I have decided to trial a new weekly segment out called ‘Sunday Question’, where I will provide for you all a thought provoking question that will hopefully give us a way to get to know each other a bit better.

If I get a good response with this question I will turn it into a permanent segment.

THIS WEEKS SUNDAY QUESTION:

What would you be doing with your life if the internet did not exist?

I think it is safe to say the majority of us spend way to much time on the internet, blogging and internet marketing. So if the internet suddenly dissapeared what would you do with your life? What career path would you pursue?

For me I would definately be finding a career in finance or investments. It’s probably not the best time, but I’d love to get into stock broking! And I would be working to build my own property development company.

What about you? What would you be doing?

If you are like me then you may just have a problem. You see, I am one of those people that jump from project to project , creating new ones, letting old ones go and having trouble sticking to something long enough to make sure it is successful.

The problem is that I am a creative thinker and innovator. The fun for me is in the building up stage, where we start to see the project take shape. When it gets to the stage where it has hit a desired level – I get bored, because things always seem to hit a similar monotony. Which means I start to lose interest and even if the project has potential to be something big (like the potential I see in this blog), I ditch it cause I cant find the motivation to do the same thing over and over to make it successful.

You all saw the results of this, when I suddenly disappeared from the blogging scene for over a month. That is exactly what happens to me. I get bored and just ditch successful projects.

Obviously I am not alone, because lately I have seen a lot of inactive blogs, with a lot of other bloggers seemingly losing their passion also which is why I have decided to list my:

Top 5 Ways To Keep Blogging Fun!

1. Write For Yourself and Not Your Readers
   Sure this may sound selfish, but your readers came to your blog because they liked what YOU had to say. So don’t go changing to sound like the latest ‘pro blogger’. You will find if you try to start writing in a style and voice that is not who you are eventually you will get tired and worn out.

   Make sure you are just being yourself. Write what is on your mind at the moment. If you need to rant – then rant. If something exciting has happened in your life – tell your readers. Let them feel like they are a part of your life. Not only will it help you build loyal readers, but because of this, you will have a group of massive encourages and supporters.

   This is something I have somehow managed to build. When I listed my blog for sale, there were so many of you readers who let me know how sad it was that I was leaving and encouraging me to stay. I know it took me over a month to come back, but I honestly believe if it wasn’t for those comments – this blog would have been sold!
   
   

2. Surprise Yourself, Surprise Your Readers
   All so often we find ourselves getting stuck in a rut, and it gets to a point that our posts are becoming more and more predictable. We get stuck in one train of thought and it seems like we are a pre-recorded message getting played over and over.

   If we are not writing content that surprises us, with how fresh it is, how different it is from our other posts, and if it’s not exciting for us to write – how can we expect our readers to enjoy it?
   
   Here are a few ways to surprise yourself and your readers:

   • Throw in a funny post – just something that made you laugh
   • Start writing your post BEFORE you know what you’re going to talk about
   • Take things happening in your life and give them a ‘parable like’ reference to something
   • Use emotions that your readers have never seem you use. eg. get annoyed, get overly excite…
3. Communicate WITH Your Readers not TO Your Readers
   There is nothing more boring that writing a scientific journal type article (it may interest some people – not me). The whole concept of blogging involves user interaction. The reason there is the ability for visitors to leave comments is because we as bloggers need to be writing in a way that people feel the need to comment.

   I love reading blogs where the blog posts carries on through the comments. You are not just getting comments like ‘great post’, or ‘I have written a similar post visit my website to read it, but as you read the post the comments are just an extension where your readers continue to discuss and add value to your post.

   This is what I consider successful blogging!

4. Things Are More Fun When You Do Them With Friends!
   Why is it that things are never the same by yourself? Let’s take the ever so popular ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ movie for example.  The first time I watched that movie I was with a group of about 20 friends and to be honest it felt like it was the funniest movie I have ever seem! Everyone was laughing the whole way through. But then about 6 months later I decided to rent it again – however this time I was by myself. To be completely honest I really struggled to find it funny a second time around.

   Now the movie didn’t change – but the circumstances did. We are social creatures. We need people around us to make us laugh, cry, be happy and get angry. We need them to tell our stories too, to whinge to, rant and celebrate with.

   Blogging is no different. Blogging becomes fun because of the people we interact with. I have found friends through blogging just by being active in commenting, visiting forums and competitions, and it’s these friends that make me want to write my next blog post – cause I really want to know what they will think!
   
   

5. Question Everything
   How often do we get caught up in this senario?

   A new blogging product has come out and it seems like every blogger is promoting it – and making affiliate sales. Everyone is writing rehashed posts that are all saying the same thing (all the good things they read of the products sales page) and EVERY blogger seems to be recommending it!

   How often does this happen? Way to often if you ask me. There are days when it seems like every blogger I know is posting about one topic. One product. And they are all saying the exact same thing!

   I don’t know about you, but as a reader I get a bit suspicious when I see this. I mean how many of these bloggers have even created an account and looked at the system behind the new affiliate program? How many are game to talk about the things that might not be so good about it?

   I hate reading and writing posts that are practically paid advertisements. If you are going to be doing things like this, make sure you give a detailed review based on personal experiece, because that is what your readers are hear for – they want to know WHAT YOU THINK. Otherwise they wouldn’t be at your blog!

I think we need to just come back to the roots of blogging. Blogs were created to be journals. Journals of our thoughts and ideas, feelings and emotions. Not over hyped, rehashed stories just to sell product and make money.

They enjoyment in blogging comes from writing about what interests us and interacting with other bloggers with the same interests.

So I guess now I will turn the tables and ask you:

What makes blogging fun for you?

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Like most of you probably have, I have signed up to my fair share of affiliate networks – just to test them out and see what all the hype is about. Usually their ads don’t last long as I ditch them for the latest ‘hyped up’ affiliate program.

Well I never really go back and check my starts after I remove them (or forget about them) so it was a surprise to me today when I logged into my PepperjamNetwork.com account and saw that I had $125 in waiting commission $100 from August alone! They had been unable to process it yet as I had not provided them with my payment details.

All the commission were from 1 single 125×125 adspot on this blog that promoted Text-Link-Ads. The funny thing is that the ad was only put up as a filler until someone bought the adspot for $10/month!

Check out a screen shot of my earnings from Pepperjam! (sorry for the bad image, my screenshot isnt working, so I had to print the page to PDF and edit from there)

You may or may not think that $125 ($100 in one month) is that big a deal, but for me that means:

• Over doubling the income I made from this blog
• Dramatically increasing the value of this blog
• A changed mindset on affiliate programs on blogs

Here are 3 things I have learnt from this situation:

1. Keep track of your affiliate programs
   If you don’t you could be missing out on money that your blog has earned.
2. Affiliate programs can be just as good as private ads (if not better)
   I must say I followed the crowd with this one. Everyone seems to be trying to sell private ad spots at a fixed monthly price – so I did the same. However I made over 2 months worth of sold out ad spots in just one month – from 1 adspot! So this month I am trialing affiliate programs by having all my adspots being affiliate adspots. I will be using PepperjamNetwork.com partners to fill the spots.
3. Monitor Your Monetization Strategies
   We need to be knowing what is making us money and what isn’t. I should have been keeping track of my affiliate earnings just from the viewpoint that I need to be constantly analyzing and optimizing my adspots to make sure I am maximizing my earnings.

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I know a lot of us get caught up in the whole blogging experience and find ourselves spending every free moment that we are not working or have something else planned, working on our blogs. Whether it be writing new posts, networking with other bloggers by commenting on their blogs, or whatever else we seem to do that we think is important for our blog.

However, something I have come to realise is that if you spend all your time working on your blog, where are you getting your new inspiration from? I don’t think bloggers that dissapear just burn out – I think they run out of things to say!

So what am I suggesting?

Take some time out each day to get away from your blog. No. Not to do things that you normally do! But to do something that you don’t have to think, and you can just relax, enjoy yourself and get your creative thoughts happening.

So here are 10 Easy ‘Get Away From Your Blog’ Ideas:

• Go For A Jog (My personal favourite)
• Hit the gym
• Take a friend out for lunch
• Watch a movie
• Spend time talking to your family
• Clean (It supposedly works for some people :S)
• Visit a gallery or exhibition
• Have your friends around for a BBQ
• Pick up a hobby You have neglected
• Find a popular spot to sit and people watch

All of these are just suggestions to help youget your mind off of your blog and give it some time to just relax – cause it’s usually then that your most creative ideas come. (I got the idea for this post while jogging along the beach!)

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BlogBadly.com was lucky enough to be our review lab rat, that I get to test my reviewing skills on. What we will be looking at are the goals that Max has set for the blog, who he is targeting and what he is expecting, as well as discussing the things he likes and dislikes about his blog to see if we (including you – with your comments) can offer a few tips to make BlogBadly.com even better.

1. Why Did You Create The Blog?
I created a blog mainly to give me something productive to do rather than just chilling on the computer playing games and using StumbleUpon. I figured that establishing a web presence for myself (especially at a young age) could be something nice to put on a portfolio and I’d learn how to manage a business (that’s what a blog is, after all). Oh, and I also want to become filthy stinking rich. But that’s a side-goal.

I picked the niche of blogging about blogging/SEO/MMO because I thought I was fairly knowledgeable about the subject and it’s something I’m very passionate about.

2. What Are Your Goals For The Blog?
I’d like to have over 400 subscribers and get into the top 30 MMO blogs on 45n5 (currently #80). These two goals basically just involve expanding my readership and reactions to my blog – two things essential for success. Oh, and I also want to become filthy stinking rich ($400+/month by the end of ’08 should do it).

3. Who Is Your Target Market?
My target market? Well, according to me, it’s tech-savvy webmasters who are passionate about increasing their influence on the web. Generally, it’s 18-35 year old males. According to Quantcast, though, it’s old poor white dudes without kids. You tell me which you think is more accurate.

4. What Do You Think Is Good About Your Blog?
The content is probably the best part. I don’t write crappy stuff like plenty of other MMO “gurus.” My advice is funny, practical, and effective, or so I’ve been told. Helping and entertaining my readers is what I’m all about. That and the filthy stinking rich part. I’m also fairly fond of my blog design and that little button that brings you to a random page when you click on it.

5. What Do You Think Needs Improvement?
Improvement? My blog is perfect already!

Well, uh… I guess I could get a custom blog theme and spice it up a bit. I think mine is a little too cluttered. Maybe you can tell me some other things I can put in this category? :)

Lets Have A Look At BlogBadly.com Shall We?
Now we know exactly what Max is trying to acheive with his blog lets take a look at a few of the key areas of a blog to see the areas he is doing well in – and maybe we will be able to give him a few suggestions of areas of improvement. So here we go…

Design & Aesthetics

The design seems nice and clean and looking at the footer it appears to be a free theme. Free themes are a great way to start a blog and make it look nice without spending to much money – so nothing wrong here. One thing I went through with the launch of my new theme was the fact that a lot of bloggers commented that the content was not the priority and there was too much other things taking up too much room. I see a bit of this happening here. Here is what I mean:

One thing I did to try and expand the area of my screen that the content took up was to convert from a 2-column side bar to a single sidebar. Personally I i think it just looks a lot cleaner. Otherwise I really like the theme!

The other main portion of the design is the logo. Everyone who has read my blog knows that branding is one of my favourite topics – and your logo is an essential element of branding.

Looking at your current logo:

I see a nice custom logo. It is unique and has the starting of something that could easily become brandable. The one thing I see that is lacking a bit in the logo is it just feels a little bit plain – it doesn’t stand out enough. Now I am not a graphics designer by any stretch of the imagination but I just played a bit with the colours of your logo to give you a bit of an idea of what I think would help your logo become a bit more brandable.

Notice how it stands out so much more – I’m not saying it has to be those colours, it just needs to be a bit more visible.

Other than those couple of small things, I would say you have done a great job with the design of BlogBadly!

Content

Content is king.

Or atleast that is what everyone is saying. And reading the content on blog badly, I think you have hit the nail on the head when it comes to content. The tagline of BlogBadly is ‘The funny Problogger’. Although the indepth posts like Problogger many not be there, the funny is. Check out some of these posts:

• Blackhat Money Making
• Online Work Habits Efficiency
• How To Talk Yourself Out Of Writing A Blog Post

But inbetween the funny ones there is still a lot of posts that contain quality information that will keep the readers coming back.

Great content!

Traffic

Im just gonna give you 2 quick tips that I used to maximise my blogging reach!

1. Drop your maximum entrecard drops each day!
I think you are allowed to make 300 drops, if you have the time do it! I found doing this along made my traffic jump a great deal, and there are lists of blogs that load quick if you do a quick search that will make your dropping easy!

2. Comment On The Blogs You Entrecard Drop
I think this is where a lot of entrecard droppers miss out on a golden opportunity. If you are already visiting the blog to drop your card, then spend an extra 5 second to see what their latest post is about. If it’s something you’re interested in then leave a comment – that way you are promoting your blog to all that blogs readers as well!

Income

Currently I can see two advertisements slots on the blog. One at the top, and one side banner. Neither of these are generating any money. The quickest way to get these sold is to let you readers know about them. Leave a quick post to tell them whats available and how much, and I bet they’d both be snapped up straight away!

Until then, why not stick affiliate ads in their to at least try and make a few extra dollars a month in commissions. I did this and made $50 from host gator – more then the rest of my income from this blog combined.

Conclusion

Blog Badly is a great blog, with a lot of potential. I think that if you look a little bit into your brandability, and make it a priority to constantly be active in your nicne, that this blog will definately not only be around in 12 months time, but it will be thriving!