Recently, I have been helping a few people start blogging, who previously didn’t have any experience.

The first thing I realised is that it is easy to forget how much knowledge which may seem ‘obvious’ to an experienced blogger, is actually a complete mystery to the newcomer.

There is also a lack of information at the absolute basics of blogging, because we take certain things for granted.

First Steps in Blogging

What is a Blog?

A blog is a way of generating a website; it is a way of generating online content. A blog can be many things, but usually it is updated on a fairly regular basis. Netwriting is a blog. You can look at my other blogs here

What Do I need to be able to Blog?

1. Buy a domain name. If you look at the top of the screen, you will see the domain name of this blog is www.netwriting.co.uk/

2. You need to host your blog with a hosting company. You will need to sign upto a hosting company. I strongly recommend choosing a hosting company which offer one click install (i.e. easy) for a blog software. I Recommend - Hostican prices range from $6 a month to $11 a month.

3. Linking Domain Name to Hosting Company.

It is easier if you buy a domain name, with your hosting company. But, there can be reasons to buy it separately. If you buy a domain name from a separate company you need to point the nameservers from the domain company to the hosting company. e.g. ns1.hostican.com. This effectively links the domain name with your hosting account so that the domain name will work on your hosting company.

By the way, it can take time for the domain name to ‘propagate’ and become active.

4. Install a Blog

Once you have a website such as www.netwriting.co.uk, you can install a blog. The blog is a piece of software which makes it easy to add content. Note, you don’t need to buy or download any software, it is hosted online.

I recommend Wordpress. If you goto your control panel. You will see a function called ‘Fantastico’. This is because it is fantastic in saving time and effort. Then you choose to install wordpress. You can install at /blog or install at the root just leave / blank. It doesn’t matter too much, whether you install at /blog like www.cyclinginfo.co.uk/blog. or at the ‘root’ like netwriting.co.uk/

Continue reading →

I have entered Daily Blog tips competition for increasing RSS subscribers.

I decided to choose my economics blog - economics help.

I may regret choosing that blog because:

• It’s my only blog on blogger (inferior to wordpress)
• June / July has seen a significant dip in traffic due to the end of the academic year.
• I may have had more success with a niche on blogging. People interested in economics do not necessarily know what RSS are

However, the strengths of the blog include:

• Reasonable traffic from Google already.
• I will have no problem writing articles on economics.

My motivation for entering the competition is not to win the money (I don’t expect to do that). I predict the winners will be a blog with already over 500 subscribers.

However, if I can increase my subscriber base by 50 in a month, I will be happy. More subscribers means hopefully more commentators and more links. A few more links to the site would help alot.

I’ll let you know how I get on. It’s good to have a challenge now that I am working full time as a blogger.

By the way, if you fancy subscribing to a fascinating blog about Economics, I’d be grateful…

For the next 3 months I will be ‘working’ as a full time blogger. As a teacher, my term doesn’t start until mid September, so I will be spending the summer living the lifestyle of a ‘problogger’.

Usually, in the summer, I take on an onerous job of marking exam papers. But, thanks to the income I earn from blogging, I have been able to retire from marking.

These are some of My early Observations from Working as A Full time Blogger.

I rarely do a full days work.

On average I spend about 5-6 hours working on my websites. Working from home gives more leisure time, like an hour lunch time to watch an episode of Sherlock Holmes and spending several hours cycling. Therefore, even living as a ‘full time blogger’ I haven’t been doing a huge amount more than when I was working part time.

I enjoy the Work

This is the best aspect of blogging, generally, you are writing on topics that interest you. You can choose your topics and work to your own schedule. Whilst flexible time certainly as its challenges, it definitely has clear advantages that a strict 9-5 job can never give.

50% of My Work is Offline

One of my main focuses for this summer is to write more, increase the number of pages and keep 5 blogs going at the same time. This requires a lot of writing; therefore, I spend alot of time, writing in cafes providing the basic content, which then takes the rest of the day.

Projects.

I have set a few mini projects to give a structure to the full time job opportunities.

• Write an Economics Dictionary of upto 1,000 entry
• Target increase in RSS subscribers on certain blogs. This includes taking part in a blogging competition to increase RSS subscribers.

I think as a full time blogger it is important to set challenges and think big, growing blogs in a new direction. Continue reading →

As a blogger, one of the main tasks is writing. Finding time to write is one of the main challenges bloggers face. If you can’t find or create the necessary time, your blogs will lose impetus.

These are some tips I employ to increase the productivity of my writing.

Batch Writing

Writing requires a certain concentration and mental space. It’s not something you can dip into for the odd 10-15 minutes. It is important to give yourself a decent time period to get into the writing groove. Once you have started writing, it is best to maximise the writing environment and keep going. When writing blog posts, I will often write 2-6 posts at the same time. Often once you have writen one post, you get ideas for a second; your brain becomes attuned to the concept of writing.

Clarity and Simplicity.

For writing to be effective, you need to have a clear mind and clear schedule. The more distractions you can remove the better. For example, online access is one potential distraction, especially, if you have your email notifier open. Similarly I try to keep my writing desk free of distractions. Alternatively, I will go to a cafe, where there is little else to do apart from drink coffee and write. Continue reading →

Came across this interesting video at Copyblogger. Basically, Ira Glass talked about how the mundane can be made interesting. The key is ask questions of the reader so that they are drawn in and are compelled to keep reading. What is the formula for creating compelling stories? Using his idea, I wrote the following:

Boris woke up at the crack of dawn; there was an profound silence throughout the house.

With a certain inner fear, he rose from his night’s slumber and threw on some clothes.

Sleep often cleared his mind, but, this morning there was an inner disturbance with many thoughts running through his mind. However, although his mind was noisy, there was a great silence pervading the house as he descended into the kitchen.

Still, here in the kitchen, the morning’s silence was only broken by the sound of passing cars in the distance….

Basically, this story is saying. Boris got up, got dressed and went downstairs for breakfast. But, here where is the drama, the interest in saying that? There is no bait or anything to get people wanting to read more.

However, in the above story, there is something in the writing which makes us want to keep reading. Why is the house so silent? Why is Boris a little perturbed? It has us hooked and we want to keep reading to find out why?

Good writing tries to pull us in and keep us guessing. It throws up questions and wants us to keep reading. The only problem is do we have a good reason why the house is silent?

Maybe its always silent? Maybe it’s a bank holiday and Boris has forgotten? Or maybe it is something more sinisiter

This is one thing you notice in the writing of J.K.Rowling and Dan Brown. The end of a chapter is a page turner - what is going to happen next?

See also: 7 Tips to make your writing interesting

On my mortgage site, I frequently get people offering to buy text links. If I had sold these text links I could have made quite a lot of money, and I have to say it is rather tempting.

The problem is that Google say that webmasters shouldn’t do it.

You can understand why Google are against buying text links.

• Links are an important factor in determining page rank and search engine positions. Therefore selling links will distort search engine results. It will benefit sites who can afford to pay for text links and not those who deserve to be higher.
• If getting search engine results requires webmasters to buy links, it will cause a bidding war, where the people willing to pay the most will get the best search results.

Because Google say don’t do it, I am reluctant to ignore their advice. Why? Continue reading →

I was inspired to write this post, by reading Probloggers entry (full time income, part time Blogging). Problogger is one of the few blogs on blogging that I read.

My Situation

I’m supposed to work as a teacher, teaching economics 30 hours a week. Sometimes, I work less because my students don’t turn up. If they don’t turn up, I used to waste my time wandering around Oxford. But, a couple of years ago I discovered blogging and realised I could be actually earning money from blogging, rather than just sitting around aimlessly. More about myself on the about page

How I got Interested in Blogging.

I became interested in building websites in 2003. I had no idea of making money from websites; in fact I probably disliked and looked down on the idea. My first website was Poetseers.org - a non profit making site on poetry. It gets upto 16,000 unique visitors a day. It was here that I learnt how to gain traffic to a site. Then I thought, if I can get traffic to a poetry website, why not get traffic to a site on Mortgages and make loads of money?

To be honest, I didn’t expect much. I thought, there are already lots of sites on Mortgages and I’m probably too late. (It’s really funny that at the birth of the internet, people somehow think they are too late to start a blog! - What about the people who will be starting sites in 50 years time?)

Early Encouragement.

After about 6 months of blogging for income, I finally made the first $100 from Google adsense. (Notice how long it took to get my first $100 - that’s a really poor hourly return.) But, I wasn’t thinking of the hourly rate. I was just enjoying blogging. Then after a few more months, things started to take off - I was earning $300 a month. Then I had this thought. If 2,000 visitors a day brings me $3 a day. Then all I need to do is to get 20,000 visitors and then I should get $30 a day. All I needed to do was to create more pages and more blogs!

Multiple Blogging

Without really thinking of a long term strategy I began to start new blogs on: economics (I’m an economics teacher, and I actually had lots of revision notes I could put straight onto a site), cycling, Gardening, Blogging, House prices, Housing Market, How To grow potatoes (yes, I really have a blog on how to grow potatoes), Biographies of people, Remortgage quotes. Somehow I ended up with 15 blogs. See my other blogs.

To be honest, there are only 5-6 which make any significant money. Quite a few I have allowed to quietly die. But, I do enjoy having multiple blogs. When I get tired of writing about mortgages and finance (which is quite quickly) I will write some posts about cycling (which I enjoy much more because it’s my hobby). My gardening blog makes a bit of money, but, I mainly do it because it’s an outlet for my amateur photography.

Continue reading →

Recently I have been examining my webstats to examine the average number of pages visited by a visitor. On many of my smaller blogs, the average number of pages is very low. The average number of pages is as low as 1.1. This suggests people come have a quick look at the page and then leave.

However, on some of my other blogs (usually the ones with more traffic and more pages) the average number of page views is closer to 2. On one site, the average number of page views is 4.

From my own admissions, the ratio of page views to visitors is a very rough guide to the quality of the site. Generally, the sites with a higher average number of page views have more in depth quality pages. Sites with a very low number of page views suggest there is little depth. I wonder whether Google take this like this into account when ranking sites. It would make sense if they did. A high average of page views per visitor is a recommendation that they find the site interesting an want to explore further.

How To Increase Average Page Views.

1. Split up articles into different sections
2. Alwasy add internal links at the bottom of a page. When they have finished reading an article, give them a link to the next most relevant page. - Give them a reason to stay on your site rather than leave.
3. Show off Your best Articles on the sidebar. Not every page is of equal value. Make sure your best articles are highly visible and encourage them to see that.
4. Don’t just cover your sites with advertising. Keep it to a reasonable level. Think long term growth rather than short term profit maximisation.

• Tips for getting more links
• The importance of gaining momentum in blogging

On some of my blogs I have been successful in increasing RSS subscribers; others have proved a little more difficult. These are the things that I have learnt which really help increase RSS subscribers.
Don’t Give Up

The first 100 are the hardest. Therefore, don’t expect it to be easy. Once you reach a certain tipping point, the number of subscribers will increase with less effort.

Focus

When people subscribe they want to know what to expect. If you have a mixed blog, it will increase the chance of people unsubscribing. Poem of the Day is pretty self explanatory. Every day, one poem. It’s a very simple formula and an effective strategy for encouraging subscription.

Quantity over Quality.

On our self improvement blog, the average posting schedule is 2-3 times a week. That’s not a huge amount, but, we try to make each post worthwhile. We aim for bookmarkable content, rather than quantity. People are happy to subscribe when they know their RSS feeds are not going to be filled with ‘blog filler’

Guest Posting

I have written a series of guest posts for various blogs. This helps create a steady stream of traffic. The traffic is also highly targeted, they tend to be people who know what RSS is and therefore, are more likely to subscribe. I have only written one guest post for Netwriting, but, it did lead to an increase in subscribers.

Continue reading →

Recently, I have been blogging alot on recent developments in Economics. With blog entries on news, I notice Google initially give quite high rankings and good traffic, but, after a couple of months, these rankings fall and traffic drops off. In a way this shows that Google is doing a good job. When we search topical issues, we want to read the lastest blog entry, not blog entries from 3-4 years ago.

However, as a blogger, it raises the question - which is better writing timeless content or writing news items?

The problem with writing news items, is that your efforts will mainly last for a short time. If we write timeless content, then it remains valuable for many years. This is the great thing about blogging. Once you have written a timeless post, you will get traffic for ever and can earn without working. However, if we are blogging on news and latest development. It means we have to work harder and keep writing to gain new traffic.

• However, the advantage of news items is that it gives us new things to write about. There is a limit to how much ‘timeless content’ we can write in our niche.
• Our readers will enjoy reading about the latest trends and news.
• Writing about recent events helps to attract new readers to subscribe to our blog.
• Clearly there is room for both types of blogging; to some extent it depends what your prefer. Both types of blogging can be successful.

However, if your resources are limited and you want to get the best return on your efforts I would suggest focusing your efforts on creating timeless content. Write on topics that people will be interested in searching for many years. Limit the amount of posts you write which are specific to a couple of months.