Blogging Video Tips
Do You Need To Hire Somebody To Set Up Your Blog? [#8]
In this Flip Tip, I am answering a reader question submitted by Alex Miller. The question is:
I have no web design experience, do I need to hire a firm to create a blog for me? I want it to be professional looking.
The long answer is in the video. The short answer is: No. You can install Wordpress yourself and use a freely available Wordpress theme.
Long term, you’re going to want to customize a theme for your site. The most memorable blogs have a custom design. But, new bloggers need to cross one bridge at a time. Don’t get ahead of yourself with hiring designers when you don’t even have that many readers yet. Ultimately, it is your content which is more important than your blog’s design.
Blogging Means Actual Writing. Duh! [#7]
If you want to actually have your blog grow, you need to write for it. And you need to write often.
I target a once daily post on this particular blog. Over on PCMech.com, we post 4-5 times per day.
How you structure your schedule is up to you. In my case, I usually sit down and write multiple posts in a single day. So, for example, I may sit down on a Sunday or a Monday and make it my mission to queue up enough posts on my blog to get through the week. This doesn’t necessarily mean quotas or that it is quantity over quality. All it means is that I am making the most of my time through the use of batching. For a few hours, I put my entire thought process into content creation “mode”. And I can produce much faster that way.
However you choose to do it, make a point to schedule in time to write for your blog.
How Money Is REALLY Made With Your Blog? [#6]
Most new bloggers who have desires to make money doing it think of doing it as follows:
Write a lot, attract readers, make money through ads.
This approach inevitably leads to frustration because it takes SO LONG. You need a LOT of traffic to make decent money through ads and the simple reality is that it takes awhile to do that unless you have something else to leverage in the beginning.
The way to a REAL full-time income with your blog is SELLING. In this video, I explain my position.
Ask Dave a Question [#5]
In this video, my primary point is this: Send me Your Questions.
This is my fifth problogger flip tip. I just started these videos this week, but I intend to continue doing them. While I will continue to do topics of my own choosing, I want to open up the lines to you – my readers.
If you have a question you’d like to ask me, send it in. Topics can include any of the following:
- Building up your blog
- Social Media
- Making Money as a blogger
- Making money online – in general
- Online Marketing
- WHATEVER!
And here’s the deal… send me your question. Include your name and your website URL. If I use your question and answer it on David Risley dot com, I will credit you and link to your website while answering your question.
BTW, what do you think of our little intro? We’re still working on it. It might look a little different in coming videos. We’re playing around with ideas. 
How To Look at the Popular 2008 Search Terms [#4]
Every year, the major search engines issue a report where they show the most popular search terms. This morning, I checked out the Yahoo Year in review as well as the Google 2008 Zeitgeist.
The Google report is a whole lot more interesting than the Yahoo one. Not only that, you can garner much more useful information in the Google report. As a provider of content and a marketer of information, I would pay attention to this report because it will give you an idea of trending topics for 2008.
Interestingly, weddings was #1 in the DIY category. I would imagine DIY is going to be hot in 2009 (it already is) because of the economy and people looking to save money. As a tech guy, I would never have thought about the wedding market. But, again, this is the kind of information you can glean from these reports when you look at it from the marketer’s eyes.
Doing LIVE Internet Video [#3]
Online video is a HOT item right now. Learn to use video correctly and you can send your online presence into the stratosphere. But, it is just as easy to do LIVE video.
Every Wednesday night at 8 PM EST, we do a live show at PCMech LIVE. It is pure geek stuff. And we use both UStream.TV and Mogulus.
Ustream, in my eyes, is a more capable package overall. They allow chat moderation in their chatroom (along with an IRC connection) and other things. Mogulus, on the other hand, leaves much to be desired in the chatroom department but they have an extremely powerful studio setup which allows you to queue up videos, transitions – everything it would take to do a live news-style broadcast online.
The point is that doing live video is easy. Connect a webcam, use WebcamMax (if Windows) or CamTwist (if OS X), and go to town. You can use it as an audience builder for your website and it is a good way to build relationships with your audience.
Why the “Flip” Tip? [Tip #2]
I have been using the Flip series of video cameras for some time. I started out with the Flip Ultra. Great camera. It is a little bigger and it runs on a couple AA batteries. Then, Pure Digital (the company behind the Flip) sent me a Flip Mino to review. Great little camera, but this one is smaller and the battery is internal.
Well, Pure Digital just sent me the Flip Mino HD. This Flip Video tip is only my second video recorded with it and, so far, I’m impressed. It is the same size as the original Mino, but this one records in 16×9, in true high-definition.
Even streaming over Vimeo, it looks pretty good. The video looks even better in “raw” format before I upload it.
I’ll have much more to say about this camera over on PCMech in the next few days.
Bloggers, I highly recommend you grab yourself a small video camcorder. My preference is the Flip, but you make your own choice. Videos are important when building your online presence. And you need the gear to do it easily.
Introduction [Flip Tip #1]
As the video states, I am going to begin doing a routine video post where I provide tips on blogging, social media, online business and basically anything you might need to know in order to become a dot com mogul. Hell, you might even find me just venting on things from time to time.
So, I’m still working out the kinks in the design of the site. As you can see, the section of the site where these videos will go is going to have a different look and feel to it. And it isn’t totally set up yet.
So, enjoy the hopefully minor hiccups with that and, before too long, I’ll get into a groove.
Lastly, if you have any questions you would like to submit to me to answer in a video, use the contact form and send me an email.
I'm David Risley. I've been making my living as a blogger for over a decade. Blogging is my business and how I support my family. With this blog, I'm just gettin' REAL and telling you how this business works. 
