I'm so excited about this!

I really wanted to go to BWE last year, but it didn't work out. So you could say I've been looking forward to this for a year and a half.

What makes it doubly exciting for me is that I'm also going to be:

A Speaker!  read more »

I don't know if you're a member of the Problogger Forum, but there was an interesting thread there where a lot of people were suggesting that Twitter's value to those of us earning an online living has diminished in recent months.

Basically, the thread revolves around the statement that click through rates on links have dropped dramatically, to the point that some are saying it's no longer worth investing time on Twitter, at least from a business perspective.

What are your thoughts?

Have you seen a drop?  read more »

We're breaking up the Beyond Blogging partnership.

Depending on who you are, you'll either be thinking:

1/ "I knew it!"

2/ "OMG! What's the story?" or...

3/ "What's the Beyond Blogging partnership?"

If you fall into category three, maybe check out some of the posts from the sidebar - this won't mean a lot to you.

For the rest of you, here's the story:

The Beginning  read more »

I've been in a reflective mood lately, so I'm going to share some of my thoughts with you. These are the lessons I've learned in the year and a half (is that all?) since I became a professional blogger.

1/ Content really is the most important thing on a blog

The more content I write, the more traffic I get, irrespective of niche or type of blog. I know a lot of people will argue this point and they will talk about quality of content and information overload, but I've found it to be true on several blogs.  read more »

I launched The Beginner's Guide to Blogging in September of last year, and since then 376 people have bought the product. Not a huge number, but a solid enough result.

It's available as a full 250 page E Book (the most popular choice by far) or as a series of 60 lessons delivered to your inbox via email at the rate of one per day.

It's exactly what the title suggests - a step by step guide to setting up a blog with the aim of earning an income from it. It covers:  read more »

Michael Dunlop was one of our subjects for the Beyond Blogging Book. We charted his success as a young entrepreneur, based in UK, and about some of the great stuff he was doing.

His latest product is a Wordpress Plug-in, and it's achieving some amazing results.

Do you remember when I told you that lightboxes are an amazing way to increase your email subscriber sign ups?

Well Pop up Domination does the same thing...but is so much better than the standard Aweber forms that are available.  read more »

Let me start by clarifying the title.

Of course businesses should be on Twitter. But in my opinion, it should be the individuals that represent the business who should be on Twitter.

I've been working with a number of clients for a long time now in establishing their social media presence, and several of them are on Twitter - using their company name and a logo as the avatar. And it simply doesn't work - unless they are a household name, and even then I'm not sure how effective that is other than as a broadcast account.

The thing with Twitter is that it's so personal, so individual.  read more »

You can't have missed the row going on relating to Wordpress GPL and people charging for premium themes and plug ins.

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I'm not going to rehash the detail here, as so many bloggers already have, but in case you did miss it, Lisa's post is the easiest way to get the information and has some excellent links within it: Grown men acting like fools.

What's your view?  read more »

Linkedin was the first social network I ever joined. I can't even remember who invited me, but I was still a corporate superstar at the time and it seemed like a cool idea.

I pretty much ignored it for years. In fact if I'm honest, I've never given it the attention it deserved.

And despite that, it's brought me a fair bit of business, and allowed me to bitch about former colleagues who are now all "Director of..." or "Head of...." various divisions of the large companies I worked for.  read more »

When most people start a blog with the aim of earning some money from it, their thoughts generally turn to selling advertising. In time, they will realise that selling space on a blog is only one strategy for monetisation, and they'll begin to explore other areas.

Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

But for now, let's consider advertising sales. How do you get people to want to place an advertisement on your blog, and more importantly pay for it?  read more »