What is a Blog Hop?

Mickel Andersson

The video of Steve Jobs introducing the Macintosh in 1984 never fails to put a smile on my face. It was a groundbreaking feat of engineering in many ways.

What impressed me the most is how the computer for the first time ever had a personality of its own. It spoke.

Steve Jobs introduces the Macintosh

Computers, software, and humans have come a long way since 1984.

Today's artificial voices are often indistinguishable from that of a human. In some experiments, humans even mistake computer voices for being human, and vice versa.

We can thank computer science and something called artificial neural networks for that. Thanks, science!

But what exactly are artificial neural networks, you might wonder? I'm glad you asked!

Perhaps you have heard about neurons before? They are often mentioned when talking about the human brain. 

A neuron, or nerve cell, on its own, is pretty useless to be honest. It's when you get a large enough set of connected neurons that the magic happens.

Networks of neurons in your brain are what make you tick. In computer lingo, it's how your brain processes things.

 neural networks are an attempt to model this biological behavior with the help of mathematics.

The applications for neural network models are many:

When you speak to your phone's virtual assistant, Siri; neural model.

When you aim your camera at someone with a funny filter applied; neural model.

When you translate a foreign language using Google Translate; neural model.

Neural networks now exist in everything from your smart fridge to cars, satellites, drones and rockets.

This thought is equally exciting and terrifying, wouldn't you agree?

Here at Podopi, we use neural models to generate speech from your written website content. We can repurpose your content and launch a podcast in minutes.

Work that would have taken a human many days to complete.

We go to extreme lengths along the way to keep the audio quality as good as it can be. Only to sound as human as possible.

Just imagine setting up recording equipment, doing multiple takes to get everything right, editing the audio, exporting to the correct formats, uploading the audio files to the Internet, and distributing the episodes to all the 

We do all that for you. In minutes, not weeks or days.

Last week we extended our library of A.I. voices by 354. The update brought support for 43 new languages.

In total, we now give you the option to publish your content as audio with one of our 606 voices in 79 languages.

I know what you think. It's still computers, they must sound bad?

No! Neural networks, remember? Let's hear a couple of examples.

All but one of the audio clips on this page are computer generated.

Are you able to identify the human recording?

Jenny

Wyatt

This voice is modelled after a female child.

Libby

Christopher

Natasha

Did I mention that we speak 80-ish languages and 134 dialects?

Here is an example of one of our female German voices.

Katja

Given that the application of using neural network models to generate speech is fairly new, I think we can expect great advancements in the near future.

It's quite exciting to compare the Steve Jobs video from 1984 with the voices we can provide today. It really speaks (pun intended) of the immense progress of computer-generated speech in the past few decades.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention: none of the voices in this post were recorded by a human. They're all computer-generated.

Now imagine another 38 years of progress.

The Era of Neural Network Speech Synthesis

Dan Trim

If you’re reading this then you’re likely to want to do things properly and avoid mistakes from amateur blogs in an effort to speed up the results.

Good on you! No need to repeat the same mistakes as everyone else.

It’s very easy to do something wrong when you first start though, so give yourself a break because no one is perfect at the beginning. Far from it.

Amateur blogging can turn into professional blogging if you read through all of these.

Before we get into the meat of it, here are three quick mistakes in video format from Lisa at Farmhouse on Boone.

3 quick mistakes

Taking it seriously is the first thing to do—it can’t flourish if it’s always just a hobby.

If you’re tight for time and this has to be on the side initially, then that’s fine, but still take it seriously and plan everything out.

There are a few questions you need to ask yourself when planning the blog, and most jump straight in without writing these down.

You can if you want to, but planning will enable you to go further, faster. Who doesn’t want that?

In the video below, Allison walks through 6 key steps to creating your plan.

6 key steps to creating your plan

What am I creating?
This will focus the mind to really nail down the specifics on what it should be about without the fluff.

Who exactly am I teaching?
Think about the ideal reader(s) to hone the topics and be more relevant. How old are they? What do they do? What do they enjoy?

What exactly am I teaching them?
Get more specific and think about the types of content you’ll be writing. What subjects come to mind?

How am I teaching them?
What format will you be writing them in? Think about more than just a blog post. E.g. videos, email sequence, downloadable guide, etc.

Where will they find this information?
Your website, email list, social media (only specific ones to begin with?), etc. Pro tip: take a look around the web and see where they already hang out. You may find that a lot of them are on Reddit, for example, so if you’re not there then you’ll miss out.

How will this financially support me?
Think of ways in which you could earn from your content. Will you take them to products with an affiliate link? Will you rely on advertising? Maybe you don’t want to do any of them until you’re popular enough for brands to reach out with influencer/partnership deals.

Also, make a note of bills to ensure that you’re not overspending, and set deadlines to keep yourself honest.

Writing down your goals for this business venture will allow you to stay focused and make sure that you’re on the right track.

Make a note of goals for 1 year and 5 years. Allison recommends filling in those for 5 years first to make it easier for 1 year.

Firstly, we are not lawyers, so If you want to be safe then hiring a professional will be the way to go. Until then, there are a few things you can do yourself.

 will help you to generate the necessary pages for your site.

You may not have looked at one yourself, but it does give visitors peace of mind knowing that you care about their privacy.

This has been a hot topic in recent years, so it’s worth taking seriously.

A Privacy Policy tells visitors how their data will be used.

You may not personally know how you’re going to use it, or in fact that you’re collecting it at all, but 99% of websites do.

For example, if you have ever used Google Analytics, then they collect data to give you the important statistics you need to make decisions.

 allows you to generate a Privacy Policy to smooth out this tedious process for you.

These are particularly important for subjects regarding health, money, or legal.

Just like the beginning of this section explaining that we are not lawyers. It’s important for visitors to know that they should continue to research the subject and not take your word for it.

This legally sets out the restrictions they are abiding by when they use your website—you don’t want anyone to use or sell your content without permission!

It also states what you will do if these terms are breached.

Not long ago, no one knew there could be a digital version of something you eat. Now, everyone has been slapped in the face with cookie notices when visiting most websites.

This is particularly easy now with many WordPress Plugins available to handle it for you. 

Blogging can be fun, sure, but let’s face it, you’re doing this for fame and fortune. Therefore, not knowing how to earn from it is one of the biggest mistakes of amateur blogs.

There are a few ways to earn, so it all depends on what you prefer and what’s right for the blog.

This is the easiest way, and it used to be the most popular, but do you really want ugly ads among your own content?

Sure, they pay well, but only when you have a lot of visitors. If you don’t, then you’re jeopardising the experience for pennies—a small percentage will click the ads, so you’ll need large numbers of visitors to make this pay.

If you’re looking for the quickest way to start earning though, this is for you.

Potential: Reasonably large (eventually)
Speed: Slow

If you stick with it, brands will come to you and offer free products or they’ll pay for you to write about one of their products.

Alternatively, you can reach out to see if they’d be interested instead of waiting.

Either way, you’ll need a few thousand monthly visitors for it to be worth their time.

You’ll also want to make sure that you only accept products that fit the niche of your site.

This will be more engaging for your audience and they’ll be more likely to purchase the product, which in turn means the brand will want to spend more money with you.

You’ll want a Media Kit to look professional when speaking to these brands. If you want to do it yourself, then 

 may be the best route, otherwise, there are some great designers on 

You’re likely to talk about someone else’s product or service quite often. So, why not earn a living from the visitors you send their way?

When you link to a website, they may have an ‘affiliate program’ where they’ll provide a unique link to use and when your visitors click it and purchase, you’ll automatically earn a percentage.

. You can go looking for products instead of waiting to be contacted.

Potential: Reasonably Large
Speed: Medium

This is a very popular way to earn from your website as the product is completely unique.

What are these digital products? Well, you could write an ebook with 

, or create a template for people to use in Google 

Sure, the information can be found for anyone if they take the time to Google it. However, most won’t.

So, many of those who come across your offering won’t have seen one before, so they’re more likely to consider a product that they assume they can’t get anywhere else.

When you become more confident with writing for your own blog, do it for other people who can’t do it very well or just don’t have time.

 and start selling your services. It’s quick and easy to set up, then you can just wait for people to contact you.

If you’re very confident about a particular subject, then why not coach others who are interested in learning more or simply improving themselves?

 will help you to get started and provide you with a platform to schedule meetings.

This is something that everyone struggles with at the beginning, and not just through blogging.

Most amateur bloggers write about what they feel like at the time and then when they don’t see the results they were expecting, they give up.

It takes a long time and a lot of hard work to get anywhere with blogging, but when you do start to see some good results, it’ll spur you on. That’s why it’s important to be patient and plan everything out.

However, in order to wait it out, you'll need a subject that you’re very passionate about. Otherwise, you won’t make it through the tough times.

How Long Does it Take to Start Earning From a Blog?

This really depends on how much effort you’re able to put into it.

If you’re working on it every day, and you keep learning, then it should take around 12 months.

That doesn’t mean you won’t earn anything at all in those 12 months though—you can start earning small amounts, building it up gradually more and more.

Social media and Google are unlikely to promote your content to many people at all until you’ve proven that your content is worthwhile. This is why it takes so long and why you really need to be patient.

This is another big mistake amateur bloggers make, as there’s no point writing at all if no one is going to read it.

Most bloggers think that their content isn’t worth anyone’s time, so they don’t promote it and assume they’ll do it properly once they think it’s good enough.

And even if it isn’t, amateur bloggers need the practice when it comes to promotion—using the right hashtags is not as easy as everyone thinks, and very few people realise that their content can be repurposed.

Guest posting on other related sites is also very important as you’re tapping into someone else’s audience for free!

40 Worst Mistakes From Amateur Blogs

In this video, Nakisha runs through ten ways in which she makes money from her blog, covering affiliate links, partnering with brands, and much more.

10 Ways I Make Money Blogging


Concentrating on the reader and creating great content caught the eye of big brands who paid her to advertise their products.


Choosing specific, related products from a variety of sites allowed her to earn a sizable amount when a visitor clicks one of these unique links.


Videos are more engaging than text, so make sure you create them for YouTube to take advantage of their ads. When someone watches one of your videos and clicks on an ad that YouTube automatically places in the video, you're paid.


Convert your blog into an ebook for any easy new income stream. You can also automatically convert it into a podcast and videos for YouTube with us, 


Nakisha was constantly being asked for help so she created a course on her website where people could watch how-to videos for a small monthly fee.


If you consider yourself to be very knowledgeable on your niche, then definitely look for events where you can be a speaker. Trust is automatically given because of the obvious authority on a subject—not just anybody can walk up onto the stage—and because of this, word spreads easily about you and your website. Not to mention you'll be paid for your time.


Because she saw the need to help people with their own blog, Nakisha eventually opened up 1-on-1 coaching for a larger amount than the courses.


If you're just starting out, sign up to freelance sites like 

 to help others with their blog content. Not only can you expand your skills to improve your own blog, but you'll also get paid for it.


Design and sell your own products to control the markup on items that fans will buy from you. No, you won't have any to begin with, but once you start to make a name for yourself you certainly will. It works particularly well if you have a slogan or know of important phrases in your niche, rather than your name or face.


A production company approached her to consult on their script of a single mother. So, you too may see emails like this eventually.

There are many ways to monitise your blog—even more than in this list—but these are the most popular ways to earn. Will you try any of them?

 to automatically convert your blog into videos for YouTube and a podcast.

What is a Blog Hop?

The Era of Neural Network Speech Synthesis

40 Worst Mistakes From Amateur Blogs

10 Ways to Make Money Blogging