I know some of the challenges I’ve seen when teaching in person is that women tend to clam up when men are around.
They feel uncomfortable asking questions for fear of looking “stupid”. This causes them to lose traction in a classroom setting and fall behind. Now they have two problems!
Are we looking for opportunities to generate exposure and revenue?
Millions of people have become “bloggers” in the last 5 years sharing everything from breaking news and personal triumphs to secret hookups, employment, technology, gossip and of course, mommy blogging.
Companies have jumped in as well hiring staff bloggers. Entire newspaper staff have been laid off or retrained to write for the web.
Women and their blogs
WordPress is a great website and blogging platform yet many women struggle with their blogs. I’ve spent time asking in depth questions to many women bloggers over the last few months at WordCamp Chicago, Blogging While Brown and BlogHer. What I’ve learned is that many women want to take their blogs to the next level but the fear of “breaking something” holds them back.
- One woman is still using the default WordPress theme after 2 years
- Another is running WordPress 2.5 (March 2008)
- One woman does not know how to add/remove widgets in the sidebar
- One writes book reviews yet doesn’t link up to the Amazon affiliate program
Now don’t get me wrong, there are women out there working their blogs
- One woman is grossing over 250k per year from advertisers on her blog
- Several receive payment for sponsored blog posts
- Another receives high-end technology equipment for review
- and many more are asked to speak at conferences, contribute to books, teach and do paid guest blogging
Blogging Frustrations
The items I heard women express were:
- Not satisfied with the design of their blog
- Lacking essential functionality like contact forms
- How to sell things on their blog
- Concerned that WordPress upgrade will “break” the blog
- Struggling with email from an ISP that is unreliable
- Unable to draw traffic for their posts
- Finding it hard to create a community on their blog
- Unable to measure how popular their blog was
How to turn this around
I mentioned a WordPress Women Bootcamp earlier this year on Twitter.
People loved the idea so now I’m asking you:
What sort of things would you like to learn in a Women only Bootcamp?
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