Dear readers, I had announced recently about an interview with the owner of Problogger and Digital Photography School and one of the most respected professional bloggers, Mr. Darren Rowse. I have been fortunate enough to fetch Darren’s comments on certain queries I submitted to him. Though I tried to pick his brain on several questions, due to his tight schedule, he could answer only a few. Here is the interview…Q: Would you share with us the most effective techniques that increased your Technorati authority?
Technorati Authority is based upon how many people link to you in the last six month period. As a result of this the main thing that you can do to increase authority on Technorati is to consistently write the kind of content that people link up to. This might sound sort of obvious and too basic but it's amazing how many people spend a lot of time begging other bloggers for links, trying to swap links with other bloggers etc - all to increase their Technorati ranking - when they should probably be investing their time into writing high quality content that gets people wanting to share it with others.
There are many ways to write this type of content including writing controversial post, running contests, using humor and more. I wrote about 20 types of linkable content at http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/09/21/20-linkbaiting-techniqes/
Q: After how many months did Problogger make the first of the consistent monthly checks? And how many visitors per day did it take for that money?
ProBlogger earnings grew steadily but not spectacularly over the first 12-18 months of the blog. In fact it was only after 2 years that I probably could have made a full time living from that blog alone. My other blogs have generally earned more than ProBlogger.
Traffic numbers have grown steadily but it's probably not the actual traffic numbers that have brought an increase in earnings on ProBlogger but the influence and profile of the blog. I find now that advertisers don't pay to go on ProBlogger just for traffic - but they want to align their brand with mine.
Q: Approximately how many visitors on an average out of a thousand purchase any product from your product buttons? In my experience, people don't even check out the ClickBank buttons. They just look at the content and go.
I tend not to use 'buttons' for affiliate programs but find that linking to affiliate links directly from within posts with text links perform better. There's not really any specific percentage that is an average though as it varies so much from product to product.
Q: From your FAQ I found you don't much like to talk about your family through Problogger. But, your readers may like to know about it. May be through CuteWriting, you wish to share more?
Sorry but I don't write about my family or show photos of my family - for me it is about privacy and personal security that I don't like to bring them into the public spotlight.
Q: Darren Rowse is an icon in blogging. Still, we don't see much activity in several of your social networking profiles. You seem to be active only in Twitter and Facebook. Why is it so?
I'm not sure I really agree with you on that one - I spend a reasonable amount of time on Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Plurk and Facebook. For me it's about having a presence in these places but not being obsessed with them. I do spend more time on my blogs and see interacting in the social media spaces as a supportive thing rather than my primary task.
Thanks to Mr. Darren Rowse, for allowing this interview.
That is awesome. Glad to see you got an interview and some good answers.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. Justin. Yes, I am lucky enough to get five questions answered by Darren. In fact, I had submitted almost 35 questions to him and he couldn't snatch enough time from his busy schedule.
ReplyDeleteWell, I am not against this lucky man (yaa, i won't call him a blogging guru), who made it big in a short period of time. But let me tell you guys one thing, do you really think problogger is a helpful guide for bloggers???
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, you can't find the real tricks there. He is very clever in showing off things, i mean... just look at his post titles, they are too attractive. But less quality contents. You can grab more helpful posts in those topics, just google that with those terms.
Now he is using his URL (Blog Name) to grab traffic. But a true blogger always discloses all his tricks with others and that's why people tend to come there or subscribe to his feeds. Just look at bloggers like Gosu, a blogger who is in his early 20s, whose blog ranked within top 20 blogs and earning handsomely from different sources. BUT STILL DOWN TO EARTH. Even when I ask him for help, i get a reply within next few minutes (if he is online). And if he is not aware of that things, he will google that, will search himself, and will answer you. That's a blogger.
For an example : CuteWriting is using a SIDEBAR TAB FEATURE. Of course that needs a HTML edit. Now the thing is that, if someone asks the author about this tab view feature, is he going to disclose? If yes, his blog is worth visiting and subscribing, if not, then forget this blog like any 3rd grade porn site.
Finally, one last word "Dikhabe pe mat jao, apni akal lagao"
just my 2 cents...
I too loved the question and answers in this interview. Darren Rowse loves privacy and does avoid coming them into the public spotlight. Great post. Enjoyed it thoroughly.
ReplyDeleteOrkut tricks,
ReplyDeleteThe tab feature or the whole template is not mine. It belongs to one Mr Bhavesh and you can find his link at the bottom. Well, I am willing to disclose any tweaks I have done on this template, while I don't want you to copy it altogether.
About your comment about Darren: I don't really believe any of the professional bloggers actually disclose their important tricks. But I look at what they do, not what they write. And that's how I learn the tricks myself. So, I don't disrespect them. Even I may not disclose my intimate tricks, though I have disclosed some now. But on becoming a popular problogger, I will disclose all the tricks I used to get to that level (when I needn't fear too much competition).
Thanks, Bluetooth for the comment.
Lenin
Orkut Tricks | Oriya Scrap - not quite sure what you mean. I share everything I know about blogging on ProBlogger. I try to help people as much as I can also - not always easy when I get asked a lot of questions.
ReplyDeleteIf you have something specific in mind that I've not been helpful with feel free to ask - always happy to share what I've learned.
Wow! That was very quick. Dear Darren, thanks for your comment. I didn't know you were tracking this post. Good to see your own words in comments.
ReplyDeleteAbout Orkut tricks's comment, I see you are a bit offended about it. I don't much care. Everyone has his own opinions and if someone comments badly about me, I don't give a $hit about it.
Lenin
It is a nice interview and the follow up comment from Darren tells you simply why he is problogger.
ReplyDeleteNice interview and getting it from Darren time is great.
Congrats lenin.
Awesome interview form a problogger. Nice!
ReplyDelete