I have recently being trying to publicize BlogaPro with considerable effort.  Although the blog has been continuously growing in popularity, it’s been a tedious, ongoing process.

If you have been following BlogaPro’s progress, you probably noticed the recent announcement of a ‘Make-Money-Blogging Wiki‘.  Unfortunately, the wiki hasn’t gone down too well. I have yet to have somebody commit a site to the directory.  My attempt at link-baiting went drastically wrong.  “Why the lack of participation?”, I hear you ask.

I like to think that it’s not down to the fact that the wiki lacks quality.  In fact, I’m of the opinion that the wiki is the most aesthetically pleasing feature of the whole site. Indeed, wikis are still a huge fad, but where have I gone wrong?

The problem lies in my readers.  No, I’m not referring to the ‘reading’ demographic but rather the mere number of readers that BlogaPro attracts.

Consider that the blog is only around 3 months old.  Figure that only around 1-2% of the visitors to a blog contribute either in the form of a comment or reply.  For every 100 visitors that BlogaPro receives maybe only 1 or 2 will share a comment on a post.  Now how many of those visitors will take the time to visit the wiki (never mind editing it)?

My experience should strike a pressing thought in the back of your mind.  If you are starting out blogging with your newest blog, consider how the number of readers to your site potentially impacts the addition of new features.

1. Provided all other variables remain constant, the number of visitors to a blog is directly proportional to those visitors that will contribute to the blog.
2. Those blogs which appear to attract little public attention or lack visitor participation will struggle to encourage new visitors to participate.

If you’re new to the blogging scene, you ought to consider the following recommendations before incorporating any additional features:

1. Start out small - start out simply blogging, and blogging only.
2. Stick to what works until the number of visitors to your site warrants the incorporation of additional features.
3. Establish a large reader-base before venturing into new waters.
4. Encourage reader participation so that new blog features are successful upon release.
5. Ask your readers what features they would like to see included.  Don’t just add new features because it offers the potential to increase earnings.  Remember your readers are the ones that will earn you your money. Give them what they want…

It might have only been a mere 3 months since BlogaPro started pushing out content on a consistent basis; nonetheless, this once small-site has emerged from underneath the growth rearing its head as something potentially more powerful.

As has been mentioned on a previous post, the RSS feed has now comfortably surpassed the 50 RSS subscribers mark and is nearing 100 per day - quite exciting.

The number of emails that I now receive on a daily basis is steadily increasing.  I now found myself struggling to find the time to respond in an adequate fashion.  Soon, I might find myself letting a few slip through the net.  I’m now hoping that I will start receiving more blog comments…

Up until now, BlogaPro’s earnings on a monthly basis have equated to nil, nothing, zero, nada…

It’s time to change that. Blogging for me has always been a hobby (and always will), yet there has always been the motivation to capitalize on the potential to supplement my income through advertising, and why not?

BlogaPro’s Costs

Part of the motiviation to include advertisments alongside content is to cover costs. While hosting alone costs around $110.00 per annum (excluding the $10.00 domain renewal charge), the most significant cost is time and effort.

Behind the Scenes

What most people don’t (and won’t) realize is the amount of work that goes into BlogaPro.  During several hours of the day, I can be found performing one of many tasks not limited to researching new content, publishing new content, reading related blogs, researching advertising, making HTML adjustments to layouts, answering emails, and locating links.

Consider that outside the realm of blogging, I work a minimum 40 hours per week.  As you probably imagine, the remainder of my “free” time is devoted solely to BlogaPro.

In fact, it’s around 11:20 pm at night (my bedtime), and I’m still attempting to complete this post…

Inclusion of Advertisments

Not too worry, you won’t be bombarded with advertisements.  Initially, only two 125×125 pixel banners will be included above the ‘About the Author’ section of the sidebar.  Hopefully, they won’t be too intrusive nor make you feel as if the advertisements are being shoved in your face.

How much will I earn via the advertisement? Most bloggers would be unwilling to inform their readers, but I’ll let the cat out of the bag.

The first advertisement will be from Bluehost, a web host provider. Bluehost pay an affiliate a credit if a referrer refers an individual who signs up to a hosting account. This is a stark contrast to a PPC or CTR model of advertising.

Bluehost pay the referrer $65.00 for every individual who signs up to a new hosting account. Yup, this probably sounds not only lucrative but remarkable, but consider how many page views will be required for a single signup? You would be surprised…

Upon logging into FeedBurner, I was slightly surprised after I noticed that the number of RSS subscribers to BlogaPro had suddenly decreased by a whopping 50%.  After all, my latest article discussing press release results has been the most popular thus far (according to Google Analytics).

After finding similar results for another corporate blog that I maintain, I think it’s fair to conclude that FeedBurner might be going “haywire”.  Perhaps this is an isolated incident?  Perhaps it’s only my user account?

I checked the official FeedBurner blog, but to no avail.  Any of you experiencing similar problems?

Although BlogaPro has only been running since early June, its progress has been quite remarkable.  I would take all the recognition, but I didn’t do anything too amazing.  My secret?  Press releases.

After discussing my secret on how to get listed in Google, I decided to conduct an experiment.  My goal was to deduce the amount of impact that a press release would have on a new blog.  If you haven’t read my previous articles, I suggest that you give them a quick look before continuing…

I spent a couple of hours creating two seperate articles, both of which were published as press releases through third-party sites.  One article was released through PRWeb while the other was published via PRUnderground.

The two articles shared similar content, but their wording made them unique.

In order that the articles appeared both professional and authentic, the articles’ release were separated by an interval of about five days.

You probably haven’t considered the reason why I circulated two articles?  In the first publication, I failed to include a link to BlogaPro in the main content of the article.  Remember, that the power of releases comes from the fact that articles are replicated across multiple sites. As a result, I lost out on an opportunity to receive several top quality links to BlogaPro.

The second release was an attempt to rectify my previous mistake.

Visit Google and enter the term, “BlogaPro Announces its Official Release“.  You will notice that both articles have been replicated across at least 344 different pages.  Admittedly, a large portion of these articles fail to include a link to BlogaPro.   Due to the fact that at least 30 new links were received, the time and effort was undoubtedly worthwhile.

The short term achievements are undoubtedly obvious, but the long-term benefits are profound.  Consider that a couple days following the publication of the second article, the number of RSS subscribers to BlogaPro sky-rocketed.  The number of subscribers tripled.

Unfortunately, the same results have not been seen in the number of page views I have since received.  While there was an increase in traffic, the increase has been linear instead of exponential.  This can be attributed to not only the competitive nature of “make money blogging” sites but the sheer number.  It goes without saying that while the number of page views has not been as impressive, the position of BlogaPro in terms of SEO has seen leaps and bounds.

Remember sitting in English class and learning about all the ‘exceptions to the rule’? Sorry to burst your bubble, I’m here to teach you at least one more…

In the blogging world, there are “exceptions to the rule” too.

Carl Ocab, author of carlocab.com

Searching the web I came across a young, professional blogger named Carl Ocab, a blogger based in the Philippines.

What’s so special about Carl Ocab? Well, Carl started his blogging career at the early age of thirteen, an age when most kids are considering paper rounds and not professional blogging.

After only a couple of months of blogging, Carl was able to turn professional. His progress has been so positive that he is now rumored to earn at least a 5-figure annual salary through blogging alone, a salary which most bloggers can only dream of.

Carl’s blog has proved so successful that he was at one stage first in Google’s search engine for the term “Make Money Online”. His popularity has slightly dissipated; although, he is still holding strong.

Before continuing, you might want to learn more about Carl.

Moral of the Story

Many bloggers will profess that, “Content is King!” For the most part, I would be inclined to agree. Eric Enge of SEOmoz.com published an excellent article describing how good content can increase your blog’s popularity.

Unfortunately, this article and many alike fail to consider one important point: there are thousands and thousands of great authors amongst us.

Content alone will NOT drive visitors to your site.  In fact, I read numerous blogs driven by fantastic authors which fail to attract even 100 visitors on any given day, blogs that have been on the ‘net for over two years.

Where are these bloggers falling short?  Unfortunately, they’re all missing that special something or X-Factor.  That X-factor quality is that something that you can’t quite describe or determine, yet you know it when you see it (or in this case, read it).

What is the key to Carl’s success?

I assure you of one thing, his success does not lie in his content. In fact, if you closely inspect Ocab’s content, you soon realize that the quality is severely lacking. It is riddled with grammatical errors in the form of comma splices, incoherent sentences, and poor sentence transitions.

With that said, there are a number of quality/factors which play into his favor:

1. Age: Make no doubt about it, his physical immaturity plays into his favor.  Ocab’s age has been the main foothold to his success.  Just think about how many 13-year-old professional bloggers you can think of?  Let me make it easier.  How many 13-year-olds are you aware of that are pulling in a 5-figure salary?  I’m sure the majority of you couldn’t answer “yes” to either of those questions.  His accomplishment inspire his readers - he is somebody they can look up to.
2. Mental Immaturity: Ocab’s mental immaturity comes across in his posts. His content, unlike the same-old dribble seen on the Internet, is an easy read.  It’s refreshing but unique in its style.
3. Confidence: Ocab portrays himself as an authority over his niche. His writing style emits confidence as is evident in his posts.  Although the subject matter of his content is nothing new, his readers continue to return.
4. Making the most of your hand: Lastly, Carl plays his hand to its full potential - I mean his blog title is, “Make Money At Home With a 13-Year Old”.  He makes no mistake about the fact that he is only 13 years old; he’s well-aware that his age makes him something special.

Separate yourself from the pack

The leaves to me to push the point that you should not rely solely on publishing good content - Carl is a testament to this fact.  However, that does not suggest that content is not important.  Quite contrary.

I’m of the firm belief that bloggers should be themselves.  Carl’s blog is a manifestation that it is important to publicize and demonstrate those points/qualities that are unique.  Remember, blogging is all about being different, at least if you plan on being a highly successful professional blogger.

As most of you are aware, Google has begun its much anticipated PageRank (PR) update, an update that occurs quarterly.

Considering that I have only been promoting the site actively for around 3 weeks, I haven’t exactly been too anxious over the PR update commencing.

It appears that the press release that I published a couple of weeks ago has worked absolute wonders.  On the other hand, my monthly payment to that Google insider could be demonstrating some success.

In a relatively short time, BlogaPro’s PR has increased from 0 to a value of 2.  As stated, I attribute the majority of this success to the recent press releases, but I reckon that my recent push of the RSS feed also deserves some recognition.

I’m not the type of person who is highly fixated about increasing my PR.  Instead, I use it merely as a guage to judge if my progress is positive in the eyes of the search engine.  With that said, I’ll be pushing myself to achieve a PR of at least 4 come the next round of PR updates.

How did your blog feature with the latest round of updates?  Too check your PR, I suggest that you visit Google PageRank Checker.

Share your results…

After a recent post on “setting your blog’s goals“, I received numerous emails from readers asking all the same question: “What are your blog’s goals?”

Since you all appear to be more concerned with my own goals instead of your own, I figured that I would share them with you.

If you have never run your own blog, assessing the potential outcome of your blog will prove difficult.  In all likelihood, its performance will grossly miss your predictions.  There is a lot to learn in the first six months of your blogging career - lessons you will not properly comprehend until you have blogged yourself.

Having previously undertaken the blogging experience with PlayerBites (see ‘About‘ page), I’m in a slightly better position to evaluate the probable outcome.

With that said, there are a number of things that I would like to do differently the second time around.  Even if I say so myself, my past blogging career consisted of some horrible mistakes.  As a result, gauging the site’s outcome has proved a little harder than some of you may realize.

Short-term Goals (6 months):

1. Acquire 200 RSS Subscribers
2. Receive 300 unique visitors on average per day
3. Attain a PageRank of at least 3/10

Long-term Goals (1 year):

1. Acquire 700+ RSS Subscribers
2. Receive around 900 unique visitors on average per day
3. Attain a PageRank of at least 5/10
4. Monetize the site will maintaining visitor growth.

Remember I talked about ’sticking to your guns’?  Well, I have taken the strategy to heart.  Although I have earned 50 active RSS subscribers (after a mere two weeks of the site’s promotion), I am not about to move the goal posts.

Since there is increased probability that the first of my three short-term goals will be met, I am provided with the opportunity to ensure that the other two requirements are met.

Yup, it might only be a mere two weeks since I properly started promoting BlogaPro; nonetheless, I am proud to announce that we have been able to attract 50 RSS subscribers to the feed.  Please, please, no need to laugh.  In fact, I’m quite proud of my success.

I failed to initially consider my achievement, but after reading a recent article at natewhitehill.com it dawned on me just how fast the site is growing. Nate writes,

“It took me 3 months to grow my RSS subscribers to 100, but only 1 month to hit 200, 2 weeks to hit 300, 3 weeks to hit 400, and 4 weeks to hit 500.”

If we base BlogaPro’s growth on the growth experienced by Nate, BlogaPro should have roughly 100 subscribers in another 4 days.  Yup, rather unlikely, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to subscribe about the RSS feed.

I was slightly surprised when I arrived back from work this evening.  Waiting for me was a parcel that had arrived earlier in the morning.  It was not supposed to arrive for another couple of days.

Enough of the suspense already. The parcel contained an order of Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett’s co-authored book titled “Problogger”.

As you would expect, I haven’t managed to properly bury my head in the book just yet, but that is what the weekend is for.  However, I did take the time to read the “Introduction” section of the book which introduces both authors including how they entered the world of blogging.  If you’re needing some inspiration, I suggest you give the Intro section a good read. It’s simply awe-inspiring.

I’ll give the book a bit more of a review once I have completed reading all 211 pages.  The book is available through select retailers including Amazon.com.