ProBlogger Podcast: Blog Tips to Help You Make Money Blogging

Evolve Your Blog

Does it feel like you’re going around in circles with your blog? It’s easy to revolve in your blogging.

Let’s look back at my keynote presentation titled, Evolve Don’t Revolve, from ProBlogger’s Evolve event in 2017.

It highlights my journey as a blogger and areas where you can evolve your own blog and online business.

Plus, the 2017 keynote features a Q & A with Pat Flynn, who shares how he achieved success by evolving his blog, Smart Passive Income.

https://www.slideshare.net/problogger/evolve-dont-revolve

ProBlogger’s Evolve 2019 event in Melbourne is happening soon!

• August 10: Training Day (Beginner/Intermediate)
  • Four key areas of building a successful blog
• August 10-11: Mastermind (Intermediate/Advanced)
  • Spend time with other bloggers, online creators, and entrepreneurs to workshop your blog and business

Jeff Goins will present this year’s keynote titled, Finding Your Voice as a Blogger. He’s the author of Real Artists Don’t Starve.

Fellow expert bloggers, Nicole Avery, James Schramko, Kelly Exeter, and Shayne Tilley, will talk about their knowledge and experience.

For more information about Evolve 2019, go to Problogger.com/events. Don’t forget to sign-up by June 30, 2019, to get the Early Bird price.

Links and Resources for Evolve Don’t Revolve Your Blogging:

• ProBlogger Evolve Event
• Evolve: Training Day
• Evolve: Mastermind
• Jeff Goins
• Real Artists Don’t Starve by Jeff Goins
• Nicole Avery of Planning with Kids
• James Schramko of SuperFastBusiness
• Kelly Exeter (writer and editor)
• Shayne Tilley of 99Designs
• Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income
• Podcast Motor

Courses

• Start a Blog
• ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog

Join our Facebook group.

Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view

Darren: Hey there, friends. It’s Darren Rowse from ProBlogger. Welcome to Episode 278 of the ProBlogger Podcast. The podcast is designed to help you start a blog, to build that blog, and to monetize it.

Today, I’ve got a special treat for you. It is a keynote that I gave a couple of years ago at our ProBlogger event in Melbourne. It’s titled Evolve Don’t Revolve. It’s all about how as bloggers and online entrepreneurs, it’s really easy to revolve in our blogging, to just go around in circles. I don’t know if you can relate to that of feeling going around in circles. I certainly can. There’s been so many times over my 15 years of blogging where I’ve realized I’m just treading water, I stopped growing, I stopped evolving. The call of this keynote is to look at seven different areas where you can evolve your blog and online business.

Also, a taster of what we do at our Evolve event, at our ProBlogger event, which we’ve been running it for quite a few years. We’ve got our new event coming up in August of this year on the 10th and 11th of August, again, in Melbourne. I want to tell you a little bit about that event before we get into the keynote. There’s two options for those of you who want to come to our event in Melbourne. On the 10th of August, we’ve got a training day. This is a one day event for beginners, intermediate level bloggers. It’s also probably relevant for other content creators as well.

If you head to problogger.com/events you can actually see a rundown of what we’re doing at that particular event. Largely though, it’s me. You’ll get a full day of me teaching on the four key areas of building a successful blog. I’m going to talk for about an hour about content and crafting great content for your blog. I’ll talk about evolving your engagement with your readers, how to build community on your blog, ho...

How One Blogger is Making the Most from Networking and Interviewing

Our series of stories from new bloggers continues with Penny Wilson, who started Lingo Mama to blog about language learning and travel.

Penny’s reasons for starting a blog:

• Return to her passion for language learning
• Establish accountability and discipline with language learning
• Share love for language learning with others
• Inspire others to learn a second language

Starting a blog involved a huge learning curve for Penny, especially when it came to the technical aspects of managing it.

Fortunately, Penny hasn’t struggled for content ideas. The challenge is getting those ideas across in a way that’s interesting, entertaining and informative, and that adds value.

One of the highlights of blogging came when Penny connected with bloggers she respects in her niche. She also created an interview series that lets her connect with other language learners.

Making money from her blog has been slow, but Penny has been happy with affiliate ads she installed early on to generate traffic and referrals.

Penny’s Top Tips:

• Don’t stress too much about being perfect
• Promote content that’s most useful to readers
• Listen to feedback from readers

Did Penny’s story inspire you to start a blog? Then, sign up for the free Start a Blog course as a way to celebrate our International Start a Blog Day on Feb. 7.

Links and Resources for How Networking and Interviewing Helped One Blogger Built Her Blog:

• Lingo Mama
• Podcast Motor

Further Listening

• 172: How to Build a Blogging Business Through Interviewing Others [An Interview with Michael Stelzner]
• 198: 6 First Income Streams Recommended for Bloggers

Courses

• Start a Blog
• ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog

Join our Facebook group

Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view

Darren: Hey there and welcome to Episode 272 of the ProBlogger Podcast. My name’s Darren Rowse, and I’m the blogger behind ProBlogger, a site, podcast, event, job board, series of ebooks, and courses all designed to help you start an amazing blog, to grow that blog, and to make some money from the process. You can find more about ProBlogger over at problogger.com. Today, we’re continuing this short series of podcasts with stories from bloggers in their first year of blogging.

Although stories have been gathered from participants of our Start a Blog course, which we are promoting at the moment, even though it’s a free course, we’re promoting it because, in the next few weeks, we have our International Start a Blog Day, which is being held on the 7th of February. Today, we’re celebrating new blogs and we’re launching a whole lot of blogs from students from our course, and we hope to send you a little bit of traffic as well to help that blog get off and running.

We’ll be highlighting some of those new blogs that have started our social media as well as on our blog as well. Each of the bloggers that are sharing in this series are sharing their story, just a really short story but also some tips that they’ve learned along the way. If you’ve been thinking about starting a blog, or you know someone who’s thinking about it, or you know someone who should start a blog, please head to problogger.com/start-a-blog.

You will find this free course that we’ve put together. It’s a seven-step course that walks you through everything you need to know to get involved in our International Start a Blog Day but also to get that blog up and running. Now, today’s story comes from Penny Wilson, an Aussie from lingomama.com. I’ll link to that in the show notes as well today. You can find those show notes at problogger.com/podcast/272. I’m just going to hand it over to Penny because she’s got a great story to tell, and I will come back at the end of her story just to wrap things up and to pull a few things out I li...

How One Blogger’s Vulnerability Resulted in Growing Her Blog

In this episode of our Blogging Breakthroughs series we feature Mim Jenkinson and her blog Love From Mim.

Mim started blogging for one reason, but ended up blogging for a different reason altogether.

On her blog Mim shares tips on how she stays organized as a busy mom and juggles time for work, home, and herself.

But when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she used her blog to share her story. It became a kind of therapeutic outlet for her, and made her feel better.

And by showing her vulnerability she also grew her audience.

Remember: readers are interested in your content because of you and the topic you’re writing about.

Mim now earns a six-figure income through multiple streams from her blog.

She shares a few tips to help take your blog to the next level and monetize it:

• If you want it to be a job, treat it like one
• Set goals
• Create a structure
• Plan each week
• Work hard and be professional

Mim stays true to herself and remains ethical when it comes to her blog. She is also brand ambassador and generous with other bloggers by sharing and working together.

She finds blogging joyful, and has found her identity through it. She enjoys sharing things to help others.

“I love my job,” she says. “There aren’t enough hours in the day for all the ideas I have.”

Links and Resources for How Mim Blogged Vulnerably to Grow a Six Figure Blog:

• Mim Jenkinson

Further Listening

• 7 Strategies for Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
• 5 Areas to Focus on to Grow Your Blogging Income

Courses

• Starting a Blog
• ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog

Join our Facebook group

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Hello there and welcome to Episode 263 of the ProBlogger Podcast. My name’s Darren Rowse and I’m the blogger behind problogger.com, a blog, podcast, events, job board, series of e-books and courses all designed to help you have a profitable blog.

Now, today, we’re continuing our series on blogger breakthroughs, where we’ve got listeners of the podcast pitching their stories to us to share with you. We’ve chosen a few of them from many that were submitted in to share with you.

We tried to choose a variety of bloggers from different parts of the world with different accents, with different niches and different experiences of blogging. Today, we’ve got Mim Jenkinson who has a blog called Love from Mim at lovefrommim.com. Now, Mim started out blogging for one reason and ended up blogging for another. I’ll let her share that transition of her blog. She’s got a story that I’m sure many of you will relate to but also find quite inspiring as well. It’s got some real little nuggets in there, golden nuggets of advice that I want to pull out at the end so stay tuned until the end of her story. Again, you could check out her blog at lovefrommim.com and you can check out today’s show notes where I will have links to her blog and also a full transcription of her story at problogger.com/podcast/263. Now, here’s Mim.

Creating great content, finding an audience, building engagement, monetizing your blog. This is ProBlogger.

Mim: I’m Mim Jenkinson and my blog is Love from Mim. You can find ir at lovefrommim.com. I started blogging in 2013 in June and my blog is about how I stay organized as a busy mom of two small kids and how I work from home. I’d like to share my tips on how I try to stay organized and how I juggle my family time, work time and time for myself as well. Before my breakthrough, my blog was just a hobby blog so I would share everything about my life as a mom, a little bit about the kids and the things that we use to love the products and services, the things we got up to, and I made a small income occasionally from selling a few sponsored posts, but very small.

In November 2015, I was actually diagnosed with breast cancer and I just started quite a well-paid job in consulting so I had to leave that because the particular chemo and radiation regime that I started was quite a tough one and there was just no possible way I could continue to work. What I did was use my blog as an outlet so I shared the journey of my breast cancer diagnosis from the day after I was diagnosed and then I started to treat it like t...

How One Blogger Created a Directory that Attracts Readers

We continue our Blogging Breakthroughs series with Carolyn Edlund, whose Artsy Shark blog focuses on the business of art.

Carolyn shares the story of how she created a directory to attract readers to her blog instead of having to chase after them. It revolutionized her blog, and helped her build a successful business around it.

Carolyn understands the importance of building strong business relationships and creating win-win situations through collaboration.

Her directory identifies places artists can sell their art online. It also provides solid business information and helps artists gain exposure.

To attract readers for your blog, ask yourself:

• What do your readers want?
• What problem can you solve for your readers?
• What issue can you help your readers overcome?

Based on tips from Carolyn, what kind of magnet do you plan on creating to draw readers to your blog?

Links and Resources for PB 262 – How Carolyn Started a Directory to Attract Readers to Her Blog:

• Artsy Shark
• Carolyn Edlund’s Directory
• Inbound Marketing book
• Success Incubator
• ProBlogger Job Board

Courses

• Starting a Blog
• ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog

Join our Facebook group

Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view

Darren: Hi there, friends! Welcome to episode 262 of the ProBlogger podcast. My name’s Darren Rowse, and I’m the blogger behind problogger.com, a blog podcast, events, series of ebooks, and courses, all to help you start an amazing blog that’s going to change the world in some way, make people’s lives better, but also hopefully be profitable for you. You can learn more about ProBlogger and all that we do at problogger.com.

Now this week, I’m actually in Orlando. As this episode goes live, I will be at our Success Incubator Event, and I know some of you will be at that event, I’m looking forward to seeing some of you. And while I’m away, we’re continuing our blogger breakthrough series of content, where we’re featuring stories from listeners of this podcast, and we’re talking about their breakthrough moments.

Now, today’s listener is Carolyn Edlund, who has a great blog called Artsy Shark. You can find it at arstyshark.com. Her blog is about the business of art, and she’s going to tell us a story today that I think will be interesting to many of you. It’s a way of drawing readers into your blog that’s going to stop you from having to chase your readers, but hopefully attract them to your blog, and this has revolutionized her blog and has helped her to build a really successful business around the blog that she has.

You can find show notes today at problogger.com/podcast/262, where you’ll find links to Carolyn’s blog, and also the directory that she’s about to talk about as well, and a book that she mentions, too. At the end of her story, I’ll come back and pull out a few of the golden nuggets that I heard her share, okay? Now, over to Carolyn.

Carolyn: My name is Carolyn Edlund, and I’m the founder of Artsy Shark, which is the blog about the business of art. Before I ever became a blogger, I was a self-employed artist for more than twenty years, with a successful production studio, and subsequently, I was a sales representative for an art publishing company. I had a lot of experience marketing and selling art, and I also led a business networking group where I learned a lot about the importance of building strong business relationships and creating win-win situations where both parties can benefit by collaborating with each other.

I got into blogging sheerly by accident back in 2009, after I took a free course held at a local community college. At that time, I had no idea what I was doing, and I wasn’t quite sure what would happen. I got started by writing some business articles for my blog, based on my experience on marketing and selling. And then, I stumbled on a book called Inbound Marketing, that was written by HubSpot founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah. That book explained how online businesses could attract readers, and attract customers by offering really useful content that would act as a magnet for website traffic.

I also found ProBlogger at that time, where I could se...

How Starting a Blog Helped Transform the Life of a Blogger

Happy New Year!

This first episode of 2019 launches a series of stories from new bloggers who started their blogs after completing our free Start a Blog course.

The course features seven steps, which makes it a perfect way to celebrate International Start a Blog Day on February 7.

The first story comes from Denise Bumby, who took our course last year and launched her Does Size Matter? blog about six months ago.

Denise was searching for a way to cope with changes in her life. And she found her way through blogging, which brings her joy and hope.

She may not have many subscribers yet, but that number is growing daily. And so is Denise.

Denise’s tips on how to boost your blog:

• Consistently produce content
• Use social media
• Post content in various formats (videos, etc.)
• Get mentioned on other blogs
• Learn and implement affiliate marketing and sponsorship
• Keep working. Don’t give up or get discouraged

Despite what you may think, anyone can start a blog – young or old, tech savvy or not. Blogging is for everyone.

So, are you ready to start a blog?

Links and Resources for How One Blogger Changed Her Life by Starting a Blog:

• Does Size Matter?
• Darren Rowse on Facebook
• Podcast Motor

Courses

• Starting a Blog
• ProBlogger Pro – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog

Join our Facebook group

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Darren: Hey there and welcome to the first episode of the ProBlogger podcast for 2019. This is episode 270. You can find today’s show notes at problogger.com/podcast/270. ProBlogger is a site for bloggers and prebloggers, who today’s episode is particularly for. It’s all designed to help you to build and grow a blog that not only makes your reader’s life better in some way but also helps you to achieve your goals and bring you a little joy to your life as well. We’re going to hear a story today where that happens.

Today, we are launching another round of our bloggers’ stories. It’s a series that’s going to go for the next couple of weeks. They’re shorts stories from brand new bloggers. This series is all about starting a blog and hearing the stories of bloggers who started their blog over the last 12 months.

They all started their blogs as a result of doing our Start A Blog course, which we are currently really pushing hard because on the 7th of February, we’re running our International Start A Blog Day for the second year in a row. Last year, we ran International Start A Blog Day and hundreds of bloggers started a blog on that particular day.

As you’ll hear today, hundreds more started their blogs in the months afterwards. Some people needed a little bit more time. We want you to be a part of this year’s Start A Blog Day. Whether you are a blogger who’s about to start and you’ve been thinking about starting a blog or whether you know someone who should start a blog, we want you to encourage them to get involved. If you want to be a part of it or if you know someone who really does need to start a blog, our course is 100% free and it will help you to start that blog. You can find it at problogger.com/startablog.

Before I introduce you to today’s story, I want to pause for a moment and say Happy New Year. I know it’s three weeks into the new year and I should apologize for the delay in getting this episode out but I do want to start off by saying Happy New Year. The reason for the delay this year is that it’s been a bit of a tough year so far. In fact, last year was a little bit tough as well. Many of you I know have been following my Facebook profile and my personal profile where I shared recently a couple of posts about my own battles with depression over the last year and also the recent loss of a friend.

I wanted to mention those things here because I’m really aware that sometimes in the online space, we only talk about the good stuff, the highlights. I’m not sure how helpful that is for you as a listener to only hear the ups, the successes, the highlights, to see the good things that is going on. The reality is that sometimes life gets tough and there are good times to step back, to change things up, to take a break, to rest, and to heal.

That’s what...