“I’m too shy to approach big bloggers for an interview - do you have any tips?”

Two ideas come to mind:

1. Don’t just approach ‘big’ bloggers

While many successful bloggers are willing to do interviews you might find you have more success if you target mediums sized blogs initially. While there is nothing wrong with aiming high - some bloggers are more likely to do an interview with you if you can show them a few other interviews you’ve done you might have more success.

2. One question interviews

One of the best ways to get even larger bloggers to respond is to keep your interviews very simple. The fewer the questions and the easier that they are to answer the more likely you are to get a response. Take this to the extreme with a ‘one question interview’ - a single question that is answerable in a few sentences.

You can then present the answers in a couple of ways:

1. As a single post - combine all the answers to the same question in one post. In this way you get a post that is quite long and explores the topic in a variety of ways (hopefully).

2. As a series of posts - I’ve done this a couple of times when going away for a vacation. I present each answer as a single post (or sometimes group shorter ones together) and then drip them out onto the blog over a series of days (here’s an example of the index page to one such series of one question interviews).

Not everyone will respond even to single question interviews but you’ll be surprised how many will.

Further Reading - here’s a post that I’ve previously written with 8 tips on How to Get and Conduct Interviews for Your Blog.

PS: one other point that I feel compelled to make after a day when I had a lot of requests for interviews (for some strange reason they all came at once). The feeling that I came away from most of the requests today with was ‘frustration’. The frustration came from most of the requests simply asking too much.

Over the day I had 6 requests - one of them had two questions and was quite manageable, the other 5 requests had 7, 9, 10, 11 and 15 questions attached. When I reluctantly responded to the one with 9 questions (it took 2 hours to do) the interviewer then wanted to send a series of follow up questions!

While I understand the desire to do comprehensive interviews that go beyond scratching the surface - sending someone a series of 10 or 15 questions is quite overwhelming. Unless the questions are ‘yes’ or ‘no’ type questions a question can take 10-15 minutes to answer if done comprehensively - this adds up when you ask a lot of questions.

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Shorts is a family movie (production of Abu Dhabi Media Company) directed by Robert Rodriguez
Release Date: 2009-08-07

Estimated ticket sales for Friday - Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC:
1. “Marley & Me,” $24.1 million.
2. “Bedtime Stories,” $20.3 million.
3. “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” $18.4 million.
4. “Valkyrie,” $14 million.
5. “Yes Man,” $13.9 million.
6. “Seven Pounds,” $10 million.
7. “The Tale of Despereaux,” $7 million.
8. “Doubt,” $5 million.
9. “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” $4.9 million.
10. “Slumdog Millionaire,” $4.8 million.

To be objective about his or her blog tends to be a challenge for most bloggers.

Often bloggers are in love with the ‘idea’ of their blog, so taking an impartial look at the overall ‘health’ of their blog is difficult.

Yet for continued blog growth and success a blogger must have consistent clarity!

You must take an account of where your blog has advanced and where it has declined—its strengths and weaknesses—and review it often.

At http://www.SecretsForMoney.info I am relentless when it comes to taking a cold, hard look at my blog so I encourage its successful growth. Sometimes my strategy has to change and I have to re-prioritize my action steps several times during each day, depending on what has been working and what has not during a specific timeline.

And no, that doesn’t come easy, it is tough-love.

So, I have a game to share with you that will make your time of it easier and more fun! It is a tool that life-coaches give to their clients when the client needs to gain perspective in a specific area of his/her life.

I have used this game very successfully with bloggers. You too will be surprised by the variety of answers you will come up with, and after all, bloggers are typically extremely creative.

Many of the bloggers felt it was as if they had looked into a crystal ball and were given a glimpse of their past and present, and a prediction for the future of their blog.

Try this game that will give you a neutral and accurate analysis of your blog, so you know what your next strategic action steps should be to grow your blog more efficiently and faster.

Take a leap of faith—this game is an analytical tool that works!

Here we go: Picture your blog as a rose garden and you are the gardener of this garden.

1. What does your rose garden look like?
2. What are you doing or experiencing as the Gardener?

Depending on what you answered to these important questions, I will then give you some strategies to grow your blog during nature’s seasons.

Do not read further until you type or jot down what specific images you got in your minds-eye when you answered these two questions above.

Let yourself have a stream of consciousness, do not edit your responses. Be detailed, draw a picture if you want, no one sees your answers or picture but you.

Remember, all the flowers of tomorrow are in the seeds of yesterday.

Now, you can read on—

(1) What does your rose garden look like?

If you answered this question with any of these following answers:

• There are not many rose plants in my garden.
• There are rose plants, but they are not very tall or full with roses.
• The rose plants are withering and/or drooping.
• There are rose plants but not many rose blossoms on them.
• There are rose plants with blossoms, but the blossoms are tightly-closed none of them are open.
• Some of the rose plants look diseased.
• My rose garden seems to be too much in the shade/too much in the sun so it isn’t growing well.

Then my advice to grow your blog is:

It is time to break new ground!

In general, your blog is not growing now.

Cultivate your blog so that it flourishes.

Here are some ways to grow your blog that when done consistently over time yield successful results.

Stats: First you must know what you have planted and monitor its growth. In other words, on a daily basis review your blog/site stats.

The stats reveal to you what steps you must take—what is working to gain interest for your blog from visitors and what traffic and stickiness does your blog have—and what is not working — what you need to work on.

The stats should show you:

• What are the top posts and pages.
• What are the most active posts.
• Who are your referrers (what links were clicked to get to your blog).
• What search engine terms did people use to get to your blog.
• What are your incoming links.
• What links people are clicking on within your blog.
• What are the total views of your blog.
• What are the number of views today of your blog.
• What is the busiest day to-date for your blog.

Content: You need to increase the amount of content you have. From your stats and comments from your visitors you can glean what people visiting your blog resonated with. Whatever that is, do more of it!

And if they are asking for topics in their comments and emails to you that are topics that are appropriate for your blog niche then write those posts too.

You can also check-out the subject of your blog and your blog posts against the “2008 Google Zeitgeist” http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2008/ to read about the highlights of Google searches from around the world, which sheds light on emerging trends and much more.

In addition, “Google Trends” http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends tells you what keywords people are searching for on a daily basis.

Promotion: To increase traffic to your blog I am going to share some steps that for the front-end amount of time you have to put in, the back-end results are very good and effective. Please know that these are just a few, always be on the lookout for way to promote your blog and keep a running list so that you stay accountable for improving your blog’s visibility.

(a) Distribute online videos to multiple sites. Be certain that your Blog name and URL is in the accompanying text description and in the video too of course. I have heard very good feedback on the free service “TubeMogul” http://www.tubemogul.com though at the time of this article pub date I have not personally used it yet.

(b) Submit some of your articles to “Article Directories”, also called “Article Banks.” If you Google the term you will find lists of such sites. There is even software available nowadays that you can use that help in the submission process. Do some due diligence before buying any software first though, you may decide to do it manually.

(c) Look for automatic ways for promotion that work while you sleep. One example is creating a page for your and your blog on “Facebook” http://www.Facebook.com and import your blog posts as notes. You will see the “how-to” behind this once you are a Facebook member.

(2) What are you doing or experiencing as the Gardener?

If you answered this question with any of these following answers:

• When I walk through my rose garden, it seems that there are thorns everywhere.
• When I walk through my rose garden, all I see are weeds, they appear to be strangling my roses.
• Too many leaves are falling of the rose plants, I don’t know what is wrong.
• The roses are growing so quickly I can’t keep up with their care.
• The weather forecast looks bad for my rose garden.
• I work the soil of my rose garden all the time and take great care of my roses constantly.
• I don’t know what variety of roses to grow, or what colors.
• I am not sure how much to water my rose garden.
• I am not sure how much sunshine my rose garden needs.
• I am unhappy with how my garden looks. Maybe it needs more variety of rose plants, or more colorful rose plants.

Then my advice to grow your blog is:

Be land-rich not poor as dirt!

Overall, you are probably a little overwhelmed with the demands and upkeep of running a blog. If your blog is monetized, then you have a business. And grooming a business for success is no easy task.

As the saying goes, you are digging yourself into a hole. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist the turn-of-phrase).

You need to take a pause, a breather—not only to re-energize your self, but also to have a chance to re-evaluate the direction your blog is going.

If you are moving at warp speed there is no way you are making clear decisions, and you may be wasting a lot of time on tasks that are not top priority, that is the slow way to grow a blog, and the slow way to wealth of any type.

To that, you will probably say “I can’t even take ½ hour off today Mara—there is too much to do!”

Yes, I know, there is always so much to do with a blog, but you are now on a path to what I call a “blog-oholic” and if you continue at this pace you will have ‘burnout’ from overworking.

You must avoid this! Achieving work-balance is tough especially in this creative, and ever-changing field.

Here are some pointers to keep your sanity, avoid stress and have fun and success while you grow your blog successfully:

• Systemize: Create systems for as much as possible to reduce your workload. At http://www.SecretsForMoney.info I try to implement as many automated systems as possible. Not just the obvious such as an Autoresponder, but also for smaller tasks. One of many examples is that I wanted all my blog titles to be in green colored ink. Now that facet is automated. This saves countless hours for the infinite lifespan of my blog, I don’t have to type in color code for each blog post title. Maybe doing this manually only takes 1 minute, but if you multiply that by the number of posts…I just saved a tremendous amount of my precious time. And my time cannot be replaced.
• Partner: You may feel married to your blog, but you can also partner with other bloggers so that you are not the only Author on your site/blog. This will create more time for you, not to mention open-up more opportunities.
• Prioritize: Label your tasks, but only a few realistic tasks per day, so that you always feel that you accomplished something. Then bask in the victory of that.
• Gain Perspective: Listen to your own “pace”—schedule what days and which hours you will work, do so in smaller chunks of time. Such as Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 2 hours each day to just write posts. Then schedule time for blog maintenance, administration etc.

But make sure to also schedule relaxing time to do what else you love to do, such as a power walk outside or a jog to clear your mind, rejuvenate and gain perspective.

It is a fact that the more relaxed a person is the more creative and productive they can be, and of course happier.

Cultivate the garden within my friends.

So there you have it blog-gardeners, you have already put down the roots, now it is time for you to bloom too!

Happy planting!

Copyright © 2009 by Mara Rogers of http://www.SecretsForMoney.info

Mara Rogers is the Founder of http://www.SecretsForMoney.info where your capacity for all the wealth currencies: money, time, health, and love is increased through Secret For Money’s personal development and financial articles. Subscribe to the free Secrets For Money blog at http://www.SecretsForMoney.info

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BEST NON-FICTION FILM
1. Man on Wire, directed by James Marsh (55)
2. Trouble the Water (34)
3. Encounters at the End of the World (26)

BEST DIRECTOR
1. Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky (36)
2. Gus Van Sant, Milk & Paranoid Park (20)
3. Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire (16)

BEST ACTOR
1. Sean Penn, Milk (87)
2. Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler (40)
3. Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino (38)

BEST ACTRESS
1. Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky (65)
2. Melissa Leo, Frozen River (33)
3. Michelle Williams, Wendy and Lucy (31)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
1. Eddie Marsan, Happy-Go-Lucky (41)
2. Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight (35)
3. Josh Brolin, Milk (29)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
1. Hanna Schygulla, The Edge of Heaven (29)
2. Viola Davis, Doubt (29, on fewer ballots)
3. Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona (24)

BEST SCREENPLAY
1. Happy-Go-Lucky, by Mike Leigh (29)
2. A Christmas Tale (24)
3. Synecdoche, New York (17)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
1. Slumdog Millionaire, Anthony Dod Mantle (29)
2. The Flight of the Red Balloon (22)
3. The Dark Knight (18)
4. Still Life

BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM
1. Razzle Dazzle, directed by Ken Jacobs

It’s based on the BBC mini-series of the same title, a team of investigative reporters work alongside a police detective to try to solve the murder of a congressman’s mistress.

State of Play is a crime drama movie (production of Universal Pictures) directed by Kevin Macdonald, starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, and Helen Mirren
Release Date: 2009-04-17

Immortally Yours is a romance horror movie (production of Hollywood Motion Picture Consortium) directed by Joe Tornatore
Release Date: 2009-01-06 (video premiere)

This question hit my inbox earlier today and I thought I’d repost part of my reply here as I think it could be relevant to more than the blogger concerned. Here’s most of my response (I’ve removed reference to the blog concerned as I don’t have permission from the blogger to identify it):

Congratulations on the success you’ve had with your blog. It is great that you’ve hung in there for two years now with the blog and grown it as much as you have. It sounds like you’ve worked hard to find your voice, build a core community and establish some profile and credibility in your niche.

One thought that came to mind regarding your question was that perhaps you need to widen your sites a little. While it does seem that you’re the number 1 blog in your niche (I can’t find any on your topic on Technorati with a ranking as high as yours) you are certainly not the number 1 site on the internet on your topic.

Many bloggers only see their competition as other blogs on their topic and in doing so ignore other types of websites in their niche. For example when I search on Google for your topic I find 3 forums, one social media site and a couple of other static/informational websites that not only rank higher in Google for your keywords but which seem to do significantly more traffic than your blog (according to Alexa and Compete’s stats).

I don’t say this to discourage you but in the hope that in widening your sites about your ‘competition’ that you’ll be driven on to think bigger and improve your blog.

Some practical words of advice for you are to see what opportunities there are to interact in these other websites in your niche. I know you are active in commenting on and networking with other blogs in your niche but what about getting involved in the forums, contacting the other website owners and getting active in the social networking site?

You’ve grown your blog to the point you have partly by the networking and promotion you’ve done within the blogging community - but think broader and you might just find yourself not only being the number 1 blog on your topic but being the number 1 website of all types.

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Source: http://www.teamworld.it/thehorsemen/

Everyday it seems like I find a story or two from a cities local online newspaper which delves into the topic of blogging and what it’s all about. The story usually goes through a mini backlog of history surrounding the term, what blogging is and at the end of the article, there is usually a list of suggestions on how to get started with the most popular suggestion being WordPress.com. Using WordPress.com is a great way to introduce yourself to blogging but if you decide that you want to turn blogging into a full time job or just want more control over your work, you’ll need to move.

Thankfully, the move from WordPress.com to WordPress.org (WordPress.org being the self hosted version of WordPress) is painless thanks in large part to a great export tool.

To start things off, login to your WordPress.com account and browse to your administration panel. From the menu on the left, click on TOOLS - EXPORT. At this point, you have the option to confine the export to a particular author or all authors. Using the export tool will compile your posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, and tags. This information is placed into a WXR file or, WordPress eXtended RSS file. Essentially, this file is just a normal XML RSS based file with a couple of custom fields added to it which makes it specific to WordPress. Once you’re finished, click on the Download Export File button and save it to your desktop.

Once you have that file on your desktop, you can breath a little easier considering your half way through the content migration process.

The second part of this guide refers to an installation of WordPress 2.7. Login to your self installed WordPress administration panel and from the menu on the left click on TOOLS - IMPORT. From the list of blogging systems click on WordPress. Next, click on the Browse button and locate the XML file you downloaded earlier. This will upload the XML file into your WordPress installation and will unpack all of the data the file contains. There is one caveat though regarding this entire technique.

Most webhosts for whatever reason still have their PHP.ini configured in such a way where end users can only upload files with a maximum file size of 2MB or smaller. Although it takes quite a bit of content in an WXR file to go over 2MB, 2MB is not a lot of head room. If you find yourself in the position where your WXR file is larger than the maximum file size, I highly suggest submitting a trouble ticket to your webhost and asking them to increase the limit. If they choose not to, then ask them if they can import the file for you. If that doesn’t work, you can pull a trick from your sleeve by uploading a custom php.ini file to your webhosting accounts root folder. This is what my host did for me and afterwards, I took a look at the php.ini file and noticed it had this line in it:

; Maximum allowed size for uploaded files.
upload_max_filesize = 7M

Apparently, the php.ini file overwrote the settings on the original file and I was able to bump my limit up to 7 Megabytes. This trick is not guaranteed to work. As a last ditch effort, you can also try adding these lines to your .htaccess file. Just replace the pound sign with a number that is above the size of your WXR file.

#set max upload file size
php_value upload_max_filesize #M

#set max post size
php_value post_max_size #M

Once the WXR file is unpacked on your self installed version of WordPress, you’re ready to walk through the gates of freedom without skipping a beat!

P.S. This strategy also works for those wanting to go from WordPress.org to WordPress.com.

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