I recently sold DesignM.ag and through the process I’ve looked back at the last few years and what I have learned along the way. Blogging in a popular industry where hundreds or thousands of other blogs exist has pros and cons. In this post I’d like to cover five specific things that I have learned, hopefully it will be helpful to you as well.

While the context of this post is my experience blogging about topics related to design, I think they can easily apply to most other niches or industries that are very crowded.

1. Obstacles Present Opportunities

If you’ve read many articles with blogging tips I’m sure you’ve read that you should select a niche that doesn’t present much competition. In my opinion, depending on your strategy for growing and/or monetizing your blog you may be better off blogging in a more popular niche. If your blogging approach is to create a large number of small blogs that target specific words or phrases and are optimized to make money with AdSense or affiliate programs, then you’re probably better off avoiding crowded niches. On the other hand, if you’re looking to build an authority blog where you’ll be active and you’re willing to dedicate a significant amount of time, crowded niches present some powerful opportunities.

The reason for avoiding crowded niches is usually that it is easier to achieve top search engine rankings or to stand out from other bloggers, both true. But the obstacle of a crowded niche can be turned into a very profitable opportunity. Here are a few examples:

Link Building - Bloggers who want to attract lots of search traffic will need to make efforts to build links. This may include blogroll link exchanges, guest posting, article marketing, social media marketing, or simply focusing on writing great posts that naturally draw links. You may have the greatest content possible, but if there are only a handful of other blogs that cover topics related to yours, you may have a hard time building more than just a few links. In crowed niches like design, there are countless other blogs that could potentially link to you. Sure, it will be more difficult to stand out in this situation, but the potential is much higher.

Guest Posting – One of the best ways to build your profile and passively market your blog is by writing posts for other blogs. In crowded niches there are more opportunities for guest posting than you could ever pursue. If you’re willing to put in the time to write the content, you can get exposure and links through guest posts at a very large number of blogs.

Subscribers – Gaining subscribers is much easier when there are a lot of people interested in the topic that you are blogging about. In obscure niches you may have to work very hard just to pick up a few subscribers, which can be discouraging.

These are just a few examples, but the point is that with the right approach the obstacles of a crowded niche can be turned upside down and used for your benefit.

2. Traffic Potential is High

Crowded niches have a large number of blogs in part because there are so many readers out there looking for the content. With a huge potential audience comes the opportunity to reach very large traffic numbers. There are tons of design blogs that reach hundreds of thousands of page views each month, a number that may be almost unreachable in some niches.

3. Ad Prices May Be Lower

Finding advertisers in the design industry is not that difficult. Because the audience is so large there are plenty of companies with products and services that are looking to advertise to this audience, but there are also plenty of other advertising opportunities for them. With hundreds of blogs in the niche receiving decent numbers of visitors and page views, ad prices tend to be lower than they would be in other niches or industries with similar traffic numbers. If your ad prices are too high, the advertiser can simply go advertise somewhere else, and there are plenty of blogs willing to sell ad space at low rates. If there are only a few quality blogs in a particular niche, advertisers will have fewer options and higher ad prices can be justified. In the end, I think the higher traffic potential and lower ad prices basically even out.

4. Originality is a Challenge

Throughout my 3 years of design blogging I have followed a number of other blogs to stay aware of what is going on and the topics and types of posts that are being published by other blogs. As time has gone by and more blogs have launched it has become increasingly difficult to produce content that is unique and stands out from the content of other blogs. With far fewer blogs covering design-related topics a few years ago it was pretty easy to come up with ideas for posts that hadn’t been done yet, or to cover the same general topics in new and different ways. In a crowded niche though, originality is possibly the biggest challenge.

5. Commitment, Dedication, and Consistency or Critical

In a niche where there are a large number of blogs competing for the attention of readers, you must continue to work and develop the blog in order to be successful. Taking long breaks between posts or relaxing on the quality of content will be far more damaging than it could be in other niches, because readers can simply go to other blogs to get the information that you are not providing. As I look at the design blogs that have been successful over the past few years, consistency is the one thing that they all have in common.

What’s Your Opinion?

Do you blog in a crowded niche? If so, what have you learned from the experience?

The theme is a great choice for bloggers because it provides a lot of flexibility through various options. You can choose from 10 different color schemes, easily upload and change background images (or simply use a solid color), move the sidebar to the left or right, change fonts from the WordPress dashboard without touching any code, and more. The dashboard options make this theme a great choice for bloggers who want some control over the design and layout without needing to dive into the code.

The Personal WordPress Theme costs $49.95 and allows you to use it on as many sites as you wish, without the need to purchase an extended license. It also includes support from the Blogging Theme Support Room.

To see the demo or to purchase the theme please visit Blogging Tips.

The Giveaway Details:

If you would like to get a free copy of the Personal WordPress Theme courtesy of Blogging Tips, please leave a comment on this post. On Friday, December 4th I will draw a random winner and update this post. Please be sure to leave a valid email address so you can be contacted if you win.

UPDATE: the contest is now over. Congratulations to the winner, Sarbjit Singh.

One of my typical recommendations to these people is to start building a blog of their own, but do some freelance blogging at the same time. Building a profitable blog takes some patience and a willingness to put in the effort with the hope of being rewarded for it in the future. Very rarely does a blog sprout up and become a big money maker in a short amount of time. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t be making money while your blog is in the early stages.

For more the two years now I have been doing some freelance blogging for a wide variety of blogs, and it has been an amazing experience for a number of reasons. While there are some downsides to selling your posts to others, there are also a number of reasons that I think freelance blogging is a great option that should be pursued by more people.

Here we will look at 10 reasons why freelance blogging can be a great opportunity.

1. Networking

Although the money may seem like the biggest reason to work as a freelance blogger, I have found that the networking aspect has proven to be much more valuable in the long run. Most (although not all) blogs that pay writers are already successful. And many times the editor or contact person that deals with the writers has played a very large role in building that success. This means that as a freelance writer you will have the opportunity to get to know some successful and very influential people that have already accomplished what you are hoping to accomplish with your own blog.

Having a solid network is extremely important for bloggers, and this is a great way to make it happen. Many of these people are very busy and would be difficult to connect with through other means, but as a writer you are a major contributor to their success. Do a good job for them and they will take notice.

2. Money

Obviously, getting paid is a good thing. The amount of money that you will be paid for freelance blog posts will vary depending on the blog that you are writing for, the types of posts that you are doing, and your ability to produce results. Some pay very small amounts that may not be worth your time, but others pay quite well. Personally, I started with some lower-paying gigs and worked my way up over time. This was a nice way to do it because the thought of writing for major publications was pretty intimidating at first, so I was able to improve my work and build my way up to it.

As I mentioned in the intro, making money with a blog takes time. I am a big believer in the need to develop your own assets and take care of your own properties first, but freelance blogging doesn’t have to prevent you from doing that. For many people not making anything as a blogger can be quite discouraging. If that’s the case, you can keep working on your blog and have some patience for it to develop at the same time as freelancing and actually see some income.

3. Flexibility

Most freelance bloggers are able to write posts as their schedule permits. I have had some assignments where I need to get a post published on a particular day of the week, but I could work on that post whenever I had the time. I found it helpful to work ahead and have a few posts ready so that if any given week I didn’t have the time, it wouldn’t become a problem.

With this type of flexibility you can prioritize the work on your own blog and fit in some extra paying work as you have time. Many blog owners that pay freelancers are very willing to accept posts with the understanding that it will be done as the writer has time.

4. Exposure

Getting your name out there to readers can be extremely valuable. If you are writing for a blog that has a similar audience to yours, freelance writing is one of the best ways you can get in front of that audience. This gives you an opportunity to develop your reputation, and if the readers see your name attached to several different posts at various blogs in the niche, they will see you as a leader and influencer.

5. Link Building

Many blogs that hire freelance writers will include a brief author bio with the post that will include a link back to your site (this will vary from one blog to another, so check the details with the editor). This can be a very effective way to build links to your own blog. While you will get some click-through traffic from those links, the more important benefit is that you can build some strong links from blogs that have a lot of authority in the search rankings. If you write for a number of different sites this can add up over time.

6. Experience (as a writer)

Writing for other blogs can be a lot more challenging than writing for your own. At your blog you can write whatever you want, and usually that tends to lead to writers taking more liberties and being less careful. When you are being paid to write for another blog you will be challenged to do your best work in order to be asked to write again in the future. Plus, many blogs that hire freelancers have a large audience, so you know your posts will be seen by a lot of people. While this can be a little intimidating, it is a good challenge that will push you and help you to improve as a writer. Those improved skills can then be used on work for your own blog in addition to your freelance work.

7. Learn While You Earn

In addition to improving your ability and gaining experience as a writer, you’ll also learn some things about what it takes to run a successful blog. Most likely you will be getting some feedback on your posts from an editor, and that feedback can be priceless. You’re getting a great opportunity to learn from someone successful, get feedback on your own work, and your being paid for it.

8. Diversify Your Income

Even if you are already earning some money from other sources, like ad sales on your blog or affiliate marketing, freelance blogging offers a way to diversify that income. In situations like the current economy where advertising sales slow down in most industries, having some diversity can make your income more stable.

9. Learn from the Best

This has already been mentioned in some of the other points, but it’s important enough that it deserves its own point. Many of the people who will be running the blogs that you are writing for have already accomplished, or are well on their way to accomplishing, exactly what you hope to accomplish with your own blog. Don’t simply view the freelance blogging experience as a way to earn some extra money. Pay attention to the feedback that you’re getting and notice how they run their business. You can pick up a lot of valuable bits that can be used in your own work if you get involved with people who are already successful.

10. One Job Leads to Another

When I started as a freelance blogger it was basically an accident. I emailed a guest post to another blogger with the intent of getting a link to my blog and a little bit of exposure and he wrote back to offer me an opportunity to be a paid writer on a regular basis. After I had written a few posts for his blog I started to get emails from other blog owners who were looking for writers. And as I wrote for some of those people, it led to even more opportunities. For blog owners who are looking for content, finding qualified writers is not as easy as you might think. Doing a good job with one assignment can often lead to more work even without dedicating any effort to finding it.

What’s Your Experience?

Have you ever done any freelance blogging? Would you consider doing so in the future? If you’re looking for freelance blogging opportunities the best place to start is the ProBlogger Job Board. Also, you may be able to find some opportunities by simply contacting some blog owners in your industry. Focus on those that are clearly earning some income through the blog and try to see if they publish posts from multiple authors.

Here we will take a look at 30 blogs that make a big impact with their design. These blogs have been featured at my gallery site Blog Design Heroes, which you can visit if you are looking for more examples of great blog design.

Mr. Henry

Mark Forrester

Sarah Rhoads

Eco Simply

The Swish Life

WorkAwesome

Internet Dreams

DC3 Forever

Andrea Mann

Cut & Taste

Designfeedr

Blik

Tidy Songs

Second & Park

Hey Indy

BigBadCollab

West Coast Poppin

What Katie Does

The Photo Argus

Officeal

Helium Workx

The Greg Brady Project

Devot:ee

Laura Marchbanks

T.J. Mapes

Carbon Sugar

Colorburned

Outlaw Design Blog

Hey Josh

Ecoki 30.jpg

There are a few different ways that premium theme marketplaces can sell their themes. Most sell themes individually and you can by a single-use license or a developer’s license. Other marketplaces use a membership model where members pay a monthly or yearly fee for access to all of the themes. And some marketplaces, like Blog Themes Club, offer both.

At the current time, Blog Themes Club has 4 different themes to choose from (shown below). Single-use licenses range from $19 – $39 depending on the theme. Memberships can be purchased for $49 for 3 months, $79 for 6 months, or $99 for 12 months. However, to celebrate the launch the prices will be $29, $49 and $69 respectively until July 31, 2009. Club members get unlimited downloads of themes as well as support.

The Giveaway Details:

If you’d like to win a free one-month membership to Blog Themes Club, please leave a comment on this post. On Wednesday, June 17, I will select 3 random winners. Be sure to leave a valid email address where you can be reached.

Themes:

Anima

Invictus

Kronos

Profectus

UPDATE: The contest is now over. Thanks to everyone who participated. The winners are Justin, Roseli, and Fabio. Kevin will be contacting you shortly with the details of claiming your prize.

In this article we’ll look at a number of things you can do to improve the impact of the older posts in your archives.

1. Look for Easy SEO Opportunities

Last month I published a post Simple SEO Changes to Improve Unexpected Rankings. That post covers some very easy things you can do to improve the rankings of posts that are already drawing traffic for specific search phrases. If you have a blog that’s been around for a while and built archives with a decent number of posts, one of the easiest ways to add more value to your older posts is to identify opportunities that already exist.

If you have a post that is drawing traffic for a specific phrase, make sure the page title is optimized for that phrase, add some internal links using that phrase as anchor text, and build some links from other sites to that post. Since these posts are already driving traffic for these phrases, if you can improve the rankings with some simple changes you should see a noticeable increase in search traffic.

2. Promote Your Best or Most Popular Content

Many blogs include a list of popular posts in the sidebar. This can be an effective way of directing new visitors to the best content on the site, and improve your chances of turning that visitor into a subscriber or a repeat visitor.

Sidebars aren’t the only place to promote your best work. Links within the context of the new blog posts will have the most impact in terms of click-throughs, so make an effort to link whenever appropriate.

You probably spent a lot of time writing your best posts, so make sure that you’re still getting something out of them rather than letting them collect dust in your archives.

3. Build Links

Achieving solid search engine rankings is probably the best way to extend the life of your blog posts. Even a small increase in the number of search visitors you draw on a daily basis will make a big difference over the course of a month or a year. Most bloggers focus link building efforts only on new posts, but you can also build links to your older posts. If you have older posts that have potential to draw significant search traffic, spending some time building links could be a great investment of your time. You could exchange links with other bloggers, do some article marketing, build Squidoo lenses, or some other type of link building activity.

4. Consistently Use Internal Links in Your Posts

Going back through your archives and adding internal links to other posts can take a lot of time. You can help yourself out and work to extend the life of your posts by using internal links in your new posts. Get in the habit of reading through your posts before publishing just for the purpose of identifying opportunities for internal links to your older posts. You may get some click-through traffic from your subscribers to the older posts, plus the links can help to establish them with search engines.

5. Go Back and Update Important Posts

The posts from your archives that are drawing the most traffic on a regular basis are assets to your blog. Rather than just leaving them alone and hoping that the traffic continues to flow, go back to the posts periodically to see if there are ways to improve the post. Is the information out of date? Are the links still active? Is there new information that could be added to improve the post? Could the formatting be improved to make it more reader-friendly?

Be updating your posts from time-to-time you’ll help to keep them relevant and useful for a longer period of time, which should help to ensure that they continue to draw visitors.

6. Focus on Quality Over Quantity

Most of us bloggers feel the need to publish a certain number of posts per week or even per day. Consistent posting is a great habit to develop, but quantity of posts should not take priority over quality. If you’re rushing to pump out new content just for the sake of having something new for readers, it’s likely that these posts will have little long-term value, and shortly after they are published traffic will fade and they will rarely be read again.

By focusing your efforts on creating the best content possible, you’ll draw more links, attract better search engine rankings, and develop a better reputation among readers in your industry. In this case your archives will be a strong source of on-going traffic.

7. Use Landing Pages

If your archives include a number of posts on similar or related topics, consider creating a landing page that provides some information and links out to these posts. The page could become a valuable resource for visitors and funnel traffic to posts in your archives.

8. Evaluate Your Stats

Most bloggers are obsessed with stats, tracking visitors, page views and subscriber counts on a regular basis. But many times the stats aren’t really used productively. By evaluating which posts on your site are drawing the most on-going traffic and which search phrases are sending visitors, you can probably use this information to come up with some ideas for new posts that will be likely to turn into strong long-term assets in your archives.

What’s Your Opinion?

What do you do to improve the effectiveness and impact of your older posts?

I get emails every day at my design blogs requesting link exchanges, and I sent a few myself when I was getting my first blog started. Some of the emails I get take an effective approach (even if I wind up not exchanging links) but most have serious flaws that will prevent the blogger from having a decent chance to get a link. Obviously, if they’re contacting me, they are also contacting other bloggers with the same request, and if they are making the same mistakes with each email they could be spending a lot of time and not getting many links out of it.

With the right approach link exchanges can be very beneficial, especially for newer bloggers. Here are 9 things to remember when you are asking other bloggers to exchange links:

1 – Be Direct and to the Point

If the purpose of your email is to request a link exchange, make sure it is clear what you are asking for, what you are offering in return (such as a blogroll link) and keep it brief. Of course, it’s not bad to put a little bit of thought and personality into the email, but avoid getting too long. I think this also depends partly on who you are contacting. Those who run large blogs get tons of email, so the shorter the better. If you’re contacting a new blogger that probably doesn’t get many emails from visitors, you have a little bit more freedom in this area.

2 – Start with People You Know

Your best chance of getting someone to accept a link exchange is when you have had some contact, or if the other person at least knows who you are. While I generally turn down all link exchange requests at this point, I will usually accept if it’s from someone that I consider a friend. If you’re just getting started as a blogger your contacts may be limited, so that is a good reason to get out and make an effort to get to know other bloggers in your niche. If possible, leave comments on a blog and start participating before asking for a link exchange.

3 – Only Approach Sites that are Relevant to Yours

It’s not rare to get a link exchange request from someone who has a site that is totally unrelated to yours. If I get an email that’s asking me to link to a dating website or something that has no connection to my site, I’ll delete it right away. Focus on spending your time building links from relevant sites and you’ll have the best results.

4 – Approach Blogs of a Similar Size

If you just launched your blog last week, don’t ask for a link exchange from a highly established and successful blog (unless you know the blogger or unless you already have an established reputation). Your time is much better spent approaching other new bloggers, and you’ll probably get a pretty high percentage of people that accept your request. As your blog grows, you’ll be able to move on to link exchange requests from bigger blogs.

Larger blogs are less likely to accept your request for a few reasons:

• There’s nothing in it for them. Well, not completely nothing, but they certainly don’t have the same motivation that a smaller blog would. A link from an unestablished blog will not send much direct traffic, and the blog probably already has plenty of links, so it won’t make a difference for search engine rankings.
• They get too many requests. If bloggers accepted every link exchange request their sidebars would never end.
• They don’t know if you’re serious about your blog. I don’t think most bloggers want to have a blogroll full of links to blogs that haven’t posted in six months. Unfortunately, a very high percentage of new bloggers give up very quickly. As a result, you’ll have to prove yourself for a while before getting blogroll links from larger blogs.

5 – Find the Blogger’s Name

For bloggers that get a lot of emails requesting link exchanges, it can make a HUGE difference if you take a minute to find the name of the person you’re writing to. Not many people do this, so it gives your message a more personal touch and shows that you care enough to personalize it.

6 – Don’t Ignore Single-Post Links

Blogroll link exchanges are the most common, and they do usually result in a link from every page on a blog, but they are not the only option. When I started my first blog I was publishing a weekly links post that included about 10 – 15 links to other posts that I read throughout the week. This worked out very well for me because it allowed me to attract some people to my blog as they followed the link that was coming to their site, plus it allowed me to “reward” those who commented throughout the week or who I was getting to know. Linking to others is a great way to make friends.

These link posts also were the focus of the link requests that I made. I think there was about a one month span where I looked for other bloggers who were also doing weekly or occasional link posts who blogged on similar topics as me. If I liked their content I sent them an email and asked if they would be interested in exchanging links from our link posts. With this approach I got a very high percentage of people who accepted the offer and I’m actually still in touch with some of those people nearly two years later.

I didn’t always follow my own advice from earlier in the post about getting to know the people first, but I did focus on smaller blogs and they were generally very open to the suggestion.

7 – Don’t make it look like the request was sent to 1,000 people

To have the best chance of getting a link, make the email look personal and not like a bulk message that was blasted to tons of people. Just using the person’s name, which was already mentioned, goes a long way here. The formatting of bulk messages also can make it look obvious some times, so just write a simple paragraph with your request.

8 – Provide a link to your site

This one should be obvious, but I get requests all the time that say “hey, I just started a new blog and wanted to know if you would exchange links with me?” Keeping it brief is good, but if someone doesn’t even take the time to tell me what their website is, or provide a link, the chance that I’ll respond is pretty slim.

9 – Don’t go overboard

Link exchanges can be a great benefit to bloggers, but they’re only a small part of what it takes to build a successful blog. Don’t spend all of your time emailing every blogger that you can find at the expense of the other things that need to be done to run your blog.

10 – Focus on content first

The very best thing you can do to attract links, regardless of your approach for link building, is to focus on producing the best content possible. If you request a link exchange with someone who is not familiar with your blog, the first thing they’re going to do is visit and see what kind of content you have. If you have good content, there’s a good chance they will be interested in linking to you. Good content will make it much easier to build links.

What’s Your Experience with Link Exchanges?

If you have any experience with link exchanges, please share in the comments.

In this post we’ll take a look at 25 resources, some free and some paid, that will simplify your blogging life in one way or another. Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments.

Twitter Resources:

Twitter is a great resource for bloggers, but it can be difficult to manage. Fortunately, there are some great tools that can help to organize your Twitter account and make it more productive without requiring all of your time. Here we’ll look at two of the best resources, but you can see others in 5 Firefox Add-Ons for Twitter.

TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a great resource for organizing and simplifying the use of Twitter. With TweetDeck you can customize how the data is shown, but you can see all of the tweets from those who you are following, you can separate replies to you, as well as direct messages. TweetDeck will also help you to easily and quickly reply and retweet, plus it has functionality to shorten URLs.

Twhirl

Twhirl is a desktop client for social sites including Twitter, Friendfeed and others. I’ve personally been using it recently for Twitter to see how it compare to TweetDeck. It does many of the same things to make Twitter easier to use and more effective.

Blog Editors:

Many bloggers, myself included, find it easier to write and edit posts prior to publishing by using some type of editor other than just the blogging platform. WordPress has everything you need to enter posts directly, but using an editor brings some advantages. However, using Word is not the best option as it will add unnecessary code. The are a number of quality editors to choose from.

BlogDesk

After trying a few different blog editors, BlogDesk became my choice. It is free and simple to use, plus it has a number of helpful features. You can post directly to your blog from BlogDesk (although I rarely do it this way). BlogDesk also allows you to swicth to code view to have more control if you want.

Blog Jet

BlogJet is a blog editor for Windows. It’s not a free option (starts at $39.95), but it does have a lot of useful features, including a WYSIWYG editor, YouTube and Flickr support, integration with browsers and feed readers, and more. There is a free trial available.

Windows Live Writer

Windows Live Writer is the preferred editor for many bloggers. It’s a free option that includes many features. The most recent version will even allow you to include video from your computer in posts, and it will automatically publish to YouTube when the post is published.

ScribeFire

ScribeFire is a Firefox extension that gives you a full-featured blog editor right in your browser. Being a browser add-on, it provides a different user experience than the others on this list, so you can see for yourself which type you prefer.

Firefox Add-Ons:

Firefox is an excellent browser for bloggers in part because there are countless add-ons that have been created to achieve a specific purpose. Here we’ll look at a few that can help bloggers to save time and work efficiently, but you can find more in 10 Firefox Add-Ons for Bloggers and 20 Firefox Extensions for Social Media Addicts.

LinkChecker

If your blog posts typically include a number of links, LinkChecker can be a big time saver. Rather than manually checking to see if all the links are active, you can run LinkChecker to do the dirty work and quickly point out any dead links that need to be corrected.

Social Media for Firefox

Most bloggers are also at least somewhat active on social media sites. The Social Media add-on will show you data about any page as you’re surfing. You can see how many votes a page or post has on a number of different social media sites, and you can also quickly identify those that have not yet been submitted, which is a great way to build a profile by getting to the best stories quickly.

Amazon S3 Organizer

Amazon S3 is a great service for hosting images and media files rather than hosting them on your own server. Especially if your blog gets high volumes of traffic or bursts of traffic, having images stored on another server can help the blog to perform more efficiently. Amazon S3 Organizer is a great way to upload and manage your files on Amazon S3, which does not currently provide an way to do this without using another program.

SEO Toolbar

The SEO Toolbar from SEO Book is an excellent free SEO resource. With the toolbar installed you can get all kinds of information on any page as your surfing, including link analysis, ranking information, general domain information and more.

WordPress Plugins:

WordPress is my blogging platform of choice, and it’s also extremely popular with other bloggers. One of the reasons WordPress is a great choice is the huge number of plugins that are readily available. While there are plenty of valuable plugins to choose from, the ones featured here will specifically help you to achieve efficiency.

Database Backup Plugin

Backing up your WordPress database is an essential security measure. The Database Backup Plugin makes it easy to set automated backups that you can have sent directly to your email address. It makes an essential task something that you won’t have to worry about.

cforms II

If you need any kind of contact form on your website, cforms II makes it easy to set up. You can create multiple customizable forms, including tell-a-friend options.

WP125

Managing your own ad sales can be much easier with WP125. It allows you to easily set and manage 125 x 125 banner ads within the WordPress dashboard. I used the plugin for a few months before moving to a third party network, and I was very pleased with WP125. If you’re looking for an easy-to-use plugin that allows you to sell and manage your own ads, this is a great choice.

Bad Behavior

Even with Akismet, comment spam can become overwhelming. Bad Behavior is a plugin that will help to cut down on the amount of spam comments that you receive. “Instead of merely looking at the content of potential spam, Bad Behavior analyzes the delivery method as well as the software the spammer is using. In this way, Bad Behavior can stop spam attacks even when nobody has ever seen the particular spam before.”

Monetization:

Aside from personal blogs, most bloggers have the intention of making money. Unfortunately, making money from your blog can be a huge task in itself. There are some ways, however, some resources to help make the monetization process a bit simpler and less time consuming.

BuySellAds

BuySellAds is an advertising marketplace that allows you to sell ads on your site with little to no work, plus BSA makes it easy for the advertisers as well. Payment is handled through PayPal subscriptions, so renewal rates tend to be high if the ads are priced well. I use BSA on all three of my sites and highly recommend them, especially to bloggers in tech-related niches.

Commission Junction

Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to monetize a blog, but having tons of different affiliate programs means that you’ll have to spend a lot of time tracking results and managing the accounts. Commission Junction is one of the largest affiliate marketplaces that allows you to promote many different programs while tracking all of them from just one place, and getting one paycheck.

LinkShare

LinkShare is similar to Commission Junction. With LinkShare you can promote a number of different affiliate programs without needing to track and manage them all separately.

Themes:

Most bloggers want to be able to give their blog a professional, attractive and unique look. While there are thousands of free themes to choose from, you’ll probably want something better or more customized if you view your blog as a business. Custom themes are always an option, but they are out of the price range of most bloggers. For this reason, premium themes have become very popular. For anywhere between $20 and $100 you can get a premium theme that has an improved look and possibly better functionality than a free theme. Premium themes are a great way to save yourself some headaches and expense when it comes to improving the look of your blog.

ThemeForest

Envato’s theme marketplace, ThemeForest, offers very affordable WordPress themes, as well as HTML/CSS templates and themes/templates for other content management systems. There is a wide variety of WordPress themes available, including many for specific purposes and types of sites. You may be able to find the perfect theme for your needs for around $25 or $30.

StudioPress

Brian Gardner, the designer behind the popular Revolution series of themes, has a number of excellent themes for sale at StudioPress.

iThemes

iThemes has a number of WordPress themes for sale. They create themes of all kinds, for blogs and for CMS purposes.

Thesis

Thesis is an incredibly popular premium theme from DIY Themes. It’s flexibility, features, and optimized code make it a favorite among bloggers.

WooThemes

WooThemes sells a number of great premium themes from some very talented designers. The have themes for many different purposes and they frequently run specials and promotions.

Elegant Themes

Elegant Themes is a different type of premium theme marketplace. Designer Nick Roach offers all of his premium themes (currently more than 20 themes) for a price of just $19.95 per year.

Hard Drive Backup:

Most bloggers have valuable information on their hard drive. If your hard drive crashes you could lose hours, days, or even weeks worth of work. You can protect yourself from this by having a system to backup your hard drive. Automated, online services are very popular and affordable. If your hard drive ever crashes, having one of these services will most certainly simply your life.

Mozy

I have been using Mozy for about a year now to backup my hard drive. It’s one of those services that I hope I never have to use, but if I do need it, it will be well worth the money. Mozy will automatically backup your hard drive at specific intervals so you don’t even have to remember to do it. You can get unlimited backups for less than $5 per month, and a personal account with 2 GB or less for free.

Carbonite

Carbonite is a similar service to Mozy. The cost is $54.95 per year, with the a free trial period of 15 days available.

Intronis

Intronis is another similar service. Their pricing is the first 2 GB each month are free, and each additional GB is $2.99.

Suggestions?

What other resources do you use that make your life easier?

From my experience as a blogger, I’ve made money by selling ads and by offering services. Both have pros and cons, but today I’d like to focus on the practice of using a blog to promote services. When I first started blogging my only goal was to use the blog to generate more web design business through Vandelay Website Design. With so many designers out there, I saw the blog as an opportunity to indirectly promote my services and to get visitors to the site. Although through the past year or two, very little has actually gone the way I thought it would (mostly because I didn’t really understand blogging at that point), I can say that it has more than exceeded my expectations in terms of helping to generate business.

I know there are many others like me who have benefited from their blog’s ability to help promote a service business, but most service providers are still not using a blog in any way, and most bloggers are looking to make money in other ways besides services. From my experience, blogging and services go together just as well, if not better, than blogging and ad sales, and I’d like to share some of the things that I’ve learned.

Tips for Using a Blog to Promote Your Services

1. Promote Yourself Passively

One of the biggest keys to using a blog for marketing and promotional purposes is to take the right approach in the first place. Think about blog readers. They visit blogs and subscribe to their feeds because they appreciate and enjoy the content that is published. They’re not interested in subscribing to a blog that does nothing more than promote their own services.

Most forms of marketing and advertising are completely different from blogging. For this reason, when those who are new to blogging think of their blog as a promotional tool, they often take an approach that isn’t going to produce the best results.

Promoting yourself passively with a blog involves publishing a high quality of content, and that content will essentially do the promotion for you. Rather than using your blog to tell readers that you are the best at whatever service you provide, prove that to them passively by creating a blog that is highly useful to readers. If this is the case, when people are interested in your services they will be confident that you can do a great job for them.

2. Prove Your Worth

Proving your worth is part of promoting yourself passively. By becoming a valued source of information and a leading blogger in your industry, the perceived value of your services will be much higher than it would be otherwise. You could be providing the same exact quality of service as someone else who isn’t blogging, but because you have been able to prove your worth to your blog readers, they are almost guaranteed to come to you before going to someone with whom they are not familiar.

As a service provider, your reputation will have a considerable impact on the amount of business you get, and on the rates that you’re able to charge. Blogging is one of the best ways that you can work on building a reputation for yourself. It’s a great approach for those who are just starting a business, because there are no significant costs involved (just time), and you’ve got an equal opportunity as other service providers to get the attention of potential customers and to build a solid reputation quickly.

3. Don’t Hold Back

The natural inclination from most blogging service providers is to hold back the “good stuff” for paying customers. While there’s nothing wrong with the mindset, the fact is that it will be hard to produce a truly outstanding blog if you are holding back. Most likely there are other bloggers out there who are willing to share more information with readers, and so your watered-down blog will not stand out as a leader in the industry.

Sure, there may be some times where there are pieces of information that you don’t want to share publicly on your blog, but the main issue here is that you should have the mindset of creating a high-quality, exceptionally useful blog, even if it means sharing some valuable information for free.

4. Set a Schedule

As a service provider, there will be plenty of responsibilities that will keep your days packed. One of the benefits of monetizing a blog through ad sales is that this approach allows you to focus your time on content creation. However, as a service provider you’ll obviously need time to work with clients and customers, or the whole purpose of blogging is useless.

Although it can be a real challenge for service providers to find time for blogging, it’s very feasible if you account for it in your schedule and plan ahead. There’s no need to publish new content everyday, so focus on quality moe than quantity. Think about how much time it takes you to create blog posts from start to finish, and about how much time you anticipate having available in your schedule.

While there is no need to have a rigid posting scheduled that must always be followed, it is extremely helpful to have a tentative schedule of a specific number of posts per week, as well as some time slots in your schedule dedicated to writing those posts. Without dedicating time to the blog, it’s very easy to go for a month at a time without writing, while you’re busy working with clients and handling all the aspects of your business.

5. Use Social Media and Social Networking to Increase Your Audience

If you are using a blog to promote your own services, you should also be getting involved at social networking sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook. There are so many different social networking sites that there is not really a right or wrong choice (although Twitter is now close to a no-brainer), the most important thing is that you’re actively participating somewhere.

Social media sites are a great way to gain exposure for your blog quickly, and networking sites will help you to build a strong network and a reputation within your industry. If you’re not familiar with social media, I recently published a four-part series to getting results with social media for bloggers.

6. Get Around

Building your reputation as a leader in your industry and proving your worth will be much easier if you’re active in other places besides your own blog. Get involved at other blogs in the niche by leaving comments, or better yet, by writing guest posts. Network with other bloggers, do interviews, draw links from other websites and blogs. People want to work with those who they read about or who they see as experts, so make a real effort to be seen at other places besides your own blog.

7. Treat Your Blog as a Valuable Part of Your Business

You will get out of your blog whatever you put into it. If you put very little in, you’ll get very little out. If you truly see the blog as a great opportunity to grow your business and you dedicate time and effort to it, you’ll see the results. If you want your blog to make a difference for your service business, you must look at it as a valuable aspect of your business that is critical to your overall success.

8. Keep Your Content Focused and On Target

If your purpose in blogging is to promote your services, your content should be very focused and relevant to the services that you provide and to those who may be potential clients/customers. This would differ greatly for the approach you might have with a personal blog. On your business blog you’ll want to have an impact with each post, so keep it focused.

9. Welcome Readers of All Kinds, Not Just Those Who are Potential Customers

Even if your blog does become a tremendous tool for promoting your business, the fact is that only a small percentage of your readers will ever become customers. Many of them will visit strictly for the free content, with no intention of ever paying for anything from you, and there’s nothing wrong with that. At my blog for Vandelay Website Design, the vast majority of my regular readers are other designers who will never be interested in hiring someone else to design a site for them. However, these readers are still extremely valuable to me because they help to raise my profile in the industry, and in many cases they are also bloggers, and hopefully they’ll link to me at some point. All of this helps to expose my blog to more people, and some of them will turn into clients.

10. Keep it on Your Own Domain

Service providers are sometimes tempted to start their blog on a separate domain from their main website. My advice is to keep it all together at one domain. Hopefully, over time your blog will attract links and develop an established presence with search engines. If this is the case, the rest of the site can also receive a boost in search engine traffic as a result of a stronger domain.

What’s Your Experience?

Do you offer services? If so, have you used a blog to increase your profile and to promote your services? What has worked well for you?

While I never had any huge spikes in subscriber growth from writing a guest post, I was able to make a lot of great contacts, build my reputation and get a number of quality links by making the rounds to different blogs.

From my experience I believe that guest posting is one of the best things any new blogger can do. At first, getting visitors to your new blog can be difficult, but if you want to you can go out and proactively get your work in front of targeted readers by writing for other blogs.

Now that my blogs are more established I don’t write guest posts anymore, but that hasn’t changed my opinion of how effective they can be for someone who is looking to get their blog off the ground.

If you’re looking to build your readership and your reputation in the niche, here are my ten tips.

1 – Target the Right Blogs

The first, and probably the most critical step, is to find the right blogs for your guest posts. When looking at possibilities there are a few things you should consider. First, the size of the blog is a factor. Obviously, the larger the audience the more exposure you’ll get. However, I don’t recommend just finding the biggest blog in your niche and submitting a guest post right away.

When I started promoting my blog through guest posts I decided to start small and work my way up. As a new blogger I didn’t have the confidence in my abilities at that point, so working my way up helped me to feel more comfortable while I was working to build my own audience.

Even more important than the size of the other blog, the audience is a key consideration. Writing a great guest post for a large blog may help you to get plenty of exposure, but that exposure isn’t targeted at the right audience it really won’t have much of an impact. Try to find blogs that have an audience that matches up very well with your own. This will help to maximize your chances of converting readers of your guest post into subscribers of your own blog.

2 – Brainstorm Post Ideas

The guest post is intended to promote yourself and your work, so it should be as good as possible. A guest post that is little more than a rehash of content that can be found anywhere will have little impact in attracting attention to your own blog. Make sure that you give plenty of attention to the post topic and set aside the time to run through several ideas to find the best one.

You’ll want to find a topic that is relevant to both the blog it will be published on and to your own blog. If people click through to your blog they’ll probably expect to find similar content, and if they don’t, it’s unlikely that they’ll stick around or subscribe. Also, consider your specific areas of expertise. What can you write about that will make readers realize that you’re someone worth following?

3 – Pitch the Blogger on Your Idea

One you have the right blog picked out and you’ve identified a post topic that you think would be appropriate you’ll need to do what you can to see that it gets published. Obviously, the blog owner or editor will have to decide that your post is worthy of being published in order for you to get the exposure that you’re after.

My preferred method of handling this situation is to have a specific idea in mind to run by the blog owner to see if they think it would have a chance to be published. If they show interest in the post then I’ll write it and send it to them, and if they don’t I’ll either come up with another idea or try to use that post idea somewhere else.

Some bloggers prefer to write the entire post and set it to the blog owner on the first contact, but personally I find this to be more aggressive than necessary. If the blog owner has no interest in guest posts of any kind, at least you won’t bother them by sending a full post (plus possibly images). If you approach them before writing the post they may have some feedback on the idea that could help you to create a post that is more likely to be published.

In my opinion it’s a better use of your time to get the green light before writing the full post. Also, when I have people contact me about guest posts on my own blog I prefer to have them ask me about it first before sending the full post, so I assume most other blog owners feel the same way.

4 – Write the Best Quality Content You Can

This is pretty obvious, but it needs to be mentioned. The quality of your post will have a huge impact on the results of your effort as a guest blogger. Rather than speeding through the writing process to get more guest posts done, take your time and do your best work. It will help to give your post the best chances of being published and will give a better presentation of yourself to readers. Just like guest posts can have a big impact in terms of positive exposure, a poorly-written guest post can give a bad first impression that will be difficult to overcome.

5 – Write and Interesting and Enticing Bio

As a guest blogger (in almost every case) you’ll be allowed to write a brief bio (a few sentences) about yourself with a link back to your own blog. This paragraph should tell just enough about yourself to make people want to check out your blog, and it should  help them to see why you’re worth their time. Writing bios is always something I struggled with, but I’ve seen the impacts of different approaches here. Simply stating your name and your blog’s name with a link is generally not enough to get the best results. Put some thought into what you want people to quickly know about you that will pique their curiosity. Consider also linking to a profile at a social networking site, such as Twitter, so people can connect with you there if they want to.

6 – Have Great Content Waiting on Your Front Page

When people click through from your guest post, they’ll form an opinion of your blog in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. Most guest bloggers don’t think of this in advance, but it’s an important factor to consider. If you know when your guest post will be published, be sure that you have something of high quality on your front page for when they arrive. It’s also a good idea to make the post relevant to the visitors that will be arriving.

I had very good results one time with a guest post on ProBlogger when I had a post here on Traffikd that was written specifically to interest the same audience as the guest post. Some guest bloggers publish a welcome post on their own blog to make those visitors who click through feel appreciated and at home. I did this once or twice, but I decided I don’t like this approach. First, it takes up valuable space and time of the readers. If they’re only going to spend a minute on your blog you need to make a good impression, and that’s more likely to happen with a quality post than with a welcome message.

Also, in my opinion it makes the blog seem small and less significant than the blog where you guest posted. There’s no big blog that will write a welcome message to visitors coming from a small blog, so I think it downplays the significance of your blog unintentionally. Your approach is up to you, that’s just my opinion.

7 – Make Sure Your Subscription Options Are Highly Visible

Chances are, one of your biggest goals in writing guest posts is to build your own subscriber base. In order for this to happen you’ll need to make it as easy as possible for visitors to subscribe. When they arrive at your blog they obviously have some interest in what you have to say or they wouldn’t have clicked through, so they will be more likely to subscribe than the average visitor. If your subscription options aren’t clear and/or prominent you could be losing subscribers.

8 – Follow Up with Comments on the Guest Post

After your post has been published, make sure that you go back to the post to respond to comments and answer questions. Taking the time to follow up can go a long way in building rapport and starting to develop a relationship with the readers.

9 – Promote Your Post with Social Media

The more exposure your post gets, the more exposure you get. By voting or submitting the post to social media you can help to increase the number of people that see your work. In addition, the blog owner will be interested in how well-received your post is, so getting more people to the site through social media will help your chances of getting another guest post, if that’s something that interests you. You may want to consider using your network to get some votes, or share the link with your Twitter followers and friends.

10 – Get Around

Writing a guest post for the same blog multiple times is good for getting your name in front of the same people over and over again, but generally you’ll get better results by spreading it out a bit. This doesn’t mean you should only write one guest post for every blog that you write for, but don’t put all of your effort into reaching the same audience each time. Every time you write for a new blog you’ll be able to reach a new audience and get more exposure. Make an effort to get around to several different blogs in your niche.

What’s Your Experience?

Have you written guest posts for other blogs? If so, what was your experience and what advise do you have? If not, what are you waiting for?

For more information on growing your blog, see:

• How to Target Social Media with Specific Posts
• 12 Elements Involved in Gaining New Subscribers
• 7 Ways to Extend a Blog