I’ve been reading Blogging Heroes by Michael Banks and I’ve noticed that throughout the 30 interviews (I’ve read 28 of them so far.) that there are a couple of common themes that all of these professional bloggers tend to come back to. Some of the folks that are interviewed include Mary Jo Foley, Gina Trapani, Chris Anderson, Philipp Lenssen, Frank Warren, Steve Rubel, Gary Lee, Robert Scoble, Peter Rojas, Rebecca Lieb, John Neff and Brad Hill.
This book is worth reading! If you’ve ever felt alone as a blogger, ever felt that no one comments, or that the only ones who do are hurtful, this is the next book you must read. If you’re thinking of starting a blog, the first step is reading here (or my book, of course. 
). If you’ve ever wondered what sort of person it takes to build a successful blog, this group provides an excellent measure.
The themese are:
passion
monetization - and the split view on this point
Probably the biggest theme that everybody mentions is being passionate about your topic, and you have to be passionate or it’s going to chew you up and spit you out. If you are not passionate about a topic you, will run out of energy very quickly. To me this is fairly obvious, although I suspect many people getting into this for the first time struggle due to the newness of blogging. Its something that overcomes any forward thinking on the idea of “Do I have the stamina to actually carry this out?“. The real challenge is that every day you have to think of something to talk about, to continually put it out there to build an audience. As readership grows, the demand seems to get greater and greater, and how do you manage that?
While these bloggers (in one case I believe one of the people in this book actually comes from professional journalism background) came into blogging from different angles and with different back grounds, the real meat of their message is that you have to continually stay on top of whatever your unique topic is. This point is really critical, as well selecting the right topic. Again we’re back to being passionate about it. This is absolutely critical in order to be successful.
So one of the biggest things I’m noticing in relation to this the book is that I think as a search marketer and as an online marketing professional. I take for granted, for example, the notion of monetizing a blog or website.
To me the idea of not monetizing a blog or website is foreign. Too many of those interviewed for this book, completely the opposite is true. Many started with blogs simply for the sake of spreading a common word or the own point of view. Many have started blogs and grown blogs to the point where readership exceeds hundreds of thousands of people per month. When I see such growth I cannot help but see dollar signs! Though, I do completely understand their point of view, and having to deal with the question “Is this a moral issue?”
So my personal opinion on this obviously is monetize, monetize, monetize! I come from a background of online marketing and I understand the inherent value of unique content and the traffic it can bring. I also understand the idea of having a return on this – the time invested. This isn’t simply a hobby. This is something where you do get to share knowledge and expertise as well as developing a return on the time you’re putting in. The time you’re putting into this hobby, you’re not getting back. So you need to be very careful that the time you put into blogging as a return of some in some form for you.
Overall I am a bit lukewarm with some of what’s talked about in Blogging Heroes as regards the perception of SEO. Many of those being interviewed see SEO as an adjunct, maybe something to be avoided. In a few cases, some of those being interviewed in this book actually feel SEO is meritorious and that it is worth pursuing; that there is a return on this approach. One of the common themes on the topic of SEO is the idea that it’s very simplistic and that you needn’t put a lot of time and effort into it. I actually agree with this wholeheartedly. The core of SEO is built around usability and that in and of itself leads you straight back to the content you’re producing and the format in which you are showcasing it to your users. Many blogging platforms, such as Wordpress, make this very simple to manage.
Blogging is the ideal platform for actually showcasing content in a manageable way. Being a writer (good or bad) or being a subject matter expert, or even simply someone who is keenly a interested in a topic, the blogging world and the platforms themselves enable you to quickly showcase your information. By managing very basic SEO points such as having correct titles, by ensuring that unique descriptions exist on pages, by managing your trackbacks properly, by using images and ALT tags properly you can help a blog to really become much more search friendly. Probably the one of the biggest pieces of advice that leads to a search friendly layout is that of managing your URLs effectively. By actually going in and selecting your URLs be shown as postnames in the platform, you’ve taken a big step forward in ensuring that the search engines can very quickly and effectively understand what the post is about. By managing this one item, you will change your URLs from a series of numbers to the actual words used in the title that you wrote for the post.
The title of this post is “Are Bloggers Unaware? “ I believe for the most part they are aware. They are aware of their reader’s responses. They are aware of their own subject matter knowledge. There are aware of their own passion for the subject.
I’m not sure that beyond that -passion- a lot more is needed, for most blogs. In fact, if you are passionate about a topic, it will show through in your writing and in your presentation. That passion alone will draw readers to your space. So whether you are blogging for business, pleasure, a hobby or any other reason, bring your passion for the topic to the forefront. Do not enter into blogging if it’s on a whim, for a quick win, or if you simply feel like trying to make some money quickly.
The bottom line is making money online does not happen quickly.
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