ProBlogger: What Every Blogger Needs to Know about Email

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What Every Blogger Needs to Know about Email Posted: 29 Apr 2021 04:14 PM PDT The post What Every Blogger Needs to Know about Email appeared first on ProBlogger. This post is based on episode 251 of the ProBlogger podcast. I've said it before and I'll say it again: email is one of the best ways (if not the best way) to connect with your blog's readers. You might think email is outdated, and that communicating on social media will give you the best chance of attracting readers. But you have no control over any of those platforms, and so you're at the mercy of whatever changes they make. But with email you have complete control over every aspect of your communication. And if you're not using it, you really are missing out. But that's easier said than done. How do you actually set up an email list? How do you get people to subscribe to it. And when they do subscribe, what do you send them? So this week I'd like to answer some of the questions you'll inevitably have if you've never done this before. Starting with… Choosing an email provider One of your first decisions will be to choose an email provider. Gone are the days when you manually copied and pasted people's email addresses into a long distribution list. These providers do all the hard work for you, and provide the tools you need such as: forms for people to subscribe (and unsubscribe) from your list allowing people to confirm their subscription (double opt-in) templates to help you create your newsletter scheduling when people receive your newsletter sending your newsletter in batches so it isn't flagged as spam segmenting your list based in various attributes (country, language, etc.) statistics on who opens and reads your newsletter. How much you will need to pay will depend on the email provider and the numbers of features you need. However, a lot of them offer a free option based on how many subscribers you have in your list. We have a guide in our ProBlogger PLUS Members Library that compares the various email providers so you can choose the one that best suits your needs. And here's a blog post to help you even more. Once you've settled on an email provider, the next step is… Setting up your subscription forms Pretty much every email provider will have forms you can place in your header, your sidebar, and even your posts, to collect people's email addresses. And you can often tailor these forms to match your blog's design and appear in different ways. You may need to experiment a little to find the most effective places to put these forms. You want to make them prominent without getting in your reader's way. Once your forms are in place, you should subscribe to your blog to make sure everything is working. Are you getting the opt-in message to confirm your subscription? Are you getting a message or some other indication from your email provider that someone has subscribed? Can you bring up the list of subscribers and see your own email address? Can you unsubscribe, and does your email address disappear from the list when you do? Once you've set up your forms and tested everything out, you just need to wait for your first subscriber. (Of course, you'll be working on creating more content while you're waiting, right?) And once you get your first subscriber, it's time to start… Sending out your newsletter You now have your first subscriber (although hopefully you'll have more than one). The question is, what do you send them? What you include in your newsletter is totally up to you. But here are a few ideas on what you could include: A paragraph about your latest post with a link to the full post on your blog A teaser on what your next post will be about Links to interesting articles you've read Something you've learned A famous quote that resonates with you (and perhaps the reason why) A bit of information about you, or what you've been up to since the last newsletter Suggestions on what they'd like to read about on your blog A question they could answer, which could then be used in a future post (with their permission, of course). And here's a blog post that goes into content for your newsletter a little deeper. As I said, what you put in your newsletter is totally up to you. Just make sure it has some useful information that can give your readers a 'quick win'. And your newsletter design doesn't need to be overly fancy either. Don't put off sending it out because it doesn't have all the bells and whistles other newsletters have. What's most important is that you send it. And make sure you keep sending them, no matter how many subscribers you have. Don't think you have to wait until you have 100 subscribers to make it worth your while. But what happens when you have everything set up and people still aren't subscribing? If that happens you may need to think about… Creating an incentive to subscribe If you've ever subscribed to a newsletter on another site, chances are you were offered some incentive in return for subscribing – a free PDF, a discount on your next order, etc. This can be a good way to entice people to subscribe to your newsletter. You could create a simple PDF offering tips on how to perform a particular task or other information related to your niche. Unfortunately, you may find that some people subscribe just to get your free offering. And once they have it, they unsubscribe the first chance they get (probably by using the link in your newsletter). Of course, if the content in your PDF is as useful as the content on your blog they'll realise it's worth being a subscriber and stick around. However, there's another way to get them to stay subscribed for longer – the email sequence. This is where you keep sending more useful information every week (or whatever timeframe you choose) as an incentive to stay subscribed. The information you send could be more 'freebies' like your initial offering. But it could also be a series of emails that steps them through a process in greater detail. And at the end of each email you hint at what's coming in the next one, which gives them more incentive to stay subscribed so they don't miss out. Creating an email sequence like this is a great way to build a relationship with your readers. Over time they'll see that you really do want to help them with the content you're creating. And it won't be long before they realise that and become a regular reader. We have a number of these email sequences at ProBlogger. But one of the most popular incentives is our 6 Months of Blog Post Ideas, where people can sign up to get 30 blog post ideas every month for six months. It's a way to give those who subscribe a quick win (30 ideas within minutes of signing up), but also keep delivering those quick wins over time. Another opt-in we have is our Ultimate Guide to Start a Blog Course. While it doesn't necessarily create a quick win, we've found that the people who sign up for it have stayed with us as readers and listeners. They're grateful, and it shows the power of creating something for free in exchange for an email address. Ready to set up your email list? As I said earlier, email is one of the best ways you can connect with your readers. And the tools available today make setting up a subscription list, gathering email addresses and sending out regular newsletters quite easy. So choose your provider, get those forms on your site, and get ready to make a real connection with your readers. And let us know how it all goes.   Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash The post What Every Blogger Needs to Know about Email appeared first on ProBlogger.

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ProBlogger: How to Hire Writers for Your Blog

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How to Hire Writers for Your Blog Posted: 22 Apr 2021 04:47 AM PDT The post How to Hire Writers for Your Blog appeared first on ProBlogger. This blog is based on episode 169 of the ProBlogger podcast. Most blogs start out as a solo effort, with one person doing all the writing, marketing and social media updates. That's certainly how I started all my blogs. But while I still produce most of the content on ProBlogger, it's a completely different story over at dPS (Digital Photography School). There I have 50 writers and one editor working for me to produce 14 new posts every week. And I don't write any of them. So how did I go from writing all my own content to having a team of writers doing it all for me? And should you be thinking of doing something similar with your blog? I can't really answer that question for you. But what I can do is tell you how and why I did it, and point out the pros and cons of doing it. But first I need to tell you something important. This isn't the endgame. Don't think you need a team of writers before you can consider yourself a successful blogger. There's nothing wrong with doing it all yourself, no matter how long you've been blogging and how many readers you have. In fact, having multiple people writing for your blog could do more harm than good, especially if it's a personal blog or one where you're central to its branding. But if your blog's focus is on content and information rather than your personal view on things, then bringing in multiple writers might be worth considering. The dPS story (stage 1) When I started Digital Photography School back in 2006, I wrote three posts a week. At that stage I was an intermediate-level photographer and had done a few weddings, and so wrote content aimed squarely at beginners. And while that may seem limiting, I came up with around 200 topics I could write about, which would keep me going for a good couple of years Back then my goals were to: build my traffic build up my archives rank in search engines hook people into subscribing to my blogs and email lists build my brand build a bit of engagement. And while they were all important, it was building that engagement that helped me take the blog to the next stage. The dPS story (stage 2) One of the things I did to build engagement was to start a Flickr group. It was the perfect place to engage with other photographers. And looking at the photos they posted I could tell that some of them knew a lot more about photography than I did. And they seemed more than happy to share their knowledge. Many of them read my blog posts and provided great information in their comments. And it got me thinking. Would they be willing to write guest posts for the blog? Now I could have sent them all an email saying, "Hi. Would you be interested in writing a guest post for my blog?" But I decided to take a somewhat gentler approach. I simply asked them if I could use their comments as part of a blog post. And most of them were totally fine with it. I also set up an area of the Flickr group where people could submit tips for me to include in future blog posts. (I made it blatantly clear that's what I'd be doing with their contributions.) If I was doing a post about portrait I'd ask for tips and tricks, and pretty soon I'd have enough for a post. In fact, some of them were so long and detailed that they became posts in and of themselves. A lot of the photographers let me use their photos in my posts, and even provided information about the equipment and technique they used to create it. I also got to interview them about various shooting scenarios (wedding photography, landscape photography, etc.) Some of them emailed me to say how much they enjoyed contributing to the blog. And in my reply to thank them I said that if they ever wanted to write a longer piece I'd be happy to talk about it. At this point Digital Photography had been running for a couple of years, and there was a real sense of community and engagement on the blog. And because of that, a few people agreed to write guest posts despite the fact I couldn't pay them. They simply wanted to give back to the community. Later I created a "Write for dPS" page where people could submit their ideas, and soon I had a pool of guest writers who were all willing to contribute one guest post a month. And this paved the way for… The dPS story (stage 3) By now the blog was growing steadily and getting more and traffic. But I wanted to keep the momentum going by increasing our publishing frequency. My aim was to publish 14 posts a week (two each day), which meant I needed a team of writers I could rely on to create great posts week after week. But that's a lot to ask of someone who's been doing it for free. And so I started contacting people who'd written guest posts for us and asked if they'd be willing to write a post a week if I paid them. We started with two regular contributors, and paid them US$50 per article. They were also allowed to promote their eBooks on the blog, which helped them earn even more. As the blog got more traffic (and more revenue) we grew our team of writers and started publishing more and more posts each week. We now have a team of 50 writers working together to produce 14 posts a week. Some of them write a post every week, while others write one every month. As you would expect, some of them become so successful that they no longer have the time to write for us. Which means we need to hire more writers from time to time. And here's how we do it. The hiring process Rather than advertising for a writer whenever we lose one, we hire people in batches. We tend to advertise every few months of so, and typically hire five people at a time. We start by posting an advertisement on the ProBlogger job board. In that advertisement we clearly state the kind of person we're looking for. We also ask each applicant to submit a sample of their work to help us make our decision. A week later we stop accepting applications and start going through them all. We start by sending those we know aren't a good fit an email that says something along the lines of "Thanks for applying. We're really sorry, but we can't progress your application". (We use a template to make it as quick and easy as possible.) We then send an email to those we're interested in that says, "Thanks for your application. Here's what happens next. We'll be in touch soon." Nest, we sort these applicants into groups ('Great', 'Good' and 'Okay'). We'll grab as many people as we need from the 'Great' group first, and if we still don't have enough we'll move to the 'Good' group, and so on. We then tell the people we've short-listed about the job – what it entails, what it pays, etc. – and ask them to write a trial post for us (which we pay for). This helps us determine not only the quality of their work, but also what they're like to work with. Can they deliver on time? Are they high maintenance? Do they understand what WordPress is and how to write for that audience? Will they respond to comments people make about their article? It's also a way to see whether their style resonates with our audience – what voice they write in, how accessible their content is, how inclusive they are, how clear they are. And it also gives us a chance to see how our audience will respond to them. Do they get a lot of comments? Do they write in a way that's engaging and gets lots of shares? You get a real feel for people through this process. And if we're happy with them (and they're happy with us), we hire them. Hopefully this story will help you find writers for your own blog. But before you start putting out offers, I'd like to point some of the pros and cons of having multiple people contributing to your blog. The pros and cons of new writers Let's start with the benefits. Obviously you'll have more content to publish on your blog, which both your readers and Google will appreciate. But having multiple writers can also add a variety of personalities and styles of writing to your blog. And any one of them could bring in a new wave of readers. It also allows you to publish more specialized content. One of the benefits of having so many people writing for Digital Photography School is it now has so much more content that's written for expert photographers – content I could never write myself. But there are also a few drawbacks. It takes time to find, select and train new writers. And if you don't have a dedicated editor in your team, you may find yourself editing every post that comes through as well. You may also find that some of your readers don't like a particular writer's style or personality. If that happens you need to consider whether keeping them on is worth the potential risk to your readership, and even your brand. And of course, most regular contributors will expect to paid. Over to you For those of you who have been thinking about hiring writers for your blog, has this post helped you make your decision? Let us know in the comments. And for those of you who already have multiple people writing for your blog, do you have any tips or advice you could add?   Photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash The post How to Hire Writers for Your Blog appeared first on ProBlogger.

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ProBlogger: 10 Things You Should Know about Blogging (from Someone Who Didn’t)

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10 Things You Should Know about Blogging (from Someone Who Didn’t) Posted: 15 Apr 2021 05:00 AM PDT The post 10 Things You Should Know about Blogging (from Someone Who Didn't) appeared first on ProBlogger. This post is based on episode 100 of the ProBlogger podcast. As you probably know, when I first started blogging I was very much a novice. I knew nothing about design, domains, or setting up a website. (I didn't even know to 'bold' a piece of text.) But in the 18-odd years I've been blogging I've learned a lot. And today I'd like to share 10 things that would have saved me a lot of time, effort and anguish if I'd known them from day one. 1. Treat blogging as a business If you want your blog to be a business, then you need to treat it like one. From the moment I started making money on one of my blogs I dreamed about making a career out of it. Even though I was making only a few dollars a week, I still thought that if I could increase my traffic and learn how to use monetization strategies a bit better then it could become a full-time thing. And I slowly turned that dream into reality. And when I say slowly, I mean it. I managed to increase my earnings by 10% each month, which sounds great until you realize that equates to around 30 cents. But looking at one of the many spreadsheets I created, I could see that if I kept it up for another six or seven years I'd be making enough to do it full-time. At some point I told my wife Vanessa about it. She humored me at first, but one day she replied to me pointing at my spreadsheet with "In seven years' time we'll both be 37 years old and have kids. If you really want to be a full-time blogger, you need to escalate this." And that's when I got really serious and started creating deadlines for things. At that point I wasn't quite earning enough to do it full-time, and so I get myself a six-month deadline. And if I wasn't doing it full-time by then I had to get a full-time job doing something else. I started cold-calling business owners and asking if they wanted to advertise on my blog. After a lot of knockbacks I got my first advertiser, who paid me $20 a month to advertise his business on my blog. And over time that figure slowly rose to a couple of hundred dollars a month – not enough to live on by any means, but an important step towards my goal. I also started working on strategies to bring more traffic to my blog, which led to more advertising opportunities, as well as other ways to monetize my blog (which I'll talk about soon). Today I'm living the dream of being a full-time blogger. But it never would have happened if I didn't start treating it like business. 2. Identify who you want reading your blog One of my strategies for increasing my traffic was working out who I was writing it for. And that meant working out who I wanted to be reading it in the first place. The more you know about who's reading your blog, the better you'll be at engaging with them and creating content that meets their needs. When I started Digital Photography School I began to think about reader profiles. And over time I came up with a number of personas for the kinds of people I wanted reading my blog. For example, I created a reader named Grace who was a 'mamarazzo' and loved taking photos of her kids. And having her as one of my 'ideal' readers instantly gave me ideas on what I could write about to engage her and meet her needs. Here’s more about how to create your own reader profiles. If you've been blogging for a while you may already have a number of people reading your blog regularly. And that gives you the perfect opportunity to find out more about them and how you can serve them better on your blog. You could send them an email asking about the kind of content they'd like to read on your blog. You could create surveys to find out more about them. You could even arrange to meet some of them (face to face or virtually) and get to know them even better. 3. Don't ignore email One of the best decisions I ever made was to start a newsletter for Digital Photography School (and later ProBlogger). When blogs first became a thing, most of them asked people to subscribe to the RSS feed by having a big orange "Subscribe to my blog" button they could click on. But unless you a) knew what an RSS feed was and b) had an RSS reader such as Google Reader to read it with, it wasn't much use. And so I created a simple newsletter so the readers who understood email could receive a weekly newsletter from us. And soon it became the most popular way for people to subscribe to our content. Even in 2010 we had 80% of our readers subscribing by email and only 20% by the RSS feed. And while email is great for our readers, it's also a great way for us to: drive traffic to the two blogs drive sales of our products build our community. Social media can be a great way to communicate with your readers and bring in traffic. But you can't control it, and so you'll always be at the mercy of the platforms and their algorithms. With email you have total control, and while not everyone will read your newsletter at least it will be their choice rather than someone else's. If you haven't set up an email list, stop reading right now and set one up. Yes, it's that important. Here’s a podcast which tells you everything you need to know about getting started with email. 4. Try different ways to monetize your blog One of my early forays into monetizing my blog was setting myself up as an Amazon affiliate. At the time I was already promoting books, and becoming an affiliate meant I could earn 8% commission on any book someone bought through me promoting it. I wasn't getting a lot of money, but having that second income stream diversified and increased my income. These days there are plenty of ways you can monetize your blog – advertising, affiliate marketing, continuity programs, memberships, selling products and services, and so on. And you don't have to choose one over all the others. There's nothing stopping you from creating multiple revenue streams by using different monetization methods. Here’s an article that covers all the basics of making money blogging. 5. Create something to sell Speaking of monetization, one great way to earn money from your blog is to create something to sell. Another one of my dreams was to sell ebooks on my blog. Both ProBlogger and Digital Photography School are teaching blogs, and so it seemed logical to try and monetize what I was teaching my readers in some way. After putting it off time and time again, I eventually created my first ebook – The Essential Guide to Portrait Photography. It was basically a collection of my best articles about the topic from the blog (which I disclosed very clearly from the outset), along with some interviews with portrait photographers. I had no idea if anyone would spend $15 on content they could pretty much read on the blog for free, but I put my ebook on the site anyway. Within 24 hours we'd sold 1,100 copies and made $15,000. And by the end of the week that number grew to 4,000 copies. This is why it's worth creating something you can sell, especially if you have a loyal audience. It also demonstrates why building trust and rapport with your readers is so important. What could you create to sell on your blog? For some ideas this article talks about how to create products and sell them on your blog. 6. Create content that informs, inspires or interacts If you’ve ever heard me speak then you’ll know I'm a big fan of creating content that informs, inspires and interacts. Most of the content on my blogs fits into the ‘information’ category. Our bread and butter is teaching people, and 90% of our content is tutorials and how-to articles. And it helps us sell that information in the form of products and courses), and recommend other people's products as an affiliate. But occasionally I sprinkle in  in some inspirational content to go along with our information. On Digital Photography School we have an article titled Eight Tips for Long Exposure Photography, which explains how to take cool photographs using this technique. And the article was quite popular. But the following I week I published Long-Exposure Photography: 15 Stunning Examples, which showed the results you could get from using the long exposure technique. And the readership of that first article went through the roof. So try experimenting with content that informs, inspires or interacts with your readers, and see if you can find the perfect combination for your blog. This article explains how. 7. Look for 'sparks' When you’ve been blogging for a while, there’s a good change that your energy and enthusiasm will start to wane. Which is why it’s important to look for ‘sparks’ that reignite them and keep you going. At the end of the day I ask myself two questions: "What gave me energy today?" "What gave those around me energy today?" For me, it could be a post, a tweet, or a reader’s reaction to something I’d said or done. But whatever it is, I make a note of it so I can repeat it when I need to get that energy back. Whether you're a blogger, a podcaster, a YouTuber or something else, pay attention to what gives you and those around you energy. They’ll not only keep your energy levels up, but could also help you become more profitable by exciting your readers and listeners. 8. Be active For years I’ve had a question printed out and sitting next to my computer: "What action will I take today that will grow my blog?" It's all too easy to become passive and reactive. Think of the time you spend reading and responding to emails. While it’s important to interact with your readers, the best entrepreneurs are out there taking action by creating new things rather than reacting to what other people are creating. Think about how you use your time. Are you being reactive, or are you being constructive? When I decided to create my Essential Guide to Portrait Photography ebook, I got up early every morning and worked on it for 15 minutes. And once it was done I spent that 15 minutes on other things – collating it, finding a designer, learning how to get it online, researching shopping carts, and creating my sales page and emails. All up it took me three or four months. But as I said earlier, we sold 1,100 copies in the first day. And as the sales racked up all I could think was, "Why didn't I do this sooner?" Be an action taker. 9. Let your worlds collide One thing I've learned over the years is that it's okay to share your passions with your readers, even if they fall outside your niche In 2011 I was approached by CBM, a not-for-profit that helps people with disability, to go to Tanzania and see the work they were doing . They work in a hospital with people who have a range of issues – women with maternal health issues and fistulas, people with cataracts and blindness, kids born with clubbed feet and orthopedic issues. I was excited about going, and seeing what they were doing. (I'm passionate about disability, and giving those who are marginalized a voice.) But they wanted me to blog about it and share what I saw, and I wasn’t sure how my readers would react. As it turned out, they responded really well. In fact, it strengthened my relationship with them. I got a lot of emails saying things along the lines of, "I'd never seen that side of you before and I suddenly feel like I can relate to you a lot more". It also gave me the opportunity to use my influence to do something that really mattered to me, and to bring  some attention to the good work CBM was doing. If you're passionate about things that matter and are meaningful, let your worlds collide a little and use your influence to not only benefit you and your readers, but also to make the world a better place in some way. 10. Don't forget the readers you already have Finally, you need to look after your readers. Some bloggers are so obsessed with getting new readers that they seem to forget about the readers they already have. Yes, it’s important to grow your readership. But the readers you have now can play a big part in making that happen. For a start, they can help you spread the word about your blog. If they like it, then chances are they’ll tell other people about it, and encourage them to take a look. They’re also more likely to buy your products, respond to your affiliate messages, and otherwise help you monetize your blog. And the more you can earn from your blog, the more likely you can keep it growing and attracting new readers. What have you learned about blogging? As I said, I’ve learned a lot about blogging over the years. And I’ve probably learned a lot more than what I’ve listed here. But what have you learned about blogging since you started? We’d love to hear about it.   Photo by Charlein Gracia on Unsplash The post 10 Things You Should Know about Blogging (from Someone Who Didn't) appeared first on ProBlogger.

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ProBlogger: How to Update Your Blog Design (and Why You Should)

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How to Update Your Blog Design (and Why You Should) Posted: 08 Apr 2021 05:00 AM PDT The post How to Update Your Blog Design (and Why You Should) appeared first on ProBlogger. This post is based on episode 71 of the ProBlogger podcast. When was the last time you took a long, hard look at your blog's design? While having great content is important, your blog's design will also play a part in how successful it (and you) will be. If new readers find the navigation confusing or can't make sense of what's in the sidebar, they may never come back to read your latest masterpiece. Even if they do hang around, they may not take the action you want them to take simply because you haven't told them what you want them to do. Your blog's design can also affect other aspects of your blog, such as: keeping readers on your blog for longer getting more page views getting more comments getting more clicks on affiliate links selling more products and services. So this week I want to point out a few ways you can update your blog design, as well as talk about another option. Look at your sidebar If your blog has a sidebar, it might be time to give it a bit of a spring clean. Sidebars often get cluttered over time. You start off with just a few basic elements, but over time you discover new links and tools, and before you know it you have 20 different elements on your sidebar. And like pretty much everything else on the web, some of them can quickly break. Even worse, some of them can become security risks, especially if they haven't been updated in a long time. Another issue with sidebars is how well they function on handheld devices such as smartphones and tablets. If your readers can't even see your sidebar elements on their phone, how can they possibly use them? So look at each element on your sidebar, and think about whether you need it. If you don't, get rid of it. But if you do, make sure it still works, is secure, and can be seen no matter how people are accessing your blog. Look at your navigation While your blog may not have a sidebar, it will almost certainly have some form of navigation. And it can play a big a big part on how people find your content. When it's working well, people should be able to find your content quickly and easily. But if you haven't looked at it for a while, it may not be working well for you or your readers. Your menus are especially important, as readers tend to use them quite a bit. Are any of the links in your menu broken (e.g. linking to pages that no longer exist on your blog)? Are they pointing to information that's out of date or no longer relevant? Does your menu include categories you no longer write about? You may not want to highlight the fact you haven't written about a particular topic in years. Do you need to reorganize your menus? Do you have too many sub-menus, or even sub-sub-menus that make it difficult to find your content? And again, can they all be accessed easily on a smartphone or tablet? Look at your calls to action What do you want your readers to do on your blog? When you're just starting out you may not have any products to sell. In fact, you may not be monetizing your blog at all. However, you might still like your readers to comment on what you've said, and share your post on social media. But are you actually asking them to do it, or just hoping they will? By having a clear call to action at the end of each post, you can tell them what you'd like them to do. But it doesn't need to sound like an order. You can easily say something like "What do you think about this? Let me know in the comments" or "Know anyone who might enjoy this post? Feel free to share the link". And what about the rest of your blog? Would you like them to subscribe to your newsletter? Find out more about you by reading your About page? Hire you for their next project? Buy your products? Then you need to tell them. Take a look at your calls to action, and make sure they're still relevant. And see whether you need to add new ones, or put them in more prominent places. (If there's a particular page or post that's doing really well in Google Analytics, it might be a great place to add a CTA or two.) Consider giving it a complete overhaul If you've been blogging for a while, then you may find your blog's design may no longer suit your content. This can happen if you've started writing about new topics, or have pivoted your blog completely. You may also find that your design simply doesn't work anymore. These days it's important for your blog to be responsive so it can be accessed on phones and tablets. And so if your blog isn't responsive, you may be losing readers. Perhaps you just don't like the look of it anymore. You might think it looks ugly, or is cramming too much information into a small space. Maybe you don't like the colors, or think it has so many different fonts it looks more like a ransom letter than a blog. If that's the case, it might be time to give your blog's design a completely overhaul. Fortunately, you can usually do this without losing any of your content. (But I'd still make a complete backup of your blog, just in case.) Obviously I can't tell you how you should design your blog. But here are a few suggestions that can be incorporated into just about any design: Keep it as simple as possible. The less complex it is, the less that can go wrong. Keep the number of fonts and colors to a minimum. Two or three of each should be enough. Use plenty of white space. You need to give the various elements on your blog room to breathe (and to stand out). Keep everything consistent. Once you've chosen your colors, fonts and other stylistic features, use them throughout your site to tie everything together. Over to you So what do you think your blog needs in terms of a design update? Can you get by with adjusting your menus and sidebar? Do you need to add more calls to action? Or do you need to tear down the walls and start again? Let us know in the comments.   Photo by pan xiaozhen on Unsplash The post How to Update Your Blog Design (and Why You Should) appeared first on ProBlogger.

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ProBlogger: How to Overcome Procrastination

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How to Overcome Procrastination Posted: 01 Apr 2021 04:00 AM PDT The post How to Overcome Procrastination appeared first on ProBlogger. This post is based on episode 167 of the ProBlogger podcast. This week I want to talk about procrastination, and how to overcome it. We all have the potential to achieve amazing things – not only with our blogging, but also with other aspects of our lives. Unfortunately, we often put off doing the things we should be doing until the last minute. And sometimes we put it off for so long that we never get the chance to do it ever again. Young offender When I was about five years old, my mum would give me 20 cents every Friday morning for pocket money. Every Friday at 8:30 (when I left for school) she'd hand over that elusive 20-cent coin. But to earn it I had to clean my room and do some other chores during the week. And if I didn't have everything done by 8:30 a.m. I didn't get the money. It was as simple as that. So did I manage to keep my room clean all week? Of course not. And so at 8:25 a.m. every Friday morning I'd be manically cleaning my room, desperate to get it done before the 8:30 deadline. And that's when she started saying something that still resonates with me: "Your life will be better if you take action on the things you avoid." It's a quote I heard a lot during my school years. I left everything until the last minute – homework, essays, studying for exams, even getting to work at my first job. I was definitely a procrastinator. And while I rarely missed any of these 'deadlines', there was always a mad scramble at the end. Deadlines – real and imaginary We all have deadlines we need to meet. And for a lot of people, those deadlines are the only way things get done. It's how I pay my taxes. It's how I get my keynote presentation written for an upcoming conference. It's even how I buy Vanessa a Christmas present. But some things in life have deadlines so far into the future that we simply ignore them. Take health, for example. We should all trying to keep ourselves healthy by eating right and exercising. But most people only think seriously about their health when they're in their 70s and 80s (unless there's a problem before that). It's the same with blogging. Not just with the business side of it all, but also things like starting a podcast or a YouTube channel. There's no deadline we have to meet, and so there's nothing pushing us to get started. To achieve these kinds of things we have to set our own deadlines. And then stick to them. The notebook One of my desk drawers is dedicated to notebooks. For the past 20 years or so I've been using notebooks to take notes at all the conferences I go to. It's also where I do a lot of my planning. A while back I was digging around in this drawer and found my notebook from 2009. Every page was full of useful information I'd gathered throughout the year. But near the end I had a page dedicated to my goals for 2010. And at the top of that list were three words: "Start ProBlogger podcast". As you can see, I also wrote down what the show should be about, and that it would be weekly. I can't remember why I wrote down my goals for 2010 in my 2009 notebook. I'm guessing it's because I was seeing people such as Pat Flynn, Aimee Porterfield and Chris Dhaka who were either talking about doing a podcast or had already started one. When 2010 came around things got quite busy. We decided to move (which is a challenge when you've got two little kids running around the house). ProBlogger and Digital Photography School were both taking up a lot of my time. And we were gearing up for our second ProBlogger event. But I was also beginning to feel a little apprehensive about the whole idea. What if no-one listens? What if I sound stupid? What if no-one can understand my accent? What if I suck at podcasting? And then there were the other excuses. I don't know how to set it up. I don't have the right microphone. I've never done this before. It never happened. At the end of 2010, I wrote down my goals for 2011. And once again I put "Start ProBlogger podcast" at the top of the list. But 2011 was even busier (we now had three boys in the house), and all the fears and excuses resurfaced. Unfortunately, setting myself the goal to start a podcast and then not doing it became a regular thing. It was at the top of my Goals list for 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. And the longer I put it off, the harder it was to break the pattern. The question In 2015 I went to Chris Dhaka's Tropical Think Tank conference in the Philippines. It started on the same day as Mother's Day here in Australia (which I wanted to be home for), and so I didn't arrive at the conference until the networking event on the second-last day. As an introvert, this is my idea of a nightmare. The conference had been going for a couple of days, and so I was walking into a situation where everyone knew each other but I didn't really know anyone. I was also very jetlagged, having spent more than 24 hours on planes to get there. I met a few people on the night, including Lane Kennedy who asked me to partner with her in a game of billiards with a couple of other people. None of us were very good, and so the game went on for more than hour. And in that time Lane and I got to know each other and have a chat. At one point in the game Lane asked me what my goals were for 2015. By this stage I'd had a couple of beers, and the combination of alcohol and jetlag left me feeling a little lightheaded. And so I blurted out, "I'm going to start a podcast". It's the first time I'd told anyone about this. Lane asked me a few questions, and seemed enthusiastic about it. "Yes, that would be good," she said. "I'd listen to that." I don't know whether she meant it or was just making small talk. But it was enough to get me excited about it. I then told her I was going to launch the podcast with 31 episodes in 31 days, based on my 31 Days To Build A Better Blog ebook. The idea literally came to me while I was talking to her. She seemed to like the idea as she went off and played her shot. And when she came back she asked me a question – a question I still consider a gift. "When are you going to do it by?" Still feeling lightheaded, I replied, "I'm going to launch it by the first of July". July was only six weeks away. At long last Anyone who has launched a podcast knows that six weeks is a crazy timeframe. And once me head cleared and I got some sleep I realized most of my team were involved in other projects and wouldn't be able to help me set it up. So it was up to me to learn how to set up, record and edit a podcast, and what equipment I would need to do it all. It was a crazy six weeks. But telling Lane what I was doing and when I'd have it done by is still one of the best things I ever did. She never kept me accountable by asking how I was going? (She may not even remember the conversation.) But telling her about my plans gave me a deadline and killed the cycle of procrastination. In July 2015 I finally launched the ProBlogger podcast. And it's been fantastic. Each episode has been downloaded around 30,000 times, and it has provided me with all kinds of opportunities and conversations with my readers and listeners. One down Having finally achieved my podcasting goal, I started thinking about other things I'd been procrastinating about. One of the was redesigning the ProBlogger website, which took six months to get off my list. And the other had been hanging around since it was first launched. I started ProBlogger back in 2004 because no-one was writing about blogging and how to make money from it. And having decided to write about it myself, I then brainstormed to come up with topics I could write about. I came up with the usual suspects – how to start a blog, how to write great content, how to find readers, how to monetize it, and so on. And of course, that's the logical order to do it – start the blog, create the content, find the readers, monetize it. But whenever I tried writing about how to start a blog, I began hearing the nagging voices of fear and doubt. You're not technical enough. What if you make a mistake? No one will believe anything else you say. You need to research more. You need to get some advice on that. And so I kept putting it off. If you go through the ProBlogger archives, you'll see that for the first ten or so years I didn't write a single post about how to start a blog. And whenever someone asked, "Hey, I'm sure you've written on this topic. Can you point me to the article on how to start a blog?" I'd point them to other people's articles in our archives or on other blogs. Enough is enough Having procrastinated for far too long, I finally sat down and wrote a post on how to start a blog. And as I started writing all those excuses started melting away. Of course I can write this post. I've started 30 blogs over the years, so I know what I'm talking about. And How to Start a Blog made its debut. The results were immediate. I knew I'd created a useful piece of content, and so I started to share it. It's also on our Start Here portal page, and in our footer as one of our top articles. And as the post includes a few affiliate links (server providers, WordPress templates, domain name sites, etc.), every day I get emails from our affiliate partners saying "You've earned money from this post". And every time I get one of these emails I think, Why didn't I write that post sooner? No regrets And I guess that's why I'm really writing this post. I don't want you to have any regrets down the track over things you could be doing now. Don't just make plans. Make deadlines as well. And stick to them. So what have you been procrastinating about? Tell us about it in the comments. And if you're really game, tell us when you'll have it done by.   Photo by Syed Ali on Unsplash The post How to Overcome Procrastination appeared first on ProBlogger.

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