How to be a Successful Blogger (by breaking all the rules)

Know the 'rules' of blogging before you start, they say. There are steps to successful blogging. I know these 'rules', and I follow a lot of them, just not at the same time.

Most of the time I'm breaking the rules.

And there are very good reasons for breaking the rules of blogging, both in corporate and personal/lifestyle blogging. It really depends on your goals.

I tend not to define myself as a 'blogger' because blogging is just one part of what I do, both personally and professionally. Here I am, blogging, but this blog here is not my career, it's not my business, and it's not my entire lifestyle. And yet this blog has been hugely successful - by my own terms!

So here are some 'rules' of blogging that I know I break, and why I break them:

Broken Rule # 1: (Don't) Find a Niche and Stick to it

Personally: I'm an expat, millennial, career-changing digital native, and for a long time I couldn't decide how to narrow my niche. I love the differences between American and UK cultures but I didn't want a pure expat blog. The blogs I read on a daily basis cover a broad range of interests, and rarely overlap. So for 2014 I'm picking three themes and running with them: Building (and re-building) a career as a millennial, blogging/marketing, and my expat life. They're not as distinct as they might seem and I have several blog posts planned that fit into more than one theme.

So if you can't choose a specific niche, or don't want to be pigeonholed, don't choose a niche! Try picking a few key themes that interest you, and you'll soon work out how they can tie together into one overall brand.

Broken Rule # 2: (Don't) Share your Blog Posts all over Social Media

You've written a snappy, relevant, or thought-provoking post and you want to share it with the world. But stop: Where are you going to share it, and when?

Don't feel like you should just blast it all over every social account you have. Use your social accounts wisely and mindfully. Twitter is the place to craft an irresistible headline or two and share throughout the day. Pinterest and Facebook both drive traffic with visual content, but at opposite times of the day. And sometimes more is not always better - too much can be less effective than not enough.

For every post you craft, determine the best social accounts to share on. This works equally for personal and corporate blogging, especially when you're clear on what you want to achieve - whether it's traffic, sales, or shares.

Broken Rule # 3: (Don't) Be an Expert

Sometimes the most interesting blogs are about people learning their way. Whether it's a new mom, a new blogger, a new lawyer, a new fashionista, or someone who's in a new country, sharing first-time experiences can be more genuine and engaging than advice from thought-leaders. And that goes for pictures too - photos from 'behind the scenes' give a fascinating insight. 

Unpolished: Behind the scenes. NOT what I wear professionally!

Don't forget that blogging is allowed to be immediate and a bit unpolished! That includes, writing, photography, your outfit, your baby - whatever. Some personal blogs look professional, and some professional blogs look homespun. And that's totally ok. Life's like that, so go with it. Share what you don't know, as well as what you do.

Broken Rule # 4: (Don't) Break all the Rules

Read all the 'rules' of blogging that you can find, and read all the rulebreakers (ahem). Then decide what you need to do. Knowing how and why tricks and tactics work in social media and blogging helps you to discover what works for you.

So the one rule I recommend you do follow is to set out a goal for your blog. Even if you've been blogging for ages. And when you achieve that goal or your goal eventually changes, take a step back and re-evaluate, because your tactics will alter depending on what you want to achieve.

Some people like sharing memes and pictures, some people like essays and ideas, some like a mixture of both. Some people want to sell products, others want to build an audience, and others still just want to explore and have fun whether anyone's reading or not. Catch-all rules or rule-breaking won't work for every blog the same way.

Broken Rule # 5: (Don't) Define Success According to Others

And finally, remember that everyone does have a different goal. Me? I'm not a fashion blogger, so I don't do outfit posts, even though I tried them. I'm not into giveaways or sponsorships, even though I tried them and they absolutely work. They're 'rules' I don't want to follow. 

I don't blog every day, I don't have a huge readership, and I feel successful. 

I've met some fun people, switched careers, learned and expanded skills. I get to test ideas at 'play' in my personal blogspace, on projects with no real deadline and no real purpose, then test ideas out at work. 

So here's how I'm defining my (personal) blogging success this year: I'm going to take my three themes, and try to create a cohesive personal brand. Even if my brand is millennial expat career-changing digital native!

What blogging rules do you follow? Which ones do you break? How do you define your blogging success?

Media Monday: A more effective blog design!

If you're a regular visitor you might notice a few changes to my blog today, or perhaps you came by at the weekend and saw the blog during one of its many stages of undress. I put this new header together live, and there were a few ugly moments, including when I realized I'd deleted the entire "Header" widget from Blogger and couldn't get it back…eek!

I hope you like the new style, please let me know if it doesn't work on your browser!

I've been working on building and redesigning this blog template for a while. I had hoped to do a big fantastic "relaunch" but then decided that designing a blog is a little bit like writing one - the process is always a little unfinished, so why not tweak and tinker it live rather than roll out huge changes in one swoop?

And this way, I can talk you through some of the changes as I've made them. It's been really satisfying to get into the anatomy of the blogger platform and exercise my HTML and CSS skills, which as I explained recently, I've been trying to do more and more.

As promised, I'll explain some of the things I've learned, and also how I learned them. This will include:

• Why I did certain things, and what they mean.
• What I did to (re)learn how to do everything, and which resources were the most useful.
• Explaining why I'm sticking with the Blogger platform (for now) and not migrating to Wordpress…even though I'm very tempted.

Today, I'll keep it simple and show you the difference between the old design and the new one.

I'm a big fan of clean design - simple but a little bit fun. The original heading did that, with just the name, headings…

…and a play on the Philadelphia Love Park statue to tie in my theme! Here it is:

But it was a cheat. Okay, it wasn't really a cheat. But it was just one large graphic made into an image map. I didn't even create the image map myself, I used a free website to do it for me.

What was great about it was that I could create the exact design I wanted for my header really simply and quickly, and just plug it into the Blogger template. To do that I had to delete Blogger's Header widget and replace it with an HTML widget, but otherwise it was very easy to do. If anyone would like to know how to create an image map header for their blog, let me know, and I'll be happy to make a tutorial.

However, it was just a quick fix for me. It has some serious downsides, including absolutely killing SEO, and meaning that if I wanted to change any wording in the header, I'd have to change the whole image and re-do the image map. 

So what I really wanted was a fully functional text-based header that looked as much like the image map as possible. And this is the result:

The only image in this header is the design on the right (and its border) - you can test it by highlighting all the text in the real thing up above.

Now I have fully customizable text and headings, along with a clean, simple design. The design on the right is supposed to be a slightly art deco motif inspired by Philadelphia's Art Institutes building, including a keystone, to represent the Keystone State. My husband says it also looks a bit like an Amish/Mennonite quilt, which is no bad thing seeing as we live somewhere in that space between Philadelphia and Amish country!

On my image map design, I had used two beautiful typefaces, Pistilli and Balham. But for the text-based version I've used two of Google's free web fonts, Abril Fat Face and Antic. 

You might also noticed I dropped "glad blog" - there are a few other blogs with that name, and I'd never realized before I moved to the States that I'd be comparing myself to trash bags: 

Life as an expat. It's a cultural minefield, every day.

So that's that, and I hope you like it! Next week I'll talk about how I went about re(learning) web design so I could get this header pulled together. As always, any comments and suggestions are forever welcome!

Media Monday - When coding became more cool, but less popular

What the NYT site would look like as a Geocities page, according to the Geocitiesizer.
I wanted to do my blog, but it didn't actually look too different, which is, er, worrying?

1996. My family had just gotten dial-up.

I was amazed that I could download pictures from the Lion King to put on my wall. Sure, I had to wait for hours as each picture appeared line by line, but I was 11 years old and couldn't think of anything else I'd ever need the internet for.

But in no time at all I was creating my own Geocities page, learning basic HTML and making my own 1990s web atrocities. I asked a friend what I should name my first website. She said Dynamite Pants… so I did. Oh dear.

To my dismay though, this was not considered a cool thing for a kid to be doing. When our class was asked what we did at the weekend, and my 11 or 12 year old self proudly announced that I'd created a website, kids laughed. Even the teacher said "Oookay" and changed the conversation.

But I loved it. I began to make complex websites with multiple frames and tables, and designs based on my favorite CD covers (notably Savage Garden, ahem). I wrote all my pages in notepad and uploaded them using FTP in DOS. Eventually I left my Geocities page to die a sad, Comic Sans encrusted death, and moved onto bigger and better platforms: xoom, envy.nu, virtue.nu, altern.org, pitas.com and probably a whole bunch more I can't remember.

Eventually I hit the big time and got a 'hosted' website. I felt like I'd struck internet gold.

If you remember delish.net, gemz.net and way2kewl, you were probably a part of this teen domain scene. There's a whole thread on the GOMI forums devoted to these teen domains (you have to register to see it). 

You see, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, blogging wasn't what it is now. Buying a web domain was prohibitively expensive for a lot of young teenage girls. But those who had convinced their daddies to shell out for a dotcom were often more than happy to 'host' other teen sites. Hosts would give their friends a subdomain where they could create their own beautiful, deep and meaningful pages.

Being hosted meant you were part of your own special web clique. If your website had a one word name, tiny font sizes, clean design and a page of poetry, you might have been considered special enough to get hosted. And being hosted meant you were kinda cool, and you had rockstar HTML skills.

When I left high school I finally got my own domain. I set up a site and a message board so all my school friends could keep in touch as we went off to different universities. Then Myspace and Facebook happened.

My parents actually wondered why I never studied computing or web design. But I was stubborn and didn't want to have to go back to the beginning and learn the basics of setting up a website or using PaintShop Pro/PhotoShop when of course, I already knew it all, duh.

The sad thing is I didn't really do much more web design until I left university, and now I'm playing catch-up, learning HTML5 and CSS, and trying to pick up PHP and XML. I've been using a lot of cool tools to pick up skills that didn't exist when I was teenage girl, such as Codecademy and Lynda.

Coding is cool these days and there are loads of groups, meetups and hackathons to help you get started. I thought that with all of these cool sites to encourage people to pick up coding, there would be a huge rise in the popularity of learning to code. So I was really surprised to learn that's not the case:

Google Trends since 2004, showing searches for "HTML" has declined.

Since 2004, learning to code has become much more cool, yet far less popular.

I found this really interesting, and wonder if MySpace and Facebook are partly responsible. There are so many tools to help people create websites (hello Blogger/Blogspot) that even knowing the basics isn't really necessary.

So maybe once again I'm going against the grain, but that's okay! Over the next several weeks I'm going to show you what I've been doing and learning in web design and social media. If you're just learning too, or if you used to code your teen angst back in the 1990s, let me know, I'd love to see what you're doing.

Disconnected: The end of an era for the BBC

Today was the last BBC News broadcast from the legendary Television Centre in London.

I've mentioned a couple of times just how much I have loved the BBC's Television Centre (TVC), namely here and here.

In a rarity for this blog, here are some fantastic images taken by a good friend of mine who works (yes, still works) in TVC. He's been doing a beautiful job of capturing the transition of TVC from the nucleus of British broadcasting to, well, a spooky technological relic. He kindly gave me permission to show you some of these photos, but make sure you check out the rest of them here.

The Gallery of TC 10 (Studio 10), which used to look like this.

TC 7 during its last news transmission, only you can't tell, because the studio sign has disappeared.

Don't miss out on his other photos here - they progress from 2006 right up until the last news broadcast today.

You can also watch TVC's last news broadcast here:

I grew up seeing this building on television, and even though I'm on the wrong side of the ocean, it's weird to think that British television will no longer be filmed within these cavernous studios set inside a giant doughnut.

Is blog really a dirty word?

Let's be clear straight away: Blogging is not journalism. It's not old journalism, and it's not even new journalism. I'm not being snobbish when I say that: I'm a blogger, not a journalist.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a longer piece about why bloggers need to be honest about their business models. This is in part because trade guidelines require it, but also because much of their business depends on readership, and readers need to be rewarded for their loyality (and custom) with honesty.

It was interesting then for me to read several articles about dishonesty and the bad reputation that blogging sometimes earns.

However, I don't particularly identify with the type of blogging mentioned in ManRepeller.com's piece Blog is a dirty word. I don't mean that I can't identify blogs like that in the blogger world; I can. But that's not me. And it's certainly not the entire blogosphere. It's a part of the blogosphere.

Ditto this article, Fashion blogging has a transparency problem. This op-ed highlights some of the problems I mentioned last week; including a lack of dishonesty about advertising and funding.

These pieces are interesting, and I don't disagree with them, but I think there are a couple of take-aways about blogging that I have from these pieces. First, blogging is still a relatively new medium. Online journaling has been around for 15-20 years, Blogger itself was launched in 1999, but it's evolving as a style.

Second, blogging is not journalism. If you Google "blogging is not journalism" you'll find some interesting debate on the matter, but I think I'm right in saying that they are very different mediums.

Blogging takes many forms. In essence there are two kinds, which I outlined, but the style and variety of blogging means it's hard to generalize. There are the lookbook fashion blogs, with product reviews and self-portraits. There are almost-journalism blogs, or citizen-journalism blogs, with investigative stories that the mainstream news didn't cover or didn't uncover. There are person stories, fictional pieces, craft and DIY and much much more. But what is similar for most of these is that they are organic, most are home-grown. Most have an element of stream of consciousness, an unfinished what-happens-next feeling. Some of that is deliberate, designed to make the reader come back. Some of that is simply because blogging allows for the discussion of unfinished thoughts.

Another distinction is that Journalism is not narcissism. Or it's not meant to be. 

There are similarities with journalism. News journalism will have that what-happens-next-feeling as news unfolds or as follow-up stories are investigated. Plus news journalism can cover many subjects too. But it's tightly written (even online), and bound by different grammar and code. Journalists are trained to find facts, cover all sides of a story, and to do so ethically. Some journalists also blog, but they are probably journalists first and foremost.

Journalism resource Poynter recently asserted this though: Don't assume journalists have more training than bloggers in truth-telling. Journalists may have qualified to be journalists by learning to code, write copy, interview subjects and to abide by media law. Bloggers don't need to qualify to become bloggers. And a lot of them are very good.

The Man Repeller article actually defends blogging as symptomatic of an under-employed Gen Y populace finding their own way (and own income) as digital entrepreneurs:

"Darwinism will always prevail. The strong will continue to survive and the weak will eventually begin to weed off. The question is, what will make us strong? It seems like the blogging landscape must tackle some serious change."

There's no official qualification to become a blogger. And that's the point. It is not journalism.  Sometimes it may pretend to be, but at heart it doesn't want to be. I believe the problems with honesty and advertising will continue for a while as commercial blogging comes of age. Light-touch regulations such as the FTC guidelines will become more important, but there will always be problems with blogging and authenticity and honesty that doesn't (or shouldn't) exist in the journalism world (more on media law later though).

Blogging and journalism are both democratic now by nature, and readers will always be able to call out bloggers for making mistakes, whether factual, ethical, or business.
I am still studying towards my diploma in journalism, and for a time I wanted to pursue a career in pure journalism, although I was a little apprehensive. I realized that being apprehensive doesn't fit with pursuing a career in journalism, but I can use old and new journalistic skills and techniques in other ways. That's not dirty in the slightest, in fact, I think that's the point.

What do you think? I'd love to know. As I'm still working through my journalism courses, and pursuing similar interests, I'd love to keep blogging my thoughts on media and culture. What do you think about Monday slot on these themes?

Do you blog? If so, you need to read this.

On Sunday I posted a link to an open letter to Maria Popova, curator of the popular Brain Pickings blog. This letter accused Popova of claiming her blog was 'ad-free' when in fact, it wasn't.

Whether you're a fan of her site or not, if you have your own blog this is an important story to learn from. Here I explain how blogs work, why you should be aware of blogging disclaimers and how best to disclose advertising to your readers.

What is blogging?

 

Blogging has become a huge genre in of itself, and although it's not strictly journalism, the lines between the two mediums are becoming much fuzzier. There are, in essence, two types of blog:

1. Original content blog

Totally new content created with the aim of people reading/watching it and sharing it with others.

Examples include Fairy Tales for Twenty Somethings, and Raspy Wit. The content can be anything - guides to blogging, parenting, personal stories, photos, you get the idea.

2. Curated blog

Content created by other people and shared in one space.

Two really great examples of curated blogs are This Isn't Happiness and Brain Pickings.

There is a third category, and that's a combination of the two styles above. Many lifestyle blogs fit into this category, mixing original content with Pinterest posts, fashion remixes, etc. The news site Huffington Post is also an example of a combination blog, as is economics blog Marginal Revolution.

Huffington Post literally wrote the book on blogging

The mark of a good blog isn't whether the content is original or not - it's the branding, the interestingness, and often the way the blogger connects with their readers.

Brain Pickings works as a curated blog because Popova knows her target audience. And a large target audience is key for making income from a blog.

How can you make money from blogging?

 

Lifestyle and curated content blogging has become more commercial in the past few years. Just last week Aunie Sauce, a popular lifestyle blog, announced a giveaway with a huge $1500 visa gift card prize for one lucky reader.

As media shifts from print to digital journalists, bloggers, innovators and media moguls are all pondering: How do you make money from publishing stuff online?

There's no one answer, and what works for one blog could fail completely for another. Many blogs use a mix of these methods:

Adverts - Either banner or word based ads placed on the blog by a third party (eg Google Adsense) where the blogger receives a cut of the advertiser's pay-per-click (PPC) costs.

Blog sponsoring - These too are like old-fashioned banner ads, although the blogger is paid by subscription and not on a PPC basis. In lifestyle blogging they are usually less intrusive side-bar ads, often purchased by small stores and fellow bloggers, using a platform such as Passionfruit ads.

Sponsored posts/Advertorials - Either paid-for guest posts written by other bloggers/companies, or written by the blogger about a product or service, where the blogger is paid cash or in kind.

Donations - A 'please donate' button allows reader to pay what they like for the enjoyment of reading their favorite blogs.

Affiliate links - Bloggers link to products/services within their posts and receive a cut of the PPC costs or a cut of whatever the reader buys.

Other ways of making income include giveaways (like Aunie's which requires entrants to follow and tweet about various blogs), tutorials, paid for content, or merchandizing. All of these are legitimate, and there are up and downsides to each.

For example, if a blogger chooses a sponsored post that doesn't fit with their brand there can be negative repercussions. Recently The Atlantic magazine's site featured an advertorial on Scientology. After a backlash, The Atlantic took the post down and announced it was re-evaluating its sponsorship policy.

What The Atlantic did here wasn't wrong, but it miscalculated the response from its readership and ended up backtracking for fear of losing its audience.

So what did Brain Pickings do wrong?

 

Brain Pickings is a successful blog, and through it Maria Popova solicits donations from readers as well as using affiliate ads within posts.

None of that is wrong.

But she got into a sticky situation by claiming her blog is ad-free. It isn't.

She failed to disclose that the blog is part-funded by affiliate links. So not only did Popova break the trust between blog and reader, she came across as disingenuous by knocking ad-filled journalism, and she also possibly broke the US FTC's guides governing endorsements and testimonials.

Popova argued that because the products she advertised were products she used anyway, it didn't count. But according to FTC guides she should have disclosed that she uses affiliate links. These guides have been updated to cover endorsements on social media and blogging, and state:

…an endorsement means any advertising message …  that consumers are likely to believe reflects the opinions, beliefs, findings, or experiences of a party other than the sponsoring advertiser, even if the views expressed by that party are identical to those of the sponsoring advertiser…

(access the pdf here)

Was this a deliberate ploy to mislead readers who give donations? Or a genuine mistake?  Either way, Popova has responded to criticism and now her blog does have a disclosure at the bottom, which states:

Brain Pickings participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn commissions by linking to Amazon.

Although, on the 'support' section of the site, she still claims Brain Pickings is technically 'ad-free' which I think refers to the presence of banner ads:

Keeping it a clean, ad-free reading experience — which is important to me and, I hope, to you — means it’s subsidized by the generous support of readers like you: directly, through donations, and indirectly, whenever you buy a book on Amazon from a link… 

So what is best practice when trying to make an income from your blog?

Bloggers must be honest with their readers

 

Be open and honest about where your funding and your content comes from. Simple as that.

The UK blog Money Saving Expert is one of the top 60 UK websites, and has a unique way of finding income, which is explained in full to its readers. Affiliate links are individually marked, so readers can be sure when a company has paid to be featured on the site.

In a completely different example, lifestyle blogger Katherine from Of Corgis and Cocktails is very open that Of Corgis and Cocktails is a 'for profit' blog. She told me:

I believe in honesty. Sure, I would like to make some profit back from the countless hours I put into my blog. I personally don't ask for direct donations as I don't feel it would be fair - I want to give something back to the person, like a sponsored post or ad on my sidebar.

Katherine is very explicit in disclosing how her blog makes an income:

I have a permanent location for my disclosure that is mentioned at the end of any post that was sponsored and also easily located at the bottom of my blog.

My biggest thing is that I work with affiliates - meaning if you are going to shop at a store, say Amazon, and you click a link on my blog to get there, I'll get a portion of the sale. You pay for a product you wanted anyway and maybe even found because I wore it in an outfit post or used the product, and I get a maybe 5% back from the company. My readers don't pay extra, but it's a nice way to help out, and I want them to know that!

 Katherine was also quick to mention the FTC guides and advised that disclosure wording is available for free online. She also highlighted that:

…it's important to mention because it is the law, and also because the companies you are working with require and need it to protect themselves as well. If you don't disclose properly, you could end potential great relationships with companies you love…

Trust is a funny thing online, but you can do your best to gain it by being open about who and what you are working with. Otherwise, you gain a large amount of disdain and distrust…

If you make an income from your blog, think carefully about how you'll disclose it to your readers.

The FTC guides state that they don't actively monitor blogs, and there is no fine for not having adequate disclosure. However, as highlighted by the Brain Pickings blog, not disclosing your relationship with advertisers can badly affect your relationship with readers - and in blogging, that's the last thing you want.

If you want to read more about this, I recommend Felix Salmon's op-ed on Brain Pickings, and Kelly Fairclough's coverage of the issue. 

As far as this blog goes, I know my 'support' section has been 'coming soon' for a long time and this is something I've learned from too. I can't claim to be ad-free, but I don't get paid if you click any link within my posts and I don't charge for blog buttons/button swaps. That's because I'm still deciding how best to monetize my blog beyond Google ads - if at all. If I do, you can be sure that you'll be the first to find out. 

Tomorrow is also the third annual TAO Journalism pledge day - this is a pledge for transparent, accountable and open journalism. If you're a blogger or journalist have a look and maybe even consider signing it.