These days it is not all that difficult to find a blog ‘expert’. And to be sure, not a few of them know what they are talking about.

Darren Rowse is arguably the best blogger there is – blogs about blogging.  But then there are not a few folk who can tell you all sorts of good things about blogging: the best plug-ins, the best analytic tools, the very best place to get templates and how to optimize them. These folk even know quite well about keywords and good title structure and the like and can use words like SEO – Search Engine Optimization. But they have not done it themselves. They just know how. It reminds me of a teacher who worked for me in Japan. He knew how to do most everything…because he had read how to in a book. But he had nothing to show for himself.

What makes a good blog consultant? Who do you listen to when it comes to blogging? Here are 5 qualities I can think of.

1. A good blog consultant has put in his/her time. Ask your blog consultant how many posts they have written. And how many of those posts have received how many views? What has s/he tried that did NOT work? I have published more than 12,000 posts. I have a couple of thousand articles/posts that have received more than 1000 views each. I have some others I am embarrassed about.

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written by wcbelew     Blog - 3 Comments »

I gave a workshop the other day.

Report: Blog workshop held on how to get more traffic and what you can do with it.

At one point during the workshop I touched on the 20 characteristics of a successful blogger.

On that list, near the top, was the word – Passion.

I jumped up and down, told the story of Jeremiah the prophet and how he could not not preach because whenever he decided he wouldn’t continue, the message of God burned like fire in his bones.  See Jeremiah 20:9.

I was feeling pretty good about myself and that particular point until I read one of the comments in the feedback forms after the presentation. Read the rest of this entry »

written by wcbelew     Blog - No Comments »

I have been asked not a few times – “What are the reasons/benefits a blogger would want to be a part of a blog network as opposed to going it alone?”

Here are a few -

1. Blogging alongside folk who have ‘been there done that’ can save a LOT of time and energy for the individual blogger who otherwise would have to learn things all over again, to reinvent the wheel so to speak.

2.  Which sounds better – I get a couple hundred/thousand unique visitors a day/month or I am part of a blog network that gets 50,000-75,000 unique visitors/day or 1.5-2 million page views a month?

3. Being a part of a blog network gives the blogger instant visibility. No begging to be included in another blogroll…you will already be there. Read the rest of this entry »

written by wcbelew     Blog - 1 Comment »

I recently held a blog workshop for the Central California Writers Club, South Bay Branch.

The title of the workshop was Blogging for Publishing and Promoting Your Writing .

The basic idea was for me to teach the group how to bring traffic to their blogs (if they had one) so that their blog could serve as a platform to market their books (again, if they have one). Or if they are writing a book, how they might create and maintain a blog alongside so that when the book was complete they would have regular readers who might be interested in the tome. I think I did the job.

The usual crowd for a CWC South Bay workshop was 20-30 folk. We had 55 register and 13 more sign in at the door.  The attendance was more than double the usual workshop crowd. Not only do I know something, but it seems I know something folk really want to know as well. Read the rest of this entry »

written by wcbelew     Blog - 3 Comments »

I can hear some people laughing.

They are the ones who get 100+K page views to their blog everyday. I don’t. I was a rinky dink blogger who wrote about non-main stream topics, Japan, the PanAsian region and the Business of Education, lessons learned and such.

I hit a huge milestone…for me, that is.

My three blogs combined for 124,130 page views in one day. RisingSunOfNihon received 99,154 of those views.

I thought to share here how that came to be and how others might do the same.

Let me preface the steps by saying it wasn’t easy and it didn’t happen quickly.

How to:

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written by wcbelew     Blog - 2 Comments »