thing my autoreply already did: “We’ll let you know if we find a good fit.” I know you want to show that you are a person who takes the initiative, but what you’re actually doing is slowing down the process for everyone.

7. Give me a 31 page writing sample.

Don’t send me your college thesis. I won’t have time to read it and your application won’t be considered.

8. Be a mercenary.

I know serious freelancers write for multiple sites. But if you tell me you write for 20 different sites, and can do 10 articles a day for us, you’re telling me that you’re just a content machine who’s only concerned about your ROI.

9. Give me irrelevant writing samples.

You might not have any samples that fit our site’s topic, but at least pick samples that have the proper tone, length, and style. I don’t want a press release, letter of recommendation, or book report you thought was fantastic (although these can be included as extra samples to show your range).

10. Tell me your life story.

Getting to know bloggers and connecting with them on a personal level is my favorite part of the job. The cover letter is a way to let your personality shine through, as well as make you stand out in the sea of generic cover letters. However, your cover letter is not the appropriate place to talk about your personal problems or struggles that are not related to the position. Please only give me relevant experiences and tell me how you feel about our site. Keep it professional, please.

11. Ask for more information without including an application.

Sometimes I get an email that says “I’d like to apply, but would like to get more information first.” I understand that some writers are wary about sending writing samples, because some unscrupulous site burned you before and published your samples without your permission. But you have to tell me what additional information you are looking for, so I can properly respond.

Concluding Thoughts

Many bloggers miss out on great gigs because they simply don’t take the application process seriously. Sure, blogs generally aren’t as corporate and stuffy. I might be in my PJs reading your application in bed, but that doesn’t mean I’m still not looking for bloggers who show professionalism.

Keep in mind that writing for a quality blog can really raise your profile. Many of the great bloggers we have hired from the Problogger Job Board get frequent mentions and interviews from major news outlets like the New York Times, ABC, FOX, CNBC, and Self Magazine. Many of our bloggers also contributed to our upcoming book, 100,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget, which will allow them to put the coveted “published author” designation on their resumes. It is therefore worth your effort to complete a professional and compelling application.

My biggest tip for anyone applying for a blogging job (any job, really) is to read the job posting carefully. All the information and instructions you need is there, so just pay attention. It’s fine to send extra information and materials, but make sure to include everything that is asked for.

I hope these tips can prevent otherwise talented bloggers from missing out on great blogging opportunities!

Lynn Truong is co-founder of Wise Bread, a top Personal Finance site that helps readers live large on a small budget.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to NOT get Hired for a Blogging Job

Some of it is as a result of the closing of the Know More Media blog network, some of it as a result of AOL and Gawker making changes to the way their networks pay bloggers and some of it is…. well…. just because every six or so months there seems to be talk about blog networks.

Today one of my co-founders in b5media (and our CEO) Jeremy Wright put together a post that I think picks up a lot of the themes and casts some light on what it’s like to run a blog network. Effectively Jeremy has written 6 posts in one (I really have to teach this guy about writing a series of posts :-) )and covers:

1. A summary of some of the talk going on around the blogosphere on the topic with some great links
2. 10 Reasons Managing Bloggers (and Blog Ads) Is Harder Than Your Grandma’s Corns
3. 3 Simple Tips for Starting a Blog Network
4. Thoughts on Starting a Blog Alliance
5. 3 Tips for Starting a Blog Ad Network
6. Final Tip(s) for Success for Everyone

Depending upon where you’re at in your own development of blogging I think there’s something in this post for everyone. Read it here.

Jeremy’s reasons why managing bloggers and blog ads is hard will be particularly insightful for those starting out with networks because I often come across bloggers who think blog networks an easy way to make money – you simply just hire extra writers and slap more ads on the blogs right? Ummm…. time for a reality check – my experience of blog networks is that while you can potentially multiple your income with more blogs you also multiple the headaches, challenges, problems and risks.

Jeremy’s tips for those starting out are also useful.

Further Reading

A few posts from my archives that might be useful for bloggers wanting to start or join blog networks:

• A Strategy for Building Niche Focused Blog Networks (if I were starting again today it’d be with this approach. While I fully believe in the model b5 is pursuing (we’ve gone wide with lots of niches) it is a lot harder to do this now and presents a lot of challenges)
• Why Should You Join a Blog Network
• Why You Shouldn’t Join a Blog Network
• How to Launch a Blog Network

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Talking Blog Networks

Having done a couple of blog-a-thons myself I know how much work is involved – so do drop by some of the blogs in those channels and give their bloggers some support and donations.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

b5media Blogathon – Now On!

While the income from blogs I own is rising steadily, the bulk of the money I earn blogging comes from maintaining blogs for other networks and individuals. It’s the network blogging thing I’d like to talk to you about today.

Many people balk at the idea of writing for a network because they feel there are too many rules or the pay is too low. I’m here to tell you this doesn’t have to be the case. Network blogging can be a great career boost – and very lucrative if you give it your all.

What follows are a few network survival tips.

1. Don’t balk at the base – Don’t let a low base pay keep you from blogging for a network. For most networks that’s just a starting point. The key to making money for a network are the traffic bonuses. With blogging, you get what you give. If you work hard to promote your blog and bring in traffic, those bonus bucks will add up. Trust me, I know. I’ve made four figures a month with my network blogs – mostly due to good traffic.

2. Don’t Choose a Topic You Know Nothing About – Because you’ll be blogging every day, you really do need to be passionate about your topic. If you choose a topic you don’t really know or enjoy it will soon be clear to you – and your readers. The most unhappy bloggers are the ones who aren’t blogging their passion. People who enjoy their topics never run out of things to write about.

3. Be a team player – When I worked in a corporate office I hated all mentions of teamwork. With network blogging it’s a different story. When I worked with a team in an office, someone else took credit for my work and very rarely was I rewarded for my efforts. With blogging, you want to work with other bloggers to promote each other and raise awareness and bring traffic to your blogs. Do take advantage of channel wide promotions and be free with your link love. Other bloggers will appreciate your efforts and do the same. You’ll also find yourself making some wonderful friends.

4. Stick to a schedule – The best way to meet your monthly quotas is to create a schedule and stick to it as best your can. When you’re blogging for a network it’s all about meeting your monthly quota. If you’re juggling multiple blogs, this isn’t so easy. I had a couple of bad months when I strayed from my routine. When you don’t post on a regular basis, and meet your weekly or monthly obligations, your pay and traffic suffers.

5. Establish a relationship with other network bloggers – With blogging, it’s definitely who you know. As mentioned above, successful bloggers scratch each others’ backs. If you find yourself unable to meet your obligations due to illness or emergency, your fellow network bloggers are always happy to help out.

6. Take advantage of channel and network-wide promotions – Many networks or channels have particular theme days or promotions. Do take part. They’re a lot of fun and can be a great way to introduce others to your blog. Usually those participating in the promotion will post links to all participating blogs.

7. Don’t be afraid to take on a co blogger – If you constantly find yourself behind but don’t want to give up your blog(s) consider taking on a co-blogger. I recently did so and found it to be a very positive experience. It brings a new voice to the blog and relieves some of the pressure of posting daily.

8. Take advantage of network training sessions and chats – If your network has regular chats or training sessions do yourself a favor and attend. They’re a goldmine of information! You’ll learn traffic tips, SEO tips, tips for writing content and more. Attendance isn’t usually mandatory, but where else can you get free training from experts in the field?

9. Don’t be afraid to have fun and inject a little personality – Many times bloggers feel that because they’re an authority, they should sound…well…clinical. This is fine if you want to put your readers to sleep. By all means, be factual, but use your real voice to keep people interested. And don’t be afraid to use humor, videos, cartoons, polls and quizzes to make things a little more interesting.

10. Speaking of video – Use it! I recently invested in a little Flip camera and use it to show product reviews and DIY updates. My readers respond to this because they get to hear my voice and also, I get to show them as well as tell them. I especially like video for product reviews as the reader can see what the product looks like, judge its size and also have a more honest review.

Are you a network blogger? If so, what survival tips would you like to add? If you’re not a network blogger, are there any questions you’d like to ask regarding blogging for a network?

You might know Deborah Ng from her blogs Freelance Writing Jobs, which is the number one freelance writing community online, and Network Blogging Tips . For a peek at jus a few of her network blogs visit Deb at Simply Thrifty, The List Maven and News from the Glamorati.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

10 Network Blogging Survival Tips

Regular readers of ProBlogger will be familiar with Wendy Piersall from eMomsatHome.com. I’ve watched Wendy establish a presence with her own first blog and then in more recent times expand it into a small blog network of 7 blogs.

A few weeks ago she emailed me to talk about the rebranding and naming of her blog network. I’ve been fortunate enough to see a little of her journey of grappling with this new process and am really happy to be able to officially announce that eMomsatHome.com is now….((insert drum roll here))….

Sparkplugging

As I post this Wendy and her team are rolling it all out (still a few little touches still to go – these things take a little time to transition).

Wendy asked me if I’d like the scoop of announcing the new name and I suggested that we take it a step further and that she allow me to ask her a few questions about the process of switching names. She agreed and here’s my mini interview with Wendy.

Why did you feel the need to change your brand’s name?

Since I started eMoms at Home initially as a hobby site, I didn’t really think of the long-term consequences of naming a site that excludes half of the human race. I started noticing it as a problem very early on, about 5 months after I started. I had a lot of dads and non-parents frequenting the site. But I also had people say things like, “Oh, I didn’t pay attention to your site because I thought it was only for moms”.

I thought that I could build up the brand enough to overcome the initial limitations, but recently at the SXSW conference, it just became painfully clear that we had completely outgrown our name. People flat out told me they would never have read our site based on our name – even though they admitted that they had an active interest in our content. I could now see that ‘eMoms at Home’ was actively holding us back from further growth.

Can you talk us through how you went about making this change?

Understanding our Audience
Quite honestly it was an extraordinarily difficult process. At first I came up with several names around ‘parents’, and when I asked for input from our readers, the feedback was fascinating. Many of them weren’t parents, and even those that were parents didn’t want to come to a ‘parenting site’ for their business information. I hadn’t expected that at all. And it made the naming process 100% more difficult as I realized this wasn’t just a naming issue, but the site needed to entirely reposition itself to truly serve our readers needs.

So I took a step back from our site being a site for parents in business – which was not easy for me personally, because I’m very proud of the work we have done to help working parents. But in order to really serve our readers, I realized that we needed to position ourselves as a resource for people who use the internet and technology to create flexible work for themselves – both parents and non parents.

Domain Research Hell
I hadn’t looked to purchase a domain name of this magnitude of importance for 2 years. It was astonishing to see just how much the domain squatting industry has been built up in that time. I found hundreds of potential names, yet all were taken and had made for AdSense sites on them. I think I spent over 100 hours on domain research and brainstorming.

Another factor is that our audience, while extremely experienced in business, doesn’t really have a standard ‘label’. They don’t really consider themselves ‘home business owners’ nor do they consider themselves ‘true entrepreneurs’. They are a vastly diverse group of amazing people that kind of fall in between those two stereotypes, and call themselves things like “author, blogger, consultant, freelancer, moonlighter, marketers, or tech geeks”. I couldn’t really choose one one of those names, because any of them would be too limiting.

More below the screen caps…

Finding the Right Metaphor
So the quest for something brandable and metaphorical began, and it was excruciating. I emailed nearly every marketer I knew asking for help and advice, including you, Toby Bloomberg, Susan Payton, and Marla Tabaka, my business coach. PickyDomains offered their help, and I also found WordLab, a free naming forum. All were extremely helpful – none came up with the right name.

Finally, after probably 10,000 page views on Thesaurus.com, I came upon the word Sparkplug used as an adjective, “A person who makes things happen”. Immediately I knew I had found my metaphor. At that point, I just had to find a good domain with some version of that word in it. That took another week, and I had to stalk a few domain owners to try and get them to sell their domains. In the end, I was able to purchase our domain from the owner who was going to let it expire in about 60 days. And we are now Sparkplugging – Thinking Big in the New Work at Home Generation.

Now that you’ve made the decision to make the change, can you tell us about your plans to transition from the old brand and name to the new one?

I already had plans in place to add new blogs to my blog network in March. The naming process delayed that project, and all of us were happy to get that name picked so that we could get back to doing what we do best – blogging.

I pestered Aaron Wall and my Twitter followers quite a bit for information on how to manage creating accurate 301 server redirects, because even my very experienced developer had never moved a site of our size to a new domain. I’m pretty confident we’ll be fine, but I do anticipate taking a hit in traffic from Google for a while.

An unexpected casualty of this process was that I didn’t know what to do with my own blog on the network with this new name. I never liked that my blog was the same name as the site – I thought it was confusing. But in order to continue to be the ‘flagship’ blog of my own network, I realized I couldn’t be focused so much on Moms anymore, which again was difficult for me personally. I really was only able to be OK with that decision by adding a blog to the network specific to work at home moms, because helping moms start a business is just so near and dear to my heart. I found the perfect person to do that, Kelly McCausey. She’s a very well known WAHM and I was thrilled to get her involved. And my own blog will be named Sparkplug CEO and shift focus a bit to be more entrepreneurial, especially because I’m thinking of doing some much bigger things with the site under our new name.

So right when we change, we’ll be launching the first two of ten new blogs we’re adding to the network, The Home Office Organizer & Believer in Balance. Then to keep up our momentum (and keep people coming back!), we’ll be launching 2 more blogs a week for the following 4 weeks. Of course, we’ll do things like contests, press releases, and hit our word of mouth efforts heavily as well. Plus we’ll put a huge focus on rebuilding links to the new domain. Giving up our Technorati rank is admittedly a blow, but obviously what’s best for the company comes before anything like that.

Honestly, I feel like I am in very uncharted territory. I know that The Mining Company changed their name once upon a time to About.com, but I haven’t seen any large blogs do anything like this. So as much as I can prepare for it, I know full well that I’m going to be totally learning-as-we-go. Many people in the blogging community have offered to help spread the word and I really don’t think that we could pull something like this off without the support of our readers and peers. Overall this has been both a rewarding and humbling experience – and I couldn’t be more grateful for my authors, my friends, and my colleagues who have helped us grow to this point, and who will be there for us as we change.

Ultimately it’s really an honor to be a resource for our community, as I’m sure you well know, Darren. :)

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Renaming eMomsatHome to SparkPlugging [Interview]

“Here we’ll share tips, advice and ideas for those who blog for someone else. We’ll offer commiseration, jobs tips and even occasional leads.”

Disclaimer: Both of these bloggers are bloggers at b5media (the network I co-founded) – however I never realized they were doing this til I saw David blogging about it.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Network Blogging Tips

This isn’t to say that starting a blog network with a wide focus on many topics can’t work – at b5media we’ve managed to grow to 315 blogs on everything from Tax to Bags to College Basketball to MTV Reality TV – however starting a network with such a wide focus is a challenging thing and to kick something off around a more focused niche has some distinct advantages.

Advantages of a Niche Focussed Blog Network

1. For starters having related blogs means you can cross promote and leverage the traffic from one blog to promote another
2. Secondly it has some advantages for selling advertising directly to advertisers. If you have two blogs on completely different topics it’s virtually impossible to sell ads on both of them to the same advertiser but if you have two blogs with similar reader demographics it doesn’t take much to upsell advertisers to run campaigns on both.
3. Thirdly – it can help with your SEO to be interlinking related sites.

How I’d start a Niche Focused Blog Network

1. Work hard at building a blog with a good profile and traffic base on a single focused topic

One of the mistakes that I think some bloggers make is that they bite off more than they can chew in the early stages. They hear about some of the big blog networks and think that the key to success is to launch with lots of blogs. While it might be impressive to launch with 10 or 20 blogs, unless you have an established team and serious time on your hands you’re setting yourself up for a nightmare when it comes to keeping them all running. You’ll also probably spread yourself too thin and never really develop any of the blogs to their full potential.

If I were taking this approach I’d pick a topic for the first blog that was reasonably wide and that had scope to be broken down further later. I would work hard on this first blog for months (probably 6 or so) before even thinking about launching more blogs. The key is to build it to a point where you can use it as a springboard for further expansion.

2. Leverage the First Blog

nce you have an established readership I would then begin to think about how to leverage my first blog’s profile and traffic to start a second blog. This second blog should relate at some level to the first either in terms of topic or demographic. Let me flesh these two options out a little more.

Topic – By topic I mean that the second blog should relate to the first blog’s niche focus. It could do this in two ways.

Firstly it could either pick up one of the topics that the first blog covers – perhaps by taking one of the categories of the first blog and expanding it into a blog focused upon that specific topic (see image below). An example of this here at ProBlogger would be if I were to start a second blog on the topic of SEO (a topic I touch on from time to time in my SEO category).

The second way is to pick a related topic to the first that isn’t really gone into in much detail on the first one. There may be some overlap but it’s limited. An example of this here at ProBlogger would be if I were to start a blog on ‘Video Blogging’. I’ve never really written on this topic but I’ve done a little video blogging and there is a definite cross over in terms of topic.

By choosing a topic that relates to the first blog (using either of the above methods) you’re more likely to be able to draw some of your existing readers into your second blog.

Demographics – the second way to choose a topic is to think about the type of reader that you already have reading your first blog and to pick a topic that might appeal to them. This is in effect what the Gawker blog network has done. They’ve started a series of blogs that share a certain demographic (young, largely male, edgey readers). So blogs on gadgets, porn, tech, cars, gaming etc have done well for them as they’ve been able to cross promote – not because the topics really relate but because the audience shares numerous interests. Lets illustrate it visually:

Firstly we have the first blog and their readers:

And next the second blog is added and rather than the topics overlapping we see the second blog targets a similar kind of reader.

Whether your second blog relates to the first by topic or demographic (or both) the key is to think about ways of cross promoting the two and drawing readers from your first blog to your second. In this way you give yourself a head start.

Another example of this is Wendy’s eMomsatHome network of blogs. Wendy started out as a single blog but in the last year has added 6 blogs to her network. All of these blogs relate to one another in terms of both topic and demographic (she’s targeting online working parents).

3. Extract Yourself from Your Blogs

It’s not easy writing on more than a single blog. At one point in my own blogging ‘career’ I was attempting to write on 15 or so blogs each week. Let me tell you, this is not sustainable. It’s just not possible to provide quality content on that many different topics – even if they relate to one another. At some point you need to find a way to extract yourself from your blogs and to work with others so that you can expand. This might happen while you still have one blog – or it might happen after you’ve started a 2nd or 3rd – but it needs to happen before too long or you’ll hit a ceiling of what you can achieve.

If I were starting out again I’d attempt to bring on a second writer (or more) as quickly as possible. Hiring writers is a topic for another post (here’s something we’ve published previously on the topic of hiring writers) but it doesn’t have to be that hard. I recently advertised for bloggers for my photography blog on my own blogger job board and had 50+ quality applicants within a day or two. It was then a matter of choosing those that I thought fitted best and negotiating conditions with them. It takes a little while to get everyone settled and working well but it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done and has allowed me to spend more time on other tasks.

4. Rinse and Repeat

The more you blog in a niche the better you get at identifying new potential topics for blogs. This comes through interacting with readers, listening to their questions, watching the trends in your niche and watching what other blogs are starting up around you. As you do this you’ll begin to see other topics that relate to your current blogs and reader demographics. When you notice them and if you feel you have the resources to kick start another blog – do it. Once you’ve started a few you will find that the process for starting up will get easier and you may be able to use some of your current writers on new blogs (at b5 we find that using our current bloggers can be good because it means we don’t need to retrain from scratch – however you don’t want to stretch them too thinly). The key is to launch blogs that relate to your current ones in some way so that you get that kick start we talked about earlier.

In a sense what I’ve described is what I did in my early days of blogging by going from having a Digital Camera Review Watch site to adding Digital Photography School. In doing so I was able to promote DPS to my existing readers and newsletter subscribers and launch with a thousand or so daily readers pretty quickly.

This strategy is also quite similar to what b5media has been doing with our ‘channels’ or ‘verticals’. While we’ve gone wide with quite unrelated topics we’ve also grouped them together in channels under the leadership/editorship of ‘channel editors’.

Further Reading: Last year I wrote a post on How to Launch a Blog Network which bounced off a post that David wrote on the topic. In that post I told some of the story and lessons learnt in the development of b5media. Hopefully between that post and this one there will be some help for those starting out on the blog network journey.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

A Strategy for Building Niche Focused Blog Networks

Valleywag today has a post on Gawker’s new blogger pay structure – they’re moving to a system where their bloggers are paid based upon traffic levels. It’s a smart way to go – we’ve been doing a similar system (base pay which is based upon how long you’ve been blogging with us plus traffic bonus) at b5media for a while now.

I think it’s good because it guarantees a minimum level of income that a blogger can expect to earn in a month but gives incentive to write the type of posts that get traffic.

Other systems that I’ve heard other blog networks using include:

• Payments Per Post – a flat fee per post (I’ve heard of anything from a few dollars up to hundreds of dollars per post – depending upon the blog, topic, blogger profile and post length)
• Revenue Share – where the blogger earns an agreed upon percentage of their blog’s revenue (I’ve heard anything from 20% to 80% splits)
• Revenue Share of Certain Income Streams – where the blogger takes a % of one or two income streams and the network takes other income streams (for example a blogger might take 80% of AdSense revenue and the network takes the other 20% plus any other income from the blog). Another variation on this is where the blogger is allowed to use affiliate programs and the network takes advertising revenue.
• Traffic Payments - some networks pay purely on traffic levels – a CPM model (ie blogger is paid $X per 1000 page views)
• Flat Monthly Fees – the blogger is paid a certain amount per month if they reach certain posting goals.

I’m sure there are plenty of other blogger payment models used in other networks (there are plenty of variations and combinations of the above too). I’d love to hear of others you’ve heard of or used.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Blog Networks and How They Pay Bloggers

As I read his post a few comments on his list come to mind. Let me attempt to add a little of the wisdom accidental learning that I’ve gleaned from the process of being involved in the launch and growth of b5media. Let me pick up a few of the areas that David writes about (there’s more in his post that I won’t cover):

Points 1 to 4 – Money

You don’t actually need a lot of money to launch a blog network – however it does help and it does accelerate the growth significantly. I don’t remember the exact figure but when we started b5media the founders each put in around $200 (it could have been a little more or a little less). We decided early on that we wanted to not put too much into it but would grow it gradually as we went and put any profits back into the company.

This worked well for us – we each put in the skills we had and were able to get things up and running reasonably well with just a few hundred dollars. We did already have some profile between us and called in a couple of favors – but we only ever added to that few hundred dollars once more (again with $100 or so).

Having said this – after a year or so we took on $2,000,000 investment and the money certainly didn’t hurt – in fact it accelerated our growth incredibly. So it is handy – but not absolutely essential to have a lot of. I guess the key take home lesson is that if you don’t have a lot of money to accelerate your growth slowly but steadily and to not expect to take any money out of the business but to invest it back in. Also – devise a blogger payment system that doesn’t pay out more than you receive if you don’t have cash reserves.

Points 5 and 6 – Goals

Good advice here from David – we’ve set Goals all along the journey. These goals included how many blogs we wanted to have, setting deadlines for different projects, setting goals for income etc. Going through the process of seeking Venture Capital took this goal setting to a whole new level. You should see some of the models and projections that Jeremy (our CEO) put together in the lead up to landing investment. It was a lot of work – but even just in the preparation stage and the thinking strategically about where we wanted the company to be in the years ahead was a great learning experience and something that helped us grow in and of itself.

I think David’s point of putting people around you to help you achieve these goals is important too. We did this initially as a team – but involving VCs helped a lot with this too. We’re also exploring ways of doing this with others outside the company too (we should have an announcement on this in the coming weeks).

Points 7 to 11 – Blog Overview

One of the keys to launching multiple blogs is to develop systems to help you do this. We now have around 270 blogs in the network (we’ll hit 300 in the coming months). Launching one single blog (and then managing it) can be an overwhelming enough task – but doing it with hundreds in just a few years is a real challenge and means you must have procedures in place around design, recruiting bloggers, launching the blogs publicly etc.

I won’t pretend to understand how our tech team does it – but they have streamlined the process so that a blog can be up and running quickly. We have a procedure for our Channel Editors to follow in recruiting bloggers. We have things that need to be done before launch by bloggers and have systems in place. We have systems for maintaining blogs so that we don’t have to make individual changes on each blog if we want to make tweaks – but can instead manage it all centrally. We have processes that streamline blogger payments. (I could go on)

This doesn’t just happen (we are still tweaking and streamlining things) – but the earlier you start to put procedures like these in place to help you automate processes or at least cut down the work needed the less work you and your team will need to do. Without doing this you’ll end up hitting a ceiling of how much you can do and won’t be able to continue to scale things up!

Points 12 to 14 – Hosting

Hosting is critical to a blog network (or even a single blog). When you scale things up it becomes all the more essential that you have good systems in place. Again – this is not my area of expertise (you’d have to ask Aaron our Director of Technology for more details) but it’s something we’ve worked hard on and dedicated significant resources to.

I always remember Jason Calacanis talking in the early days of Weblogs Inc about hosting issues being the major challenge. Most blog networks go through patches where they struggle with it – we’ve been no exception. I think one of the keys is to keep ahead of your growth and to have a system in place that will not only handle your blogs current traffic – but their future traffic (and a little more, in case three of them land on the front page of Digg simultaneously).

Points 18 to 21 – Advertising

Thinking about how you’ll monetize your blogs is obviously something you’ll want to put significant time into. In the early days for us this was almost exclusively with AdSense. It didn’t take long for us to realize that while AdSense converted reasonably well on some of our blogs that it didn’t with others. We began to explore other options including YPN (Yahoo’s version of AdSense), Text Link Ads and a variety of other ad networks. We also began to develop relationships with other ad partners, look at selling private advertising etc.

The key is to quickly realize that there is no one ad solution that will convert on every blog and to experiment, tweak and track how different ones work for your blogs.

We also took on an ad sales team to help us sell ad space directly to advertisers. This is key to scaling things up to the next level.

Points 25 and 26 – Graphics

I don’t think that each blog in your network needs to look completely unique – however it is important to have some elements that are. This is a balancing act – but one worth thinking through. Most of the blogs in our network have the same template but all have their own logos and color schemes. This enables us to make changes quickly to templates across the network but give each blog it’s own brand and look.

I guess this depends somewhat on how many blogs you’ll have in your network. If it’s a small network it probably is less important to have standardized design.

Points 29-31 – Writers

Finding quality bloggers is essential for a blog – or a blog network. We’ve learned a lot about recruiting and managing bloggers and I have no doubt that we’ll continue to learn a lot more.

A few random lessons:

• Know what You’re Looking for - advertising for bloggers and taking anyone who applies doesn’t work. Define what you’re looking for and don’t take people on who compromise this too much. There’s more work in having to let a blogger go than in holding off for an extra week or so to find the right person. Read more on some of the lessons I’ve learned Advertising for Bloggers
• Don’t change the Rules too often – while the systems that you set up will never stay the same – changing things around too much too quickly is unsettling for your bloggers (this includes payment systems, the tech side of things, procedures etc).
• Create Community and Add Value - some of our bloggers would probably blog for no money simply because they enjoy the community aspects of b5. Add value to what you pay people where you can by creating ways for your bloggers to connect, running internal competitions, offering training, having newsletters etc. However – also keep in mind that not all of your bloggers are wired this way for community – forcing them into it can be frustrating to both you and them.
• Look for more than just Writers – recruit people who are not just good writers – but people who have more skills and experiences to bring to the table. I personally look for previous examples of where people have been successful at building things up, people who know how to promote themselves, people who are willing to promote and market their blogs rather than just put content on it. Finding those that go the extra mile will often lead to great blogs.

Points 36 to 38 – Domains

Picking domains is something that we’ve put a lot of time into. It’s also something that we’ve always had fun (and fights) with. Like David writes – picking domains is important. We have taken different approaches with them but ideally it is memorable, good for SEO (keywords can help), says something about the topic, isn’t too long, doesn’t have hyphens, is a .com and is catchy/brandable. Having said all that – sometimes it’s impossible to get everything you want and a less than ideal domain isn’t the be all and end all.

Points 39 and 40 – Workflow

I’ve already touched on the importance for good systems. They’ll help you scale up, improve internal communication and cut down a lot of work. We’ve used a variety of different internal communication and management tools including Wikis, internal forums, tools like Basecamp and internal mailing lists (we use Google Groups to manage many of these).

In terms of blogger workflow – we tend to leave this up to bloggers. Some use blog editors, others prefer to work in the back end of WP etc.

Point 41 – Management

It’s so important to have a good team in place – particularly if you’re looking to really scale things up. We started with a group of pretty experienced bloggers as our founding team – but soon realized that while we had skills and experience in blogging that if we wanted to grow that we’d need to fill in the gaps in our combined skill set and also hire people to help manage the workload.

In addition to hiring bloggers we’ve hired numerous others including administrators, tech team (including WP experts, code ninjas, hosting gurus, designers), ad sales team and a variety of other managers. At last count I think we had 14 staff (mostly full time) and there are more to be announced in the coming weeks.

Yes having a team this large costs – but it is also the reason we’ve been able to grow so quickly.

Point 45 – Statistics

This has been something that we’ve grappled with since we started (ie finding the right tool to measure our traffic and other metrics).

We’ve used a variety of tools including server side stats and some custom made tools.

The reasons for knowing metrics are many:

• They help in the selling of ads
• They contribute to how much we pay bloggers
• They are important in reviewing blogger performance
• They identify trends and point out possible new directions

Don’t just measure traffic – look at other things like how much bloggers are posting, how many comments they might generate, incoming links etc.

Point 46 – Exit Strategy

When it comes to having an Exit Strategy I think it’s worth to have one in mind – however the key is to build a profitable business. Whether you want to sell it down the track or whether you want to build it to enjoy the profits – the key is to build a business that generates good income.

Concluding Thoughts

Wow – that turned out to be quite the epic post!

A few random concluding thoughts:

• Blog Networks Can Be Big or Small - starting a blog network may sound like a massive task after reading some of what I’ve covered above – but really it can be as big or small as you like. While we’ve built a network with hundreds of blogs – I guess a network is really anything more than 1 blog :-)
• Networks are a lot of work - having said that they can be small – many people mistakenly believe that they are easy to run. While I hear some talk about starting a network as simply having lots of people write for you – multiplying the content produced and therefore the income earned – keep in mind that you not only multiply the content – but other things including expenses, logistics of managing the blog, keeping bloggers happy etc.
• Verticals and Leverage - if I were starting over again today I would probably tackle a single vertical. While we’ve done well targeting everything from business, to entertainment, to technology to video games – I think the way of the future for blog networks will be much more around more tightly targeted niches. Probably the best way to do this is to start with a blog that you currently have and to add another that is on a related topic so that you can leverage the traffic, profile and credibility you already have to launch the second blog.
• Successful Blog Network are Built on Successful Blogs - if I had one piece of advice for an aspiring blog network owner it would be to start by building (or acquiring or partnering with) a successful blog. I’ve seen a number of blog networks attempt to start 20 new blogs from scratch – only to find that they had nothing to build them on.

I’m sure much more could be said on the topic – but before this becomes coma educing (for all of us) I’ll leave it at that and hand it over to you for your comments and reflections on blog networks. Again – read David’s original post on the topic here.

PS: The graph above is actually a picture of the b5media blog network created with this website graphing tool.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Launch a Blog Network

Topics under discussion:

• Better ways to pay bloggers
• Infrastructure requirements of a growing blog network
• How to sell ads in today’s online ad environment
• Challenges of 2007
• Ways to collaborate (or not)

I won’t be there but Jeremy and a few other b5′ers will be and I’m sure they’d be happy to have you along no matter what size your blog network (or potential one) is.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

SXSW BlogNetworkCamp

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

b5media Hiring Ad Sales Manager

I have to say I’m not too surprised by the move – from what I’ve seen the blog never really found it’s place in the wider niche and looking at their stats the seven months that the blog has been active haven’t put it among the most trafficked blogs at WIN (although ironically this month will be their biggest).

It was always a blog that wrote good quality content but that never really stood out as being terribly unique or ground breaking.

The blogger from the blog, Andrew Barrow, reports in comments that it could have been to do with the lack of response in their numerous calls for new bloggers.

I generally advise bloggers to go a little longer than 7 months to see how a blog goes (particularly in terms of Search Enginge rankings which can take 12 months to really settle) – but I guess in the scheme of things at WIN an underperforming blog is more trouble than it’s worth to maintain (sometimes it just comes down to business sense which I can understand having retired some of my own poorly performing blogs).

I wonder also if it’s difficult having a related blog living in the shadow of a blog like Engadget which has such a presence in the tech blog scene.

As usual with their retired blogs WIN are keeping this one live as an archive (and it’s archive will continue to generate some income for as long as it remains online via SE traffic).

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Even the ‘Big Boys’ Call It Quits At Times

b5media is currently seeking business bloggers to join its new business channel.

We’re open to being pitched ideas for the channel but have a list of suggested topics that might get your juices flowing a little:

• Giving Back & Community Involvement
• Entrepreneurship
• Recruiting/Interviewing
• Venture Capital
• Taxes
• Small Business Advertising/Marketing
• Word of Mouth Marketing
• Press Releases & Business Writing
• Law
• Office space (Leasing, Real Estate, Scouting Property, etc.)
• Web Hosting
• Home Businesses
• Freelancers (Business of, getting clients, etc.)
• Business of Blogging/Blog Marketing

As Jeremy writes in his post calling for bloggers – we’re more than interested to hear your own ideas for business blogging topics also as it’s a large field with plenty of potential.

Jeremy’s written full details of who b5 is, how we operate, what we’re looking for and how to apply at b5′s home page.

Disclaimer – I’m one of the co-owners of b5 and ProBlogger.net is part of the network.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

b5media Seeking Business Bloggers

The reasons for the changes are five-fold:

• Decreases in Advertising
• Increases in Operational costs
• Despite Cross Promotional Attempts traffic wasn’t sticking on some blogs
• Difficulty in turning around a title (they are either hits or flops and the die is cast early on)
• Desire to shake things up a little and get out of ‘comfortable habits’

The two blogs that are ending are up for sale (they are Sploid and Screenhead).

Also a number of bloggers are leaving Gawker, others are reshuffling to new positions and a a few new bloggers are joining to head up and write for different blogs.

It’ll be interesting to see what impact the reshuffle has on the Gawker empire.

Update: The NYT has an article on the reshuffle also.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Gawker Blog Network Reshuffles