I’ve spent a little time today working on some preparations for my blogathon and as part of the last two times I’ve done it I’ve asked blog readers for questions for me to answer during the 24 hour blogging frenzy.
So – I’m going to open this post up for questions of a two types (keep in mind that I’ll be posting 100 times over the 24 hours which is once every 14.4 minutes so don’t make them too big):
- Blogging Questions
- Personal Questions (within reason)
My posts over the day range from the fun to the serious to the bizarre (especially at the end of the 24 hours) to the useful etc etc – so your questions can be anything (have some fun with it if you like). If I use your question you get a free link.
I doubt I’ll be able to answer all of them but this is one way you can help me make the day successful and raise some money for a good cause.
Of course if you ask a question I won’t charge you a donation for an answer but do hope you’ll be willing to contribute something on the day (no pressure!).
Leave your questions in comments below (or shoot me an email via my contact form if you’d prefer).
Update: Wow – lots of questions here! Thanks everyone.
I’ve probably got enough ‘blogging’ type questions now (the blogathon usually is much more diverse in terms of topics covered) so if you have any other questions about ‘me’ I’d be happy to take those too.
Just 2 simple questions:
1. How do I drive serious traffic to my blog?
2. Which is more profitable: Adsense or Chitika?
What would it take to induce you to read a blog that does Friday Cat Blogging, plus poetry?
Even once.
Jesse..
42
DARREN or other Blogger-SAT-GURU’s,
I’ve hit a wall. I’m at 1000/day and about $1000 per month that I get exclusively from Google Adsense.
Here is my blog: elamb.org… yes it sucks but it can pay my mortgage on a good month.
My plan is to quit my job in about a year. To do this I will need about 6K/month and other sources of Revenue..
What do you suggest to be my next step/source of income (i.e. YPN, Chitika)?
Cheers, mate.
Darren (another question),
Who did you learn your techniques from? Is there one badass that inspired and guided you to where you are?
My guiding light have been you, T.L. Pakii (when he was still blogging on Blog for fun and profit regularly), and that Italian at masternewmedia.com
Hi Darren!
I’ve only been blogging for more than a week.
a.) What are the real benefits of Technorati? I ask because they are very good in putting my posts whenever someone searches for keywords related to my topic but I can see that I get very few or no visitors at all?
b.) Is this reasonable to expect (few to zero visitors) knowing how young my blog is? After following the tips here on promoting a blog, when can I expect reasonable traffic?
I’m the webmaster for Down Syndrome NSW (http://www.dsansw.org.au), a charity organisation. I got involved about 4 years ago after my own daughter was born with DS.
I’ve helped build the website up into a valuable resource with traffic over 1,000 pageviews per day. I’m toying with the idea of moving at least part of the site over to WordPress at some stage, making it easier for other members to post information and giving more of a blog feel to the news, media coverage, new information, and what’s on type pages.
Do you have any ideas for non-profit organisations to make some money out of their web sites or blogs? Obviously we don’t want the site to be littered with animated GIFs and other over-the-top advertising. We also need to be careful with things like AdSense, where we might be perceived as endorsing any products that are advertised on our site. And of course, we don’t want to detract from our message.
Thanks for any ideas you might have!
I’ve got a weight loss blog (linked above). My traffic has been building slowly, but still isn’t anywhere near the levels I’d like to reach. The blog is barely making any money, and not generating much conversation yet.
My problem is, I’ve already lost over half the weight I set out to lose. That means that in another 4 or 5 months, I’ll be at my target weight and will no longer have stuff to post about.
What can I do to quickly boost traffic before my blog comes to an end?
Or alternatively, what can I post about once I stop losing weight?
Should I take a leaf out of Oprah’s book and just start gaining, then losing, then gaining, then losing weight, thereby ensuring I always have experience with whatever fad diet is current and always have stuff to talk about?
When putting deep links into a post, should you inform the readers that they are affiliate links or have them there?
Thanks
Tom
Darren,
How can a blogger make inroads into the MySpace market like Ask-A-Ninja did? Everyone talks about leveraging MySpace and other Web 2.0 communities to get readers, but I’ve yet to see anyone really discuss the concrete steps to take to do it. Beyond simply creating a profile, what did the successes like Ask-A-Ninja do to get people’s attention, without pissing off the community while doing so?
Thanks,
Robert
Question:
Do you have any tips regarding personal branding? Your blog posts about how to make money directly from you blog, but what about people (like me) trying to make a name for oursselves in our field.
I could really care less about some pocket change from adsense, I am blogging to get a book deal.
Two questions:
1. I find it very, very hard to determine which few among my plentious blogs to focus my main attention on. Some criteria, guidelines, tips, on how to decide which of my blog children to neglect, please.
2. I’m interested in the possiblity of creating my own network, beginning with my many blogs. I’m finding lots of links with information about networks, but nothing on how to start one, run one, the nuts and bolts. Please share some info about that.
Thanks much.
Do you take a set vacation every year? How long? What do you do with your blogs while you’re away?
How do you balance work and family?
What is the best thing to do in Australia that you can’t do anywhere else?
How can blogging bring about world peace? :)
My husband and I are having an argument over this– has your wife HAD the baby? I say you probably didn’t go on vacation if she was due two weeks later. He thinks he read that you had already welcomed your bundle of joy. So, which is it? And, yes, we really should find something more productive to do with our time than to argue about whether your wife is still pregnant, or not.
I’ve been wondering and searching for this:
“How can I get more visitors to search using Google Site Search more?” (For click-through $ reasons; my click ratio is higher.)
Yes, Lyndon, I’m wondering if we’re all nerdy. I wonder if the FASHION bloggers are fellow “nerd chics.” :-)
I’m actually very curious about how many of us are good writers. Ha ha.
I wonder if you’d give us a little intro on your best performing blogs.
I have a GREAT question that HAUNTS me. There are some blogs that BOOM almost immediately. Does this hurt the chances for slower-growing blogs? What if two of those types of blogs are in my niche? Have they cornered the market forever?
And do you think these big blogs might fade, maybe just enough to let others shine—or can others shine along with them?
And do you think that big bloggers might quit blogging and move on?
And related-yet unrelated-how many (%) professional (or not) bloggers do you think WILL quit?
And I DON’T want those blogs to quit, I just wish for some fame and success. :-x
Jill – no – we havn’t had him yet. He’s due at the end of June.
What to do / WHY does Technorati often not recognize my new blog entries? I TRY to not post more than once every thirty minutes (which is a stupid rule for gossip blogs, those are still popular, wahh).
How do you write the very first post for a blog – should it be a ‘welcome’ type post, or a full on piece of content, or both?
Hmm .. every 14.4 minutes, eh? That’s serious posting! Okay – I’ll bite and add another question to your list of 70 comments –
Didn’t you have the Bloglines link in the subscribing section before? It looks like it is now replaced by the Technorai Favorites button. Is Bloglines getting less popular? I didn’t know that. (it’s my feed reader of choice).
Also – Super 7 here in Canada is $35 million – should I buy more tickets? I’m in for a 5-pack anyway :)
When will your personal growth blog be up?
When and how did you become a Christian?
Do you expect your readership will change significantly during this time of 24-hour posting? Are you worried about readers getting overloaded with too much to read?
How do you talk about blogging with folks who don’t blog? Or don’t you ever do it?
Does anyone else in your family blog?
Are women always right?
or better yet:
Is your wife always right?
Darren, a couple of quick questions:
1) What do you like/dislike most about Australia – particularly the area where you live?
2) How much do you use Skype or other chat/IM programs while you work?
[…] Maybe, while he’s in the middle of his Blog-A-Thon, he’ll need some easy posts and he’ll drop some Link Leak Virus links out and this thing will spread like butter on a bisquit ! […]
Can you recommend a blogging tool or software that allows visitors to upload their own photos to the blog? (It would be a moderated situation).
thanks,
NS
PS Thanks for such a fantastic resource site for blogging information
[…] Darren Rowse is blogging 24 hours straight to answer reader questions. It’s a problogger blogathon. […]
How much time do you spend writing and editing a typical blog post?
You asked for more non-blog questions, Darren, and this one might still fall into that category … but it applies to all other communication/interaction across the Web.
There isn’t a day goes by I don’t see a blogger, an ecommerce guru or a family member complaining about time zone differences and communication problems caused by them.
There’s been an Internet Time standard out there for years now … pluses and minuses regarding moving to an Internet Standard time?
Do you focus all of your time and energy on blogging? Or do you diversify with other money making ventures (such as affiliate marketing)?
thanks!
I think my conversion rate is good (but there’s a margin of error from my not being a math person). But I can always improve. Blogs are very unique with websites, whether we like it or not. They don’t have that blurb or paragraph, smack dab in the middle of the home page saying, “Welcome, this site is about!!!”
So what are blogs to do to convey the message clearer?
What are the ways to best explain the site most effectively in the shortest amount of time?
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I have a question that isn’t just related to blogs… it may sound strange, but I don’t have an idea of what is considered “good” internet traffic. How many visitors a day or month means a website or blog is considered successful. Like at what point is traffic considered high enough to get outside advertisers besides google, yahoo and chikita?
Email subscriptions vs. Email Newsletters. Pros and cons of either offering email subscription to posts or creating a newsletter. I know that you could use both, but if a person was deciding between either one, what are some considerations? What is your opinion?
Another one, between personal and proffessional:
What’s sites do you follow throught RSS?
Do you know of any program in which a blog entry can be written and then uploaded at a certain date and time you specify, in case you went out of town but wanted to continue being able to post daily?
Also, do you ever go diving in Australia. It’s supposed to be the best there.
What’s your fav part of Australia to visit?
What’s your favorite animal? Why?
What type of personal computer(s) do you use (manufacturer, other details)? Why?
Why did the Chicken cross the road?
What is your favorite Olympic Sport? Why?
Which Search Engine do you use most? Why?
All the best with the Blogathon,
George
Here’s another question I’ve been thinking about this week: What are the pros and cons of Mac vs PC as blogging tools?
I’ve always used PCs because… I’ve always used PCs and that’s what I’m used to. But having recently got married there is now a Mac in the house (relax, it belongs to my wife.. I didn’t marry the Mac) which has sparked my curiosity. I’ve been advised that PCs are better for internet development work because most internet users have PCs – but I know you use a Mac so evidently you don’t agree.
I’ve almost given up getting some rational advice on this subject – it seems to polarize people into evangelists – but would be very interested to hear your thoughts.
By the way what date is the blogathon?
What is the best way to find guest bloggers when your own readers don’t seem receptive to the idea?
Problog-a-thon…
Extra, extra, read all about it, it’s really hot at the moment. Darren at Problogger is preparing for this third Blog-a-thon. This is going to be one really amazing sessions where he publishes 100 posts in 24 hours and replies to the queries made…