I can’t believe it has been a month since I have posted one of these great interviews. For today’s interview I had the pleasure of speaking with one of the most popular personal finance bloggers- Lazy Man of Lazy Man and Money. In fact Lazy Man was a full time blogger until he went back into the work force recently. Enjoy the interview:
Me: What was your first major break as a blogger?
Lazy Man: That’s a tough one. I remember being excited about things that were silly early on. One time I got a Best Choice Blog on Brainwash Cafe – a blog that isn’t exactly lighting it up in the traffic department. It was huge to me. Another time I had an article make PF Blogs most popular list and I thought I was the coolest cat on the block. However, I think that getting nominated for Reader’s Choice as one of the Best Money Blogs of 2007 by Performancing. I finished third, which was pretty cool considering I don’t have a 10th of the readership of some of those people nominated. All that said, I’m still waiting for a huge site like the Consumerist or Lifehacker to realize I exist.
Me: What have been some of your major roadblocks on the journey to success?
Lazy Man: Every three weeks or so, I run out of ideas. I have nothing. When that happens, I try to read other people’s blogs and comment on them. Sometimes I get new ideas and often I find that I get traffic from my link in the comments. Other times, I’ve simply got too much going on to keep up with. Setting up advertising deals, dealing with public relations people sending you books all the time, writing back to commenters, it can get to be pretty time consuming.
Me: Being one of the most popular personal finance blogs out there, how would you do it all over again if you were to start today?
Lazy Man: Learning how to blog is a process. When I started, I simply got a Blogspot blog and started writing. For 6 months no one came to my site. Then I learned that there was a community of other bloggers, blogging on the same topic I did – personal finance. So if I had to do it all over again, I’d probably pick up a book about blogging. I would also follow websites about blogging.
Me: If there was one thing you could change about Lazy Man and Money what would it be?
Lazy Man: This is another tough one. I have the power to change just about everything on Lazy Man and Money. So in a lot of cases, I’ve made some of the changes that I already see fit. I realize that I simply don’t know what I have to do to take Lazy Man and Money to the next level. This is why I’m working on a reader survey. I can never get enough good feedback.
Me: Now it’s time for you to have some fun and tear my blog apart. How would you improve Studenomics?
Lazy Man: I can be extremely harsh sometimes, so I hope you can take this… I’d switch to showing 5 or more posts on your home page. I’ve never found a lot of value highlighting the comments in the sidebar either. You should also allow a way for people to sign up to get your content delivered in their email inbox (Feedburner provides this service). Honestly, that’s about all that I can see. I look at the design and it’s professional, much better than the theme I hacked together myself. The content is great and you make it very “scannable”. I would say include more pictures, but that’s something that I’m often too Lazy to do. The other thing I would suggest is just doing what you are doing, getting your name out there by commenting, getting in carnivals, doing guest posts, things like that.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Great interview with one of the more creative bloggers out there in PF blog niche. I have always enjoyed Lazy Man’s perspective on financial topics as his view often challenge normal practices. Great work to u both.
Ditto what Doctor S said. Great interview from a unique voice in the pf scene.
Hi! I’d add that you should have some info about yourself and why you started this blog on the front page. You have the right idea with the Welcome box, but it doesn’t pull us in and engage us.
One of the biggest skills you can learn as a blogger is copywriting and particularly headline writing. This will help you write that Welcome box.
If you want to see an example, you can check out my blog. Some famous marketers helped me write it.
-Erica
It’s unfortunate that Lazy Man now stoops to writing and supporting schlock on his blog just to increase his advertising revenues. He and his regular group of bloggers are currently attacking everyone that has anything to do with a particular nutritional beverage company.
Lazy Man and the others that submit their anti company posts claim that it’s simply a fact finding discussion to get to the bottom of why their product is priced the way it is in relationship to other products in the market place. After all, his blog is all about finances. Well at least once upon a time. And now it is a ‘free not for all’, but a ‘free for only his choice bloggers’. Other bloggers are continually told to stay on topic if they respond to direct personal insults and attacks from his group of protected bloggers.. And from what I have seen in the past few weeks, those that post conflicting views are either deleted or blocked. The best time to read the blog is 2 or 3am when post have not yet been removed.
This blog did not begin as a fact finding discussion. The first few posts declared that the company was a scam, the product was a scam, and so on. Lazy Man’s discussion synopsis (which has since changed), was very clear that he and his few choice bloggers are opposed to direct selling, the corporation, their charitable foundation, their studies and the product. But the attacks from those bloggers is vicious and very personal towards individuals.. I see now that Lazy Man has recently softened his synopsis at the top of the discussion page, most likely because he fears some sort of legal action from either the corporation or the independent distributors that are being attacked.
It’s truly a shame, the Lazy Man blog was once something that was worth reading, but I no longer bother to read it because of the hate mongering that goes on in this other discussion. Also, I see now that Lazy Man has started a new blog without his Lazy Man banner. I find it interesting that he would do that. What could the reason possibly be. Perhaps his revenue stream is drying up because advertisers are getting complaints and pulling their ads. I also complained to each and every advertiser personally and I make it a point of telling everyone I communicate with to do the same.
Lazy Man, you have hit an all time low and it will come back to bite you in the rear.