On a blogger panel last week, I admitted my number one pet hate – bad Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) agencies. You know, the ones who constantly peddle meaningless backlinks in return for cold cash. If you blog, then it’s common to receive poorly targeted emails from such agencies.
It’s one aspect that comes with the territory of ‘being a blogger’ and on a panel discussion at Lansons I explained what’s it like being a blogger for the last 9 years. Despite all working in completely different sectors, Gourmet Mum, Lifestyle Maven, Luisa Porritt, and I all had similar experiences.
Hearing the best #bloggingtips with @GourmetMum @michaelwhite1 @LifestyleMavens @luisaporritt @LansonsLatest pic.twitter.com/EsBR8lhCAI
— Megan Murray Jones (@meglrr) November 10, 2015
A proper write-up of the panel discussion is due on the Lansons blog soon, below were some of the answers I supplied. It’s incredibly honest and I hope not too narcissistic to repeat them here.
How did you become a blogger?
Whilst my current blog has an archive dating back to 2009, my first blogging steps happened in 2005 when I set up an atheism based blog called ‘A Superfluous Ramble’. This quickly got me involved with numerous online atheism/humanist/philosophy communities and even angered a few churches! Receiving invitations to church services or choir practices was not uncommon.
As I have dyslexia, blogging allowed me to perfect my writing style – a deeply personal achievement as I wouldn’t be able to live without writing (paraphrasing the words of the late Christopher Hitchens). Today I’m known as a PR blogger, which only began after one of my lecturers at University recommended I start a PR based blog in 2008.
The blog has had a few reiterations but today stands as thoughtsymposium.com (crap name); audience tends to tread a line between seasoned practitioners and students. In reality though, the growth of the blog was a complete accident and exists merely as a hobby. My income comes from full-time PR consultancy.
Do you make money from your blog?
I would argue that the peak of this blog existed at University when I had spare time! It was then that agencies were willing to pay me between £100 – £150 to publish sponsored posts on this blog. Often these posts were completely unrelated to the topics I was writing about, as a result this paid content probably lost me a few visitors. Still, being a student meant money was tight.
As well as accepting sponsored posts I was involved with a couple of affiliated marketing programmes, receiving small amounts of commission for referral links. Whilst I’ve always had some form of advertising on the blog, this has typically been a low money earner – many bloggers can’t generate enough page views to keep blogging as a full-time occupation.
Today I’m less focused about monetising the traffic on my blog, it’s much better for me to use my content as a hook for new business and building personal profile.
What is your experience like of working with businesses/agencies?
Bad email pitches come with the territory of blogging; I suppose I should be thankful that people want to pitch in the first place! On the day of the blogger panel I read out a few of the terrible pitches I’ve received and the agency who sent it – I’ll be kind online and not mention by name.
The best pitches have all been book review based ones. For instance, a new book surprising me at my work address by post and a note from a publisher/author requesting that I review it on my blog. These sorts of pitches feel good and I always review the book in detail (I’m a relatively fast reader). Once I was invited to a mansion for a blogger party – it’s amazing what this little blog has done for me.
How do you find the time to blog?
I’m currently writing this post very late at night! This tends to be a trend, writing at the unsociable hours of the day – perhaps that’s because I can be completely focused on the task. However, balancing a demanding full-time job with keeping a blog going is difficult.
This month alone I’ve had 10 day publishing gaps which is not good enough to maintain high levels of web traffic. The sad truth about blogging is that we’re technically in competition with news sites for Google Search positions; for one person to rival professional industry publications is not possible (for most).
Give us your final tip about blogging
The best tip is start a blog! It’s amazing how many PR professionals don’t blog.
What’s it like being a blogger?
Busy. It’s a commitment for some of the reasons I’ve outlined above, but incredibly rewarding. Blogging over the last 9 years has allowed me to experiment with different writing styles and experiment with web hosting.
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