Blogging Experience, January 12, 2009 Update

I began blogging in October 2008 as a way to publish material I had written over the past 5 years or so about buzzwords in business. I was also at a point in my life when I needed to express thoughts and feelings that were buzzing inside me that I needed an outlet for. The blog seemed like the perfect place to start.

I consider my experience as a newbie blogger no different from other newbies: I went to blogger.com and signed up. Started my first blog, http://mykalsreport.blogspot.com/ to post the chapters of the book I was dying to publish. Did everything wrong of course. Sent emails to unsolicited contacts, didn’t promote it effectively. Kept pushing material out and getting limited feedback.

But feeling excited, I started another blog, http://myfavouriteruns.blogspot.com/. This one to post stories about places I have. Seemed like a good idea. But now I had to write two posts each week.

Whew, this was turning into work. Thankfully I was out of work.

Had another idea for another blog. This one about my car driving experiences, http://carsihavedriven.blogspot.com/. Now three blogs to manage each week.

This progressed merrily along for a couple of months. I had a lot of material I had previously written so even though I was posting only three articles once each week, it seemed as if I had a lot of material. Quickly found out that this was not the case as the older material depleted.

Also of course signed up with Adsence https://www.google.com/adsense/login/en_US/. Making money seemed like a really good idea.

The week looked something like this:
Write articles over the weekend or early in the week
Revise mid-week
Post Friday: send email to 30 or so friends, update Facebook page, Twitter, Zimbio

Results: 70 – 80 page visits within 24 hours. 20 – 30 cents in earned revenue from the few folks who clicked on the ads.

Whew, a lot of work for a little money. Not going to pay the mortgage at this rate

Then took the next step: condense the three blogs into one. So in late December I exported all the stories from http://myfavouriteruns.blogspot.com/ and http://carsihavedriven.blogspot.com/. Used labels to identify the story categories. Seemed to consolidate nicely all my efforts. Also decided to post earlier in the week. Still sent out the emails and did the other promotion.

Flat. No increase in visits or click-through. Frustrated.

Got feedback separately though that the writing style was good. Some people enjoyed the stories. No interaction on the blogs though.

Now at the point where I need to understand what I need to write to get people to respond…