Last week I happened to look at Alexa and PageRank for a blog that was celebrating two years of posts. I felt so bad for that blogger when I saw her Alexa rating was 6 million and something and she had no PageRank.

If you are a blogger and don’t know what those things are please keep reading because this IS important to your success.

There is no reason for any blogger to ever have to learn what to do next the hard way by trial and error because there are bloggers who help each other freely.

Not long ago there was a CommentLuv FamousBloggers blogging contest and if there was a prize for most improved blogger it would definitely have gone to gardening blogger Stephanie Suesan Smith. I want to share her story to show bloggers how much difference mentoring can make.

At the beginning of the contest, Stephanie was blogging on GoDaddy of all things. I was not even aware they had a blog platform. Stephanie quickly saw that she could not do as much with that blog as WordPress bloggers could.

Eighteen days into the contest on June 26 she moved her gardening blog to WordPress. Today, less than 3 months later,  Stephanie’s blog has a U.S. Alexa rating of 51,403 with 38 incoming links.

I have no doubt her blog will have a PageRank of at least PR2 and most likely PR3 on the next update.  Read How to Measure Blog Influence to understand why these numbers are important.

Stephanie has increased her blog from one to essentially three-blogs-in-one. Although her photography blog and woodworking blog could have been separate, I believe the way she did it will be much easier to manage and will grow her site that much faster.

I can’t resist sharing a photo from each of those blogs to give you an idea just how talented she truly is:

Image Credit Stephanie Suesan Smith

I asked Stephanie to think about what she most wanted to know – what she learned from others that got her to where she is already.  Here is what she shared:

Stephanie Smith: when I started, I was just sticking stuff on a page and putting it up on the internet, I didn’t know there were “best practices” or “bad neighborhoods” or good and bad host providers.

I was just doing the gardening thing. I saw all the stuff “mommy bloggers” were getting and veried that way, but just couldn’t stomach the unethical behavior the high profile people were engaged in, so veried away.

I do some book reviews, some product reviews, but mostly, once I figured out that some people were reallly good at this stuff, I tried to copy what they did. I entered the contest to learn. I never dreamed I would be in the top ten and find a mentor.

Yes, I took advantage of the opportunities I was offered. I was also incredibly lucky to stumble across them when I did. So hard work and luck are both important.

Now the slogging comes, where I am over that first hill of accomplishment and see the mountain range I have yet to cross. The distance between 2 and 4 is a lot bigger than the distance between 0 and 2, and the learning curve is a lot steeper and harder to climb.

Woodworking and Photo by Stephanie Suesan Smith

Stephanie is modest and doesn’t know why we “make a fuss” over what she is doing. I want everyone to clearly understand what set her apart. Every person who took part in that contest was offered the same assistance. The only one who really took me up on the offer was her.

She has not only taken her blog from obscurity on a blogging platform that would never have allowed her to become successful as a blogger. She installed WordPress herself. She migrated to the Thesis Theme herself. Everything you see on her blog she has learned to do in less than three months.

Stephanie has exhibited such an ability to be a self-starter and quickly learn new skills that she already has paid work as a blogger.

Our chats and her woodworking blog made me aware of her passion for wood which was a perfect fit for taking over primary responsibility for content and blog management for Good Millwork. She already knows and loves wood species and woodworking and they mill architectural moldings.

She can already earn money blogging and now has a source for rare and very expensive woods such as genuine mahogany and deadhead sinker cypress. They send her scraps that are perfect for her projects and she saves them time and money writing content for their blog. What an elegant solution for us all.

If you want to be a success story like Stephanie follow her lead. Join us at BloggerLuv and in Secret Blog Club. Use the CommentLuv and KeywordLuv plugins.

Don’t go the hard way of trial and error. Accept tips, advice, and guidance from experienced bloggers like eBusiness coach Dazzlin Donna Fontenot who teaches ways to make money online.

Learn Social Media for Business (and blogs ARE a business) from Kristi Hines over at Kikolani and seriously consider taking Andrew Rondeau’s Blogging Guide Course. It is so good that even Kristi and I are taking it.

If you can only afford free right now do this:

1. Download Andrew’s free Income Blogging Guide Blueprint
2. Read my review of the just-released Stay on Search Internet Marketing Course and download it to Learn Internet Marketing for Free

For those of you who don’t know me I want to share one thing. That is the ONLY paid course I have ever recommended in all my years of blogging. Most courses are long on what and really weak on HOW. Andrew’s is not and if you join us in SBC you can see his how-to blog videos in our forum and ask him questions too.