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The following is a transcript of a free podcast interview with Paul Cunningham, theBlogging Teacher,interviewed by Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn
.Click here to access the free audio. The Creative Penn podcast has over 50 free audio interviewson writing, publishing options, internet marketing andpromotion for your book. It is aimed at authors, writers andpeople interested in books and publishing.You can see the fullbacklist of podcasts by clicking here. You can also Click here to subscribe on iTunes.
Hi everyone. This is Joanna Penn for the Creative Penn
podcast and today I‟m interviewing
Paul Cunningham.Paul is The Blogging Teacher and provides articles, tips and
tutorials to help blogger overcome the many challenges theyface in building a successful blog. He is also an IT
podcast on basicblogging before on the podcast series so this interview is moreabout some of the advanced techniques for people who alreadyhave a blog, but want to improve it or grow traffic. So,welcome Paul.PC: Thanks Joanna, an absolute pleasure to be here.JP: I
t‟s great to have you along. So, we met last year when you came along to one of
my seminars, which was fantastic.
So, maybe you can start by telling us a bitabout you, a bit about your site and also about your own writing ambitions.
PC:
Sure. So, I‟m Paul Cunningham. I live here in Brisbane Australia with my wifeand two young kids, and I run two blogs. I‟ve got
BloggingTeacher.com,whichis where I talk about blogging and Internet marketing, web design and stuff likethat, and ExchangeServerPro.com
,which is about my day job and that‟s an IT professional. So, I‟ve been blogging for a few years now so,
and discovered afew years ago that I really enjoyed blogging.
I like writing. I‟ve probably written millions of words in my job over the last tenyears and yeah, I also enjoy helping people. So, for now I‟ve got my two blogs
where I write my blog posts
and we‟ve got some free stuff there,
some guides,some short guides and a few of those topics and they seem to be really received
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by the readers. So, I‟m working on producing some more detaile
d books andguides to do from those and my goal this year is to self publish at least one book out of the couple of dozen ideas that are in hand.JP:
Absolutely. Okay, so I mean I‟ve been having a look at your blog and obviouslyyou‟ve helped me with a couple of qu
estions as well with your WordPressexpertise.
So, we’re going to
take the example of a writer or an author whohas had a free blog for a while.
So, they‟ve got a Wor
dP
ress.com blog site and they‟ve been blogging for maybe
four or five month
s and now they‟re going to take it to a new level. I‟ve
beenthrough before setting up
their own hosted blog so we don‟t need to go into that,
but
what are your three top tips for getting a more professional and effectivegoing onc
e you’ve got into the basics?
PC: Obviously
you‟ve already talked about
free services and getting onto anunbranded site, un-hosted site,
that‟s real
ly important. And then, the wordprofessional - I think probably those are two really good words there and whenpeople hear profes
sional they shouldn‟t think of
stiff, informal and boring.
It‟s really more about taking a bl
og to the next level and treating it as seriously asyou would expect people to take it when they come and visit. So, you know,
you‟ve got to just look at
just a few key things and I think probably
the blogdesign is one of the first things that people fall down early on.
You‟ve got to
look at the design and think what does it say about you. Is it really cluttered,
covered in ads and widgets and that sort of thing and after all, you know, we‟re
writers, we want those written words to stand out the most. Why distract peoplefrom that with a cluttered design and, you know, tha
t‟s not really something that
you need to spend a lot of money on. You can do really well with free things oreven some of the less expensive commercial things. Just ones that are really clean
and tidy I think are perfect for a writer‟s blog and really e
veryone who is listeningto this obviously is looking at your web site as well.
And they shouldn‟t just read what you‟re writing, they should have a look at whatyou‟re actually doing with your design there because there is a lot of really good
colour
scheme, you‟ve got a professional photoyourself, very few widgety ads and other distractions, but the ones you do they‟re
basically all for your own products.So, you know, what are we trying to do as writers?
We‟re trying to create a product that we can sell so if you‟re going to use that real estate on your blog, you
know, in a nice effective way, it may as well be for your own products other than
somebody else‟s.
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Yeah, take a look at your blog design and probably take it a bit more seriouslywith your writing as well.
Establish something that’s a bit more like a routine
and writing
–
blogging and writing are basically the same thing. They sort of bothhappen in fits and bursts and when inspiration strikes and when time allows, but
you shouldn‟t try to blog in that really erratic fashion.
You should try to blog ina more sort of structured routine that builds more momentum and gives theaudience an expectation
that on certain days of the week or at a certainfrequency there will be new content there for them to read. And, that establishesprobably a lot more audience engagement, which is a lot better for your trafficbecause pe
ople will come back to a blog that‟s, you know, delivering at a sort of
reliable rate.
Probably a third tip I‟d say is
try to make all of your blogging effort, yourcontent and so on, the maximum effect and use you can get out of them byactually being v
ery deliberate about what you’re doing
. So don‟t just blog in a
haphazard way and talk about any odd topic, throw out a podcast every now andthen and maybe put a photo on there and that sort of thing.
Actually pay
attention to what you’re doing yourself and what sort of reaction you’re
getting from your audience.
So, if you try video one time and somewhere you discover that your videos work
really well and get a lot of great, positive reactions out of your readers, that‟s a
sign that
you should probably do more videos cause it‟s more effective for your
audience. And if you find that your blog post is on Tuesday, you get morecomments on your blog post on Saturday, well then you should probably makeTuesday one of your blogging days.
You don‟t have to write it on Tuesday, you
can write it in advance, but that should be the day that you publish it.And
when you’re getting that good, consistent traffic, make the most use of it.
Don‟t waste it by having visitors coming along, „yeah, that‟s great, I‟ve read your blog post, off I go again‟, you know, give them a way to subscribe and stay up todate so that they don‟t have to remember to come back to you, they get those
constant reminders. So, as long as you make the most use out of the little timethat we all have to look after our blogs, I think you can really kick it up to the nextlevel.JP: Well, lots of things there. A couple of questions. You mentioned there about aroutine in blogging, which I like and I know some
people will say, “oh well I have
to wait for inspiration or whatever. But I sort of do
–
I do a lot of them in
advance and I do generally one podcast a week, but I don‟t necessarily do things
on a certain day, but
I do make sure that I’m covering all my
topics and onlymy topics, I guess
. So, I feel like that‟s a definite I would recommend as well.
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Advanced Blogging Tips for Authors and Writers
Transcript of conversation with The Blogging Teacher, Paul Cunningham on advanced blogging tips including blog design, traffic tactics, giving away free items to build a mailing list and making money from your blog
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