ProBlogger: 274: How Stefano Changed Blogging Platforms and Started Blogging with a Plan

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274: How Stefano Changed Blogging Platforms and Started Blogging with a Plan Posted: 31 Jan 2019 12:00 AM PST The post 274: How Stefano Changed Blogging Platforms and Started Blogging with a Plan appeared first on ProBlogger. How a Blogger Found the Right Plan and Business Idea Today our series of stories from new bloggers continues with Stefano Caioni, a web developer and photographer.   Stefano’s blog offers guidance on various aspects of photography including focus modes, settings and equipment reviews. Using his tech experience, Stefano wrote all the code for his blog himself. But he soon discovered how fun it was to build and write content for it, even though it had no traffic. Then Stefano decided to migrate his existing content to WordPress to benefit from its SEO and security functionalities. But he was inconsistent with posting content, didn't have a specific strategy or business idea in mind, and ran out of topics. He almost gave up on it. Then he came across ProBlogger.com. He started writing more consistently, this time with a plan and business idea in place. His blog lets him share his passion for photography by writing useful posts that inspire others and offer them value. He's met many photographers who've inspired him as well. He never dreamed of making money from his blog or building a business around it. But traffic continues to grow, and he monetizes his blog through Amazon affiliate links. Blogging isn't dead. The number of internet users increases every day. Fresh and updated content is needed to fulfill the growing demand for information. So start a blog. Sign up for our free Start a Blog course and join us for the International Start a Blog Day on February 7. Links and Resources for How Stefano Changed Blogging Platforms and Started Blogging with a Plan: Stefano Caioni's Photography Stefano Caioni's Blog Interview: Lauren Bath Olympus Visionary International Start a Blog Day Podcast Motor Courses Start a Blog ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Join our Facebook group Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Darren: Hey there and welcome to episode 274 of the ProBlogger podcast. My name is Darren Rowse and I'm the founder of problogger.com, a site for bloggers and prebloggers, designed to help you to start a great blog, and to monetize that blog. Today, we are continuing our series of podcast with stories from new bloggers, people in their first year of blogging. All these are short stories from participants from our Start A Blog course and we're sharing them in the hope that they will inspire you or someone you know to start a blog, as part of our International Start A Blog Day on the seventh of February, which is fast approaching. There's still time to participate if you would like to start a blog, either for that date or afterwards. We have a course that will walk you through exactly how to start a blog using a WordPress platform. That course is completely free to participate in and you can find it at problogger.com/startablog. Today's story comes from Stefano Caioni from stefanocaioni.com and I've got a link to that in the show notes today. He is a photographer. He is a web developer, actually, who is a photographer as well and his blog is about photography, which grabbed my attention. But I also wanted to share this story today because it is a little bit different than some of the others. Stefano actually came to blogging with a bit of a tech background, which is different to many people. We've had others in this series who came with no technology kind of background whatsoever. Stefano has created a beautiful-looking blog with that background but he has some interesting reflections upon that journey which I will come back to at the end of his story, too, just pulled apart just a little bit. Here's Stefano. Enjoy his story. Stefano: Hi. This is Stefano Caioni, a landscape and outdoor photographer, living in Sydney, Australia. My website is called Stefano Caioni Photography and you can find it at www.stefanocaioni.com. I'm Italian as you can hear from my strong accent. Sorry for that. I write gear reviews on Micro Four Thirds cameras, drones, lenses, and camera equipment such as bags, filters, and tripods. I write tips on how to get better landscape photos. I also share my outdoor adventures and tips on how to organize photography travels. I'm a web developer by profession and I started my blog as a personal coding exercise a little over a year ago in May 2017. In fact, the first version of my blog wasn't built on WordPress but I wrote the code of the entire blog from scratch. The HTML, the CSS, the backend, everything. It had basic functionalities such as writing posts, with text and images, a rudimental search, and comments. I started writing articles and my website started to take form. What I'd soon realized while I was writing my first posts is that it was so much fun and I enjoyed creating content even though it had no traffic at all. I then decided to migrate my existing content over to WordPress for two reasons. One is because I could benefit from its SEO, from all the plugins available, and security functionalities. Second, because I didn't have time to maintain the codebase of the entire website and I wanted to focus on writing content and share my adventures. My initial idea was to only write about photography adventures and my travels. I was creating one very short article each month just for fun again. But article after article, I soon ran out of topics since I have a full-time job and I don't travel that much. I got bored and wrote a first review of my own camera. From there, from fact, that would be the only gear review for an entire year. I wrote some short tutorials on how to get better landscape photography and I was being very inconsistent again. I didn't have a strategy or a real business idea in mind. After a year of starting my blog, I was about to give up. I stopped uploading new content for a few months. I then came across the ProBlogger podcast, started consuming content online, and eventually subscribed to problogger.com, which helped me a lot starting writing again, this time with a plan and with a business idea in mind. Currently, I'm in the middle of a personal challenge, which is writing an article a day for 30 days, to have a bit more content, and build the habit of writing on a consistent basis. I started monetizing my website with Amazon affiliate links. When I started out stefanocaioni.com, I had no particular dreams of making money with it or to build a business around it, but now that I see some traffic coming through, I really hope that in 2019 it will keep growing and this website can become a source of passive income. I also plan of start creating video content to give something more to my readers. I think that this year of blogging has been a bit of self-discovery. It made me realize not only then my passion for photography is greater than I thought, but also that writing useful content and helping other people getting inspired and gaining benefit from what I create is really awesome. Looking backwards, what's really fun is that as a professional web developer, I've always been reluctant in using content management systems such as WordPress because I wanted to build everything myself. But now, I totally changed my mind and I want to build a business on top it because it's so easy to use. In this first year of blogging I obtained some small but amazing things. I was able to meet several professional photographers that have build an amazing online presence and I was able to interview one of them, Lauren Bath, which is a pretty popular name on Instagram and also an ambassador for Olympus cameras. She has an Instagram, almost half a million followers. I'm pretty proud of myself for being able to do an interview with her. The interview is obviously on my website, www.stefanocaioni.com. I hope I can interview other amazing photographers in 2019, to share their experiences, and inspire more and more people. What I want to share with new bloggers is that blogging is not something that's part of the past as many think and as I thought, too, before starting. Don't hesitate and think that there are already millions of blogs out there because the number of internet users keeps growing everyday. Today, like never before, with 3.5 billion internet users. More fresh and updated content is needed to fulfill the growing need of information. The internet needs our content, so start a blog. Don't be afraid. Darren: Thanks so much, Stefano, for sharing your story today. I love the accent, I love the story, and I love particularly that someone from a tech kind of background, someone who was able to create his own blog using his own coding skills, actually ended up on WordPress, which is the platform that we recommend in our Start A Blog course. He talks his story about the benefits of doing so. It is easier to maintain, it has some search engine optimization benefits, which allows you to rank a little bit higher in Google when people search Google more naturally. It has an amazing array of plugins available that can help you to add functionality to your site. It is more secure than coding your own unless you're an amazing coder. It also gives you more control, I guess, than some of the other platforms as well, particularly when you install it on your own domain and your own servers. All of that sounds really tough but you don't need a tech background like Stefano to install the blog on your own domain and servers. Our course walks you through step-by-step that process. If you do want to be a part of that and start a blog, check out problogger.com/startablog. You do need to invest a little bit, not into the course itself, that's free, but into your hosting and domains. But it isn't the most expensive exercise in the world and it's one most people can afford to do. I also like Stefano's story because he kind of started his blog twice, I guess. He started once where it kind of was a bit haphazard and his topic was quite narrow. He stopped for a while and then relaunched it essentially with a plan and a business idea in mind. I love that idea as well. Starting with a plan is actually really important. That's again, something that we cover in the teaching on ProBlogger as well. We believe that starting with a goal in mind is important, not just starting with kind of wide goals and not really knowing what to expect but actually starting with good foundations is an important thing. I really love the idea of setting yourself a challenge. His challenge, if you heard it, was to write an article everyday for 30 days. Now, that may not be realistic for everyone but even three articles a week or one article a week, having that kind of a deadline in mind, to get your archives fuller, to have more content on there, every piece of content you write is a new doorway into your blog. It's a new thing that could end up on the end of a Google search from someone or social media search. So building up your archives in the early days is important and also gets you into the habit of of writing content. Even if you don't publish something everyday, writing something everyday or writing part of an article everyday is a really good, healthy writing habit to get into if you can. Lastly, his kind of last message there that blogging isn't part of the past, blogging isn't dead, it's not something for those of us who started in the early 2000s. It's actually something that is worth investing time into today. Starting today, opportunities open up and Stefano's opportunity is to meet people and to interview people are just some of the opportunities that can come to bloggers. Monetization, of course, is part of it as well. That takes a little bit of time and you've got to get the foundations right first. You shouldn't get into blogging expecting you're going to be rich overnight. Money could come down the track but there's a lot of joy to be had in creating content, connecting with the readers, and also opening up your networks as well. Again, the internet needs our content. It was Stefano's words and I truly believe in that as well. Your story, your experience, your voice is unique. There are so many blogs out there but your perspective is unique and I think the world needs to hear it as well. If you are inspired to start a blog, check out our course at problogger.com/startablog. I challenge you to get it up and running. If you can be a part of our International Start A Blog Day on the seventh of February, then that's fantastic. If it takes a little longer for you to get your blog up and running as it has many others who've gone through the course, that's totally fine as well. We'd love to hear about your new blog and to celebrate it with you, and maybe next year to feature your story in our ProBlogger series. Thanks so much, Stefano, for sharing your story today. You can find a link to his beautiful blog in our show notes today, as well as a full transcription of his story. You can find the show notes at problogger.com/podcast/274. Tune-in in the next day or two and we've got one more story in this series to come. Then we'll be getting back into some different kind of podcast over the coming weeks and months. Thanks for listening. Chat soon. How did you go with today's episode? Enjoy this podcast? Sign up to our ProBloggerPLUS newsletter to get notified of all new tutorials and podcasts. The post 274: How Stefano Changed Blogging Platforms and Started Blogging with a Plan appeared first on ProBlogger.       Related Stories 272: How Networking and Interviewing Helped One Blogger Build Her Blog 271: How One Blogger Simplified Starting a Blog by Sharing the Load 270: How One Blogger Changed Her Life by Starting a Blog   This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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ProBlogger: 273: How One Blogger Turned a Painful Situation into a Life-Changing Blog

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273: How One Blogger Turned a Painful Situation into a Life-Changing Blog Posted: 28 Jan 2019 12:00 AM PST The post 273: How One Blogger Turned a Painful Situation into a Life-Changing Blog appeared first on ProBlogger. How One Blogger Found Encouragement in Difficult Times Our new bloggers series continues with Melissa, who started Living in the Wait. Her blog serves as a resource for those waiting for something in their lives, whether it's a job, spouse, home or something else. Melissa discovered you can still live life during that time of waiting for something your heart desperately desires. In Melissa's case, she and her husband were waiting for a family due to infertility. It's a painful topic to talk about, but Melissa felt like it was her calling to share her story. Blogging about her journey and wait has brought joy to her life. She wants to continue encouraging people going through difficult times.   First-year blogging highlights: Started The Wait List featuring guest posts to connect with others who were also waiting Selected as recipient of ProBlogger scholarship to further the blog’s reach Generated cycle of encouragement: live life to the fullest, and give back to others Melissa's blogging tips: Progress over perfection Celebrate your wins Don't forget to sign up for our free Start a Blog course and join us for the International Start a Blog Day on February 7. Links and Resources for How One Blog Turned a Painful Situation into a Life-Changing Blog: Living in the Wait Podcast Motor Further Listening 263: How Mim Blogged Vulnerably to Grow a Six-Figure Blog 255: My Mid-Life Crisis and The Power of Being Vulnerable on a Blog Courses Start a Blog ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Join our Facebook group Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Darren: Welcome to episode 273 of the ProBlogger podcast. My name's Darren Rowse and I'm the blogger behind problogger.com, a site and a podcast to help you to start an ,amazing blog that's going to change the lives of your readers in some way, and hopefully will change your life, too both in what it gives you personally but also hopefully some income as well. You can learn more about what we do at ProBlogger and find our courses at problogger.com. Speaking of courses, today we do continue our Start A Blog story series where we're featuring stories from bloggers in their first year of blogging. There are all these bloggers who’ve been throughout Start A Blog course and many of them participated in our International Start A Blog Day last February. We've got the second iteration of that event coming up on the 7th of February this year. We're running these stories to try and inspire as many people as possible to start a blog and be a part of that process. You can join in the fun of International Start A Blog Day and get a free course to help you set up a blog in that time over at problogger.com/startablog. Today's story is from Melissa. She has a blog called Living In The Wait. I love the topic of this blog and that's one of the reasons that I wanted to share her story today. I'm going to link to her blog which is livinginthewait.com on our show notes today. There's also a full transcript of the show today and some further listening if you do want to be into one of the big themes that she talks about. You can find the show notes today at problogger.com/podcast/273. I'm going to let Melissa talk now and I'll come back at the end to just pull out a few of the themes that I love in what she shares. Melissa: My name is Melissa. I started the blog called Living In the Wait and the URL is livinginthewait.com. What my blog is about is it's a resource for those who are basically trying to live in the wait. Whether you're waiting for a family, job, spouse, we all wait for something in our lives. For my husband and I, that wait happened to be infertility. Why I started my blog was based upon our own personal experience. For over three years, my husband and I have been going through infertility. Something that I never imagined or of course, who would want something like that to go through? But while we were in that process, I began asking myself this question. I said, "How am I supposed to keep living in the wait? How do I keep living every month when I'm continually disappointed? How do I keep living my life? How do I live in the wait?" That's really where the whole concept and idea behind Living In The Wait began, where I wanted to be a source for others who are going through a wait and providing them encouragement, support, a community, resources, so they knew that while you are waiting for something in your life that your heart just desperately desires, that you can still live during that time. That's what I had to learn and that's also what I wanted to share with others, as well to be a resource for them. I started my blog. My first post was February 4th of 2018 and as I mentioned, really the whole goal with that is just to be a resource, support, encouragement for those going through some sort of wait. We all wait for something. Our wait just happened to be infertility. During that time, I really noticed a lack of resources, information, support available for people going through infertility and I wanted to do something about that. I knew that I needed that for our journey and I just was surprised that it wasn't made available to us readily in my community. I've noticed that it's a topic that is hard to talk about and I think that's part of the reason people maybe don't share as much. I knew that it was something that God was leading me to do, was to share my story. I was just amazed as soon as we started sharing ours, how many people stepped up and shared their story as well. Through that, just felt so much community of other people from around the world experiencing the wait, the same wait that my husband and I were going though and how that's all what we wanted. We all wanted those resources and support, community, just to gather around us to help us during that time because going through something like that, like I said, the resources for that were very limited. How do you go through something? How do you handle those emotions? The grief, the disappointment every month, how are you prepared to do that? That's what I wanted to do with Living In The Wait. I still have a long way to go but that's really kind of my goal and objective is to be that resource to people when they are going through talk a lot about infertility, but we all wait for something. I feel like those tips and the articles that I've written are things that do apply for anybody, whatever their type of wait may be. That's really been my goal with that. My big dreams, I guess you could say is to continue to have this blog. It has been so much fun. I thoroughly have enjoyed writing a blog. I never would have imagined doing something like that but our journey, our wait really just brought to light something that I think was always there. I've always enjoyed writing. I've always journaled when I was younger and it just kind of brought all that back in full circle. It's been something I've thoroughly enjoyed. I want to continue having this blog up. I want it to continue to grow. I want it to be more information available for people. I want to continue to just encourage people. I feel like that something that we need so much along with those resources and practical information to help us get through those difficult times of when we are waiting for something, how do we keep living. It is possible and that's what I want people to know is you can still live while you're in the wait. Those desires are still going to be there but you can still live a life to the fullest. My husband and I have just adopted that attitude ever since starting this blog. It has been a game-changer for us where yes, we're disappointed every month, we find out that we're not pregnant but we have been able to just live life to the fullest by doing things that we enjoy and also giving back and being generous to other people as well. This has been so much fun blogging. That's kind of the story of why I started Living In The Wait. Kind of some of the dreams that had end goals and objectives that I've wanted as well with this blog. Just a couple of highlights from my first year that I wanted to share. One of the things I did was I started my blog in February but in April, I started a monthly series called The Wait List. Basically, it features guest host from people who, you guessed it, are all waiting. As I said, we all wait for things in our lives. I wanted to feature these stories of other people to provide hope and encouragement for others who are going through their wait and basically allow them to see those people and see how they were able to live in their wait. I think when you're able to connect to someone that you know, that you can see them getting through a tough situation, it brings you hope. It reminds you that this is something that I can do as well. That has been one of the most powerful things I have done with my blog is The Wait List. It has been one of the most popular posts that I do every month as well. What's so neat with that is just how it's been able to help further the reach of Living In The Wait because there's only so many people I can reach. But when these other people who are being featured put that information out there and they share to their social media sites, that's another way I have been able to get that reach spread more is other people read and they find out what Living In The Wait is and what it means. It's been so much fun to hear other people's stories. I love meeting people and that's what I enjoy the most about The Wait List is I get to connect with them, share their story, and every one of them has just brought so much encouragement to me so I know it's brought a lot for other people as well who are going through that. That's been one of the big highlights that we had for Living In The Wait. When I first started my blog, which was around the time of International Start A Blog Day, I was very surprised and thankfully selected for one of the ProBlogger scholarships. That was a huge surprise that really set things on a very positive note for me starting my blog. I think there's a lot of self-doubt sometimes when you try to start a blog and you're wondering, "Is there something really I should do? Do I really have a lot of value to bring?" Those are all questions I experienced when I was starting this. When I received that scholarship, it was just a sign for me that this is something that I was supposed to be doing and it was great. I was able to get just my information out more and hit a big reach. For that, I just really appreciate ProBlogger and what they've done, for offering that, and just really rallying around just supporting other bloggers. It's awesome to be a part of this community because I really feel it really supports each other and wants to see each other succeed, which I love being a part of. Also, for any other people who are interested in blogging, like I said, this wasn't something that I really would have thought of doing myself but through our experience with infertility, I just really felt that nudge that this was something I should be doing, was starting a blog, sharing our story, and encouraging other people through their wait. Through that it includes me. That's what so neat about starting a blog. It's definitely very therapeutic for the person that's writing it but other people when they read it, it's just like this cycle of encouragement that comes back to you. Just a couple of tips I've learned along the way that I would like to share. The main one is progress over perfection. I'm a perfectionist and there have been so many times when I was writing a post or I was trying to decide about a giveaway or questions to ask to my community. There was so much self-doubt and so many times that would stop me from doing things. I was so concerned about being perfect with the information I was sharing that it would stop me. I finally got to the point where I was just like, "You know what? I'm tired of this. I know I have value to provide and I'm going to share it." Yes, there's times where maybe I wished I would have done something different but that's where we learn and that's where it's so important to go out there and just do that progress, make that progress, do it scared, and know that it might not be perfect, but sometimes, I feel those posts were maybe the ones that people enjoy the most because you're so vulnerable and genuine with people. So, progress over perfection. Second I would share is celebrate your wins. There is always more that you could do. There's always a better post or a better way to write something. There is always more people that you want to read your blog. But here's the deal. Celebrate the ones that are reading your blog. Celebrate the fact that you did make that post. Celebrate that that post maybe you're more vulnerable in it. Celebrate your wins because those are what is going to keep you going. Darren: Thanks so much, Melissa, for sharing you story and blog with us. I love the topic of this blog. It does come out of a painful experience the starting of this blog but this is a theme that I've noticed over the years is that many of the blogs that have the biggest impact upon their readers actually start out of these tough situations or these hard experiences that the bloggers have themselves. A painful experience can actually be a life-giving thing for both the person themselves going through that experience but also many other people who can relate to that. The topic of waiting is something that even as Melissa was talking, I can think of times in my own life when I was waiting in different areas and it's something that I think many people will be able to relate to. I want to celebrate this topic and say, "Well done, Melissa, and your hubby, I'm not sure what his name was, for starting that blog." I love the illustration here of Melissa sharing vulnerably and that leading to a vulnerable reaction in her readers as well. This is something I've talked about numerous times over the years is that if you want a particular response from your readers, you need to take the lead and blog in a way that will elicit that kind of response. This is a great illustration of that. I think I talked in episode 263 about vulnerability and how, when I've been vulnerable with my readers and listeners that, often I see that come back to me in the comments, in he messages, in the emails, in the interactions that listeners have. So, great listen there. To put yourself out there and to be willing to go into some of those more painful parts of your life and just see what happens as a result of that. I also like in the topic that Melissa talked about here is that she's not just thinking about the topic. She's actually thinking about the need, the situation of her readers. She's not just talking about infertility but she's actually talking about waiting. It would have been possible for her to just start an infertility blog and that would have been a great thing to do. I'm sure that would've helped many people but she's actually thinking a little bit outside the box and extending that into writing for people who are waiting. I think that's an interesting way of broadening the topic, giving her not just one topic to talk about and perhaps broadening the audience as well. I think that's a really nice illustration of an alternative way to think about the topic of your blog and to position your blog. The monthly series of The Wait List, again, brilliant strategy and it kind of relates to what we heard in the last episode. The last episode, our blogger was interviewing people and that led to the growth of her blog. This also, in featuring the stories of other people, guest writers will help to both broaden the topic into different areas but also broaden the audiences as well because each of those writers has their own network and obviously that sharing into that network has helped to grow Melissa's blog as well. I just love that Melissa really obviously has her reader in mind. She wants to change their life in some tangible way. Help them through a situation, help them to feel they're not the only one. Great topic. Really great tips as well around progress as a perfection. We've heard this already in the series as well. Don't let perfection hold you back from actually publishing content, from starting that blog. Then, that last point she made, to celebrate your wins. I really like that. She kind of bravefully mentioned it there but I think a lot of bloggers, in the early days of their blogs, focus so much attention on the readers they don't yet have. I think a lot of good things come when you focus not on the reader you don't yet have, but to focus upon the readers you already do have. You may only have 10 readers of your blog. You might not even have that many. You might have three and one of them might be your mom. But focus upon what you already have. Celebrate those two, or three, or 10 people because each of those people has their own network. If you serve them, if you love them, they then spread the word. Celebrate those wins. Focus upon what you have, not just upon what you don't have and I hope that good things come for you in your blogging as well. Thanks so much, Melissa. Again, you can find her blog at livinginthewait.com. You can find our show notes with a full transcription of today's show as well. Another episode you might want to listen to on our show notes today at problogger.com/podcast/273. Also, the episode that you might want to dig into a little bit, I kind of mentioned a little bit earlier is episode 263 where I talked about vulnerability. I give an example of my own vulnerability and the good things that happened when I put my pain and confusion out there for people. It's a little bit more personal but I hope that you find something good out of that as well. I'd love to hear your examples of when you've been vulnerable with your readers as well. Don't forget to check out our Start A Blog course at problogger.com/start-a-blog. If you are interested in getting a blog up and running in a similar way that Melissa is going to bring a lot of life to those around you and to you as well, that's at problogger.com/start-a-blog. Thanks for listening. Chat with you in the next few days where I will continue our series of stories from our new bloggers. How did you go with today's episode? Enjoy this podcast? Sign up to our ProBloggerPLUS newsletter to get notified of all new tutorials and podcasts. The post 273: How One Blogger Turned a Painful Situation into a Life-Changing Blog appeared first on ProBlogger.        This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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ProBlogger: 272: How Networking and Interviewing Helped One Blogger Build Her Blog

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272: How Networking and Interviewing Helped One Blogger Build Her Blog Posted: 25 Jan 2019 12:00 AM PST The post 272: How Networking and Interviewing Helped One Blogger Build Her Blog appeared first on ProBlogger. How One Blogger is Making the Most from Networking and Interviewing Our series of stories from new bloggers continues with Penny Wilson, who started Lingo Mama to blog about language learning and travel. Penny's reasons for starting a blog: Return to her passion for language learning Establish accountability and discipline with language learning Share love for language learning with others Inspire others to learn a second language Starting a blog involved a huge learning curve for Penny, especially when it came to the technical aspects of managing it. Fortunately, Penny hasn't struggled for content ideas. The challenge is getting those ideas across in a way that's interesting, entertaining and informative, and that adds value. One of the highlights of blogging came when Penny connected with bloggers she respects in her niche. She also created an interview series that lets her connect with other language learners. Making money from her blog has been slow, but Penny has been happy with affiliate ads she installed early on to generate traffic and referrals. Penny's Top Tips: Don't stress too much about being perfect Promote content that’s most useful to readers Listen to feedback from readers Did Penny's story inspire you to start a blog? Then, sign up for the free Start a Blog course as a way to celebrate our International Start a Blog Day on Feb. 7. Links and Resources for How Networking and Interviewing Helped One Blogger Built Her Blog: Lingo Mama Podcast Motor Further Listening 172: How to Build a Blogging Business Through Interviewing Others [An Interview with Michael Stelzner] 198: 6 First Income Streams Recommended for Bloggers Courses Start a Blog ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Join our Facebook group Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Darren: Hey there and welcome to Episode 272 of the ProBlogger Podcast. My name’s Darren Rowse, and I’m the blogger behind ProBlogger, a site, podcast, event, job board, series of ebooks, and courses all designed to help you start an amazing blog, to grow that blog, and to make some money from the process. You can find more about ProBlogger over at problogger.com. Today, we’re continuing this short series of podcasts with stories from bloggers in their first year of blogging. Although stories have been gathered from participants of our Start a Blog course, which we are promoting at the moment, even though it’s a free course, we’re promoting it because, in the next few weeks, we have our International Start a Blog Day, which is being held on the 7th of February. Today, we’re celebrating new blogs and we’re launching a whole lot of blogs from students from our course, and we hope to send you a little bit of traffic as well to help that blog get off and running. We’ll be highlighting some of those new blogs that have started our social media as well as on our blog as well. Each of the bloggers that are sharing in this series are sharing their story, just a really short story but also some tips that they’ve learned along the way. If you’ve been thinking about starting a blog, or you know someone who’s thinking about it, or you know someone who should start a blog, please head to problogger.com/start-a-blog. You will find this free course that we’ve put together. It’s a seven-step course that walks you through everything you need to know to get involved in our International Start a Blog Day but also to get that blog up and running. Now, today’s story comes from Penny Wilson, an Aussie from lingomama.com. I’ll link to that in the show notes as well today. You can find those show notes at problogger.com/podcast/272. I’m just going to hand it over to Penny because she’s got a great story to tell, and I will come back at the end of her story just to wrap things up and to pull a few things out I like about what she says. Penny: Hi, my name’s Penny. My blog is called Lingo Mama and I blog about language learning and language travel. The URL is lingomama.com. I started my blog in May 2018, and I really had a few reasons why I wanted to start. One of them was to get myself back into language learning and to give myself some accountability and discipline with my language learning. I have learned Chinese for a long time and also Vietnamese in the past and Japanese so my focus is really on Asian languages. I’ve had a baby recently, and I really wanted to get back into my passion of language learning and share my love for language learning with my readers. The other premise, really, was about inspiring to people to learn a second language. I really think it’s an amazing challenge, and it’s such an amazing feeling when you are able to communicate in a second language even if it’s in quite a basic way. That was my other motivation as well. I have really enjoyed blogging on my website. It’s been a huge learning curve. I think, particularly, the technical aspect of learning about how to manage a blog, resizing images, changing fonts and headings, managing all the ins and outs with the WordPress platform, that’s been a real challenge. Editing videos, of course, is another big one. One of the highlights for me, I think, has been, earlier in the year, I identified a handful of language bloggers who I really looked up to and thought were doing an amazing job. The highlight for me has been able to connect with these three or four bloggers in various ways. One has interviewed me on an Instagram Live, which was fantastic. I have also interviewed one of these language bloggers for my website and a couple of these other website bloggers I’m involved with in an online mastermind session. I think, in just a short time or feels like a short time to me – six, seven or eight months – I’ve been able to connect with some of the more high-profile language bloggers. It is quite a small niche, but I’ve been really happy with that. Content-wise, I haven’t struggled for ideas in terms of content. I’ve always got the ideas. I think, for me, the challenge is getting those ideas across in a way that's interesting, entertaining, informative and actually adds value to people. That’s something that I’m continuing to learn how to do. I created a language learning interview series a few months ago, and that’s been really valuable because it has allowed me to connect with other language learners and interview them about their process of language learning, their challenges, ups and downs, but also when the interview is live and I’ve published it, it’s a way for me to attract new readers because the interviewees then share the interview that they were featured in. That’s been really valuable for me. In terms of making money, it’s been a very slow burn, but I did install affiliate ads very early on in the past and have been somewhat happy, I guess, with the small amount of traffic that my website receives that I have been able to make some money off affiliate ads and referrals. I think it’s always a great thing to see that increasing and see how, if it does, have any parallels with the amount of web traffic you’re receiving or the types of content that you’re producing. In terms of top tips for new bloggers, something that I really would want to get across to you is don’t stress too much about having the perfect post or the perfect images. It is a lot of work to create a blog post so you are doing well in just getting your content out there. Be very happy about that. Also, promote the content that you think is most useful to your readers as much as you can because that content is what is going to create your name and your brand and generate more readers for your website. Also, listen to the feedback and the questions you receive from your readers, whether that’s directly on your blog post or via social media because this is what your readers are most interested in and probably what they want you to create more content on. That would be my top tips for new bloggers. Thank you. Darren: Thanks so much for sharing your story, Penny, and I really do appreciate those bloggers who have put aside some time to share their stories with us today. It’s nice to be able to highlight some younger bloggers. Often in these types of podcasts, we highlight experts, and gurus, and people who have been blogging for 10 or 15 years, but it’s really nice to hear from those at the beginning of their journey, to hear the energy and excitement in their voices, to also hear a little bit about what their struggles have been, what their learning curves have been like but also hear their tips because what they are learning today as new bloggers is just as valid as what us told-timers are learning as well. A few things I loved about what Penny shared: firstly, that she networks like crazy by the sounds of it and she has gotten to know others in her niche and has connected with them, even the higher-profile people in this small niche, and it’s been really worthwhile to connect with them. I love the idea of interviewing people. Even if those people that you’re interviewing aren’t the high-profile ones, they each have their own network. They each have their own story. They each have their own value to add to your blog but also, as Penny shared, they can send people to read your blog as well. We’ve had numerous podcasts in the past about this particular technique, of interviewing others about their experience of what you are talking about. This is a brilliant way of building the traffic, to build your credibility, to build relationships with the people that you interview. I love that she’s connecting in this way with others in her niche but also through the online mastermind. That is just brilliant. Even if those other five people in the mastermind are all the same level as you, as you all grow, you have the potential to grow each other’s blogs. It’s just a great strategy there in networking, the interviews. The last thing I loved about Penny’s strategy is to monetize first with affiliates’ promotions. As Penny said, she doesn’t have a massive amount of traffic, and so for her to create a product right now in the early days of her bog while she’s trying to build traffic, trying to get more content and new archives, may not be the best strategy, particularly if she’s juggling other things in her life like family and other things or other priorities. To find someone else’s product to promote and to add a commission from is a great first step when it comes to monetization. To see that it’s converting already is a really good sign. Lots of valuable tips there. Lastly, she’s talked about not having to be perfect with her content. Great tip there. Get it out there. Get your content out there. It doesn’t need to be perfect. Yes, polish it. Yes, make it as good as it can be, but make sure you publish it and get that content out there. Listen to the feedback of your readers, create useful content, and promote it as much as you can. Great tips there from Penny. I reckon this one’s worth re-listening to at some point as well. If you have a moment to share this with someone else maybe at the beginning of their journey, I would appreciate that as well. Get this podcast out there to others who are considering starting a blog. You can find the show notes and you can share it from problogger.com/podcast/272. Thanks again, Penny. Check out her blog at Lingo Mama. I’ll link to that in the show notes with a full transcript of today’s show, and I will also find a few other podcasts to listen to that relate to some of the things as we talked about today or that will relate to interviewing people. We’ve definitely got a couple of podcasts there that I’ll link to in the show notes today and also affiliate marketing as a great first step. Thanks for listening. Tune in early next week, and we’ll have another blogger story for you. How did you go with today's episode? Enjoy this podcast? Sign up to our ProBloggerPLUS newsletter to get notified of all new tutorials and podcasts. The post 272: How Networking and Interviewing Helped One Blogger Build Her Blog appeared first on ProBlogger.       Related Stories 271: How One Blogger Simplified Starting a Blog by Sharing the Load 270: How One Blogger Changed Her Life by Starting a Blog 269: How Rowan Grew His Pinterest Following to More Than 300,000 in Two Months   This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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ProBlogger: How to Write Short Sentences and Paragraphs the Right Way (and Why It Matters)

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How to Write Short Sentences and Paragraphs the Right Way (and Why It Matters) Posted: 24 Jan 2019 03:30 AM PST The post How to Write Short Sentences and Paragraphs the Right Way (and Why It Matters) appeared first on ProBlogger. This is a post by ProBlogger writing expert Ali Luke If you've been blogging for a while, I'm sure you've come across the advice to write short sentences and paragraphs. There are good reasons for this. And it has nothing to do with "dumbing down" the language or short attention spans (though they can certainly be a factor). For decades researchers have known we don't read on a computer screen the same way we read on a printed page. It's more tiring to read on a screen, and "white space" (the blank, empty space on a page) is important for helping readers take in what they're reading. And in the past decade reading blogs on mobile devices has taken off. A lot of your readers will be reading on a five- or six-inch screen, and if your post is on a complex topic this can really slow them down. Using short, clear sentences and paragraphs can help. How to Split Up Long Paragraphs My personal rule of thumb is to split any paragraphs that take up more than three lines in the Word document or Google doc where I'm drafting. You might feel differently. Here's an example of a particularly long paragraph (adapted from my post How Long Should Your Blog Post Be?): The next key consideration is whether your readers would prefer shorter or longer posts. If you already have a reasonable number of readers, you could survey them to find out. You could also take a look at your most popular posts in Google Analytics, or the posts that get the most comments or shares. Does short or long content seem to resonate better with your audience? You might potentially find that your readers like a mix of posts. Maybe they want fairly short and to-the-point posts most of the time, with a much longer piece of content occasionally thrown in. In the original, that content is split into two paragraphs: The next key consideration is whether your readers would prefer shorter or longer posts. If you already have a reasonable number of readers, you could survey them to find out. You could also take a look at your most popular posts in Google Analytics, or the posts that get the most comments or shares. Does short or long content seem to resonate better with your audience? You might potentially find that your readers like a mix of posts. Maybe they want fairly short and to-the-point posts most of the time, with a much longer piece of content occasionally thrown in. But if you wanted to you could split it even further. For instance, you might decide to turn the first sentence into its own short paragraph to help readers who are scanning or skimming: The next key consideration is whether your readers would prefer shorter or longer posts. If you already have a reasonable number of readers, you could survey them to find out. You could also take a look at your most popular posts in Google Analytics, or the posts that get the most comments or shares. Does short or long content seem to resonate better with your audience? You might potentially find that your readers like a mix of posts. Maybe they want fairly short and to-the-point posts most of the time, with a much longer piece of content occasionally thrown in. Can You Go Too Far With Short Paragraphs? Although some blogs use very short paragraphs habitually, I think you can go too far with this. I wouldn't put each sentence as its own paragraph. The text would end up looking choppy, making it harder for the reader to get a sense of the flow of ideas. Here's an example of what your text might look like if you went too far: The next key consideration is whether your readers would prefer shorter or longer posts. If you already have a reasonable number of readers, you could survey them to find out. You could also take a look at your most popular posts in Google Analytics, or the posts that get the most comments or shares. Does short or long content seem to resonate better with your audience? You might potentially find that your readers like a mix of posts. Maybe they want fairly short and to-the-point posts most of the time, with a much longer piece of content occasionally thrown in. When Might You Not Split a Long-ish Paragraph? Sometimes you'll have a slightly longer-than-usual paragraph that you don't want to split. There are a couple of key cases where this might happen: When you've created a list of bullet points. While you can have multiple paragraphs within one bullet, it may look a bit odd. (If you have a lot of content for each point, I'd find a different way to display the list.) When you're using single paragraphs for the "tip" or "example" sections of a post. For instance, in my post Seven Sure-Fire Ways to Annoy a Blog Editor (and What to Do Instead) I wanted each "Instead" section to be a single paragraph (even though that meant some of them were a little longer than I'd normally go for). How to Write Short Sentences When you were at school, you were probably taught that a sentence needs to contain a subject and a verb. These are all complete sentences: He ran. She ran around the park. After warming up, he ran around the park and down the road, before jogging over the bridge. But when it comes to blogging you can use sentence fragments so long as they still read smoothly. This can add a sense of pace to your writing. For instance: After warming up, he ran around the park. Down the road. Over the bridge. We know what "down the road" refers to where he ran. It's not technically a sentence (it's a sentence fragment), but it works fine for a blog post. Now let's look at what you can't do when splitting up that sentence. You can't take off the first clause ("after warming up") and turn it into its own sentence: After warming up. He ran around the park. If you're going to use sentence fragments, they need to make sense before the reader reads the next few words. "After warming up" doesn't work on its own. If you're not sure about a particular short sentence, try reading that part of your post out loud. It can help you decide whether or not it's working. Here are a couple of examples of short sentences in action. See what you think of the sentences. Are they working for you? Would you read the rest of the piece? Example #1: (From 5 Timeless Ways to Earn Your Audience's Time and Attention, Sonia Simone, Copyblogger) Example #2: (From Hey, Freelancers: This New Tool Could Make Your LIfe a Lot Easier, Jamie Cattanach, The Write Life) If You're Struggling to Write Good Short Sentences You might find it tricky to work with sentence fragments. Perhaps English isn't your native language, or you find it hard to "hear" whether your writing sounds right. That's fine. You don't have to use sentence fragments at all. Just look out for any long or complicated sentences and try to simplify them. The Hemingway Editor is a useful tool here. It will highlight long sentences so you can try splitting them up. (But occasional long sentences are fine, so don't feel pressured to follow the app's suggestions every time.) Ultimately, the great thing about having your own blog is that it's your blog! If you want to develop a punchy, hard-hitting style with lots of short sharp sentences, you can. If you want a chatty, conversational style with short simple paragraphs, go for it. If you want to write in a more thoughtful, detailed way, that's fine too. Just keep in mind that you might want to break up your paragraphs a little more than if you were writing a book. You don't need to get it right in your first draft, either. Write your post however you like, then tweak the sentence and paragraph lengths when you edit it. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Do short sentences and paragraphs work for you? Do you feel it's possible to go too far? Share your ideas and tips in the comments. Image credit: Victor Garcia The post How to Write Short Sentences and Paragraphs the Right Way (and Why It Matters) appeared first on ProBlogger.

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