“What 60% of ProBlogger Readers Don’t Do that’s Central to My Blogging Success” plus 1 more

What 60% of ProBlogger Readers Don’t Do that’s Central to My Blogging Success

Posted: 01 Feb 2012 12:08 PM PST

A couple of weeks ago I ran a census of ProBlogger readers to help us work out how to serve you better in 2012. Thousands of people participated (thanks to everyone!), so I thought I’d share a few of the results that stood out to me. Some of them are based upon comparisons we made to last time we ran a similar survey, around two years ago.

How many active blogs? 45.2% of ProBlogger readers have one active blog, 24.3% of you have two, and 11.6% of you have three blogs. Interestingly 8.7% of ProBlogger readers don’t yet have a blog and 1.6% have more than 10!
How long have you been blogging? There’s a real spread here. The most common response was 1-2 years (17% of responses) with the next most common responses being 2-3 years (15%), and over 5 years (15%). As you’d expect, the numbers of people who’ve been at it a while have increased as ProBlogger has been going longer.
How old are you? The most common age range of ProBlogger readers is 31-40 years of age (29%). Next most common was 41-50 (24%), and 21-30 (19%). I hear a lot of people say that blogging is a young person’s thing. Not necessarily: among our readers, only 2.5% of respondents indicated that they are 20 or under.
Gender. We’ve seen a shift here. While previously just over half of readers were male, this time we saw 56% of readers indicating that they were female. What I did find particularly interesting was that we were able to track responses based on where people were referred to the survey from (email, Twitter, G+, etc.). G+ referrers were almost 70% men and blog readers were 60% men. All other referrals were 60-70% women so there were some real discrepancies there in terms of gender.
Blog platforms you use. Just over half of those surveyed use WordPress.org. 21% use WordPress.com and 17% use Blogger. The other 12 or so percent were spread out considerably. Interestingly both MovableType and TypePad usage had declined since the last survey.
Challenges and problems faced. The biggest challenges readers identified as having were finding readers, monetization, and finding time to blog. Not a lot of change here from last time although the “finding time” response was a bit higher.
Monetization methods. 65% of respondents are trying to monetize their blog (a little lower than last time). Interestingly, the methods of monetization have changed a little. More people are selling their own products, more are doing paid reviews, and less are using ad networks and affiliate marketing, and selling ads directly to sponsors. The most common form of monetization, though, was affiliate marketing (35% of responses).
Blog design. There was a real spread of types of blog designs being used by ProBlogger readers – but the most common type was buying premium templates. This was one of the big shifts from the last survey to this one—with more and more quality services now existing to design and sell you a great blog template (like my friends at Studio Press, who do all my own blog design) I guess it’s an option that will only grow over time.
Email marketing. Perhaps the most surprising result for me in this census were the responses to a question asking readers if they have an email newsletter or do any type of email marketing. Around 60% of you don’t collect any email addresses from readers, or do anything with email. As I’ve written on many occasions, email and newsletters are central to my own approach. Email not only drives traffic to my blogs, it helps me make money. I cannot imagine my own blogs without email. If there was one tip I’d give on how to grow a blog it’d be to get serious about this in 2012!

Thanks to everyone for participating in this year’s census. The above info, plus your thousands of suggestions, have given me (and the team behind ProBlogger) a lot of great ideas.

In fact in the coming months, you’ll see a shift in how we run ProBlogger that’s based upon what we heard in this survey. It will impact the topics of posts you’ll see here on ProBlogger, as well as our approach on numerous other levels. Thanks for making ProBlogger more useful!

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

What 60% of ProBlogger Readers Don’t Do that’s Central to My Blogging Success

Why Kissing a Digital Baby is Better than Back-scratching a Super-famous Blogger

Posted: 01 Feb 2012 06:05 AM PST

This guest post is by Shamelle Perera of Better Blogging Ways.

By now, it's been engraved into every bloggers mind that relationships are the foundation of building a successful blog.

Then, there is this "hush hush" unwritten law, “You should build strong relationships with established pro bloggers or blogosphere influences! Their links are like gold; a tweet or Facebook like will bring you a tsunami of visitors to your blog.”

(Don’t get me wrong. This post is not a rebel rant against pro bloggers. I respect them dearly, and the work they’ve done to rise up to that level.)

Yes, it’s true that one tweet or Facebook Like from these super famous bloggers can flood your blog with visitors. However, there are so many newbie bloggers trying to get the attention of such bloggers. It can be a difficult, if not an impossible endeavor to get on their radars. Even if you get an ounce of their attention, it might still be short-lived.

So, forget the pros (for a moment!)

Kiss plenty of digital babies

I first heard about the term, “kissing digital babies” from Stanford over at PushingSocial. For the benefit of those of you who go astray when you see the word “kissing,” Digital Babies = newbie bloggers.

Srini from BlogCastFM, goes on to say, “Emerging talent is the most undervalued asset in the blogosphere”. I couldn’t agree more. There are really good undiscovered digital babies out there.

Whenever I see a newbie blogger who offers a different perspective (unlike the same rehashed content we see everywhere!), I don’t hesitate to promote that blog/blogger. I don’t expect anything in return. It’s just my way of saying, “Thank you”.

“Why?” you ask.

Even digital babies can teach you a thing or two

In my post, How Blogging Daddies Got Blogging Advice From Their Adorable Toddlers it was quite evident that even pro bloggers still learn from their kids.

Did you ever think that a pro blogger such as Darren Rowse could learn about blogging from his adorable toddler?

The same principal applies here. A newbie blogger may offer some new inspiration, or maybe you’ll learn a small thing which you had no idea about before. So don’t dismiss a newbie blogger easily.

“Build baby build!”

Seth Godin said, “Build baby build!” In his book Tribes, Seth encourages you to create your own tribe and look for people to join your tribe, rather than trying to join other established tribes.

Be on the lookout for digital babies who are searching for new tribes to join. With every digital baby kissed, there is potential of finding a new reader—a new member for your tribe.

Digital babies can form your new loyal audience

Digital babies will have more time on their hands to engage with you than will a super-busy famous blogger. This will mean that a digital baby will read more of your blog posts and see the value you offer. Who knows—they might even buy one of your products!

On helping…

Having said all this, I need to mention that you shouldn’t help someone with the intention of getting something in return. Help because you think it’s the right thing to do; help because you want to genuinely see the newbie blogger progress further; help because you can use your influence and pay it forward. Surely someone helped you be where you are today?

Hopefully this post inspired you to you to do something nice for a newbie blogger. Before you walk away just take five minutes to find a digital baby you can kiss. Look through your blog comments, RSS reader, guest posts, and backlinks.

See what you can do to help, and how much time you can spend. For example, perhaps you can allocate five minutes each week for a comment, retweet, etc. over the next month. Or perhaps there’s a post that resonated with you, and which deserves a backlink from your blog?

Are you convinced? Is kissing a digital baby better than back scratching a super famous blogger? When developing relationships with other bloggers, what has been your strategy?

Shamelle Perera is a full-time search engine mechanic and a part time blogger. If you are looking for thoughtful, actionable blogging tips with a fresh perspective checkout her blog, Better Blogging Ways Follow her on Twitter @BetterBloggingW, you won't be bored!

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Why Kissing a Digital Baby is Better than Back-scratching a Super-famous Blogger