In late August of 2009, I was fortunate enough to be a participant in Leo Babauta and Mary Jaksch’s first A-List Blogging Bootcamp, along with several other bloggers of various levels of experience.
For those who don’t know, Leo writes the amazing Zen Habits blog as well as Mnmlist.com and Mary writes Good Life Zen and Write to Done.
I’m promoting their next Blogging Bootcamp coming up on February 13th.
Disclaimer: Yes, these are affiliate links and I do get compensated for those who sign up for the Bootcamp through these links. No, my results aren’t typical. Some folks had much better results after going thru the bootcamp, namely Jeffrey Tang at The Art of Great Things and Steven Aitchinson at Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life and Arvind Devalia at Make It Happen and Patrick Stoeckmann at Unwrap Your Mind etc. Other folks did not do as well.
I’m not good at writing sales copy, primarily because most sales pages make me ill when I read it. I’m better at just straight-up telling you how it helped me and then you guys are smart enough to make your own decision.
So, this article is for the newbie to intermediate blogger. If you’re not that person, I apologize. Maybe skip to the last paragraph for a short note about a free eBook coming out tomorrow from one of my favorite Minimalist bloggers.
So, about my Blogging Bootcamp story…
At the time (August 2009), I had to tuck away most of the knowledge I gained because my wife and I were spending all of our free time at the Hospital’s NICU where our three newborns were being cared for. Thankfully, Leo and Mary Jaksch of Good Life Zen had made the information available in Audio, Video and Article format so that I could revisit it later, ask questions on the forums and get tremendous support.
Here’s just a few of the lessons that I learned:
Focus
I had been writing a blog about the birth and development of my baby triplets and trying to write some articles about Personal Development…two widely disparate topics. Something like this might seem blatantly obvious but it wasn’t to me, the newbie blogger. So the first significant lesson I learned at the Bootcamp was to narrow the focus of my blog, but not so much that I’d run out of topics.
So when I started You, Simplified, it was with the goal of having a venue to write about Personal Development topics and crafting a life of my (and your) own choosing. The triplets related stuff stayed on the old blog, and I still occasionally update family and friends with new pictures and videos.
Design
The next important thing I learned from the Bootcamp was the importance of design. We dissected a number of sites, including may of the participants in order to learn the fundamentals of blog design. It’s important to pick a design and stick with it…and don’t waste hours every week tweaking it.
Content is King
Most of this doesn’t mean squat unless you can write some consistently great articles. You may be able to drive traffic but are they going to want to stay? We learned a great deal about what makes an article compelling, from relating personal stories, to solving problems for your readers.
Honor Your Readers
No, you don’t have to be everything to everyone. That is a recipe for failure. Just because you have a reader come in from a Search Engine and leave a comment about what you “should” be doing, doesn’t mean you should change. Be who you are, but be useful. What you’re looking for is your true fans. And once you get them to your site, make sure that you continue to be extremely useful to them.
Network
I came away from the Bootcamp with about a dozen strong blogging friends. We’ve take it upon ourselves to continue to support each other, and even have periodic Skype calls to discuss strategies that work and don’t work. We sometimes exchange guest posts and we encourage each other when we feel discouraged.
This is the part of the Bootcamp where your results rely on what you do with the material. If you do nothing, you get nothing. If you study the material but never act on it, you get nothing. Blogging is simple, but it’s not easy. It takes consistent work if you want success. You can’t work hard at it and then go away for a couple months, expecting people to still care when you get back.
The Blogosphere is the only place I know where “competitors” actually get together to help each other. Imagine McDonalds, Wendy’s, Burger King and Taco Bell all getting together to pimp each other’s Dollar Menu. It doesn’t happen, except in the Blogosphere where the true bloggers will go out of their way to help each other out.
The Pitch
So, if any of this interests you, you can click on this link:
A-List Blogging Bootcamp February 13-17th, 2010
When you click on the link, you’ll get access to Leo’s free ebook, How I Got 100,000 Subscribers in 2 Years and access to some great How To articles. The eBook is itself a great read and will provide you some tools to get started with. You will get to read how Leo got started and how he shot up the ladder to blogging fame.
You’re under no obligation to sign-up for the Bootcamp. You can simply enjoy the eBook and still make some great progress with your blog. If you want to take your blog to a much higher level then I highly recommend signing up for the Bootcamp.
And for the record, I’ll be participating this Bootcamp as a student as well.
People who know me know I rarely promote anything in my blog posts, but I honestly feel if you are a blogger and are struggling to get to the next level you will gain a tremendous amount from the Bootcamp.
A Free Minimalist Book
Monday morning, February 1st, starting at 6am EST, Everett Bogue at Far Beyond the Stars will be giving away his new eBook, The Art of Being Minimalist for free for 24 Hours. After that, there will be a charge. I was priviledged to receive an advance copy and will give it a review on the site on Tuesday.
Everett is one of my top favorite Minimalist bloggers because his articles really go above and beyond the call of duty in terms of usefulness.
I’m about halfway done it the book and what’s great about this book is that Everett doesn’t spout theory, he explains how he applies it to his own life. So, be quick tomorrow and pick up this great read for free.
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Hm, I was wondering how you seemed to have double my subscribers although we started our blogs at roughly the same time. I’ve been skeptical as to the usefulness of the Bootcamp but you may have sold me on it.