What a treat kids – not one but two blogposts by your favorite Bob this month! After Imran Naseem read my previous blogpost, in which I expressed my feeling about him, he followed up with a rather amusing conversation on my instant messenger. I’m just following up on some of his advice, and paste the chatlog on my blog.
This seemed like a suitable topic to write about, since I’ve just gone through the process of hiring a full time blogger for one of my other sites. The best place to either find a blogging job, or to find blogging talent, is the Problogger Job Board. There are more ways to find writers, but a lot of the responses I’ve received from the PB job ad were quite good. Unlike some forums, where people will do anything for a quick buck. When it comes to getting solid content for your blog, you need a solid blogger. Don’t cut corners, you’ll make the money you had to spent to advertise back in no time with a quality writer on your staff.
After all the replies I got for the job, I have a lot of comparison material, and I’ll give you several examples of how to – and how to not apply for an advertised writing position.
If you want to have a good shot of landing the blogging gig you’re about to apply for, please make sure you’ve covered these points.
The Don’ts.
At least act like you know what you’re getting yourself into.
1. The most important aspect would probably be; Make sure that you’ve familiarised yourself with the blog that is seeking to hire a blogger. Often a link is included in the job application, but at times you have to be slightly more creative, and find the site, based on the email address domain, or do some quick research on Google. – Several of the candidates that were applying seemed to have absolutely no clue as to what blog they were applying for. Either that, or they just chose to ignore the blog topic, and sent in extremely random sample material. If I want to hire someone to blog about TV shows, how is a school paper on gardening going to get me excited about you?
Can you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?
2. So the entire blog you are applying for is written in English. The entire ad for the job was written in English. What on earth are you doing, emailing me a complete application letter in Spanish? Besides me no speaky that muchos Spanish, why would you think that your Spanish articles will get published on my English blog? Please make sure you’ve written down point 1, then come back and try again. Hasta la Vista baby!
Minimalistic anyone?
3. I’ve worked hard on my blog to get it where it is today. I’ve put the hours in, I’ve spent money on advertising the job application. So do you really think that an email containing one single link to your blog is going to get me impressed with your high standard of work? Do you think I would feel good spending more money on someone that not only seems extremely lazy, but is also showing no interest in my blog whatsoever? BZZZZ! Think again.
can I haz spellcheckz?
4. Ok, so I can see that it’s not Spanish, but are you sure that your application letter was written in English? I’m not too thrilled to think of my new blogger to be writing articles as if they were typing on their cellphone. “I wuld luv 2 b a writer 4 u. Plz chk my appl. and get bck 2 me asap”. No thanks. Sure, I might not be the greatest writer myself, but for someone whom I am going to have to pay, I at least expect you to present me with a usable end-product.
We don’t do Pulitzer.
5. The email in which you’re applying for the TV blogger job could very well make the New York Times Editor in Chief offer you a job. University this, author of bestseller that…I think you might be slightly overqualified for this job. I don’t think that the people that visit my blog are expecting to read Time magazine articles. Thanks for applying, but I can’t see you connecting with my target audience. But don’t worry, I’m sure you can do much better with all those credentials under your belt.
And there’s my main don’ts you need to consider. I’ve cut the article in half, so come back tomorrow to find out what the Do’s are to get you hired as a blogger.
Don’t ask me how, but for some reason I came across a reference online, which told me that one of my old blogs (Bobmeetsworld.com) had one of it’s articles quoted and published in a real book.
So that might not sound like much, but I bought the book just now, and reading back my own words on actual paper, gave me the urge to write a blog post! Trust me, seeing your words in a paperback is SO much different than seeing them on your computer screen.
Blogging is what got it all started for me. Before Bobmeetsworld, I was an average Internet user. I emailed, I browsed, I downloaded, I chatted. then, I started blogging, out of sheer boredom and a bit of curiosity.
Today, I consider myself as an ‘Internet Insider’. I run a popular TV series website which attracts over 1.5 million page-views per month, I have connections with many other successful insiders, and I make more money online than what I earn in my day-time job. To be honest, I just have my day job so I get to spend time with real people during the day.
The Internet is a magnificent tool, a place to communicate with the world. Getting ideas, passing knowledge, making connections. There isn’t a thing you cannot do online. What you need to learn though, is how to use it. How to behave and communicate with other people online. You only get out of it what you put into it.
Collaboration is key in most online success stories. Bloggers collaborate with their readers. Social networks collaborate with their users. We all need each other to gain success, and that’s why you need to respect other views and opinions. It’s all too easy staying anonymous and give out. It’s much harder to adapt and engage on more levels than your comfort zone has.
The book: (Now Is Gone: A Primer on New Media for Executives and Entrepreneurs
Seriously. All the time and effort you have to put into a blog. If you add it all up, was it really worth your time? You could be blogging, just for the fun of it. But chances are, you’re in it for the money. (Haha, who ever told you there was money to be made in blogging?)
There are a select few bloggers that actually make (quite a lot of) money with their blog. I hate to burst your bubble, but it is safe to say that you are not one of them. I can count them on one hand.
The trick.
Remember what a magician does when he pulls a rabbit out of a hat? They distract you with one hand, and do their “magic” with the other. Po0f! instant rabbit!
The distraction these bloggers use is simple yet effective – They tell you how they do it! WTF!
Over the years they have managed to build-up an online profile that is recognised by hundreds of thousands of readers. This is one of the main reasons they make money. With time comes mass, with mass comes credibility, with credibility comes more mass. You get the picture.
I’m not going into specifics, but if you just have a look through their archives, you will see that they have touched base on the same subject over and over again throughout the years, but by slightly rewording things, mixing in new examples of recent “achievements”, their information always seems fresh.
It’s just not for me, rewriting the same old bullshit, over and over again. Sure, it gets you a popular blog. It will earn your readers respect, AND it will bring in the money you are looking for. But what about job satisfaction? I simply cannot derive any pleasure or satisfaction out of repeating myself – over and over and over again.
*Edit – This post was about twice as long, but for some reason, WP gave me 404 errors every time I updated the post! See? Another reason why I think blogging isn’t for me.
If you’re a blogger and reading this top ten common blogging mistakes list, you’ll recognize the obvious traps that can make or break your success as a blogger. Here we go:
So, out of the blue, this guy contacts me, saying he would help me out getting one of my sites in better shape. My initial reaction? WTF. Are you trying to tell me that my site isn’t good the way it is now? Are you saying I did a shit job at it? Its making me over $3000 per month on semi auto-pilot. I don’t see anything wrong with it.
Aaah, but then I started thinking. If someone is offering you a helping hand, you shouldn’t think that way. Instead, you should think of the fact that they are looking at your site from a different angle. They have a fresh set of eyes, and they don’t expect the same from your site as you do.
Customer Visitor is king.
So, going forward, one of the suggestions he made was that I should transfer a lot of the static stuff, like images, plugins, and CSS to an external service (Amazon cloudfront). Basically I had been toying with the idea for some time now, since my server kept getting hammered by huge (1.4 million pageviews!) amounts of traffic (It’s quite a popular video site I’m talking about), and I really didn’t want to fork out yet another $100 for a new upgrade. I have already gone through 4 upgrades in the last 4 months. Currently the server is running on a 2.4Ghz Quadcore CPU, 8GB RAM and a 100Mbps line. Even with the WP-super-cache plugin, the server was still slowing down to the point where I was losing visitors.
So now Amazon is hosting all of the site’s heavy files, and basically all the server is running is PHP, Apache, and MySQL. In theory this should take a huge strain off the server, and my visitors will experience faster loading times.
Don’t get offended and start attacking right off the bat when someone criticizes you or your product – it is much better to hear them out and take any suggestions they have on-board. In the end it all comes down to giving people what they want if you want to make money online. Basically you’re getting free feedback which allows you to improve and become better.
*If you want to know a little more about Cloud Front, Paul Stamatiou has written a review and how-to about it.
A friend of mine just asked me how many RSS subscribers I had on this blog. Instead of answering him right away, I told him I couldn’t care less, and why he shouldn’t either…
An RSS feed is a great tool to help you spread your content online. You can have your latest posts linked all over the place since there are tons of sites that allow you to add your feed address. (Someone already went to the trouble to compile a list for you – Blog Directories & RSS Feed Directories).
So that was the first good thing about RSS.
Reading RSS feeds through an RSS-reader saves me so much time. I wake up, log in, scan post titles, and select a few posts to read. All in all I don’t spend more than 30 minutes a day on this. So much better than having to go to each and every blog that is in my bookmarks.
That was the second great thing about RSS
So here’s why I don’t care about how many RSS readers my blog has:
- People that read a blog in their RSS readers don’t actually read my stuff half of the time. They scan and skip.
- People that read a blog in their RSS readers don’t see any ads I have on my site. Advertisers don’t get enough ROI and stop advertising.
- People that read a blog in their RSS readers hardly ever feel the need to engage in the comments. They read your post and move on. WFC about commentators, right?
- People that read a blog in their RSS reader do not contribute to your pageview statistics, making it harder for you to sell space to advertisers at a good price.
- Some people canwill steal and copy your content. They are called scrapers, and we all hate them. They don’t care.
So, having said that, there is one huge advantage having a large number of subscribers – Social Proof. It will definitely give you an established and authoritative image. If new visitors see that you’ve got the attention of thousands of other people, chances are that they will come back again. This is excellent, until they too start reading you in a RSS reader.
Yes, you could argue with me and tell me that an RSS subscriber is great if they read you through an email subscription instead of a reader. I agree, but list building is an entirely different topic.
To end this post on a more positive note; Don’t worry too much about all of this. I found this graph on mashable.com (Google Images actually). It looks like there aren’t a lot of ‘normal‘* people that use RSS. Most RSS users are Internet savvy people. Most likely yourselves, affiliate marketers, designers, programmers and developers.
*Disclaimer – By normal people I mean Joe the plumber. People that will actually buy your stuff. Trying to sell something to an affiliate marketer is like…well like selling something to an affiliate marketer! Oh, and I would just like to say hi to my 16 RSS subscribers. Hi guys!
Working at a customers office today, re-imaging a few new machines, I got the idea for this post. Basically a 2 hour job got stretched out to 6 hours, all because the companies procedure was not very straightforward – At all.
Some of you geeks might know how simple it can be to image a computer. You use a boot-up disc to connect to a server and deploy a certain image, or you might just have a ghost image on a usb drive. Whatever, it can all be done in less than 30 minutes, provided you have the right setup.
Now, the way the IT department has setup their re-imaging process, has become very complicated, all because they have added so many additional steps. Instead of the one boot disc and image, they have written all sorts of scripts that tie in with Windows AD (Active Directory), and create all sorts of user specific settings. Each machine needs their own personal boot disc created. The documentation to complete the process is over 65 pages long!
Right, I won’t bore you with any technical details, but I’ll tell you how this got me writing this post.
KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid
If you can do something quicker, without losing quality – Do it!
This goes for your blog posts too. If you have been writing and editing that one post for hours now – You’re doing it wrong. Remember that you are your own worst critic. Even though you will re-write and re-read your post endless times – your readers will read your post, only once!
Trust me, they will have so many emails and blog posts to read today, in a limited amount of time – no extra attention will be given to your post. They might leave a comment, and then they’re off. All in all, they’ve probably spent a maximum of five minutes on your blog.
To get to the point, keep your posts to the point. Short and sweet. Don’t be scared to hit the publish button. We can’t always write masterpieces (unless your name is Brian Clark) If you have more to say, why not create a series of articles? Rule of thumb; Keep your posts between 300-1000 words, and you keep most of us happy.
*Disclaimer - Wasn’t too sure about publishing this – but I figured I’d better practice what I preach!
If you’re completely out of things to write about, yet you feel that you need to keep your visitors happy with something – Have a go at the Alexa hoturls. These are the web’s hottest links for today, updated every 5 minutes.
My top ten favorite hoturls, in no particular order:
10: Squirrel accidentally poses for camera – achieves Internets fame.
9. 4,000-tonne cargo ship mysteriously vanishes.
8. The Best Buy $10 LCD TV fiasco – I lolled @greedypeople that are talking of a class-action law suit because Best Buy didn’t honor the (obviously) faulty price.
7. 51 naked brides – Not as sexy as you might be thinking right now!
6. Newfound planet being a loner.
5. Twitter – Surprise surprise.
4. 10 Most Outrageous Factory Options Ever – For all you car lubbers.
3. The Lacuna Seca racetrack – In Google Maps, with streetview.
2. Affiliate Jump Ustream – A room full of marketers, talking marketing. Looks like a pitch.
1. The 30 day challenge – more affiliate stuff. Seems like the Internets is full of marketers!
Now, by the time you read this post, most of these will probably be gone. Like I said, Alexa is updating these stats every 5 minutes. Oh, and here’s a tip – When you find a blog in there, see if you can leave a comment. It should bring you some nice traffic.
Man, was I in a writing mood today. It’s been a while since I’ve felt so full of words. My fingers have been glued to my keyboard for hours, and I’m pretty sure I’ve written more today then I have written this whole week! There are several posts on draft, but I have used most of my time to get my “About Me” page updated. If you’re interested, just click over to read more about Bob.
Just a few quick points on why I believe that solid About pages are important to have.
