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.
I’ve got two questions that should be pretty quick:
1) Blog template design / markup can get very arduous, do you have any tips for how to stay motivated, or how to speed up the process?
2) Between RSS and Firefox’s AdBlock extension it seems like savvy readers can go completely unexposed to your blogs revenue generating facilities, is there anything that you do to try and combat this? or is it just a fact of (blog-)life?
Hi Darren,
I’ve been curious about you experiences with b5media. What have been the pluses and minuses of founding a blogging network? Has it been more of an “eMyth” style venture than pure blogging?
Looking forward to your blog-a-thon!
what’s the meaning of life?
Will the new baby get his or her own blog?
My question … Will you shave your head for charity .. Oh, oops :-)
The real question: Do you see AdSense as a viable long-term proposition for professional bloggers.
I’m betting with firece competition in blogging that doesn’t appear to be slowing CPC will no doubt go down over time, meaning more traffic is needed to sustain current levels.
What do you see in the future with AdSense?
Q2. eProducts. In your view what would be the best eProduct to produce: eBook, eSeminar, AudioProduct, etc.,
Blogging question:
I am starting a new blog. The subject has partly been my hobby for the last two years, but I’d also like to earn some money. My initial visitors will be friends and people from a forum I’ve been on for the last 2 years.
Should I put ads on the blog straight away, or wait until it’s all running smoothly and I have some new readers….
A negative of putting them on later will of course be the ‘shock’ of the difference… but if I put them on straight away I think it will make the blog look less nice…. Argh, I’m leaning towards straight away….
Thanks, and good luck with the Blogathon.
I’ve just finally signed up to Paypal, so I’ll have to test it on you, ha ha!
Hi Darren, I will be launching a handful of blogs within the next month and I noticed that you have a number of your blogs attached to the livingroom.org url. What advantages do you see in that over having unique urls for each blog? Obviously, for Problogger, it has its own domain, so I’m curious as to the difference in both approaches, particularly in starting up new blogs.
Thanks
Does audience perception of bloggers with their own domains and those who use free services, such as Blogger, differ in anyway or not at all?
What are the top ten personality traits conducive to profesional blogging?
And the converse, what are the top ten personality traits that hinder profesional blogging?
I ask the question from the point of view of a person interested in the fact that success is helped by matching the correct personality traits to the project in hand. I have a suspicion that my own personality traits do not match that of someone who finds it easy to be successful in blogging, even though I have had some success.
Okey friend,
.. Here goes, a quick one:
Blogging Question
1. Blog for Money? or Blog for Passions?
2. My very first time blogging.. How I’d overcome all “blogging barriers”.
Personal Question
1. How do I manage the time between blogging, networks and family.
Hopefully, there’s no duplications in both questions, sorry if some of these has been answered previously.. :-) Have fun.
Do you have any trouble blogging fulltime and still having a life? (When I get home at the end of the day, I can pretty much leave work behind. But I’m guessing you can’t.)
I’m planning to do my own 24-hour blogathon soon, and I have a few questions regarding them.
1. What’s the best day of the week to do one?
2. What’s the best time frame to do one?
3. Any general advice for getting through a 24-hour blogathon with my sanity intact?
(I’m planning to do either 8am to 8am starting on a Monday or 8pm to 8pm starting on a Friday.)
Fantastic idea, so instead of the blah, let me shoot the questions quick
1) Where do you see Blogging, the Blogosphere and the current blogs after 5 years?
2) Selling a blog is a lot different from selling a website. So, when selling a blog, what are the points the buyer and the blogger himself must look at?
Darren … thanks for opening this up.
Here are a series of questions:
1) You’ve achieved a fantastic position using blogs as a revenue generator. You give back to the community online with your advice and encouragement. Do you do anything offline to give back to the community?
2) Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
3) Is working from Australia a benefit or hindrance in your business?
4) What’s been the most exciting thing to happen to you in the last 12 months? What’s been the most depressing?
5) You right very little on the blog network here. How do you think it’s going? Has it gone as you planned? What have been the challenges?
Thanks!
My question are all blogging concerns:
How do you stay motivated? (despite looking at your adsense stats)
How will blogging be different in five years than it is today?
What would you tell those who literally tried ‘a lot’ to get traffic, klicks or whatever but didn´t quite have that much success on that?
Oh I have one personal question, though:
I´m going to head over to Australia (Sydney) next year for an internship / practical training so may be I´ll be able to give Melbourne a visit and I would need a tourist guide so…? ;-)
1. I’m looking for advertisers for World Cup Corner. What would you recomend?
2. What’s your favorite sport (beside blogging)?
Maybe a little bit dificult to answer, but here it is:
Do you think someday the big companies that have referal and contextual ads (besides Adsense) will focus on the blogs in other languages besides english?
And do you think it will be possible for bloggers in other languages, to achieve what you have done in income from blogging?
And one small last question
1) What is your opinion about image verification for every comment in a blog? Is it annoying? Does it retard success?
1) If you’re looking at blogging primarily as a business/money making “thing”, how do you know when it’s time drop a blog? Specifically, how can you determine if it’s not producing enough to match the effort involved when taking into consideration the fact that you could create another blog and/or spend more time on “better” blogs.
2) What are some advantages/disadvantages to creating multiple blogs in the same niche? For instance, having a Microsoft blog and a Google blog probably won’t hurt, but would having two Microsoft blogs be overkill?
3) What are some tips and tricks and general advice for setting up paid ad spaces? I recently set up AdBrite but haven’t had any buyers for a week, how long does it normally take for a semi-small blog (200 unique visitors a day)? What are some good areas to place these ad spots taking into consideration other forms of ads (Google Adsense, Affiliate banners, etc.)
4) Was there ever a point in your career that you thought about giving up? Did you ever think that it wasn’t worth it? If so, what made you stick it out?
Thanks in advance :)
What do you do while blogging? including:
What do you drink / eat to keep you going
What music / entertainment do you have on / tune into
Do you like the colour orange or do you use it on your site for some other reason?
Dave
Darren –
What do you think about blog template usage? Is it okay to use a template on a for profit blog?
Thanks
– Steve S.
What are the biggest mistakes you see being made by bloggers recently?
Darren,
Do you think that traffic counters are useful to have for one’s blog? As in, does it psychologically increase traffic if you have one? (part b of the question, ahem, sorry, maybe cheating) Plus, which ones do you recommend for a blog on blogger.com?
Thanks,
Ingrid
What are your most successful business ventures outside of blogging?
If you had to start over from scratch and only had one month to make a living from blogging or you wouldn’t ever be able to blog again, what would you do?
What are your favorite blogs outside of b5media?
Do you watch LOST and if so, what do you think is happening on the island?
1. How do you generate new ideas for blogging (new topic)
2. How long did it took you to start getting a “generous” amount of visitors (let say 750 uniques daily)
3. What experience do you have in the internet domain
4. What do you think will be the next big thing.
5. What is your opinion of bloggers who blog only to sell
6. What do you define as a good blog
7. Do you think that the blogosphere is already overwhelmed and there’s no place for non-business (personal) blogs to get high amount of traffic?
8. If you didn’t started this website, what would you be currently working on?
9. How can you handle 100 posts under 24 hours at a rhytm of 1 per 14 minutes?
10. What would be the first thing you’d recommand to anyone starting a blog?
11. Is money generated on your blog important to you?
12. What do you think makes you valuable to the eyes of your readers?
13. Have you been interviewed in the past? By whom?
14. How’s your life?
15. Would you restart problogger from scratch?
What are you going to be eating to get you through 24 hours of Blogging?
1. I have a question about this tongue twister: “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?” What does “to chuck” mean?
2. My poetry site is still handcoded. I plan to add a handcoded RSS feed and manage subscriptions through Feedburner. If I had to do it all over again, I would have blogged my poetry site. Question: Are there any blogging tools which could convert my handcoded HTML files into blog posts retroactively, perhaps with Technorati tags and the whole shebang added on, without me having to take every poem and hand feed it into a blogging platform?
Darren,
What are the best ways to “jumpstart” blog traffic?
A compilation of ways would be fantastic! Good luck! I’ll be reading my a** off!
Cheers,
JP
Here are some easy ones to buy you some time:
What’s your favorite…
…color?
…season of the year?
…travel destination?
…hobby?
…book?
…CD?
…movie?
…money blog with the initials FMF? ;-)
There — 8 post topics that should take you 15 minutes to complete. Enjoy a nap on me! ;-)
What Alexa ranking do you think someone should have before adding the alexa traffic banner like the one you use?
(thought I’d throw an easy one out for ya!! BTW – Great Blog! I’m a huge fan!)
When you link to offsite content Darren, should you have it open in a new browser? I have heard several theories on this but I am still unsure whether or not opening offsite links in a new browser can really benefit you. What is your take on it?
Steve
What kind of eCPM number can the average blogger expect when using adsense to monetize a blog? What about CTR?
First b5media network started some video oriented blogs and later you have posted your own “vidcast”.
All these changes have produced lot of doubts regarding the future of blogs.
I wonder what will be the face of blogging after 12-24 months.
As one dad to another…
1. Are you concerned with nuclear proliferation, particularly in your son’s diaper?
2. What kind of passions do you hope to instill in your boy at a very young age?
3. Do you have any idea how to deal with a child who won’t take a bath because he sees fuzz floating on the water? If so I need to know the answer… ;)
One of the things I love about blogging is the way words and writing have emerged (apparently) triumphant from the miasma of technology and snazzy graphics – do you see this as the future or just a phase?
i.e. will it all ‘evolve’ into searchable video/audio/cgi blogs that make text obsolete?
Whether or not you get time to answer this – good luck with the blogathon! An extra bonus for me will be getting Problogger posts in ‘real time’ in the UK!
What was your occupation before blogging?
With your new baby on average how many diapers do you change a day?
How is your wife doing?
How much has your baby grown since birth?
How much extra traffic do you get from these 24 hour blogathons?
Do you currently participate in any blog carnivals?
Do you have a basic checklist that you work through when considering a new blog?
Good luck with the Blogathon.
-Dominic.
Blogging Questions:
For bloggers who (want to) create their own eContent for sale (pdf, etc):
1. Should we use a 3rd party to handle the eCommerce for a cut or sell directly from our own site?
2. What is a reasonable commission to pay for outsourcing the eCommerce?
3. Are there any good tutorials for setting up your own eCommerce stuff?
4. Do you recommend any particular methods for setting up downloads for sale (plugins, open source platforms, etc)?
5. How can an online publisher/blogger set up an affiliate program for people who drive customers to them?
For bloggers in general:
6. Should bloggers use free, for a fee, or exclusive-use for a fee templates?
Thanks again for a great site, and I’m really looking forward to the ‘thon!
How long can you hold your breath underwater?
What tips would you have for my blog in terms of look and feel and scope? I still feel perhaps it is too broad to drive traffic (considering your post on manolo’s shoe blog).
Just a question.. why are you going to blog for 24hrs? seems a bit mad to me
Is there a limit on how many categories you should use?
How many categories is too many?
I’m the author of a blog about sports, which really doesn’t seem like it would be able to translate well and earn any decent earnings (which has generally held true for me although my traffic levels aren’t that high yet). Do you think it’s possible for blogs like this to earn decent money with enough traffic, blogs geared more towards recreational activities rather than products, etc.?
Have you ever been peeing outside in the puckerbrush next to a buddy and actually crossed streams? If so, with whom… and do they currently have a blog.
many successful blogs including problogger suggest bloggers to write about the topic they are passionate about but almost all targets bloggers who are looking for idea to make money. If you check google’s adword tool you will find that some of the highest paying keywords are related to blogs.
My question is – how much of all this- the blogging world earning 6 figure money and similar claims- is true for other themed blogs because all that i see around is blogs that tells other bloggers to make it to the riches. Ofcourse there are sites like “plentyoffish” which is making huge money but such examples are very less in number.
Please don’t take my question in any wrong sense, you are one of my most respected blogger along with Liz of successful-blog and this question is because of a thought which is disturbing me from time to time.
1. What does your family think about your blogging?
2. How do you keep a balance between work and home?
Help me, I want to tag/categorise my blog. ie archive by categories. I am on Blogger. Do I have to move and if so, where? I am not very technically able, so it has to be easy — and for me, blogging also has to be a strictly part-time activity so not much time for technical matters as well as actually posting and reading rss feeds.
thank you if you can help — nobody else has been able to (I have read your earlier posts on this topic so I think you are going to say you can’t categorise/tag/archive by subject on Blogger).
All best
Maxine.
Which of your blogs do you spend the most of your blogging day on? And is that one the most profitable?
1) Do you think if you had written all the problogger.net posts in a book (not an E-book) and gotten a decent publisher you could have made more money then you have made today using your Adsense and other methods for revenue?
2)What percent of your traffic comes from organic search engines results?