Over the coming month or two I’m wanting to get as practical as possible here at ProBlogger and as part of that I’m wanting to base as many posts as possible on real questions from readers.
So – the ‘question box’ is open.
I can’t guarantee that I’ll answer them all – but I’ll attempt to get through as many as possible or to find others who are better qualified than I am to do so.
Any topic is fine – but I’ll of course give priority to those that are on topic to this blog.
Fire away – looking forward to seeing what the ProBlogger community comes up with.
Note: If you don’t want your name/blog to be linked to your question feel free to ask it anonymously. Please submit the questions in comments below.
I have several blogs but have never been able to monetize them nor get many people commenting. How can I improve this and also indirectly sell my own products on my blog? I am currently coming out with my first personal (my name) blog in my niche of golf and really want to make a go of it, both in sucess of growing that new blog AND converting visitors to sales of my golf products. Any suggestions from you or your readers would be greatly appreciated. I am thoroughly impress ed with your blog!! Well done!!
Darren,
I’ve recently started a blog (August) and I’m trying to figure out the best way to drive quality traffic to my site. I’ve been writing at least a post a day if not every other day. I began commenting on 9rules and a few other sites that I enjoy visiting. I was wondering if you could provide some insight for a beginning blogger on getting that initial readers base. Do I just continue commenting on sites I read or digg articles, what can I do to get this jump started. Please help! Thanks!
Darren,
Many blogs run by beginners get popularity gradually and they don’t get much traffic in beginning. But blogs run by popular bloggers -like you- get good traffic in the beginning itself. This blog may be getting attention if you were popular before this.Do you think that the success of ProBlogger is a result of your other blogs and popularity also?
Darren,
I’m about to go to Blogger to WordPress. A handy checklist of things I need to be aware of/arrange/ensure so as not to lose any SEO ranking, readers, auto pings etcetc would be really handy
(and, also, naturally, to make as smooth a transition as possible!)
Cheers, Karen
Darren
I have started a For Profit blog and was lucky enough to get the .com domain I wanted. Do you think it is worth the expense to buy and park (and forward of course) the .net and ,org for this domain as well?
My blog is probably mundane to a lot of people probably because I type exactly as I think, letting the words flow as I think, and don’t plan my posts.
Anyway… any ideas why I should NOT do that?
Was there a time when you first started blogging that you became despondent and thought about quitting? If so, what happened that gave you the confidence to keep going?
How many hours do you spend working each day, and how do those hours break down? (i.e.: hours spent on ProBlogger, B5 admin, Digital Photography, etc.)
Also, how do the amount of hours that you spend working each day today differ from the # of hours you spent when you first started blogging? Do you work every day, or 5 days a week?
Thanks Darren!
A friend and I are looking to start a new blog together featuring a podcast. We were considering our niche and we have ideas, but not sure which would be the best course, something that requires more research.
I constantly hear that catering to a more finely honed niche is better for traffic, but what if instead of focusing vertically, we focused laterally, catering to more people, but with a specialized approach to what we’re talking about? For example, using farce or satorization, like The Onion news? Would that be consider a niche in itself?
Hi Darren,
Do you believe that social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us, digg, reddit, netscape and the like are still worth submitting your time to?
By this I mean: Do you feel that taking the time (and having the patience!) to try and get your article on the front page of digg is still essential, or is it a better idea to focus your talents on building backlinks naturally.
Thank you for the opportunity and I hope this isn’t a rubbish question. :)
Steve
How can we make use of Facebook and its applications in marketing our blog?
Hi Darren,
I have been working on my blog for just over a year now. I gave my “niche” some thought before taking the plunge, but now I’m wondering if my niche is too…well, niche?
I’ve been reading up on all the blogging for profit sites & took the advice to love what you blog about. I’m making very small dollars from Adsense & a few others….but when & how is it best to step back & take a hard look at the site and it’s money making capacity? Can you niche be too narrow? If so, any suggestions for drawing more visitors without loosing your focus?
Granted, I love blogging about my topic…and I am now making enough to cover my hosting costs. But I’d like to take it to the next level.
Kelly
My question is one that I think could be relevant to others as well:
What are the most common reasons for a sudden drop in traffic?
This just happened to me, I neglected my blog a little (mostly in the promo department) during August, due to the 30 Day Challenge and understandably the readership dropped slightly. However, last weekend, I suddenly lost nearly 65% of my visitors! I have no idea what happened, I was posting regularly, didn´t change anything significant . . . any ideas on what causes this sort of thing?
Hello Darren,
I am also quite curious as to why you have dropped adsense off your blog too? Is there something i should know about?
The reason i ask is that i’ve just started to implement them on my blog…Great blog by the way -keep up the good work!
I have a different kind of blog. I do not have a lot of text mostly images. I started this a month ago and so far my traffic is about 100 views per day but it seems to hold steady there. How do you promote a blog of images?
Hello Darren!
My question is regarding the use of images on my blogs. Can you recommend a few good royalty-free photo sites that I can use without worrying about being sued? Any other advice regarding the use of images on blogs would be very helpful… :)
Thanks,
James
Hi Darren
Love your blog. My question is on domain names.
I am based in New Zealand but selling to an international audience. Do overseas people frown on .co.nz domain names and think they must be dinky little companies, or does it make no difference?
How do people respond to some of the unusual domains? .net has become more mainstream now but there are still .us .name and other strange extensions out there.
What is your advice for domain name selection?
Talia Mana
http://www.taliamana.com
http://www.emotionalwellbeingblog.com
http://www.nzrealitytv.com
Darren, how come I don’t receive certain posts via e-mail subscription?
Just adding to the last question.
I did listen to your video on .com and .net but I was wondering also about .info and other unusual domains as well as the country domains .co.nz .com.au yada yada
Darren, could you comment on the income distribution of your various blogs? Do your blogs generate similar incomes, or are they wildly different? Do you attribute the differences mainly to age, topic popularity, amount of time you spend on them, etc? Do you ever feel conflicted in that perhaps your favorite blogs to work on are not the best money makers?
Hello,
What software do you use to convert your blogging videos into fancy flash? I see it used on quite a few popular blogs and I’d like to incorporate it into mine if possible.
Thanks
Hi Darren,
Great Video answering Questions. It really makes me
think and helps me get a few new ideas too.
O.K. my question?
What do you think about YouTube and how they own the rights to the videos that people submit to them?
Just wanted your advice! I want to advertise my website and blog. Should I use YouTube or maybe another site that you suggest?
Thanks again for all your great help!
Elizabeth G.
http://BookTestOnline.com – Website
http://BookTestOnlinecom.blogspot.com
I just started an informational blog on softwares and application that are usually hidden on the internet are unknown most of the time.
I was wondering how I can get traffic and turn them into visitors. I make sure to post atleast one entry everyday. Any suggestion from you would be very helpful. Criticism welcome!
Ritu
http://www.worknplay.net
I was wondering what you think about justified text in relation to blog posts. Your blog is quite popular, but you never use justified text. I always find this makes a blog look unprofessional, but that is only my opinion. Despite that, yours still looks and reads great.
So, my question is, what is the reasoning behind using or not using justified text in posts? Is it just a personal preference? Are you trying to make it feel less clinical or overly precise by adding slight imperfections?
Thanks,
Kirk Warren
The Weekly Crisis
http://www.weeklycrisis.com
A few questions Darren.
How many posts (in general) does it take to earn a decent amount of income and how many posts per day do you need to do to continually update your site.
Also how do you write so many posts in such a professional and developed way?
Hi Darren,
what I would like to know: I tested about 10 to 15 Blog-Counters and all of them deliver different statistics, some of them show even VERY EXTREME differences! Do you have an explanation for this strange phenomen? For me a visitor is a visitor and a hit is a hit. Not so for the counters? What’s wrong with them? What are they counting? Last not least: Which counter(s) do you really recommend?
Thanks a lot!
Rudi
Hi Darren,
I really like your site and so I put you as an “Alpha-Blogger” in my WebKompass:
http://eisbrecher.net/indexu/blogs/alpha-blogger
what I would like to know: I tested about 10 to 15 Blog-Counters and all of them deliver different statistics, some of them show even VERY EXTREME differences! Do you have an explanation for this strange phenomen? For me a visitor is a visitor and a hit is a hit. Not so for the counters? What’s wrong with them? What are they counting? Last not least: Which counter(s) do you really recommend?
Thanks a lot!
Rudi
Do search results for blogs appear in conventional search engines such as google-search or are they restricted to blog search engines such as google-blog-search.
Darren…..You’ve been my guru and thanks to your incredible tips, I opened my blog in November. http://www.shipcriticblog.com. Now comes the fun part, building traffic….you’ve given me so many ways to generate income, I thank you and wish you a very Happy New Year!
Hi Darren, I have be intrigued about how knowledgeable you are in blogging. I would like to ask where have you gain most knowledge from about blogging. Like fellow bloggers, the internet, books. And what would you suggest for other bloggers to gain knowledge to blog better.