(3/12/2010) If anyone walks and talks their brand, it’s Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.com. This man has made money blogging…about blogging. When the second edition of his book (and the title for this session) co-written with Chris Garrett, “Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income,” first came out in 2008 it garnered quite a lot of attention.
Maybe it was because most bloggers weren’t making much more than $100 or less a month from advertising at that time.
He’s sustained his business after others began making money themselves after implementing his practices. In addition to Problogger.com, Rowse’s ad income (display and AdSense) also comes in via Digital Photography School, FeelGooder and TwiTip.
At SXSWi he was introducing the most updated elements of the 2010 edition of “Secrets for Blogging…”, which comes out next month on April 11.
First, Rowse decided to delete the chapter on blog networks after “Wordpress changed the way people do business.” New to the 2010 edition is the connection between social media and blogging, along with steps to take your blog to the next level.
Using his digital photography blog as a case study, he explained that it took a few years to get to the point where the blog was making money. The first steps in those early years were targeting the audience, which was quite frankly, people who took bad pictures.
Once he discovered the power of the learning audience he fed them articles to help solve their problems. The consistently and volume of articles, Rowse pointed out, adds up to the increased ability to make money. If you blog once a week versus once a day, that results in 52 versus 365 opportunities to drive Google AdSense dollars.
When it comes to promoting your blog, discovering your reader and where they are gathering online will enable you to engage with them. This includes photo sites like Flickr and Photojojo, along with social news and information sites Digg, StumbleUpon and Lifehacker.
Just when things started to get juicy, Rowse’s session got cut off because of a fire alarm.
There wasn’t any smoke or fire, so we all just continued to sit around, not really moving. Two guys next to me were more concerned with finishing their beers than running out of the building screaming “fire!”
After a bit we all started packing up our things. This early ending enabled me to catch the cocktail portion of the day at the Girls in Tech Party over at Fogo de Chao, making a mental note to pick up Rowse’s new book edition after all the SXSW nuttiness is done.
