When I looked to start blogging just over 3 months ago, I tapped ‘How to Blog’ or something similar into Google (original I know), and 3 of the early results piqued my interest, and I’m glad they did. They were WordPress, Steve Pavlina and Problogger – Darren Rowse.
Between the three of them, they gave me the tools I needed to believe I could blog, and then to actually start. Darrens blog at Problogger is a wealth of information and tips, some sourced elsewhere, but most of it things he has tried or experienced himself. Darrens writing style is very conversational, and easy to read, yet always concise and conveys information in a very digestible way.
Darren started blogging in November 2002, with a simple personal blog, as many of us do. He soon started another blog on a favourite subject of his, digital photography, and as he included more reviews and news, the traffic started to climb, along with the adsense revenue. Things snowballed from there, and he now runs around 17 blogs, posting to some like Problogger daily, while others are on a lower frequency. Darren has a talent for spotting a niche and filling it, as he did with his Athens Olympics blog, where he and a friend immersed themselves in news and reviews for the duration of the Olympics, shooting to the top of Google for most games related search terms, bringing in over 2 million visitors, and the resulting adsense revenue.
The main thrust of Problogger is helping you to make money online, which is something Darren has certainly achieved. He has stated that his blog income across approximately 17 blogs is in the region of ’six figures, US dollars’. To this end, Problogger contains articles on improving your content, your writing style, how to promote your blog, both internally and externally and RSS feeds. Darren also features various monetizing schemes such as Adsense, Chitaka mini malls and others. He relates his experiences with them, and how you can best integrate them into your blog.
Should you read Problogger? If you want to make any kind of money, then unequivocally, yes. Even if you don’t, you could learn a lot to help improve your blogging.
Darren is 35, and Australian (though I won’t hold that against him) and lives in Melbourne.
Further Reading:
An Interview with Darren from Buzzmarketingwithblogs.com
3 users commented in " Darren Rowse – Problogger "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackWent to Problogger. Useful blog. Thanks for the tip.
Interesting info about his olympics blog. I wasn’t aware of that one.
I didn’t know he had 17 blogs! Aims for 25 posts a day, incredible. He can certainly spot a niche and exploit it: it’s got me thinking….
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