Remarkable Blogging

Believe it or not, your blog can make you a fortune online if you know how to use it.

I had the pleasure and opportunity to interview the pro blogger guy, Darren Rowse, his blog currently shows 66,740 RSS readers.

If you haven’t managed to get that many folks reading your blog yet, you have to listen to what Darren has to teach you about blogging. He gets the “lucky” chance to mail his blog readers every day…

If you had the opportunity to write for 66k people, do you think you could make at least $10,000? You bet! I suspect Darren makes a lot more…

Because he was too busy already and almost declined the interview, I decided to just ask him 8 easy questions

Click here to download the PDF version of this interview, or read the text version below:

1. Would you mind sharing a few things about

yourself and your background for our readers?

I’m a 36 year old guy living in suburban Melbourne Australia with my wife and two boys (they are 4 months old and 2 years old). After high school I studied Marketing for a while and then switched to Theology (a strange mix I know).

I’ve worked in a number of jobs over the years but most have centered around working in churches as a minister. I’m also a keen photographer and avid reader (although both have suffered since having a family I’m afraid).

2. When did you get started blogging, and why?

I began blogging in November of 2002 on a personal blog which covered a lot of topics – everything from culture, spirituality, politics, movies, church and a lot more.

I originally got into blogging as a result of being sucked into and intrigued by a number of other blogs (particularly those talking about emerging forms of church). I was fascinated by the way that they gave people a voice and amplified that voice globally while also helping the blogger to form community around the topics that they wrote. I started a blog the very day that I stumbled upon these blogs.

Over the years I expanded that first blog into a number of more commercial or entrepreneurial blogs including Digital Photography School (a blog on digital photography) and ProBlogger (a blog with blog tips).

I’ve been lucky enough in the last few years to build these blogs into a full time income – blogging progressed from a hobby, to a part time job to a full time thing. I also started (with two other bloggers) a blog network called b5media.

3. What’s the biggest mistake you

made getting started with this?

My mistakes happen on a daily basis – the key is to learn from them and to use those lessons so that you improve what you do.

One mistake that I made was to start ProBlogger with ProBlogger.net instead of ProBlogger.com. The .com version was not available in the early days but I could have bought it for a lot less than I eventually paid for it.

Similarly Digital Photography School is a URL with hyphens in it – something I wish I’d not done. However even mistakes like these don’t mean you’re doomed – I managed to build successful blogs, even on dodgy domains (phew!).

4. How did you come up with the

idea of launching your blog?

With ProBlogger the idea simply came about because I myself wanted to find information on how to improve my blog and make money from it – however I couldn’t find that kind of information anywhere – so I started my own to document my journey and in the hope of connecting with others doing similar things to me (ie to learn from others).

With Digital Photography School the idea came out of another blog which I was running that was aggregating digital camera reviews from around the web. I got a lot of emails from readers who appreciated the reviews but wanted to know how to use the cameras that they bought.

The logical response was to start writing tips on that topic – a new blog was born.

5. How often do you publish and

how do you get content ideas?

On ProBlogger I attempt to publish two posts each weekday and one per day on the weekend. On Digital Photography School I aim to post once per day.

Content ideas come from a range of places including reader questions, extending ideas I’ve previously written about, building on ideas I get in ‘real life’, from interacting with people on social media sites like Twitter, offline sources (like magazines) etc.

I find that the longer I’ve blogged the more open I am to getting ideas in the day to day of life. It’s about looking out for these ideas and having ways to capture them.

6. How do you mainly receive (or generate)

traffic to your blog?

Ultimately it comes down to writing quality content over the long term and letting traffic grow naturally through readers sharing it with their friends, other bloggers linking to you, readers submitting content to social media sites etc. I’ve never really advertised my blog or begged for links from anyone – I spend the bulk of my time concentrating on writing the best content that I can.

Having said that – I learned a little about search engine optimization and am also actively participating on social media site – learning these skills can definitely help to get your site out there.

7. What is your most closely-guarded

secret about blogging for money?

I don’t really have any secrets – I write everything I know about blogging for money on ProBlogger. If there’s a ‘secret’ it is simply that it takes a lot of work and a long term view. It’s not really a ‘secret’ but many times people skip over the fact that it takes a long time and a lot of work – they think it’s possible to get rich quick blogging. The reality is that it’s not (unless you get extremely lucky).

8. What plans do you have for

the future with your blog?

My main plans are to continue to expand my blogs. I’m not really in a position to talk more about these expansion plans yet but hopefully by the end of the year there will be some news to share.

We wish Dareen success in the future and thank you very much for sharing your BLOGGING tips, tricks & secrets with us all!

If you want to get further into blogging, check out these resources:

WordPress Profit Maximizer – The BEST WordPress Plugins sent to you weekly via e-mail!

Lazy Blogging dot Com – Everything I learned about blogging!

Thank you,

Codrut Turcanu.

http://www.CodrutTurcanu.com