What Time of the Day is Best to Post to Your Blog
April 28, 2008
LeftTheBox asks “Hey Darren I know you post daily but do you try to post at a certain time each day?”
I certainly do! I not only set myself minimum post numbers each day but I’ve taken it a little further and narrowed down some daily posting windows that I aim for.
Really it comes down to a bit of research and experimentation to work out when the best time to post is (and I suspect it’ll vary from blog to blog depending upon where their audience is situation and even depending upon topic).
For me I attempt to have a fresh post go up on my blog in the morning US time. Here at ProBlogger my audience is fairly global but the majority of readers are in the Americas so I attempt to have something fresh for them for when they get to work, check their feeds over a morning coffee etc. I then also attempt to post something for the end of the day (US time). Then on days that I post a 3rd post per day (it’s usually more of a ‘newsy’ post) I attempt to put that up about 8 hours after the 2nd one just so that posts are evenly spread through the day.
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How Much Traffic Should a Blog Have Before Running Advertising
April 27, 2008
iamluc asks “How much traffic should you have to offer advertisements on your blog?”
“When should you put advertising on your blog?”
Funnily enough I’ve been asked this question four times in the last 24 hours so it’s probably a good time to answer it.
Before I answer the question though - let me say that there are numerous approaches to this question and if you ask a variety of ‘pros’ you’ll get a similar variety of responses. Here’s how I do it:
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9 Essential Questions to Ask Yourself Before Posting to Your Blog
April 27, 2008
HaraldJohnsen asks “As a quality control, what are the most important questions to ask before hitting ’submit’ / posting a blog post?”
Great question Harald - I actually think that most of us as bloggers could improve many of our posts by pausing before hitting ’submit/publish’ and asking a few basic questions about the post. Here are a few questions that I ask myself:
- Does this post give something useful and unique to my readers?
- Will it enhance their lives in some way or is it ‘fluff’?
- Is the spelling correct?
- Does the post make sense grammatically?
- What could I cut out of the post to make it more concise?
- How could I make the post easier to ’scan’ for readers (headings, formatting, images etc)?
- Is the title engaging? Does it draw people into the post?
- Could I give this post a little more time before publishing to ‘mature’? Would coming back to it tomorrow help me to add depth to it?
- Have I written on this topic before and can I link to it?
Write Your Business Book Resources: NAWW Global Telesummit
April 27, 2008
- Secrets to Getting Celebrity Endorsements: How To Get Fabulous Celebrity Endorsements for Your Business, Your Book and Your Products
- Standing Ovation: How to Own the Platform
- Hire Your Very Own Journal Keeper for Expanding Your Creative Voice
- Copyright And Your Creativity
- Creating Your Memoir
- Creativity on Call-Become a More Productive Writer.
How to Establish Trust Online
April 27, 2008
@eMarv asks - “how do you establish trust online?”
I’ve touched on this with a few of my other answers this weekend but let me share three thoughts:
- It’s not something that happens quickly - I wrote a post a while back titled ‘Do you kiss on the first date? The Art of Courting as a Blogger‘ that explores how you need to work up to taking your relationships with readers to the next level. Trust takes time to build and you should see every post you make as a way to grow the relationship.
- It is something that is earned - you’ve got to put the runs on the board somehow with your readers to show that you’re worthy of trust. This includes blogging for the long haul, showing that you know what you’re talking about, demonstrating your transparency, going the extra mile for readers etc.
- The recommendations of others are really important - while I can tell you why you should trust me you’re far more likely to actually trust me if someone else tells you that they trust me and recommend that you do too.
Should I Have a BlogRoll on my Blog
April 27, 2008
@SalesBlogcast asks - “What’s the difference between haveing “links” vs. a “blog roll?” Benefits? Chosing wisely?”
Ultimately the word ‘blogroll’ is just a different term used to describe a list of links, usually on the sidebar of a blog. It’s just a different label for the list of links I guess.
When I first started blogging everyone had a blogroll but these days I don’t see as many. One of the problems with them when your blog grows is that they can become quite political to maintain. I ended up giving up on having one on ProBlogger as I had so many requests to be on it - now I just have one with my b5media co-workers.
The other thing about blogrolls is that I hear people trying to get on them because of the SEO benefits of doing so. I’m sure there is some Google juice passed from blog rolls but suspect it’s not massive. Google seem to have more of an emphasis on links in content rather than links that appear on every page on sidebars/footers from what I can see these days.
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Hiring Virtual Assistant to Help Administrate Your Blog
April 27, 2008
@jb108 asks - “how do you feel about VA’s, do you use any, how many, how much work and what type do you delegate to others.”
I love the idea of VA’s (virtual assistants) and can see a lot of tasks that I could potentially have one do for me - however I’ve never really felt completely comfortable with the idea and don’t currently have budget set aside for one.
I do have Lara help me with comment moderation and a little other admin work when I have a project going on that I need assistance with but apart from that I don’t personally delegate much work.
Of course at b5media we have quite a sizable team of staff to do a lot of the administrative stuff to keep our blog network running (I think at last count there were 12 full time staff).
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Google Grants: Google Adword Grants For Not For Profits
April 26, 2008
How to Grow Beyond Blogging
April 26, 2008
@itravin asks - “you’ve gone from blogging to b5 to become an author now, can you do a post on blogger growing beyond blogs”
You know it’s never really been my long term goal to write a book or even to start a blog network. In fact when I started blogging I didn’t even think it’d be more than a hobby! So I guess without going too deeply into the topic my advice would be to go into whatever you do with low expectations but with eyes wide open to the opportunities and possibilities that might present themselves to you.
b5media came about as an opportunity as a couple of other bloggers (Duncan and Jeremy at first) approached me to ask if I’d like to explore what working together might look like. None of us had any real idea on what would come out of the discussion but we all entered into it open to the possibilities.
The book was similar in that Chris and I started out to write an ebook together. This evolved into a ‘real’ book one day when a publisher at Wiley dropped me an email to see if I’d be interested in publishing something with them. It was out of the blue and unplanned but when I began to explore it it felt right.
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How Do I Make Money Fast Blogging?
April 26, 2008
@eMarv asked - “how can one make 25K in 2 months by blogging? :) I know, I know… “
I think you know the answer to that question from your last few words. But when it comes to blogging it’s not a get rich quick thing. I don’t know too many (any) bloggers who made $25k in their first two months. Having said that - I did meet a blogger this week who started a blog and 2-3 weeks later sold it for $3k - so I guess there are some ways to build them quick and sell them off (but this is probably an exception rather than the rule).
My philosophy of building money through blogging is that the secret is in trending up over the long haul.
If you’re after fast money head to the casino - but don’t hold your breath there either!
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