Have you been blogging for some time now? Are there things that you wish others had told you earlier? Do you feel like you have a lot to “give back” to new bloggers, but you just don’t know how? Well, this challenge may be for you. In a way, it’s for the beginner bloggers. The purpose is to take expertise of bloggers who have been around the block a few times and provide quick information about everything you need to know to be a successful blogger.
While I could provide my experience (and will), the odds are that it would not be sufficient for explaining everything that a new blogger would want or need to know. That is why I am issuing this challenge: the Beginner Blogger Challenge. It all started here at Passive Income to Retire.
What is the Beginner Blogger Challenge?
The Beginner Blogger Challenge is an invitation for those who have been blogging for some time now and want to participate. The invitation is for you to respond to some basic questions about your first months blogging – essentially telling your readers about your time as a beginner blogger. I’m hoping this will give practical advice to new bloggers, while also exposing some misconceptions about being a blogger.
How Do You Join the Challenge?
It’s quite simple to join the fun. All you have to do to join the challenge is publish a post on your blog before March 27, 2012 (1 month after this post was first published) and follow the regulations listed below:
- Link back to this post so that other bloggers reading your post can find the regulations and join in on the fun!
- In addition to sharing generally about your first few months as a blogger, answer these 4 questions (to the best of your ability – any order is fine):
- How long have you been blogging?
- Why did you start blogging?
- How long did it take you to earn $100 (if you have already earned $100)
- What is (at least) one thing you wish someone had told you before you started blogging?
Lastly, make sure that the post is your own. Make it personal and tell us your honest opinion. Also, be sure to comment on this post with a link once your post is live (so that I know it exists and can include you in the summary post).
Why Would You Want to Participate?
Other than the genuine desire to help others, there are many other benefits for joining in on the challenge:
- It’s Fun - Let’s face it, who doesn’t like an interesting challenge. You get to see how your experience compares to all of the other challengers.
- Featured in a Summary Post: I will be taking the question about the one thing you wish someone had told you before you started blogging and post it with a link back to your site on March 31, 2012. Who doesn’t like to be recognized, right?
- Easy Post Topic: Let’s face it – we all run out of topics every once in a while. This is a chance to have something easy and fun to write about. Stop trying to brainstorm what you will write about and join in on the challenge.
- Your Voice Matters: Have you ever felt like people should or shouldn’t blog? Do you have an opinion one way or the other? If so, why not use this as an opportunity to tell them what they should or should not do. They may just listen. After all, you have the experience to back up your opinion.
Beginner Blogger Challenge (Me – example)
I started blogging over 7 months ago. I can’t believe the time has flown so fast. I started out on a free wordpress site, because I was afraid of forking out the $110 for a domain and web hosting. I finally convinced myself that it was worth the risk and I haven’t regretted it since.
I started blogging like many other that I know – to provide a resource for young adults who don’t know anything about their finances. Many of my friends don’t know anything about how to save for retirement, let alone the dangers of consumer debt. I wanted a way to give them the facts without shoving it down their throats. I didn’t know why my voice mattered when I started. I honestly felt inadequate because I didn’t have, “I got out of this much debt” story, but I soon found my voice. I discovered that I can enjoy sharing my thoughts as a blogger. I started to hear from some of my close friends how they keep up with my blog and they are happy to learn new things.
In addition to making an impact on my friends, I started making money with my blog. From the time that I purchased my own domain, it took me about 2 and a half months to make $100 from blogging, or about the amount that it cost me for the first year for the domain and the web hosting. From what I have heard, this is quite fast and rare. From there, it has only grown (along with my time investment). It has become some form of an addiction, as I enjoy developing and building up a site from nothing. There isn’t a thing that I don’t like about blogging and this is part of the reason why I am considering quitting my day job to do it full time for a while.
While there is so much that I would prefer to share (that I wish I had known when I started), one thing that is on my mind as of lately is the importance of switching the permalink structure in WordPress at the beginning. By getting rid of the standard date in the url structure, you not only keep the reader from being able to see how out of date something is, but you also allow yourself the opportunity to re-publish material. So, if you want to re-publish something that is 1 year old because you have lots of new readers, you can do that easily without losing all of the links to your site. I have made this a standard for all the new sites that I have created, but I am afraid that I am stuck with my first one because I don’t want to lose all of the links going to my site.
What’s your story?
So, what are you waiting for? Join the challenge and share your experience with your readers.
Cool idea Corey. I’ll be joining this challenge! (Maybe the links will help me make my first $100 from blogging!
Great – Glad to have you join the challenge. Joining in these sorts of challenges are a great way to get exposure.
I am definitely game! Great idea!
Great! I can’t wait to see what advice you have to offer!
I am joining this challenge.
I am one of the beginner bloggers that this challenge will help so I want to read the advice, but I also have a couple things I want to tell others.
Fantastic – I think the best part of it is that everyone seems to have something valuable to offer. Can’t wait to see your post!
I’m in Corey. Not sure if I’m still considered a beginner blogger but I definitely have some school of hard knocks thoughts to share, too.
haha – Awesome! I’m glad to have you as part of the challenge. I can’t wait to read your post!
What a cool idea!
This is a great idea Corey! As a newbie, I look forward to participating and learning from the great comments.
Interesting idea. Hope it achieves all your goals for it.
Here is my humble attempt.
http://poorstudent.ca/2012/02/29/beginner-blogger-challenge/
This is a great idea! I’ll write mine this weekend and post it next week. I also wanted to minvite all the new bloggers out there to comment and share links on my my blog, http://www.economicallyhumble.com .I noticed that comments are getting a fair amount of traffic and I want to share with others. Any comments on my blog get linked out monthly when I write my blog update.
Nice to meet you all!
Great – nice to meet you as well.
My Beginner Blogger Challenge post is up for all to read (gulp):
http://www.economicallyhumble.com/2012/03/beginner-blogger-challenge.html
I’m in.
Great – happy and honored to have you join in on the fun.
I have only been blogging two months but feel I could add some input in what the most important things I learned were. I must admit, I have just changed my permalink structure now and have lost hundreds of links from commenting
I like this idea. I wish there was a huge post with great information when I started. I will definitely try to write something.
[...] over at Passive Income To Retire, issued a little challenge on February 27th, to answer four short questions. It sounded fun to me, so I’m [...]
I’ll do it! I know comparatively little about blogging but have something really cool I will share in this post that people will enjoy I think
[...] from Passive Income to Retire decided to help new bloggers. He issued a Beginner Blogger Challenge that is supposed to help beginner bloggers to navigate the world of blogging. Of course I could not [...]
This is a great idea!
The challenge is a great idea” I think I am a bit too new too join though but will definitely check the advice that comes out. Will you make a post and summarize all the tips you get out of it?
This looks like a great idea! I’m looking forward to seeing the results!
[...] from Passive Income to Retire issued a Beginning Blogger Challenge. He asked that “seasoned” bloggers share their best blogging tips to newbies. I was [...]
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I would like to be in. I wrote my posting at http://pfsuccess.com/2012/03/i-am-joining-the-beginner-blogger-challenge/
[...] article is part of the beginning blogger challenge. The overall goal of this challenge is to provide practical advice to new bloggers while exposing a [...]
Okay, I’m in.
It sounds fun.
I’m in! It was really great idea. Here is my post http://shovellicious.blogspot.com/2012/03/beginner-blogger-challenge.html and I’m waiting to read more great stories!
Post went live today: http://worksavelive.com/2012/03/begginer-blogger-challenge-qa/
Just finished my entry for the chalenge! How to start a blog that doesn’t die.
Looking forward to the summary post, this was a GREAT idea!
Chris
[...] I decided to join a challenge, yep that’s right. Master the Art of Saving is joining the Beginner Blogger Challenge and to join, I need to write a post sharing my experience in blogging. Am I a blogging expert? H*ll [...]
Post is up today at http://www.mastertheartofsaving.com/2012/03/21/jens-beginner-blogger-challenge-post/
[...] blog post is part of the Beginner Blogger Challenge over at Passive Income to [...]
What a great idea! As a newbie personal finance blogger, I’m really excited to read what the challenge participants have to say!
I can’t get my permalinks switched. When I switch it to anything other than the default, everything is screwed up. But, good luck with this great idea!!
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I’ve really been enjoying reading all of the posts. Keep them coming
[...] With A Few by Email and subscribe to my RSS feed. Thank you for visiting!This post is a part of the Beginner Blogger Challenge hosted by Passive Income To Retire. The point of it is for “experienced” bloggers to [...]
Hey Corey, my post just went live: http://knsfinancial.com/how-to-start-a-blog-my-advice-to-beginning-bloggers/
Thanks for putting this together!
My post live tomorrow, here: http://www.investitwisely.com/two-years-of-blogging-my-thoughts-and-an-ipad-3-the-new-ipad-giveaway-other-great-prizes/
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Hope I’m not too late! My post just went live:
http://www.youngprofessionalfinances.com/blogging-tip-choose-a-niche/
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Hey I’m in, hope it’s not too late. Here it is live:
http://yourmoneymentor.com/beginner-blog-challenge.html
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