From Blog to Small Business

Deb’s note: I started writing this post on the plane to Las Vegas (and BlogWorld) last week. Since then I’ve seen Darren Rowse’s post at ProBlogger called, “The #1 One Reason My Blogging Grew into a Business.” Check it out if you can, it’s a must -read for anyone who wants to blog for a living.

FWJ began four years ago as a blog filled with leads for work at home moms like me. As you know, it’s evolved quite a bit over the past few years. Something happened this past spring that caused me to change my outlook about FWJ. Instead of a simple blog or network of blogs, I treated it like a business. Don’t get me wrong, I was always business-like in my dealings and accounting, but in June, I took it to a whole new level.

When I lost my full time job, I decided I wasn’t going to look for another. Instead, I wanted to work harder on making this network more profitable, and more beneficial to those reading it. Instead of looking for a job, I was going to make FWJ my full time job. It made a difference.  Instead of simply posting and building traffic, I’ve also been:

• Meeting with accountants to find out my next course of action as a small business owner.
• Negotiating with advertisers
• Researching advertising, traffic, SEO and other blog building techniques
• Working hard on branding
• Working hard on FWJ’s (and Deb Ng’s) social media presence
• Forming lucrative partnerships which will enable this network to keep going
• Doing some heavy analysis into the demographics of this community and other freelance writing communities
• Networking, not only with other freelancers, but with other people and businesses to form mutually beneficial relationships

Some of the things I learned at this time:

• You can’t please everyone
• You have to spend money to make money
• Networking totally rocks
• If you focus on one thing, instead of multitasking, you’ll have better results
• Sometimes you just have to go for it

Some of the changes I noticed since devoting my full time attention to FWJ:

• Traffic has seen a significant increase
• Advertisers have been coming to FWJ, instead of the other way around
• Ad revenue beyond private sales (Adsense, etc.) has increased to the point where it’s a full time income
• A major online brand inquired about purchasing FWJ
• Lots of Tweets and ReTweets featuring FWJ links
• Community growth
• A whooooole lot of email
• More links to blog posts at FWJ
• Major brands have taken notice

This is only a few months worth of work and effort. Can you imagine if I had put this much time and energy into FWJ since day one? Of course, that wasn’t possible because I needed to help provide for my family. However, being patient and persistant and not giving up over 4 1/2 years enabled met build FWJ and see it to its potential.

Luck vs Hard Work

Someone once told me I was lucky. This has nothing to do with luck. I worked hard to build this network. It became a huge part of my life. I focus attention to it every day. It’s kept me up late, and caused me to rise very early. It’s been the subject of blog wars and forum spats. It’s my life, not luck. I have to tell you, it’s not easy to come up with content every single day for 4 1/2 years.

Is it Worth it?

You bet it’s worth it. I’m not going to claim to be some expert, guru, A-list problogger, but I managed to find something that I love – something that works. It’s been worth all the time and effort I put into it. As Darren Rowse said in his post about blogging as a business, when I stopped treated my blog as a hobby and more as a business, it began to work for me.

If you want to make your blog work for you, know that it’s not easy. It’s not as simple as opening up a blog, stocking it with keywords and slapping on some ads. There’s a lot of research, promoting and networking involved.

Tell us the story of your blog. Is it a business? Can it become a business? What are you doing to ensure its success, and what are some of the results you’ve seen since beginning?

Improving the job market for bloggers and online writers

Improving the job market for bloggers and online writers is a big task. Since I started posting gigs here daily I’ve noticed a slew of terrible jobs and a much smaller selection of decent jobs that actually pay a fair wage. I don’t think the fault is all on the lame clients who offer low-pay jobs though. A lot of it is dependent on us, the folks who want said jobs.

For example…

1. Apply for work IF you’re qualified: I was chatting with Deb yesterday and she noted that she was shocked by the amount of people who applied for a blog job she posted who had no experience blogging at all. Worse many told her this straight up when they applied. If you’re not a blogger or have no idea about what a blogging gig entails make sure you learn something about it before wasting the client’s time, and all the other qualified applicant’s time. It’s lame to have to sort through crap applications to have to find the qualified apps – it’s no wonder potential clients end up writing ads with all sorts of bogus rules. Blogging and online writing gigs are very different from other sorts of writing gigs. To improve the market, we need more qualified applicants and less junk applicants. To learn about blogging and online writing gigs (BEFORE you apply) start your own blog and read:

• Blogging for a Living: Don’t Enter into it Blind
• Can you blog your way to a writing job?
• Beyond Blogging: Using Your Blogging Skills for Bigger and Better Things
• Do You Need to Be a Good Writer to be a Good Blogger?
• The Warm & Fuzzy Side of Blogging for Others
• Top 11 Reasons Why I Might Quit Blogging & Open A Candy Store

2. Be confident: If you apply for a job, apply with confidence. I’ve talked to way too many blog clients who say they get non-cofident applicants which one, makes them uncertain that competent bloggers and online writers exisit and two, lets them know that lower wages are a-ok. You’d never go to a job interview in person and say, “Oh, well I’m not sure I know what I’m doing, and I’m not that good at my job, but hey, hire me anyhow.” At least I hope you wouldn’t. Be confident. If you’ve got the skills – show that you know it. For help read:

• Pros & Cons of Being A Confident Blogger
• Admit what makes you a good blogger

3. Work for good clients: There’s more to a good client than pay. If a client pulls sneaky suspicious acts or never pays on time, they’re just going to keep right on doing this if there are writers willing to write for them. Put your foot down when clients treat you like crap. This benefits all bloggers and online writers.

4. Only accept decent wages: I almost don’t want to mention this, because we mention it ALL the time here, and still it seems people aren’t listening. That said, I’ll say it anyhow; don’t work for pennies. A recent job listing (bid gig) shows that people are willing to work FT (30 hrs a week) for anywhere from $2.22 – $3.11 AN HOUR. Really? People are also taking up clients on all those crappy revenue only gigs. I’ve personally talked to clients who say that to get a gig, bloggers and online writers will offer to work for free. It’s totally insane and makes the market a very bad place.

If you went job searching for a job outside of your home (a non-writing job) would you seriously take $2.22 per hour? Even tax free that’s a crap living. It’s not even a living. Aren’t you better than that? If you think, “No, I’m not” then quit applying for writing gigs. Your time is more important than this. Other writers time is more important than this. Clients will NEVER offer fair wages for work if the workers are willing to do it for free or cheap. And keep in mind that real bloggers and online writer don’t work for nothing. Most of us have learned to score decent paying gigs and top bloggers are paid even more. To learn more about fair blogging and online writing wages read:

• Typical Blog Wages – How Much Money You Should Make Blogging
• Calculate your hourly blogging rate
• Dealing With Blog Compensation Offers – Clients Who Offer Too Much Money

Now, what do you think will help to improve the job market for bloggers and online writers? Let us know in the comments.

Note: Sorry if you came by earlier and the links were not working – not sure what’s up with the site, but it should be fixed now.

Can you blog your way to a writing job?

Maybe… Forbes recently ran a piece on setting up your authority related to a given career with a blog.  However, the Forbes piece appears to be talking about careers outside of writing but on the flip side, this can work just as well if you do happen to want to be a FT writer or blogger. As noted in the piece:

“Recruiters will always try to find out more about you… They Google you. You want to stack the deck in your favor. If you’re competing with someone who has equal skills and experience, a blog can be the tie-breaker. Having that little bit extra can tip the scales in your favor.”

If you think of “recruiters” as clients, you can see how this works in your favor as a writer or blogger as well; probally even more so, because obviously, if you’re up for an online writing or blog gig, clients like to see that you know what you’re doing.

I’ve gotten gigs from my personal blogs by two different means. One, I’ve had blog clients find my blog, like it, and offer me a gig. Two, I’ve made blogging contacts with other bloggers that eventually resulted in a gig (i.e. someone recommending me for a job based on knowing me or networking with me.)

If you’re going to score any sort of a gig off your blog, you need to follow some basic rules though.

• Update frequently or at the very least on some sort of schedule.
• Build an attractive blog. I’ve worked with some clients with truly horrible looking blogs but in an ironic twist some of these clients will note, “We like the look of your blog – it’s so attractive – you’re hired.” Looks can matter in blogging.
• If you’re aiming for writing and blogging gigs in the cooking realm, don’t blog pets for pete’s sake. Set yourself up as an authority in the niche you’re interested in.
• Don’t make image and linking mistakes. Many clients want bloggers and writers who not only have writing skills, but who can also handle not only finding images, but also take care of all the image editing, image placement, linking, and other basic blog requirements. By linking mistake, I mean don’t place links that look like this: http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/10/blog-jobs-start-leadership-careers-networking.html link the actual text: Blogging Your Way Into A Job. It looks nicer and it’s more search-friendly.
• Know something about SEO and make sure your blog incorporates some SEO qualities.

Have you ever scored a writing gig (or other job) from your blog? OR are you currently using your blog to try to snag a job?

Blogging tip: back up your posts with logic and actual facts

A pet peeve of mine is when bloggers write posts that make me go, “Hmmmm?” And by hmmmm, I mean I don’t buy what they’re saying because they don’t back their facts up OR they make broad generalizations that aren’t true.

For example, you shouldn’t write, “ALL college kids have crazy sex” or, “ALL meat eaters are killing the planet.” If you do want to say something like this, it better be in a tone I can actually read as funny, or you should back it up with actual facts, otherwise you just end up looking like a ranting nutcase. If you write stuff like this too often, your readers won’t consider your blog a place for trusted advice, and you won’t be considered competent in relation to your topic.

Other mistakes like this include…

Not linking to statistics or other pertinent facts. For example, simply writing, “Pesticides cause problems during pregnancy – so ONLY eat organics.” is maybe true but it looks way better when backed up with a link. Such as, “A new report out from The Organic Center (TOC), a leading research institute focused on the science of organic food and farming, recently confirmed that yes, pesticides during pregnancy can cause premature birth or a low-birth weight baby…” and so on.

Same with figures. If you’re going to say that five out of ten kids aged 12 in school are reading at a 7-year-old level , you should get your 5/10 figure from a relevant source and linked it.

The above seems like common place know-how, but at a recent staff meeting for a client I work for, some of my co-bloggers were arguing that it’s ok to leave out links, especially if you site a source. I don’t agree. If you make your readers work too hard to locate the facts you post, they’ll head to another blog; one that doesn’t make them work as hard.

What do you think? Do you link to facts and other posts to support your information or do you go commando?

Coming up: hopefully some blog and online writing gig leads. For now though check out Deb’s leads.

It’s not too soon to blog the holidays

I’m back. My move took WAY longer then I expected and other stuff happened like a nightmare cherry on the cake. But I’ll not bore you with that; Deb already covered some of the issue in How to Ruin Your Blog (Like We Did).

I’d rather talk about blogging. Right now it’s almost October, which means it’s past time to start blogging the holidays. No matter your blog topic, holiday posts are a big traffic draw from September to December. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and all the winter holidays are easy to cover and people want to read about all of them.

I usually start a little early when it comes to blogging the holidays, because frankly, I don’t see the point of a post titled “Ten perfectly green Christmas gifts” two days before Christmas. That’s not very blog reader friendly. Right now my focus is Halloween and although my blogs cover an array of topics, I’ll find a way to incorporate the topic at each and every one of my blogs.

Examples:

At Tree Hugging Family: How to green your Halloween costume

At Declutter It: How to organize a scary Halloween party

At Green Home Tips: Recycled Halloween decorations

At Pregnancy & Baby: 5 great baby Halloween costumes

At Offbeat Homes: 6 spooky homes you never knew existed

And so on…

By the time Halloween hits, I’ll have moved on to Thanksgiving, and well before Thanksgiving I’ll start covering the winter holidays (because people like to shop early.)

If you’re stuck in a blogging slump the holidays are a perfect time to get over it, because so many possibilities abound. You can try gift product recommendations, crafts, recipes, decor tips, or even go the sentimental route with topics like “how to have a peaceful family holiday” or “downsize your gift giving.” You can also work in some self-help posts like “dealing with your evil in-laws at Christmas” or “eating right during the holidays.”

I know some bloggers who skip holiday season posts entirely, maybe because they don’t celebrate or they feel like everyone else is already blogging them, but I don’t think it’s a smart move. Holidays provide free traffic ready material, and this is one time when you never need to wonder, “What the heck can I blog about?” so why pass it up?

If you don’t have a good handle on which holidays are which check out All Holiday Cafe to get up to speed.

What about you? Are you already blogging the upcoming holidays?

Wasting Time While Blogging

We all waste time at work sometimes, and usually a little time wasted does no harm. However, I literally have no time to waste. I get two full days to work, period, each week. I’m a single work-at-home mama, who homeschools, so time is tight. My son’s dad has our son Friday evenings through Sunday evenings which is when I do the bulk of my work – that by the way means; I try to get everything done for the upcoming week (currently about 3 articles and enough posts for around 10 blogs). It’s near impossible. Actually it is impossible. I’ve never, not once, had a week where I get it all done on the weekend.

Partly, this is because I’m working with a small amount of time, but also I waste some of my time. Last week I made a list of all the ways I waste time.

• Not knowing what to blog about first.
• Email, or should I say EMAIL!
• Moderating and responding to blog comments.
• Breaks during work hours.
• Getting side tracked while posting.
• Forums.
• Sleep, meals, and exercise.
• Twitter.

Some of these problems are larger than others. I also jotted down some solutions, including some solutions directly related me only having two days to work in the first place.

Over the next couple of days I’ll be posting my solutions – and how they’re working. I put some into motion this weekend. If you’re wasting time in the same ways that I do, or if you’re a single work-at-home parent maybe my solutions will help you to improve your productivity too.

What ways are you wasting time during work hours?