Secrets Of A Pro Blogger: 15 Ways To Expand Your Blogging Career

April 26th, 2008

I was recently direct messaged by a follower on Twitter, asking me for advice on how I’ve expanded my blogging career. How certain things worked out for me and what it takes to be a Pro Blogger. The following is the e-mail I sent him, as well as some edits and additions where I deemed fit. I hope that something in its contents can help you reach your goals too.

I’ve been writing professionally since mid-2005, first for a Brooklyn-based start-up urban magazine where I was a flim critic, tour-mag.com, and blogging professionally since November 2006. I was hired at Gearfuse through a job opening posted on Performancing.com and was pretty much there ever since, with a point in between when I left for a few months to write for The Uber-Review. Over that period of time, I’ve written posts for Ubergizmo, Uberphones, BornRich, Spluch, AOL’s Asylum.com, and even had an article from BornRich featured on The Huffington Post.

I’ve recently been offered jobs at Coolest Gadgets and Neatorama. Two pretty well known blogs in their own right.

There’s so much advice to give, so much that is so important in the world of blogging where I don’t even know where to start. I thought about how to go about this and I guess the best way to do it is by listing the ways I’ve gotten where I am.

1. Don’t give up. Blogging has a tendency to wear on you. Just because you work from home, sometimes in your pajamas (or at least I do,) people automatically assume that you can just grab a keyboard and start tapping away. While this has worked for some people, this is RARELY the case. For those who weren’t born with some divine blogging power, they more often than not, give up within the first year. Blogging isn’t about instant feedback in the form of traffic. Not giving up is one of the most important things to learn and will pay off in the long run, one way or another.

2. Interact with the blogging community. Get to know other blogs in your niche, and most importantly, the people who run them. If you like someones blog, contact them and tell them. It opens up a line of communication, and that’s always a good thing. Whether it be for linking purposes or for a possible job opportunity in the future.

3. Know people. This goes hand in hand with number two. Make sure you interact with the types of blog’s you are interested in or admire. Blogging is much more social than some people think.

4. Give credit where credit it due. If you link to a site, they’ll see you’re linking to them through either Technorati or just through their incoming traffic. In a lot of cases they’ll follow back to check up on your site, and might even link back. So hitting a site up with a nice via link of just props for giving you an idea is a great way to interact with the blogging community.

5. Don’t give up. Again, I can’t stress this enough. Persistence!

6. It never hurts to ask. If you really want to work at a certain blog, or hell, ANYWHERE, it never hurts to simply e-mail the blog, telling them that you’re interested in working for them. They might just have an open spot they’re willing to fill.

7. Know your niche. Choose one and stick to it as much as you can. A blog needs a crowd, and if one day you write about your cats, and then the next day you write about technology, people are going to be pretty damn confused. If you need to, run multiple blogs, but keep your niche clear.

8. Have writing samples ready. Take a note of some of your best posts. The ones you are most proud of work just fine. Send links of these posts in your job request e-mails. Be prepared to show proof of your writing prowess.

9. Show consistency. Post on a regular basis. In the tech field especially, so much is changing and being announced on a constant basis that posting something every week day at least is essential. Be involved with the blog machine, and follow it’s happenings.

10. Use social networks to your advantage. Digg and StumbleUpon can give you some great traffic. A stumble from one popular stumbler or a Digg from a well-known Digger can set off a chain reaction which can set a metaphorical flame under your blogs ass.

11. Don’t worry about the big guys. By the time a post reaches their pages, so many of your fellow members of the blogosphere and blog readers have already seen it, that their not going to find it that interesting unless you have something really interesting to say about the subject. This is especially true for tech and gadget blogs, but not as much for political blogs, where opinion is key.

12. Passion. You’ve gotta have passion for what you do. If you have the passion, it’ll show in your writing. Your passion might just cause your readers to develop the same passion.

13. Be conversational. People don’t come to blogs for cookie-cutter articles. Blogging is a conversation, so it should be written like one. Ask questions of your readers. Encourage interaction. We, as bloggers, aren’t the New York Times. We are people, and people expect chatter. I might write a post in the future which discusses how to be more conversational, reaching your readers at a personal level.

14. Don’t be afraid to speak your mind. Bloggers make the mistake all too often of not voicing their true or full opinion. Just because another blogger has their opinion does not mean you have to agree.

15. DON’T GIVE UP!

That’s the most I can think of right off the top of my head. But if I think of anything else I’ll let you know. Feel free to ask me any questions you’d like, and/or follow me on Twitter.