Anyone Hit Success With Blogging?

[AprilPM]

Hello, I am new to the forum, though I have introduced myself earlier today. I run a pretty successful blog and was wondering if there were many people on the forum that did that same. I really like running a blog, I do love to write. Would anyone like to share blogging success stories? I have found alot of success by submitting my blog feeds to various readers.

Would love to hear from you!

 

[Linda Buquet]

HI April,

Many of us here have blogs. I have the 5 star blog which is rated #1 in all the engines and www.5starblogs.com a blog directory. Please feel free to add your blog.
Shephen, Teli and Bobbie - 3 of our mods are all heavy into blogging too.

So looks like you'll fit right in!

 

[AprilPM]

Thanks Linda!
I will definitely check out the 5 Star Blogs.

 

[AprilPM]

Actually, I do have one question about blogging. I started my blog not too long ago and I was really surprised to see how quickly visitors started showing up. I put adsense on my blog, and that's where my success has been thus far. But, my blog address is rather long....as it is hosted at blogspot through blogger. I want to give it a short domain name, but am a little confused about how the search engines will see a forwarded url. I heard somewhere, I forget where, that if you submit a forwarded URL to the search engines, they won't be able to see your site because that domain isn't actually hosted anywhere. Is this true? Hopefully you will be able to shed some light on this for me.
Also, one other question....when you bloggers market your blog, do you use your blog address or a top level domain?

Thanks again!

 

[AffiliateGuild]

Google Blogging

Hi April!

Those are great questions, but a little complicated to answer. I say that because there are factors to consider ... so, I'll make some assumptions.

Since you're using Google's ads, I'm going to assume you're looking to rank on Google primarily. Not that the others don't concern you, but Google currently commands the most eyeballs.

With that said, Google recently shoock up the Internet blogging world by devaluing all the free blog sites ... except their own of course. Which is where your blog currently sits.

So, the blogs that are now ranking higher are the ones hosted by Google and the ones on their own domains. Which means that if you switch it's a 50-50 proposition.

What I do know for sure is that if you switch to a domain name, you will loose your current ranking until you show Google that you're in it for the long haul.

As for forwarding the url ... typically I would say that you'd absolutely get punished by Google for doing that. However, since it's their url you're forwarding ... it's anyone's guess. Are you a gambler?

Maybe some of the other SEO bloggers can chime in on this one too. Lots of experienced people here.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Well.... hmmm... I thought I had an answer but now I think there are a couple options. Someone else ck me out here and tell me if this is right.

If you stay on blogger hosting and get a new domain that redirects for branding purposes and to shorten the URL the SE spiders will pick up the link to shortname.com and follow it to longnameatblogspot. So they will index the content at blogspot and your domain won't get any PR or SE rankings. However it would still be better for marketing and branding.

But if you hosted the new domain you could FTP your blogspot blog to the new domain so you would have a REAL blog you own on your own domain. The downside there is unless you worked on a link campaign is you would have no inbound links and the new site would probably be sandboxed and would not be on the popular blogspot domain so your traffic would probably really drop. Plus you would have to pay for hosting. But ultimately long term if this is an important blog it's really best to have it on your own domain.

What do you guys say???

(Edited to add Bobbie we answered at the same time )

 

[AffiliateGuild]

I'd keep the Google blog, whilst (like that? I'm feeling English today! ) starting my domainblog.com. I'd do a little programming to pull the RSS from the Google blog over to the domain.

You know all about that one Linda! Did someone say MarketingBuzz?!

Then, yuppers ... I'd put on my SEO hat and get to working on some relevant backlinks for the domainblog.com.

I'd also post some unique content on the domainblog.com so there were no issues with duplicate content.

I'd run them both! This is what I'm doing on the Affiliate Guild Blog these days. Does that help?

 

[AprilPM]

Thank you so much for all the helpful information everyone.

 

[Teli]

I'm a bit late to the discussion (welcome April, glad to have you), but thought I'd throw my few pence in.

Linda already mentioned that I'm also heavy into blogging and she's right. My main focus is blogs/blogging and, I must say, I'm enjoying it.

To answer your question in the subject line, yes. One of my blogs actually surprised me in how it's perceived and embraced by the readers - so much so I'm considering launching a forum to accompany it.

Dealing with my various blogs also inspired me to slowly convert some of my web design business into a blog design and consulting business. It's a great joy helping someone achieve her goals through blogging and teaching her something new.

[wildtangent]Sometimes we become so used to what we do everyday that we forget about how exciting it really is. My consulting clients are so amazed and passionate that it helps to re-inspire me with my own personal projects. Often, I end up emotionally invested in their blogs as though they were my own. [/wildtangent]

Now, let's see if I can help out with your second question -- moving a blogger blog to a dedicated domain.

From my experiences, Blogger doesn't offer many options in redirecting a Blogger blog. The ideal redirect (301: Permanent) really isn't an option because Blogger doesn't support PHP or mod_rewrite. The best you could get away with would be a meta redirect and many bots consider this to be a 302 (Temporary) redirect. (Basically, it tells the bots that the move is only temporary and at some later date, the website may be put back up at the original location. Not ideal if you're moving your site to a completely new domain.)

Blogger does offer domain mapping where you can still publish and manage your blog from the Blogger admin panel, but the URL appears to be your own domain name. You'd also need your own hosting account with FTP in order for domain mapping to work because Blogger would rebuild the pages to this new site.

This is an option, however, if you republish every entry from your blogger blog to the new domain and delete the entries from the Blogger blog, there's no way for the search engines to know you've moved. The entries would all throw up 404 errors instead of a 301 redirect. Again, not ideal.

Best bet, if you've already built up a loyal following, would be to start the new domain name as a new blog and market it simultaneously as you get your readers converted over to the new blog for future updates. It's actually what Lynn Terry ended up doing when she moved from Blogger to WordPress on her own domain name.

She continues to receive a lot of search engine traffic to her Blogger blog, so she added AdSense to monetize it, and posts sporadically about what's going on at her new blog to get people interested enough to visit. This route seems to have worked well for her; the new domain has overtaken her Blogger blog when you search for her name in Google. (Note: she didn't import any of her previous blogger posts. She basically started from scratch at the new blog and just left her Blogger blog up as is with links everywhere leading to the new blog.)

The real key is simply to get your readers up to speed and have them help you spread the word by updating their bookmarks, updating their readership (if they sent out any mailings about/interviews with you), and updating their feed readers. Then your next task is to get the new site listed in all the directories/websites your old Blogger blog was listed.

~ Teli

 

[fahren]

My blog originally started on blogger. Had it there for several months before I got my own domain with the same name. When I moved it, I Googled a redirect script and put that in place of the old blog. Now at the time I was too new to know what page rank was. When I found out (little over a month ago ) I noticed my new domain had a PR 4. I assume it followed me cause I can't imagine getting it so quick. Now I doubt I could replicate this, so count it as beginner's luck

 

[AprilPM]

Hey Teli and Fahren,
Thanks for your help. I think what I am going to do (for now) is just keep my blogspot address and when I create my website link my blog to my website. I don't think I am going to mess around with redirecting and such as I am so new to all this still.
Thanks again!

 

[buzzerhut]

Everyone do make money from blogging but there are very few of us who make full time living with it.you just need to work very smartly/hardly to attain high income from blogging