For those of you who have been following my interview series on blogging and blogging for personal development over the last few weeks, you would have noticed that I have spread the blogging interviews in between my series on How to find your Purpose and Meaning of Life. It has been a great series so far with many of my interviewees giving top rated advice to anyone willing to learn.

So far, I have interviewed and feature seven bloggers on blogging and blogging for personal development. Here is the list of their if you have missed any of them. I urge you to re-read their interviews because there is so much gems in what they have written.

1. Fred Tracy

2. Justin Mazza

3. Dia Thebet

4. Bryce Christiansen

5. Pete Zafra

6. Marc Van Der Linden

7. Harriet Cabelly

 

Today, it is my pleasure to introduce number 8 on my list, Steve Scott of SteveScottSite. Steve is another one of those who will go beyond the call of duty to help you. In my short duration of blogging, I have reached out to him with many lengthy questions and he has always provided me with the answers and attention. The man seems to have all the time in the world for blogging and helping people, although he might disagree. Please enjoy his story here.

 

First of all thanks to Jimmy for giving me a chance to do this interview.  It is always an honor.

1. What is your blogging story? When did you start? Why did you start?

From the moment I started in the workforce I think I could tell a 9-5 job wasn’t for me.  I felt like an office drone from the movie, “Office Space”.  Overworked, underpaid and underappreciated.  Right away I was looking for something else.

It was pretty quickly that I started looking to do something on my own.  I tried a few methods that simply didn’t work.  Had some success and followed that with some failure.  Basically I struggled for a year or so trying to really make a go of it and then finally gained some traction.

By the time I started Steve Scott Site I already achieved a level of success.  I was making six figures (although barely) from my primary niche and was looking to help others over the hurdles I had faced; and of course to find another way to make a little money in the new niche.

2. What were your major challenges and results from blogging?

Time.  Time is always an issue.  I run two blogs, I am starting a third.  I write fresh new content for my email list.  I run tests on pages I have for conversion.  I experiment.  I comment on other sites.  I keep up with the “thought leaders” in the niches I am in.  I read outside books and magazines related to the niches.  There are simply not hours enough in the day.  Fortunately I do outsource.  Some of these tasks are taken care of by my brother.  But still we are putting in 50 hour work weeks (at least) each.

3. How much can we reasonably expect to make from blogging?

What are your dreams from blogging?  This is a tough question, because I think this is something many people get wrong.  It is extremely unlikely anyone is going to “get rich” off of just blogging.

5-6 years ago anyone who simply wrote killer content would be noticed.  Soon enough they would have a massive following and capitalize off of that.

That is simply not true anymore.  There are too many people in just about any niche that are already doing “great content”.  You can get a following and become a success, but the ease that was once there is simply not around anymore.

Blogging is not about “making money blogging” it is about using your blog for something else.  For instance: if you have a business, product or service a blog is a great way to promote it.  Whether it is freelance writing, PLR or a local plumbing business a blog can be a great stepping to growing those outside businesses.

Now I have NONE of these.  But blogging works for me too.  How?  In two ways:

1. I create my own products.  It took me over a year to create a product for my SSS website. (My Affiliate Marketing Success EBook) But it was my goal all along.  If your desire is to make money from a blog, it should be a business.  You need to know where you are going from day 1.  (even if making money is 2-3 years down the road).  A successful business doesn’t “monetize” a year or two doewn the road.  They have a business plan from the beginning.  Even if it means going into the “red” for a while, there is a plan.

In time, I will make more products.

These products should be high quality and work to BUILD the reputation that you are building but should be the primary income stream goal.  It may take a year or even two to get to the point where you make one.  But that should be a goal if you do not have another service or business to promote.

1. Emails.  I am a big email marketer.  I don’t do it as much for THIS niche as I do for my “other” niche.  But this is what keeps me in caviar and champagne.  (Okay, in Beer and Pretzels).  Again quality is the key.  You need to almost treat emails like –another- blog.  You give a lot of great info, 100% free, with only the occasional marketing message.

 

Too many people blast out endless spam and are promptly ignored.

4. How can we best monetize our blog? 

I guess, “see above” would be my answer for this.  Get emails.  Market through emails using at least 70% fresh content.  (IE: not sales oriented)

5. What’s the best way to get people coming back to our content?

It is trite:  but quality content.  I think you need two things.  The first is personality.  People should get to know you through your posts as well as what you are talking about.  The second is actionable.  Every post does not need to be actionable.  But a decent percentage need to be things that people can take onboard NOW and make improvements in their lives.

6. You mentioned, you spend about 8-10 hours each day on your blogs now. Can you describe the blogging activities that you do routinely in these hours? Are there any critical areas that must be done every-day? 

My day to day habits vary a whole lot.  Basically I am goal task oriented.  I list at the beginning of each week the tasks I need to do for that week and then break the tasks into standard time segments.  SO if I want to spend 10 hours each week blog commenting.  I separate that into about 20 time blocks and make sure I do 3 blocks each day.  It sounds like a complicated system, but it is actually easy and works well.

7. Rank in order the importance of your traffic generation strategies.

Killer content>Blog commenting>backlinking (article marketing/social Bookmarking)>Twitter>Google +>everything else.

Guest posting is something that –should- be in there at #2 right behind creating the killer content.  But I don’t like to “half-ass” posts and I just don’t always have to time to get it done.  It is one of the most effective means of traffic generation and something I need to do more off.

8. Describe some of the milestones in blogging for you.

I guess in some ways I am competitive.  At least with myself.  I always want to do better and strive to beat past, “markers”.  Rather than list the ones I “have” Let me list the next ones I have set for myself.  100 comment post (so close).  25K Alexa (at 34K).  20K monthly visits (record is 16k).  500 Stumbles (400 something best so far).  2000 daily visits.  100 Retweets on an article.

9. Could you share with us your monetary benefits from blogging? If you do not want to reveal any figures, a range will do.

Like stated before, I make nothing from blogging.  I have no Adsense.  No banner ads. No paid ads or links.

Blogging is the portal. 

Even there SteveScottSite I am not raking in a fortune yet.  I consider this to be a “building” project.  With my ebook, plus my affiliate marketing I have made less than 15k from SSS over the last year plus (approaching 2 years).

This sum may sound like a lot to some, for the amount of effort I have put into it is quite little.  I could have easily quadrupled that if I added that energy into my main niche.  But for me blogging is all about the long-term and building something to last.

10. What’s your view on those bloggers out there spinning articles for posts and those who just leave short comments for backlinks?

I don’t think much of them.  While I will admit to spinning the occasional article from time-to-time over the past few years for article directories and such, this crap happening on blogs is beneath contemptible.

As part of a comprehensive back-linking strategy where you link these spun contents to article that in turn “link to” the blog, I can see the benefits of it, and have been guilty a time or two.  But it is still one of those “icky” things you might do and not be proud of.

Fortunately the value of these tactics is decreasing as Google gets smarter and is able to pull up more semantic matches.

11. If there are three advice you would give to a beginning blogger, what would those be?

1. Create content that matters.  Don’t simply rehash what you see others do.  Try new things.  Experiment.

2. Be real.  If you are new, make that your strength rather than your weakness.  One thing an experienced person in a niche can’t do is un-ring the bell on the stuff we have learned.

Don’t ever try to pretend to be something you are not.  People see through this with uncanny frequency.

Not to get all literary but the words of Polonius from Hamlet has always struck me as an exceedingly important words of wisdom (even though Polonious didn’t listen to his own advice):

This above all: to thine ownself be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

3.Work hard, but work smart:  Blogging takes a heck of a lot of time and work to really achieve success.  I am approaching two years at this and still feel I have a ways to go.  Hard work and a lot of it are essential.  But it is also important to work smarter.  There is something called the Pareto Principle, that roughly states that 80% of the results come from 20% of the effort.  With time it is essential to figure out those things that work and do more of them, while cutting lose those things that do not work.

 

12. Since you have started, how much have you invested in running your blogs? What are the things you invested on? Are there any tools that you feel is absolutely necessary?

In my “main” blog I have invested very little recently.  But years ago starting out I invested a few thousand dollars in courses and help getting those going.  Of course those early blogs have paid me back 100 fold.

On Stevescottsite I have to admit I have also invested quite a bit.  Perhaps close to what I have earned from it to date.

I view blogs on a long term timeline.  You do not create something of value in a couple hours of work.  You have to build quality and that takes time and perhaps some money.

To spite the fact that I have paid out some enormous sums over the years on creation, I firmly believe there is little you NEED to be successful.  You don’t need to buy books (even mine) to be successful.  These MAY help, and COULD provide important pieces of the pie but they simply are not always needed.

The only things I think you must have:

1. Your own domain
2. Decent webhosting (Hostgator is fine and inexpensive)
3. **Market Samurai**  I think of this as necessary for Affiliate Marketing.  But a “nice to have” for general blogging.  It can really help to find those key-phrases that work and give you a great idea of what you are getting into in your niche/topic.

…And of course the drive and will to succeed; which is something that you can never put a price-tag on.

Thanks for having me Jimmy!  I hope my replies on blogging were not too “long winded”