I remember how excited and nervous I was when I bought my first early bird ticket to the Problogger Conference back in March. Magdalene was only a couple of weeks old and I wasn’t sure whether the purchase was one I’d regret. But I knew that if I wanted to be serious about my blogging, I needed to go and thank goodness I followed through with my purchase because it was a very good decision!
I don’t even know where to start with my first Problogger Conference Experience and I’m sure other bloggers will be writing about their experiences on the blogosphere too about the conference. But the first day would have to be the stand out for me because I felt like the speakers were talking directly to me even though I’m a little blogger compared to the big names out there.
I loved the first session run by Darren Rowse about roadblocks that you come across when blogging. My number one roadblock would be time followed by lack of experience, money and a sense of being overwhelmed by too much to do and sure enough these were some of the biggest roadblocks other bloggers faced too.
I actually felt relieved that I wasn’t the only one facing these issues and that I wasn’t alone in my thought process of trying to overcome them. You should have felt my heart sigh with relief when Darren told us to make peace that there will always be more to do. It was like a burden lifted off my chest and it made way for new found motivation to build on my strengths and work in the areas I knew were already working well for me in building traffic and readership to my blog.
- Day 1 of my First Problogger Conference Experience
And that brings me to my next stand out speaker, Amy Porterfield, who is the guru of Facebook Marketing and taught brilliant techniques in building traffic to your Facebook page and website. You may have noticed that I updated The Plumbette’s Facebook Header and this was encouraged by Amy. I have updated my personal Facebook Page and my Styled By Bec Facebook Page too because it was so easy to do on PicMonkey. (Retro Mummy has a great blog post on how to do one for your own Facebook page).
I could write on and on about what I learned at Problogger but you can listen to what was taught by purchasing a virtual pass where you can listen to all the sessions that took place on the weekend. I didn’t want to promote the conference until I had gone and experienced it for myself. I’m so glad I have the virtual pass to go back over sessions I loved and visit the ones that I missed. The window to purchase a virtual pass is only open for a week, so you need to get in quick if you don’t want to miss out. This is the best investment if you have a blog and want to learn how to monetize it or even have a website and want to learn ways to build organic traffic to your site.
One outcome from the conference is that I’ve decided to blog once a week on my Styled by Bec website which I haven’t posted on since April 2012 because I have felt paralysed not knowing how to differentiate myself from other fashion bloggers who do it so well. But I have realized that I need to start and because fashion is my passion and plumbing is not, I’ve decided to just write and see where I go. The common theme that the speakers at the conference continually encouraged was you need to chase the passion, not the money. I’m not giving up my plumbing blog because ironically, while I don’t enjoy doing plumbing, I enjoy writing about it and will continue to entertain you with my tales.
What were the highlights for you at the Problogger Conference if you went?
