How to Blog

When I started this blog in the winter of 07, the blog quickly got a PR of 4, and it stayed that way until I stopped for the summer and it dropped to a 2. In the fall of 08 I started again, and the PR remained a 2 all the way until January-February when I stopped. I come back now in April, and guess what, My PR went up during the last update to 3. That’s very exciting, but also pretty confusing, what did I do wrong from September-February, that got fixed… when I stopped blogging…? The whole topic of PR can be pretty confusing sometimes, so in this article I will explain this seemingly odd phenomena, and also give you some tips to help you better understand how to work with it.

Riding the waves of Page Rank

Do you see that little guy? That’s you. That little man is you, and that wave is Google, the blog world King. The foam everywhere, is PR. Page Rank is everywhere, and often it seems like it’s in places where it shouldn’t be. If you see to the right side of the picture, the waves are covered with foam, all the way to the top. While on the left side, the foam is only at the bottom, and there’s a large, glaring vacancy of foam near the top. This picture kind of describes the blogosphere. There are some people riding the tops of the waves doing very well. Most people are somewhere in the middle or near the bottom of the wave. And all the still water in front, is dormant blogs. As you already know, there are far more vacant blogs than active ones, hence the larger amount of still water. Now you’re probably wondering what this had to do with PR, I will explain.

If your blog is at the top of the blogwave, then theroetically you should have a high PR correct? Wrong. See the left side where there’s almost no foam? Those are the John Chows, successful blogs at the top, but low PR. While on the right you’ve got the probloggers, and Steve Pavlinas who have high PRs.

The first thing I want to say about PR is this, patience. I was doing all the right things to get a higher PR, but starting in September, the update was in October, so I hadn’t done enough yet to be rewarded. The next was in January, and I was right on the borderline of being moved up, and finally in March I was rewarded. Was that because my being gone helped the blog? No. Remember, these things take several months to update. You may have a higher PR ranking a week after the update, but your score won’t change until the update does. So the lesson I learned and give to you is patience, if you’re doing the right things, and more importantly avoiding the wrong things, than your PR will improve.

Another tip, stick around! Yeah, I know I’m not one to speak, but blogs get higher PR with age. My search engine results all improved from when I was last blogging, search engines yield to older blogs. Again this is just another one of the right things you need to do.

The most important thing of all to do, is to not do what you shouldn’t do. Learn from John Chow. Don’t use those bidveritisers sites, they destroy your PR, for years to come. My favorite example is Blogger Noob. Hes got a large readership, lots of visitors and subscribers, but he’s still paying the price for using the wrong sites. He’s got a big fat 0 for his PR, and he’s got tons more links than I do. “It takes years to build a blog, it takes weeks to destroy one.” You can quote me on that

So remember, if you’re frustrated in your PR expedition, be patient, keep doing the right things, and justice will be done. Those sites that are brand new and get a PR 4 a week later, they will happen, I know several myself. Online Bull is a great example, it got a PR 4 out of no where. Nothing against the guy, I like the blogger, but now he’s at a PR of 1. A much more fitting ranking for his site. Over time the internet evens out fairly.

So be patient, keep gathering the right connections, and avoid the wrong crowd. Lol sounds like a mother’s  doesn’t it?

And I’m back… who knows how long I’ll be back for, but for now I’m back. I know the irony was killing you, of my leaving after writing a post about bloggers leaving. In case you were wondering, I kind of did that on purpose. At least you would have something to laugh about while I was away. I used to spend several hours a day working on this blog, commenting, researching, advertising, and writing. Unfortunately, I don’t have that luxury of time anymore. So for the most part, I am going to be spending my time simply writing and researching, and let my readers do the advertising, assuming I write good enough posts. So with that knowledge, anytime you feel like an article has been helpful for you, or you’ve learned something worth sharing, a “retweet,” or “stumble” would be greatly appreciated. Remember, this blog will only grow as far as you take it, I will be spending my time writing, so Thank You for your support!

There were several people who sent me emails about buying advertising, I apologize for not getting back to you, I hadn’t checked the email until recently. All advertising positions are available again, and if you were one of the ones who emailed me before, please email me again if you’re still interested, otherwise I will assume you changed your mind which I totally understand. I will start off trying to post weekly, and see where it goes from there. All prices and information should be on the “advertise” page.

Also, I am always eager for guest posts, if you’ve read some of my posts on that, you can see there are many benefits. I’m retained some traffic this whole time, and have about 150 subscribers, so you will certainly get your articles read. Also, it’s a chance for me to develop a relationship with you, so that I can help you out when you need it as well. Drop me an email using my “Ask Jonathan” page if you’re interested. The size of your blog doesn’t matter to me, this is just about free advertising for you.

Also, I want to start helping you guys, “my readers” as much as I can, so I’ve changed my contact page to an “Ask Jonathan” page. Starting today I am offering free blog coaching, to everyone! I don’t know everything, but on issues concerning SEO, social media, social networking, and traffic generation, my opinion may be of some help to you. So feel free to drop me an email, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, with as informative an answer as I can give.

My main goal in bringing back mastersofseo this time, is to make it more about Your benefit, and less about my profit. I’ve already learned my profit will be minimal no matter what I do. But I have knowledge that according to the comments is beneficial for people, so it’d be a shame to waste it. With that said, I want to write blog posts about what’s important and relevant to you. I want to cover the issues you’re struggling with, so please, if you want me to cover a topic, send me an email and I’ll try to write a post on it. If I can get enough emails, then I hope to make a weekly post, with the information You specifically want to hear.

Thank you everybody who is reading this for sticking around, God willing the best is yet to come.

Since I can’t resist coming up with these terms, hopefully this will be the beginning of a “blogvival,” with alots of blogs coming back from the dead.

About a month ago I wrote  a post called RIP bloggers, which became fairly popular. It was a tribute to a list of blogs  that I read, that had died out, either from time, tiredness, or moving on to bigger projects.

Well I can now happily claim, that my post has helped motivate several of them to return to blogging. That may not be true but regardless I take full credit

Of the 13 blogs I listed, 4 have come back and are now going strong, and 5 have come back then left again, and we don’t know yet, they may still be dead we’ll have to see, but at least 4 have come back from the dead to stay it seems.

The thirteen blogs I listed were:

Dosh Dosh

Blogger Unleashed

Google Lady

Andy Beard

Benjamin Patton

Blogsessive

Da Blogger

Blog Badly

The Germz

Joel Drapper

Otooo

Blog Smartly

Carlocab

And so I’m happy to announce that Carlocab Otooo Blogsessive and Benjamin Patton have all returned from the dead, and are posting very rapidly to make up for lost time, to the great excitement of their readers. Though Otooo has changed courses dramatically.

Four other blogs have partly returned from the dead. What do I mean by that? Well they posted in the last month, and some even said they’re making a comeback, but then their posts slacked off again. So we’ll have to see how dedicated they really are. But for now, these are five other blogs who have returned to some extent. Dosh Dosh Google Lady Joel Drapper Blog Badly and Blogger Unleashed

The Purpose of this post is two-fold. First to celebrate with you the return of some great bloggers, and also to respond to all the messages saying, I didn’t die, I’m still around, I’m not deserting my blog. So I will keep you up to date as these blogs work their comebacks, and I will also find other blogs that have shut down and write about them as well. Feel free to comment if you’ve seen any other good ones shut down.

Yes that’s right Britney Spears. Continuing with my series on what famous people can teach us about blogging, I saw an article with the search engine results for yahoo.com, on the top searched terms/names of 08. Britney Spears was the winner. Barack Obama may have been the first black president, but he was third behind Britney Spears, and World Wrestling Entertainment. Now I was shocked when I read this, I mean what is it that she’s doing that keeps people so interested in her life? The more I read about it the more I realized the incredible marketing tips that Britney has been teaching us through her success. I’ve compiled them and hopefully they can help guide you in staying on top of the Internet Marketing Game.

1. The Game is Never Up

As I mentioned in the article about Barack Obama, everybody has a chance online. But also, everybody has a second chance, and a third chance, and as many chances as you have time for. With the internet growing so much, and so many people looking for unique things, you can scare away a whole reader base and get a brand new one relatively quickly. Britney Spear’s return to stardom should teach us about the ability to dust yourself off and keep going, and retain success. Now I’m not advocating her behavior, or saying that she’s a good role model, but she has certainly seemed to patch up her life, and for now anyway seems to be going strong. With persistence and unique content, anyone can find success online.

Blogging Tip from Britney

Don’t ever give up if you want to keep going. There is no such thing as being fired online, quitting just means admitting failure and giving up. Sometimes we need to quit because of time issues, but we shouldn’t for any other reason. Anyone can succeed you just need to standout from everybody else. And if you had success and lost it, then don’t give up, because you can still get it back. With hard work and dedication, you can reach that point again.

2. Drama Queen

One of the most important reasons people follow her, is because she’s such Hollywood girl. Everything about her says Drama! Drama! Drama! Britney Spears doesn’t just go out to lunch, she tells the taxi driver to speed, then they get pulled over, and then she get’s drunk, and then gets filmed stumbling back into her room at 2 in the morning. Illegal and Immoral? Yes. But do the media and people love it? Yes again.

Blogging Tip from Britney

Spice up everything you do. Don’t just write an average blog post, don’t write a comment just saying nice post. Make everything exciting, new, and original. Add some flavor to your posts, critique or celebrate the post in your comment. Don’t ever just do anything. Do everything with a purpose and make sure you add your own personal flair to it. As I talked about with Joe the Plumber, having your own brand is really important online because people need to be able to remember you. You need to stand out. Adding drama and spices to your blogging routine, will greatly increase the readership of your blog.

3. Keep People on their Toes

As I mentioned somewhat in the last tip, you want to keep your readership jumping. Always keep people wondering what you’re going to do next. With this type of series I’m doing now, nobody knows what type of famous person I’ll do next. I’ve done a singer, politician and average Joe, and now people are starting to get curious.

Blogging Tip from Britney

Shock your readers, then Awe your Readers, then Lull your Readers, and then Woo your readers. SALW. Follow those tips and your readership will grow guaranteed. People love drama and the unexpected, they love surprises. Give your readers constant surprises. More then just a weekly event, make it as regular as you can manage. Surprise prizes, surprise posts, surprise interviews… Just develop something new and market it on your site, get your readers to start trying to figure out your next move.

4. Seduce your Readers

Following the SALW rules, the final step is to woo them. Everybody knows that you can’t just throw affiliate links on to a page to get a lot of sales, you can’t just put a subscribe button up to get tons of people to subscribe, and you can’t just leave a post to get lots of comments. Though you can have minimal success with those, you can’t make the big bucks, large readerships, or lots of participation through only presenting it. You need to woo, or seduce your readers into doing what you want. And now you may be thinking I’m talking about a bad thing, I’m not. The purpose of the picture is represent the best way to seduce  your readers into doing what you want.

Blogging Tip from Britney

The answer is to cover the most important part. By giving little teasers, hints, and portions, you woo the reader into subscribing. So that’s why contests and offering prizes are so popular for getting subscribers. If you want your readers to do something, you need to bait them along by giving them what they want. Not in a bad way by cheating them or something, but by figuring out what your readers like, and then giving them what they want in exchange for what you want.

O and in case you still don’t believe that we can learn Blogging Tips from Britney Spears, she has been the most searched name for 7 of the last 8 years. The one slipup? Two years ago, Paris Hilton took the spot, during the major Britney Spears crisis with the pregnancy, drugs, loss of children… Last year? Britney retook her post proving the first point. Despite her obvious life choice fallacies, I think Britney Spears can teach us alot about blogging.

If you enjoyed this post make sure to subscribe, for more blogging tips from famous people, and tips on How to Blog.

Joe the Plumber was a guy made famous by John Mccain and Barack Obama during their presidential campaigns. They both kept referring to how they were going to help Joe, and the people like Joe, to have a better life. Whether you enjoy politics or not, I think Joe can teach us several very important lessons about blogging, that we can implement on our own blogs.

Branding

Joe the Plumber is an incredible brand right now. Everybody   who watchs the news at all, knows who he is, and if he wanted to create a company, or a blog now he could get lots of followers simply because of his name. Joe the Plumber is a very unique name, and is different from everybody else. Blogging Tip from Joe Being unique in blogging is an essential thing to have, and also it’s a very marketable term.  He could easily create a little plumber logo, and he would be in business. Have a new, fun, unique, brand is really important, because it’s a way to separate yourself from everybody else.

Patience and Perseverance I highly doubt that Joe the Plumber expected to become famous when he started his plumbing business. He just patiently continued to do his job, and persevered through the tough times. He didn’t try and create something he couldn’t do on his own. He was patient, and continued to do what he did best, and success came along.

Blogging Tip from Joe In blogging we can spend hours of time, and thousands of dollars, trying to force something to work. Often it just needs a little patience for the ball to start rolling. We can’t try and force things to quickly, especially if we can’t afford them. There is a place for risks in online entrepreneurship, but if you can’t afford the online company you’re trying to start, then trying to force it will just make you lose your money. The patience to allow a project to come to completion, and the perseverance to bring it to that point, are essential for anybody to succeed online. Luck There’s always an element of luck in everything. 99.9% of plumbers will not become famous like Joe, why did it happen to him? He was in the right place at the right time, and it just happened. You can plan out everything, have a great company idea, and have it not take off. Sometimes people just get that little bit of luck to kick start everything, but other times it doesn’t happen. Blogging Tip from Joe You can’t rely on luck, but you have to accept that sometimes, things will succeed that just don’t seem right.

Viral Effect This is the most important point I think, if you didn’t apprecaite the power of the viral effect, appreciate it now. Joe the Plumber is the king of the viral. The most ironic thing about Joe, is that he is a famous nobody. He is famous because he’s a nobody who’s famous. Joe the Plumber went to bed a nobody, and woke up the next day a celebrity. Blogging Tip from Joe Word spreads quickly around the internet, and if you can create something fun, interesting, and totally new. It can take off over night. In blogging anybody can succeed, and it can happen anyday.

I hope these lessons from Joe can help you on your blog, and help you succeed online. For more Blogging Tips from Famous People check out Barack Obama can teach us about blogging.