Tris & I recorded the third in our pro blogger podcast series (well, technically the fourth). We talk about event blogging and some tips for successful blogging.

We both just came back from Gnomedex, where we each event blogged in our own ways. I put them up as close to live as possible (see the Blogaholics archives). 23 posts in total. Notes plus commentary. Tris took some time to mull over some issues then added more of a personal spin.

I love the excitement of writing in the moment. And I love the feedback I get from it.

Anyway, our podcast is a fun one. Hope you enjoy. Visit Blogaholics for all the details and files, and stay tuned there for future podcasts. More to come!

Technorati Tags: gnomedex, podcast, blogging, event blogging

Well, we gave it a shot. Tried out AdSense for Feeds for over a month. And now we’re pulling the chain. I’ve already talked about why. But now’s the time to just do it.

If ever the feed program improves in context and formatting options, I may reconsider.

But, until then, I think we’ve found a better alternative. See below:

I won’t spill all the beans yet. I’m still testing. But everything looks amazing so far…

Technorati Tags: adsense, rss, advertising

Keith of To-Done has an interesting list of how to be more productive as a blogger. I take a lot of these tips to heart, as I’ve found switching over to pro blogger mode has been chaotic at times. The article has been around for about a month now, but I got a little behind in some of my folders. That said, it is a great article so I kept it around for when I had more time to read it all. So, after reading through the whole list, I think the synthesis of tips I’d like to share are:

- write quickly

- have a set time to write every day

- write down all your ideas in a separate book. They are good “fodder,” as I like to say

- write when the passion hits - sometimes outside of your set time you just get bombarded with ideas. Take advantage of it!

- schedule “off” time. Daily. And take time out for a day or two here and there.

- look for new things to read about. More sites, new books.

- relax. be you. let your ideas flow out.

- IM or chat with other bloggers for creative zest

- look for new topics, familiar or not

I think this topic is very much akin to a recent podcast between Tris & myself on having a blogging voice. A lot of people struggle to find their voice, and this can slow things up a bit. Some of the same ideas that help you be productive can also help you establish your online presence.

Ok, just like many other blog owners out there, I jumped on as soon as I heard that AdSense was available for RSS feeds. After leaving them there a few weeks, I do indeed have to question whether or not they are worth it.

Ok, overall my AdSense earnings are going up on a fairly regular basis. I am learning how to place them, how to wean out some ads, and just overall make it better. My CTR is getting much better. Ok - let’s look at my month (almost) with AdSense for Feeds. An average of 0% CTR - the clicks are so low that it averages to 0%. I’d say that it’s not working, don’t you think?

Here are the problems I see with the current feed system:

1. It’s too easily recognizable as an ad

2. You cannot control the size or look

3. You cannot control where it goes

4. The targeting is much less specific for some reason (my ads lack relevancy)

There is one flaw with the whole AdSense program that I would like fixed. The ability to keyword drive the ads rather than have them based on context. Don’t we know our readers just a little better than Google?

Here is my theory - Google has taken the very well proven search model for delivering ads in search and just modified that into AdSense. But, in so doing, they make the ads much less specific for Some, not all, blogs and websites.

Here is why. Your readers may be reading you because you talk about a topic. However, they may be just as savvy as you on that topic. They don’t need the beginner-type ads or maybe even ads in your exact topic - they may want complementary ads. This is especially true, I think, if you have a metablog site that is read by other metabloggers. You don’t need the “build a blog” ads - maybe you need the “Skype headset” ads or somesuch.

So, aside from my one beef with AdSense, I think the feed version of AdSense is so much worse performing in my case that it will have to go.

So, when can you start calling yourself a professional blogger? What makes you qualified?

Well, I am sure the answer is different for many people. But here are some of the things I have noticed - although most people only meet a couple of these points each:

- blogging for more than 2 years

- making more than $100 per month on AdSense ads for one blog

- archives over 2000 on one blog

- writing on more than 2 blogs….

Continue reading on Bloggeropoly.

What is the role of the professional blogger? To predigest the news. To put it all in one place. To amass the opinions.

So, what does this all mean? That we, as professional bloggers, have a role greater than just syndicating material - greater than just taking others’ work and linking to it with a sentence or two. We should contextualize the information, link to it, and find other relevant information to link to.

Doesn’t all that linking kind of eliminate the whole predigested thing? I don’t think so. I think we have a reseponsibility to review the information within the post, but offer ways for others who are interested to read more.

Inspired by a post on Recruiting.com

Cross Posted from Bloggeropoly.

Paul Chaney has just made the announcement that Bloggeropoly is now being officially launched. If you’re a professional blogger, or want to be, listen up to this news.

What is Bloggeropoly? The first, if not the only, blogger recruiting agency.

Bloggeropoly is here to match up bloggers with companies who have full-time or contract blogging jobs. No guess work. No need to go looking for your perfect match. It’s your traditional recruiting agency, but with all the knowledge and specialization needed for matching bloggers with jobs. Plus, there is a 90-day guarantee.

Disclosure: I helped Bloggeropoly get off the ground. Ianiv build templates and I’ll be populating a lot of the blog content. I’ll be blogging there regularly on recruiting specific to bloggers: how to get hired, being a professional blogger, and overall job tips such as resume advice and that kind of thing. I might even cross post some like content here.

When we hear of job opportunities we will try to match them up with bloggers. We may also post them to our site, minus the company and contact info.

Add Bloggeropoly to your feed and see what we’re all about.

Dana Blankenhorn of Moore’s Law lays out seven easy to follow tips for corporate blogs. I’ve been reading more of Dana’s blog and am more often than not in line with what he has to say. The same goes for this post.

Corporate blogs are most definitely a different thing than personal blogs. They have rules they must follow, sorry to say. Corporations can’t just go spilling out all their secrets. Nor can they assign blogging blindly to just anyone in the company (and here I refer to the blog which represents the corporate opinions and news, not those created by employees and supported by corporations). Your PR guy will usually give it the wrong voice and your marketing associate will use it too often to sell. Lastly, corporations don’t automatically get that trust we are so willing to afford to most bloggers. So, there is a fine line to tread in how to write your corporate blog, and what to write about.

So, what do you do? You must create a blog that gives out the information you want to share in a fun and inviting way. It is not just any press release or e-newsletter. It is a conversation. And that gives it a whole other voice.

Well, Dana has 7 great tips that I’m going to share with you:

1. Have an outsider do it. An insider has better things to do and they’re too close to the story.
2. Make the blog about your space, the lifestyle or industry you’re a part of, and not about the company.
3. Think of the blogger as a reporter. Encourage insiders with something to say to run their stuff by him (or her), but to understand it’s going to be dressed to go out before it goes out.
4. Lay down the “thou shalt nots” beforehand, but don’t pre-screen. Nothing takes the life out of a blog more than editing.
5. Put the blog in a unique, corporate name, so if you fire the blogger you lose no equity in the blog.
6. Encourage feedback, and let the blogger pass it along through the chain of command. The blogger’s supervisor can be a gatekeeper for this communication.
[7.] Most of all, know what the blog’s going to be about, its purpose and goals, before you start out. Have measureable goals, evaluate progress based on the goals. And pay enough to make this worth a blogger’s while — think of it as corporate outreach, which is different than corporate communication because it’s pro-active.

Bolding is my effect.

What Dana puts forth is a strong argument for professional bloggers. We are experts in our field. We write well, we write often, and we know how to maneuver in the blogosphere. We are dedicated to fostering communication and to achieving corporate goals. And, more than anything, we fill a need. We offer an outside, less biased perspective which can lend credibility to your blogging. We are able to gather news, digest it in an unbiased way, and create a discussion around it.

Great work Dana in outlining the market for professional bloggers!

There is a really innovative job resource that I’d like to share. It’s a collaborative resume and job information site called ResumeWiki. ResumeWiki is a community-edited resume centre - a wiki for resumes.

How does it work? Well, you go in and create your profile and resume. Other people will post comments and editing ideas to you - all for free. You can gain some insight by looking at the resumes already there. There are also some resources for you there - cover letter assistance, tips & advice, and more. Plus, you can request some features that you’d like to see.

Ultimately this is about giving everyone the best resume possible so that they can find the best job / position / career.

A new version of AdSense Notifier has been released (which I’ve blogged on before).

I had posted a comment over on the blog of the developer of this handy Firefox extension. I was having some trouble getting the AdSense Notifier to work properly on Mac. Sometimes it would work, sometimes not. Mincus, the developer, responded quite quickly. Told me to go back to a more stable version, which I did.

Now, however, he has released version 5.0, which fixes all the bugs. If you want an incredibly easy way to keep tabs of your earnings, install this extension.

Today marks the day when all of our blogs officially got out of the Google sandbox.

We are waiting now to see what the effect will be on traffic. However, we’re glad to have this obstacle out of the way. It is a frustrating situation; it is completely not within the control of any well-planned SEO strategy to combat the sandbox. Unfortunately, the data on the sandbox phenomenon is not documented. It may not happen to everyone. And its length is really independent of the blog age, as we’ve found. All of our blogs, started at different times, came out with PageRank with the new index.

As noted on ProBlogger, there are a ton of others out there celebrating, or sometimes cursing, the new indexing and PageRank results. Questioning its relevance is a whole other area of controversy.