Become the Blogging Expert in Your Own Niche by Running a Blogging Course

One of the most exciting things to happen to me in the last couple of months is to see a group of bloggers come together to do the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook together.

In this post I’d like to share the story of how one blogger got a group of bloggers collaborating together using the workbook and in doing so grew in his leadership within the niche.

A few months back I was approached by Paul Steinbrueck from Ourchurch.com with an interesting request. He wanted to take a group of bloggers from within his niche (Church/Christian bloggers) through the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook. They were going to tackle it over 6 weeks rather than just 31 days (to give people weekends off) and had set up a forum area for bloggers participating to interact. They were also offering some rewards for those participating, held some reviews of blogs taking part etc.

I was really excited by the idea – while I’ve run live versions of 31DBBB here on ProBlogger before this was one of the first times I’d seen a group of bloggers from a single niche work through it together. The potential for collaboration and encouragement from a group of bloggers all working in the same niche was powerful so I gave it my blessing and offered all those participating 25% off the workbook.

What happened over the next 6 weeks was great to watch. You can see Paul’s announcement post calling people to join here. I’m not sure of the exact numbers of those who participated (I heard early on that it was at least 23 but know that another network of bloggers joined in so there were more than that – and based on those who bought the eBook with the discount code it was around 40).

Over the coming weeks I had emails from quite a few participants feeding back how much they had gotten out of it. Most commented on how much more powerful it was doing it as a group. Not everyone made it to the end (6 weeks is a long time to commit) but it seems that those who did saw some tangible benefit. Paul surveyed bloggers at the start and end of the project to measure the results and here’s what he reported:

For those who read at least half the lessons and did at least half the assignments the results were stunning:

• Pageviews increased 97%
• Visits increased 48%
• Unique visitors increased 67%
• Comments increased 152%
• RSS subscribers increased 13%

Paul went on to report:

“While some of this growth is probably a temporary bump due to the project itself, the most remarkable improvement came in an area that is certain to have a long lasting impact – how participants rated themselves as bloggers.

Those who read at least half the lessons and did at least half the assignments prior to the 31DBBB project rated themselves on average at 3.0 out of a possible 10.  After completing the project, they gave themselves a 6.9 rating, almost a 4 point jump. Wow!

Clearly these folks feel they learned a lot and gained a lot of confidence through their participation in this project.”

You can read more about the results of the project in Paul’s post here.

Run Your Own Niche focused 31DBBB Challenge

In the coming months you’ll see another live version of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog here on ProBlogger. It’s going to be bigger and better than ever before – however it strikes me that what Paul did in this niche focused project could be beneficial to others too.

The idea of joining with other bloggers within your niche is a powerful thing. Not only did Paul’s challenge help bloggers improve their blogs in isolation, it helped them come together and network, collaborate and strengthen their whole niche.

Paul was already fairly established in his niche but in pulling them together Paul also build credibility, trust and authority as a leader within his niche. The project really helped grow his own blog as well as genuinely helping others in his niche.

So while I prepare to release the next live version of 31DBBB later in the year here on ProBlogger – if you’d like to lead a group of bloggers in your own niche through 31DBBB I’d love to hear from you.

As most of you know – the 31DBBB workbook is a process of 31 sets of teaching combined with 31 action items to help any blog improve. It covers a variety of topics which will apply in almost any niche – but they work best when you’re sharing the journey with others (particularly others in a similar niche).

For any group of more than 5 bloggers wanting to work through the workbook together I’m happy to set up a 25% off discount code to help you get started and I’d be happy to tweet out to my own network that you’re running a group and are looking for other bloggers in whatever niche it is that you’re running it for.

You’ll need to coordinate and manage the project yourself by gathering people together and setting up some way for everyone to collaborate (perhaps setting up a private WordPress.com blog or using a social networking tool like Ning) but I’m happy to help out with a discount and by giving it some Tweet-Love.

If you’re interested in this – try to gather together 5 bloggers and then shoot me an email via the contact form here at ProBlogger with your details and the niche you’re running it for and I’ll get it set up for you.