I’ve been blogging since 1998 and have seen plenty of rewards in terms of writing experience, web know-how and even some freelance jobs and interest garnered thanks to my blog. But making money directly off my blog has been a new experience for me. It’s certainly not the only reason I blog, but it’s a nice bonus.

In late April I started my own blog network and pro-blogging, while not yet a reality, is at least understandable. Below are a few of the lessons I’ve learned along the way.

(Note: I originally wrote this to be a part of ProBlogger.net’s 31 Days to Building a Better Blog, but I think I missed the cut off. Oh well.)

Continue reading Lessons in Professional Blogging →

With the summer winding down and me blogging like a mad man all over the place (except maybe here), I thought it’d be a good idea to take a page from the Jason Kottke book and do a summer blog posts review.

Well start here with the personal stuff and move on to the random other blogs nobody really cares about.

Thoughts

• The biggest news is the baby on the way. Highlights so far include the youth group reaction and the heartbeat. Next week is the ultrasound.
• I did have to tackle some home repairs. (well, actually a friend did the heavy lifting and I watched)
• I admitted to tearing up during Brat Camp.
• I rocked out at Sonshine 2005.
• I went to Los Angeles.
• My dog made more money than you.
• I turned 26 and got a new digital camera, which is a good excuse to check out the first photo I ever took.
• And I saw my traffic rise after a pathetic May (which resulted in a Google check that showed up this week).

Continue reading 2005 Summer Blogging Review →

The caller ID said Paramount Pictures, which really had me intrigued. I didn’t catch the guy’s name, but I think he was with the Dr. Phil show. He launched into his question so quickly I missed his introduction. But he went on to ask me about my blog post about body suspension.

I vaguely remembered the post, but I quickly realized where this was heading and started laughing. He was looking for an expert on body suspension, or at least someone who could connect him with experts or the teens involved.

He asked why I was laughing and I explained why, pointing out that I’d just found an article online talking about body suspension and linked to it. I pointed him back to my post for the link to the article and suggested he start there.

I can only guess he found me because the ReAL Magazine blog post shows up at the top of the second page of search results for “body suspension.” Weird. I’m just a blogger from Minnesota, yet I’m getting calls from the Dr. Phil Show.

I realize I’m totally jinxing myself by saying this, but I think I’m back in the game. If you check my traffic for this blog, and most of my other blogs, you’ll notice a sudden upsurge in the past two days. We all know I haven’t been posting more (though I am breaking quite a posting slump today), so I can only guess that Google has returned my site to its search rank glory. Or something like that.

My referrals are packed with Google results again, and my server stats show Google just soared past Yahoo for search engine results, something that is usually the natural order for my site, but it hasn’t been that way all month. I still don’t have much of an explanation for it.

At any rate, my Google AdSense income is up again, to the thrilling height of shiny silver coins per day, instead of dull copper. That’s always cool. For yesterday and today anyway. That and the graph of my traffic is fun to look at. The traffic graph will probably get more dramatic as the day goes on, but I grabbed a shot of it for posterity.