April 24, 2015

Interview with Angela Alcorn (Writer & Editor) : Journey of a Professional Blogger

Never underestimate the power of a powersource "Woman". Women Power is booming on eAskme and here I am glad to introduce you with Angela Alcorn from Onlinecareerist.

Women makes world a better place. Today I am going to introduce you with one more power blogger Angela Alcorn . Interviews are the great way to know person, her struggle, life journey and achievements. It make all of us strong and also give inspiration to create our own world of happiness.

This is the 17th edition of powerful, successful and inspirational interviews in the series of Journey of a Professional Blogger, interviews on EASKME.com.
  1. Interview with Vinton Samms
  2. Interview with Shauna Mackenzie
  3. Interview with Leticia Perez
  4. Interview with Jennifer Peaslee
  5. Interview with Kari
  6. Interview with Deborah
  7. Interview with David Leonhardt
  8. Interview with Marisa Sanfilippo
  9. Interview with Sasidhar Kareti
  10. Interview with Romano
  11. Interview with Steve Counsell
  12. Interview with Alex Young
  13. Interview with Paul Manwaring
  14. Interview with Sef
  15. Interview with Maxwell Ivey
  16. Interview with Sarah Taher

Today we are going to publish interview with a professional Blogger, Angela Alcorn   (Pro-Blogger and Writer) from Onlinecareerist.


Interview with Angela Alcorn  (Writer & Editor) : Journey of a Professional Blogger
Interview with Angela Alcorn  (Writer & Editor) : Journey of a Professional Blogger : eAskme

Please share about yourself and your story to enter in blogging?  

I have been blogging for MakeUseOf.com professionally since the start of 2010, but I have been writing my personal blogs and websites (before blogs were a thing) since the mid-90s. I had studied social media and journalism, so it made perfect sense for me to find a tech blog to freelance for. It was easy to get started and my work there quickly became my primary source of income.

Now I'm an editor there and I write for all sorts of other publications too, as well as my own professional sites. It's great work and I love it, which is why I recommend it to anyone who can write intelligently on a given topic. It's also really flexible and has allowed me to live in France and have kids around my work, which you definitely can't say about most professions.

It really is the perfect job for travelers and parents of young kids, as it can be done any time of day and can be worked on in fits and starts when you've got a spare moment. I recommend it to lots of new mothers, but they don't seem to believe it's a real job. Can't blame them for being uncertain, but it really does work!

How the idea to make your own blog came in your mind? How you found the right people to develop it and what big obstacles you faced?  

I'd seen what it was like to work as part of a team for a major blog, so I knew that I knew most of what it took to run a successful blog. I just needed to come up with an idea that worked for me and build it. I tried to think of topics that I found interesting, that would help people, that had many potential products I could make or affiliate with in order to make money, and had sufficient interest from the public.

Eventually I decided to start two blogs based on my own expertise and passions: Online Careerist for remote workers online, and Write Revolution for freelance writers online. Write Revolution was always intended to be written by multiple people, so I brought on several of my freelance writing friends from the outset. With Online Careerist, I wanted it to be primarily written by me, but with occasional guests. The biggest obstacle for both blogs was getting them off the ground. There's a lot of hustling, monetizing and promoting that goes on besides the writing, and it's really hard to keep writing at the start when you know there's no-one reading yet. But you have to ignore that and think of what people will see when they eventually do read your blog. Then you can push on and write great content, and get back to promoting and monetizing. 

Can blogging really change someone`s life?

Yes, I think so. Blogging requires you to always be learning about whatever your writing about, developing your writing skills and growing as a person. But aside from that, it can bring in an income that's not related to going to a physical location each day. This means it has the potential to turn around the lives of people stuck at home: disabled, teens, and parents with kids to look after. It can also give you the freedom to travel. So, yes, as it can take you from being unable to work for a living to making a decent income: That's changing a life. 

What are your favorite Internet marketing tools? 

I love tools that make social media easier and more effective. I use IFTTT, Buffer, Tweetdeck and Hootsuite to manage my postings to Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn. I love RiteTag for showing me which hashtags were actually being used. Also, ClicktoTweet is fantastic for getting your blog readers to share ready-made Tweets. 

What is your daily schedule? and how do you maintain your tasks? 

My schedule revolves around school hours, but generally when I get started I will spend the first hour doing whatever has been bugging me and thus seems most important. Only then will I check email and start doing the regular tasks. I figure that keeps things progressing, instead of only doing what I feel like I should do. 

Blogging have different definition for different person. What is it for you? 

For some people, blogging is all about having your own site and making money from it, through adverts, affiliates or associated products and services. For others, they skip all that and go straight to freelance blogging for the bigger blogs and getting paid directly for each post. Personally, I started trying to do the former, paused all that and went freelance, then went back to running my own sites with my own income streams associated with that. Unsurprisingly, that feeds back into my freelance blogging too and gets me more opportunities through different types of blogs. In the end, these days all aspects of blogging all very much intertwined. 

Which are your favorite blogs?

I love and write for so many blogs, and the answer to this question entirely depends on the topic I want to read. At the moment I'm really loving career-focused blogs, like these:
Outside of professional development, I love to find new cool things, social media tricks, interesting stories and stuff to eat, so I love checking out these blogs:

How much time do you spend on social media promotion and SEO of your blog?  

I have set up a lot of automation for social promotion of my blogs, but even so I still need to adjust things with my automation regularly which usually takes a bit of time. I also do manual promotion and associated tasks every afternoon for an hour or so, including commenting on blogs and forums, and looking at potential freelance and guest posts I might do. 

How much time do you spend for blogging daily?  

I feel as if I never spend any time actually writing blog posts anymore (but I do) as so much of the work is in images for sharing and in doing the marketing. I guess if you add up all the writing and marketing I'm putting in a couple of hours a day.  

Message for Readers:

Don't give up on your blog before it's had a chance to grow. Even if you let the blog posts slide for a while, keep your domain name active and build up a dedicated social following by posting things relevant to your niche to each social channel. And while you build up a following and a name for yourself, write for bigger blogs and get paid for your time. You'll also learn a lot by working with a variety of editors.

It was a great interview with Angela Alcorn  from Onlinecareerist. eAskme team wish her best of luck and bright future. Her journey as a blogger is an inspiration and like she said Don`t give up on your blog. If you think that it is impossible, think again. You  have the ability to do anything and be what you want to be. So if you still waiting to start a blog, I must say you should start it right now.

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