Michael was so kind enough to respond immediately to my email request for an interview. Below is the inspiring interview:
Jane: How did all this start for you? What was your motivation, and did someone inspire you? (People can read from your ‘About‘ page, but a little more insight will help 
)
Jane: How do you think the blogosphere has changed since the time you started blogging?
Michael: It’s grown up a lot since then. It’s lost a lot of its innocence. The blogosphere has a commercial side to it, now, which is great because it has become a way for people earn money doing what they love. But there is a dark side: splogs and blog hacking.
Jane: What are the common mistakes, you think, bloggers are making today?
Michael: The same ones they were making yesterday. Not really knowing what the focus of the blog is, choosing a topic everyone else is doing but not differentiating, not knowing who (the audience) they serve. Starting on Blogger. Trying to make a pittance with AdSense. Terrible writing.
Jane: Is blogging good or bad?
Michael: Neither. Blogging is what you make of it. It can be good or bad for the blogger personally, and blogs can be good or bad for others to read or encounter. Let’s say for example a member of a racial hate group starts a blog. Is blogging bad for that person? Not really. Is that person’s blog bad for other people?
Not necessarily: people who have not been exposed to hateful, racial thinking will now have their horizons broadened if they see the blog. The blogger might have a hard time defending his racial beliefs against the rest of the world, and maybe that’s not a bad thing at all!
Now let’s say a person creates a blog simply because he thinks it will make him money. He chooses a profitable topic instead of a topic he’s passionate about. Now this blog is like a heavy stone he must shoulder, and it will only get worse as time passes. His lack of passion means he will likely not make good money with such a blog. To me, that’s a true example of “bad” blogging.
Jane: How important is online socializing to a blogger?
Michael: Without both online and real life socializing, a blog is dead. Content does not exist in a vacuum: there is a person behind it, and real people read it and are affected by it. One of the defining characteristics of a blog is this interaction between the author and the readers via comments and social media.
Jane: How important is ‘planning’ to a blogger?
Michael: I treat my blog as a business, and like any business, planning is vital. If I don’t where I’m going, how do I know what I should be doing right now? Having goals means I can create a route between where I am and where I want to be, and then follow that route. Planning (and faithfully carrying out that plan) will increase your chances of success greatly.
Jane: What are your future plans, regarding the blogging business?
Michael: I want to continue to help as many business owners as I can market their business with a blog. To that end, I’m creating training programs to be released this year, along with a few individual ebooks.
Jane: A short tip (if there is one, otherwise long is fine too) to become a blogging guru?
Michael: You don’t want to be a blogging guru. You want to be the the person your market recognizes as having the answers to specific problems. Only a very few people love blogging and marketing enough for its own sake to bother with this silly “guru” business. The word originally meant “teacher,” but its over-usage in the USA has made the word more the mark of a charlatan than a true teacher.
I actually just prefer “teacher” (or consultant). That’s mostly what I do is teach in various ways. Educating a market is a great way to sell without it looking like you’re selling.Whatever it is you’re doing, devote yourself to it. Other than my hobbies and my family, this is all I ever spend time on. I ignore world events and news. I do not take in any entertainment. I spend hour after hour after learning and gaining experience in my chosen craft.
Jane: Should every blogger write (an) ebooks (ebook)?
Michael: That depends on what the blog (and the business, if there is any) is about. I would say most bloggers could write an ebook, but that doesn’t mean they should. If your blog provides instruction, then an ebook that instructs will likely be a good match. If your blog entertains, the ebook had better be entertaining.
Use the ebook as leverage to grow your audience; give it away in exchange for signing up to the blog by email. Email addresses are more important than feed subscribers: email is more intimate and personal. People buy things through email far more than they do via RSS.
Jane: Your piece of advice to bloggers?
Michael: The biggest differentiator you have is your personality and your life history. Use them to your best advantage. Combine them as stories with passion, knowledge, persistence, and imagination, and you’ll go far. If you want to increase traffic to your blog, sign up for my Blog Traffic Fisher course at http://blogtrafficfisher.com. It’s free and you’ll have more traffic in 5 days.
Article by JaneSheeba
+Jane is the founder of Problogging Success. She is an expert blogger, consultant, freelance writer and blog designer. Don't forget to get your hands on two FREE Ebooks she offers.
Jane has written 253 awesome posts for Problogging Success.
Jane Sheeba has an excellent understanding of blogging and the issues bloggers need to learn like search engine optimization and link building. Her Blogging Action Plan breaks the information into manageable sections, with in-depth explanations for bloggers who really want to get to grips with the technical issues which will help them grow their blogs. This is an impressive resource for serious bloggers.
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