DiscoverSD.com is home to one of the largest San Diego blogs with a focus on San Diego lifestyle.
From entertainment to dining, nightlife, shopping, hospitality and beauty, we keep you up to date on the latest new businesses and lifestyle trends in San Diego.
In the spirit of blogging as inspired by new movie “Julie & Julia”, CW 6 invited DiscoverSD.com Editor Michelle Guerin on the “San Diego Living” morning show to discuss easy and efficient ways to create, build and monetize your blog.
Check out the “San Diego Living” interview clip and take notes with our detailed San Diego blogging tips.
San Diego Living: What makes for a good blog?
DiscoverSD: Something honest with personality. Watered-down blogging where the author doesn't take a stance doesn’t stand out and often leads to lackluster response, traffic, and ultimately success if that is something to be measured by visitors, revenue, or anything of that nature.
SDL: Who should blog?
DSD: Anyone with something to say! J/K, but in a way that's the truth. No matter what one's interest it is likely that others out there share the same interest and with the internet even obscure interests can be easy to track down so no topic is too niche, and if you're dedicated no topic is too saturated. It's just about differentiation.
SDL: What's the difference between a blog and a website?
DSD: A blog in the simplest format typically appears like a journal with dated entries in reverse-chronological ordering. Blog platforms such as Wordpress have advanced so much in the past few years that the functionalities and possibilities are nearly endless – they're basically content management systems at this point – and so, many blogs have morphed into more of actual websites. Some blog platforms like Google's blogger which powers all the blogs found at blogspot.com are much more scaled down.
Whether it's Wordpress or Blogger powering your blog you can typically be up and running in minutes if you use a hosted blog which means something like michellesblog.wordpress.com or michellesjournal.blogspot.com, or if you want your own domain it takes a little more work to setup but most web-savvy individuals (those that are comfortable sprucing up a MySpace profile or creating a Facebook page) can get that setup in a day or two.
SDL: How can you increase blog traffic?
DSD: Write, write, write. There are also relevant blog directories you can submit your blog to such as blogcatalog.com or SanDiegoBloggers.com if you happen to have a blog relevant to San Diego. Definitely seek out other bloggers covering the same topics or similar topics and leave valuable comments on their sites. You can comment on other blogs and by inputing your blog address when they allow it you can often draw some attention to your own blog and that blogger may start following your blog regularly. Of course be sure to be polite about the commenting so it's not blatent self-promotion. Contributing to subject-area websites or publications can also be a great way if they allow for an author profile or for you to drop a link in to your own blog. Leverage their audiences.
Q: I this a good way for someone to make extra money?
A: Depends what type of money they want to make, how much they enjoy the writing for the sake of writing, and in large part it really does depend what they are writing about. For example, if you're a life insurance broker with a journalism background and you start creating really fascinating content about the life insurance industry (sounds far-fetched but there are creative individuals out there doing this in industries as seemingly mundane as life insurance) and if they start getting linked to by many sites and they start getting good traffic or perhaps great search engine rankings which then drives good traffic… well that's an industry where if they use Google AdSense which is Google's contextual ad product which will match ads to their content… you're talking probably $1.00 to $5.00 per click on the ads.
So if they manage to produce 100 really unique articles over the course of a year and they go out and promote themselves on other blogs, on forums, etc, and they end up getting let's just say 500 visitors per day (roughly 5 per article) well if they're getting a 3% click through on their ads they may be making $15-45.00 per day. There are many bloggers making hundreds or thousands of dollars per month but those that make much more than that (for example there are some making $30-100k/mo) have been at it for a very long time and have become extremely savvy (and of course are definitely full-time). Of course this has the probability of winning the lottery, but there was a blog called bankaholic.com that sold for a reported $10-15 Million dollars after one guy authored it for just about 2 years. He happened to pick a very lucrative topic (CDs and Interest rates mostly) and he was great at getting links which then brought top search engine rankings. Check out sites like ProBlogger.net to learn more about blogging for income.
SDL: If so, what skills should a person have to get into blogging?
DSD: Aside from an enjoyment of writing and hopefully suitable grammar and language skills for the topic being covered (misspellings on a blog about neurosurgery could be a little worrying), be technically savvy or be willing to learn the basics such as relatively simple HTML. If you have graphic design skills you can make your posts much more powerful through the use of imagery. If you're a good networker, that can translate to a lot of success online with blogging. People who enjoy reading and research make for good bloggers. Anyone with a unique sense of humor or paradigm can certainly stand out. If you're a bargain hunter and you know how to track down unique bargains that's a great skill… basically you need an angle more than a skill!
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