eXtra For Every Publisher

Bloggers that get paid for their work are entrepreneurs in a sense, and so when I saw a link on Telegraphik relating to the 100 daily must reads for entrepreneurs, I was intrigued, and rightly so. Bootstrapper has put together a great list of links.

These days, it seems that almost everyone has a blog, so it’s often hard to separate what’s really worth reading from what isn’t. Luckily, we’ve done the work for you and narrowed it down to 100 highly informative sites. Take a look at what they have to say and see how they can help you grow your business.

Sites I read every day like Slacker Manager, Steve Pavlina, Duct Tape Marketing and Micro Persuasion all made the list. There are others that I haven’t checked out before, that are definitely on my must see list.

While these links are not specifically for blogging, I have no doubt that every one of us will find at least one very useful site in this list.

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One of the things I have noticed in this site, and in others I have started is how effective linking other people can be, especially blogs that show track backs. People follow these continuing commentaries to find out what other people’s opinions are, and discover new resources related to their favourite subjects.

You will notice the traffic boost more in a small site just starting out, but nevertheless, there is an increase that can be very worthwhile.

There are so many articles out there warning against outbound links, and how they can drain some of your Google PageRank, but early on, this shouldn’t even cross your mind. Your site will only become successful if people read it, and so you primary concern should be getting traffic. Also, the more you link to other sites, the more likely they will be to link to you.

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Over on the Problogger.net Job Board, I found a posting which I thought was interesting. Columbia Business School is looking for a Web Communications Manager, and in their posting, they bring up managing blogs.

If I was ever to stop being a full time blogger for a living, this is exactly the type of job I would be looking for.

Here are some of the details:

Columbia Business School seeks a Web Communications Manager. Reporting to the Director of Communications, the position increases Columbia Business School’s visibility by writing, producing and packaging relevant and engaging content for Columbia Business School’s web site on a daily basis. Generates, investigates and brings to life stories related to School initiatives, faculty research, and student and alumni activities as well as timely business news and trends. Writes, edits and proofreads in accordance with accepted rules of style and syntax. Collaborates with members of the administration and faculty as well as people both inside and outside the University. Manages projects with attention to detail, accuracy, quality and consistency. Supervises the Assistant Web Editor.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:
Bachelor’s degree and/or its equivalent required. Minimum 3-5 years related experience required. Must be a proactive, efficient and accomplished interviewer and writer with an excellent sense of tone. Knowledge of and facility with HTML/CSS, image editing, and Adobe Photoshop software critical. Knowledge of and experience with online community moderation and messaging. Ability to analyze web metrics and relate it to content strategy.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
5 years related experience preferred. Blog development and management experience preferred. Knowledge of Blog software and the current technical ecology of a blogger (e.g. del.ici.ous, RSS, etc) preferred.

For the rest, check out the original posting.

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One of the biggest mistakes I see many bloggers making is jumping on one of the free blog hosting sites expecting to make thousands of dollars a year and becoming an Internet celebrity.

Limitations

There are limitations with using free tools. WordPress.com doesn’t allow advertising, nor does it allow you to add plugins. For some, this isn’t an issue, but it can become a real concern later on as your site grows and changes.

Search Engine

Do you want to be considered your own blog, or another of the millions of Blogger blogs? You like having Typepad as part of your domain and thus your branding? These are the things search engines will notice as they index your blog. If you are using your own hosting, and your own domain, you wouldn’t have to deal with what I consider to be search placement killers.

Outages

Today a friend of mine, David Krug, messaged me and said “Typepad is down”. I went to check it out and sure enough I couldn’t access any of their hosted blogs. Even their actual company website was down for me. While not all web hosting companies have great uptime. at least you can easily leave if they are constantly down. By joining a free blog service, most of the time you are locking yourself into that service, through its good times and bad.

Control

Blogs are a constantly evolving and changing beast of your own creation, and while some free services can be great early on, they lack the control that independent solutions provide. If Blogger decided to close your blog, would you have a backup of your posts? These are just some of the reasons that I implore you to avoid free services just to save a few dollars.

You can get great web hosting for cheap, and if they have a script called Fantastico, you can install WordPress, the same software used here, in one click.

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A question I get quite often is about how much money I get from blogging. It is asked in many different ways, but mostly by people that want to establish themselves as a full time blogger.

I like to avoid the answer because I make enough to pay the bills, but not enough to be rolling around in a Mercedes Benz or anything fancy. Simply put, blogging is my full time job, and it is working very well for me. I am paying off a car, and a small house. I have been able to afford more gadgets than ever before in my life, and all of it is thanks to the blogging work I do.

You have to remember though that there are bloggers out there that make upwards of tens of thousands of dollars each month, and there are others that make less than the price of a cup of coffee. It can take many different elements coming together to get to that full time income level.

On the flip side though, one of the people hired by the company I work for had only been blogging for a few months before he was “discovered”. Now he is coming up on one year of working with us, and very happy with his choice to become a problogger.

I would say that if you show a strong passion about blogging, and let others know about your passion, there is no reason why you can’t become a full time blogger if that was what you wanted. There are many companies looking for content producers, and there are many people looking for content. You have to differentiate yourself, be positive, and be focused.

Reading xfep.com is never a bad idea either.

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