The lesson which struck a chord with me most was lesson 2 – Blog Like Your Life Depended upon it:

How would your blogging change if you blogged as if your life depended upon it?

For some, especially those who turn their blogs into businesses, dependent upon the income to keep a roof over their head and food in their family’s stomach, it does.

…

Wouldn’t that change how you blogged?

You could say this is similar to the question ‘Would You Blog Differently if you had Money?’, especially if your blog is your main/only source of income.

I guess what both questions are asking is how different pressures and stresses affect your blogging. People react to pressure (or a lack of) differently, so the same blogger might not necessarily write the same entry under different conditions.

How would your blogging change if your life depended on it?

P.S. Please don’t spam with links to your own feed!

ProBlogger Darren Rowse makes the point that he would still blog, even if he had enough money that he didn’t have to:

“Five years ago when I started blogging (5 years this month actually) I did so on a whim to see what would happen. The thought that it’d end up being a full time job (and more) was laughable. The reason I continued blogging was that within days I was hooked. Hooked by the relationships I discovered, the community that I became a part of and the learning that I was engaging in.

The money came years later – much later.

So I guess I’d answer Anne’s question with a yes – I’d still write if I had a Million Dollars.”

_ProBlogger: Would You Blog Differently If You Had Money?

I’ve always been involved in the net. I first got online when I was 13 or so (nearly 12 years ago!), so I’ve grown up with the web. Right from the very beginning I had a web page of my own. Blogging is the evolution of the personal “homepage”, so I would probably still be blogging in some way.

Would I write differently? I don’t know. I’ve found that people who are financially secure enough that they don’t have to think about money (I know several thanks to my day job), intrinsically think differently to others. Whether it’s simply because they have one less thing on their mind I don’t know.

The point is, through my experience, yes I would blog differently. I think every one would. People like to think money wouldn’t change them, but personally I think it’s a load of rubbish.

Of course, if someone would like to give me enough money to test my theory, please feel free!

Increasing your readership is not just about your (presumably great) content. I’d say about 40% of blogging is marketing. There are plenty of tips out there on marketing your blog. The usual suspects include submitting to Digg, guest posting on other blogs, including your blog address in forum/email signatures, and commenting on other blogs. There are also some lesser used methods.

These are all fine and dandy to know, but actually doing something is always the hardest part for most. So what have you done to increase your readership in the last 24 hours? Here’s my list:

• Added the home page and various other entries on the site to StumbleUpon
• Used StumbleXchange to get a bit of extra traffic from Stumblers.
• Personally invited those who recently added me as a friend or joined my “neighbourhood” at Blog Catalog to subscribe to this blog. A little bit of personal contact can go a long way.

So far these three small things have brought in a steady increase in traffic, which I expect to grow further. As a bonus, some of those visitors have become subscribers!

So what have you been doing to market your blog recently? Please tell us all in the comments.

For many, Darren Rowse’ Problogger is the quintessential example of making money from Blogging. Problogger is well written, with good content which people want to read, is monetized well, and is well known – both on and offline.

Problogger is often used as a model by others trying to replicate Darrens success. Beginning bloggers often look at Problogger, and try and copy it.

But how much work does it take? How often is Darren posting to his blog? How much is the content is actually his own? How often is Darren reporting on stuff elsewhere? Take a look at the following chart, showing a content breakdown for the month of October:

Key Info

• While not shown on the chart, it should be mentioned that there were just under 100 posts written on ProBlogger in October.
• 46% of Darren’s content is original. I class this as anything Darren has written himself, for ProBlogger, which other websites/blogs are likely to link to.
• 36% of ProBlogger content is “reporting”. In my analysis, I determined this as anything where the focus of the entry was on something on another website/blog, such as when the focus was on external links (Speedlinking, new products, etc)
• The remaining 18% of posts in October are contributed content. These, as you might imagine, are posts written by somebody else, and posted on ProBlogger. Note that ProBlogger ran a Birthday Bash series of competitions during October, and Darren employed someone to manage these. These will have pumped the numbers up slightly for October.

What Does it Mean?

There are a couple of things you could take from this

1. Darren writes a hell of a lot, while still keeping up to date with (and letting us know) what’s going on in the wider blogosphere.
2. - or – if you’re a pessimist, over half of Darrens content comes from somewhere else.

Personally, I look at it as Darren writes a lot. No one could produce nearly 100 fully original, high-quality pieces of original content in one month, so a level of outside “help” is to be expected. The fact Darren is able to produce as much as he does dazzles me a bit, but it’s worth remembering that this is his full-time job! The average blogger who is also holding down a 9-5 should not expect to reach this level yet. There’s a reason Darren’s a Pro!