Drew Bennett moderated the Big Money Bloggers Panel at IZEAFest in Orlando, FL. The panel consisted of financially successful bloggers including Stephanie Agresta, John Chow, Neil Patel, and Jeremy Schoemaker.
- Question: “Why did you get into blogging?”
- Stephanie Agresta: It was a natural evolution in terms of marketing and the fundamental shift of making publishing easier.
- Jeremy Schoemaker: I didn’t mean my blog to be commercial. Along the course of time, people started connecting the dots and found the sites I did have from my blog.
- Neil Patel: I didn’t think about money. I just thought about spreading the information. If I get enough people to spread this to, I essentially create a platform.
- John Chow: The reason I started blogging was to get the top of Google for “John Chow”. I talk about whatever interests me. I keep on posting and built a readership. One of the things I talk about is how to make money online. So, people told me to prove it. So I started to monetize it.
- Question: “What’s the craziest thing that’s happened?”
- JS: When a guy tattooed my logo and my face on his arm pretty prominently. My wife said that night it’s time to get a security system. The craziest thing is the power that you get for being famous, popular online. like getting credentialed for Presidential debates.
- SA: We took a bus tour from NYC to Boston with people to connect with.
- NP: Most of my followers are Indian people and a woman wrote to me and wanted to marry me.
- Question: “What’s the biggest pitfall?”
- JS: The scalability of time. I get to spend more time on my family and my businesses.
- NP: I post once a week. Now what ends up happening is that you become passionate… and then it stops becoming fun and I stopped posting. Then people would ask when are you going to post and it becomes a chore, a job.
- JC: I don’t have a job to go to.
- Question: “I have a decent enough traffic, but not enough clicks on the ads. How do I get people to click on ads?”
- JS: I place ads outside of the content as much as possible. It’s up to the company on what ad copy has worked for their companies.
- NP: Work with your advertisers to find out how best to get your message.
- SA: Stick with things that you have affinity towards and then your audience should as well.
- JC: For a general ad, above the fold.
- Question: “Supposed you had to start from scratch, how would you get back on top?”
- JC: Start the blog and just write. I blog about 2.8 posts per day. It’s the consistency that really matters.
- SA: It’s about people and I recommend going to conferences and meet people offline, not online.
- NP: Find bloggers and get them to blog about you and get them to subscribe to the RSS feed.
- JS: If I could start over, I could say some things a little bit more aggressively. There’s just so much low-hanging fruit out there.
- Question: “What did you use for your blog? How did you design them?”
- SA: I use WordPress. Content Robot runs my blog.
- JC: WordPress
- NP: I use WordPress.
- JS: I use WordPress, as well.
- Question: “What bloggers do you read?”
- JS: I enjoy reading TechCrunch.
- SA: I read TechCrunch and TechMeme. I use Twitter as a filter mechanism and look at articles they are linking to. Chris Brogan.
- NP: I don’t use RSS, I know that sounds weird. Shoe’s, John’s… they interact a lot with their commentators so there’s lots of good information there.
- Question: “What is something you wish you knew earlier?”
- JS: One is a mailing list. In my photo gallery, I’ve made it easy for people to embed photos into their own sites.
- JC: I wish I knew what RSS was when I started.
- NP: I wish I knew Digg.com. My traffic and readership went through the roof.
- SA: I wish I could track of tools to manage productivity.
- Question: “What is the one thing bloggers need to know?”
- JS: Write quality content from the heart. Write it with passion.
- SA: Patience, Hustle, Community and Content.
- JC: Be consistent and enjoy what you are writing.
- Question: “How do you differentiate yourself from someone who blogs like you?”
- JS: I blog when I can and I try to do one post a day.
- NP: Besides the brand, it’s really listening to your readers.
- SA: I wouldn’t just focus on your blog. My brand focuses on Twitter.
- Question: “What was your biggest mistake ever made as a blogger?”
- JS: One time I would post a story that was more breaking news, instead of blog post about me. It told me that I’m not a journalist.
- SA: I blew a contest for tickets to Bill Mahr. Fell asleep when I should have been at the event.
- Question: “How is Twitter impacting blogging?”
- SA: I find people blogging less. Robert Scoble is blogging less.
- JS: Twitter is awesome. People can instantly send you a message.
- NP: I use twitter as a marketing tool for my blog.
- JC: I thought it was a big chat room. Once you get enough followers, it becomes a great marketing tool.