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How to Appease the Blogging Gods

This guest post is by Sriram Reddy of BloggingTipster.com.

In ancient Greece, there used to be numerous gods for almost everything, from music to war. To appease the gods so they could a better life, the Greeks used to pray, pour wine on the ground, build statues, hold festivities, and make sacrifices, among other rituals.

Just as the Greeks had gods for each aspect of life, there was also “Bloggareus,” the god of blogging (mythic, created by yours truly). And boy, was he a tough cookie!

The high respect that Bloggareus commanded in ancient blogging lore was unparalleled. Even now, after all these years, worship and offerings are the least he expects in return for his prized favors. Many bloggers have felt his wrath whenever they have neglected him.

So, how do we god-fearing bloggers appease our beloved Bloggareus so he can shower traffic, ad clicks, and riches on us?

We bloggers will have to offer a post to him every day—or at least (at the very least!) once a week—to escape his fury. Bloggareus, with an insatiable appetite for blog posts, will in return grant us with more visitors, and make them take notice of us.He will only be pacified with the highest quality of content, and will settle for nothing less. Write with passion. Keep your posts fresh, useful, accurate, readable and at times inspirational. He is quick to spot fruitless content, and if he does, you will have to face the repercussions. Symptoms of his displeasure are generally a decrease in page clicks and reputation. A quick secret: he holds a special regard for list posts, as they are easier to scan and read, so offer him as many as you can.Bloggareus holds a soft spot for the readers and visitors. He looks upon them almost like demigods. If he finds out that the content is not engaging the readers, or if readers are leaving dissatisfied and without posting comments, expect his backlash to be unforgiving. Even more so since he is fondly looked down upon by Zeus, the king of the Greek gods, and Zeus will do everything within his power to bring down sinful bloggers, sometimes even send down thunderbolts.Choose the title of your post very carefully before you offer it to Bloggareus. Write a title that delivers a promise of the content to the readers, and ensure your content backs it up. Try to keep the title short, crisp, and sometimes witty. That’s the way he likes them.Include as many links as you can in your posts to earn Bloggareus’s cherished brownie points. Add links to other posts within your blog, as well as links to external sites. Remember, the more relevant information you provide to the readers, the merrier your post will be.Bloggareus looks favorably on those bloggers who promote their posts well through social media, blog commenting, discussion forums, and newsletters.Also, don’t forget to appease ProBloggereus, the demigod of blogging inspiration, as well as other demigods (established bloggers) once in a while with guest posts. They will shower you with loads of traffic, and the odd backlink, of course.

Only the hardworking, truth-speaking, selfless bloggers will be able to stand the tests Bloggareus puts forth. These are the essential qualities of a virtuous blogger. I hope my post has spurred enough devotion in my fellow bloggers, and this post leads their deeds to immortality!

Sriram writes lock stock and barrel about sharpening blogging skills at www.BloggingTipster.com. He would love to have you following him on Twitter.

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10 Surefire Ways to Overcome Blogging Procrastination

This guest post is by Marelisa F?brega of the Abundance Blog at Marelisa Online.

If you keep telling yourself that you’re going to start blogging on a regular basis, and that intention has failed to materialize, it’s highly probable that procrastination is the culprit. My favorite definition of procrastination is the one provided by Timothy Pychyl, Ph.D., creator of the popular web site procrastination.ca, so I quote it often. Here it is:

“Procrastination is the needless, often irrational, voluntary delay of an intended task.”

That is, you intend to write a blog post, but you go off and start doing something else which is not as important to you, and which doesn’t need to get done right away. Below you’ll find ten surefire ways to overcome blogging procrastination, so that you can achieve your goal of blogging on a regular basis.

If you keep telling yourself that you’re not blogging on a regular basis because you simply don’t have the time to do so, ask yourself if blogging is a priority for you. If it’s not, then you should seriously consider giving up your blog. After all, your time is being occupied by other things that are more important to you than blogging.

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On the other hand, if blogging is a priority for you, then you need to make time for it. The way in which you make time for blogging is by giving it a time slot in your schedule. There’s a huge difference between the following two statements: I will write a blog post this week.I will sit down to write a blog post on Tuesday, at 10:00 a.m.

The first statement is a vague intention, while the second statement is a strong commitment. Which of the two do you think is more likely to render the result of a published post on your blog?

When you have powerful reasons for doing something, you’re much more likely to overcome inertia and procrastination, and get moving. Ask yourself: “Why is it important to me to update my blog on a regular basis?”

Do you want your blog to become the definitive source for quality information in your niche?Do you blog in order to attract potential clients to your business?Do you blog to help others achieve a particular goal, such as to lose weight or get their finances in order?Do you blog in order to create an additional source of income so that you can save up to travel around the world?

Hang up your list in plain sight. Then, when you’re thinking of turning on the television instead of working on a blog post, look at your list. Allow your reasons “why” to fuel your motivation, so that you get to work on your blog post instead of giving in to the lure of the couch and the TV set.

As Piers Steel, Ph.D. explains in his book, The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things off and Start Getting Stuff Done, the more valuable a task is, the less likely you are to procrastinate on it. A task’s value is determined by two different factors:

The first factor is how much you enjoy performing the task itself.The second factor is the external reward that you expect to receive if you perform the task.

When you blog about a topic that you’re interested in, it’s very likely that you’ll enjoy the process of writing. That is, writing blog posts will become a rewarding activity in and of itself. This makes blogging a valuable task, so you’ll be much more likely to engage in it.

As I explained in the previous point, the bigger the reward that you expect to receive for performing a particular task, the more valuable that task is, and the more likely it is that you’ll do it. Therefore, you need to ask yourself how you can make the task of blogging more rewarding.

The reward that most bloggers seek is to have their posts read by a large audience. So set up a strategy to make it more likely that others will read what you write. Here are some examples:

Optimize your posts for the search engines so that what you write is more likely to be found by your target audience.Tweet your posts and share them on other social media, such as Facebook and Google+.Each time that you publish a blog post, visit from five to ten popular blogs and leave comments which add value to the conversation so that others are likely to click back to your blog.

When asked what was the most frightening thing he had ever encountered, novelist Ernest Hemingway said, “A blank sheet of paper.” A lot of people share this same fear, and they procrastinate on getting to work on a new blog post in order to avoid the prospect of staring at a blank screen, without knowing what to write about.

You can lessen this fear if you keep a list of possible blog topics that you can choose from. And that’s where your notebook comes in. Write down any potential blogging topics that pop into your head as you go about your day. Ideas can be triggered by anything:

a question a client asks youa comment your two-year old makes as she trying to get out of eating her vegetablesa slogan you read on a billboardan article you read on another blog during a coffee break.

Inspiration is fleeting, so make sure that you carry an idea capture tool with you at all times. Then, when it’s time to work on a blog post, you have a well of ideas to choose from.

The bigger a task seems, the more likely it is that you’ll look for ways to avoid it. The way in which you make a big task look less threatening is by breaking it down into tiny bite-size pieces, or subtasks. It’s even better if you can assign a specific amount of time to each subtask. Here’s an example:

Spend 40 minutes researching an article on the relationship between humor and creativity.Spend 15 minutes creating an outline for the blog post.Spend 25 minutes developing the first idea.Spend 25 minutes developing the second idea.Spend 25 minutes developing the third idea.Spend 25 minutes writing the introduction, the conclusion, and a catchy title.Spend 15 minutes editing the blog post.Spend 15 minutes formatting the blog post and adding an image.

If a task lacks structure, we’re more likely to procrastinate on it. When we know exactly what to do next, we’re less likely to procrastinate. Therefore, it’s a great idea to create a checklist of everything that you need to do in order to get a blog post published. Then, when it’s time to work on a blog post, you can just work your way down the checklist.

Stop telling yourself that you can’t write a blog post unless you have a large chunk of time available. If you only have periods of about 20 minutes scattered throughout your week, put that time to good use. Make holes in the task of writing a blog post by working on it during small pockets of time, on a consistent basis. Soon, by writing a little here and there, you’ll have a published blog post.

One way to make sure that you sit down to write your blog post at the scheduled time is to create a ritual that signals to your brain that it’s blogging time. Your ritual can be anything: light a candle, put on classical music, say a little prayer, or get yourself a cup of tea—whatever helps. Your lizard brain is much more likely to cooperate if you train it to recognize a certain series of actions as a firm command that it’s time to get to work.

We’re much more likely to keep promises that we make to others than we are to keep promises that we make to ourselves. Use that fact to your advantage and bolster your willpower by relying on others to hold you accountable. Here are two ways to create accountability:

Put an “About” widget on your blog’s sidebar and make a commitment to your readers about how often you’ll be posting on your blog.Join a group of other bloggers and agree to hold each other accountable.

The good news is that there are many ways to overcome blogging procrastination. Get started by applying these ten surefire ways to overcome blogging procrastination presented above. How do you overcome blogging procrastination? Please share in the comments below.

Marelisa F?brega blogs about creativity, productivity, and getting the most out of life over at Abundance Blog at Marelisa Online. She’s the author of the ebooks “How to Live Your Best Life – The Essential Guide for Creating and Achieving Your Life List”, and “Make It Happen! A Workbook for Overcoming Procrastination and Getting the Right Things Done”.

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7 Golden Rules: Blogging in English for Non-Native Speakers

This guest post is by Michael Schuermann of Easy Hiker.

English is the language of the Internet. If you are the monoglot citizen of a country like Denmark, you are—through no fault of your own—restricted to an audience the size of metropolitan San Francisco.

Even for the native speakers of a major European language such as German, English is the only available ticket to a global readership.

This is why virtually everybody nowadays blogs in English.

Image copyright Anyka - Fotolia.com

Writing in a foreign language, however, is not an easy skill to acquire. I am not suggesting that simply by reading this article, you will become a fluent writer. But I can show you how to get there—and point out some of the most dangerous traps along the way.

Every year, English books are published by authors who have learned English as a second or third language, sometimes late in life. (I myself have managed to have one such book published)—just to prove to you that any fool can do it.)

At the top end, you have authors who have produced real works of literature: Vladimir Nabokov and Joseph Conrad, for example.

At the low end of formal ambition, writing factual, descriptive texts in English is actually quite easy—which is why English is not only the language of the Internet but also the lingua franca of academic discourse.

If you have something to say, the English language will always give you the tools to say it clearly, briefly and concisely. So, take your heart in both hands, step in front of a global audience—and just do it.

Accents are speech habits you acquired from your native tongue. They are most familiar to us in the form of sound, but they exist in writing, too.

You will want to get rid of them.

Thankfully, this is easier in written than in spoken language: Nabokov and Conrad, apparently, never quite got rid of their spoken accents, but I am still to hear anybody accuse either author of “Slavic” mannerisms in his prose.

Read and listen as much in English as you can, acquiring English rhythms and speech patterns through osmosis. (Get into the habit of reading a quality daily such as The Guardian or the New York Times and listen to BBC Radio 4. It’s all just a click away.)

Develop a feeling for the specific difficulties that writers from your own language have. Study English texts written by speakers of your own language—anything will do: announcements in airports and public transport, for example. Tourism brochures can also be highly useful.

Always ask yourself: is this good? And if it isn’t, why not? Where could I have improved upon this?

Always write your posts in English first, even the drafts. Resist the temptation of writing expos?s in your native language.

Any such draft will always betray its origins, unless you are an extremely good translator. (Good technical translators do not “translate”: they take a sentence and ask themselves how a native speaker would have conveyed the same message in the target language.)

Keep it simple. Do not aim to produce literature. Do not try to impress your readers with the quality of your English.

See yourself as someone who has recently acquired a pair of ice skates and is still learning. For the time being, the objective is to get safely from one side of the rink to the other. Leave the triple Lutz for later.

Writing good English is not something you either can do or can’t do. There is no single moment in time after which you will able to say: that’s it, now I can write.

Things just don’t work that way: learning is always a gradual process. The more you write, the better you will become, but there is no guarantee that you will ever reach a standard where, say, readers could mistake your copy for something they may read in the New York Times.

And even if you do, there may still be the occasional phrase over which your American or English readership will stumble. That’s part of the game, I am afraid. Live with it.

English is an informal, level-playing-field language. Like every language, it provides the speaker with opportunities of providing information about himself (by saying “loo” rather than “toilet”, for example: the old U vs. non-U use of speech) but its first purpose is always to communicate as clearly and concisely as possible.

If you now wonder: isn’t that the first purpose of any language, you have clearly never read anything produced by a German academic. In other words: some languages may be primarily designed to communicate the status of the speaker, but English is not one of them.

So keep it simple. Do not show off or intimidate. Make it easy for your reader. Use the most common word, the one that is most likely to be understood by the largest number of readers. In English, a convoluted style is considered affected and impolite. As a rule of thumb, use the Anglo-Saxon rather than the “French” word. Say “begin”, not “commence”.

Use a conversational writing style. Imagine you are explaining something to somebody at a table in a pub. Do not use your blog as a pulpit or as a podium in a lecture hall. Do not adopt a chest-thumping “me-speak-you-listen” style. In some countries, this may be the acceptable language of academic discourse. In Anglo-Saxon countries, people will pay as much attention to you as they do to the ranting nutter in the park.

And do not forget that little jokes are always welcome. Particularly if you invite your readers to laugh at yourself. A little self-deprecating remark here and there can work wonders.

Cultural references are important. They are a convenient way of telling your readers that you are one of their “pack”—because if you were not like your readers, in what way would your experiences matter to them?

Cultural references traditionally come from history and literature (particularly Shakespeare and Dickens), but increasingly from sports, Hollywood movies, and TV. This is where writers who have actually lived in England or the US (and who have kept in touch) have a clear advantage.

But you can play this game even if you have no such experience to draw on. Just be curious. When I was a young man, it took me years to find out the story of Paul Revere and his horse, all coming down to a line in a Bob Dylan song. Today, I Google “Paul Revere’s horse” and get 11,500 hits in 0.11 seconds. There are no excuses for ignorance.

What is Ruthian or Micawberish, and why do English people naturally assume that somebody who is “pining” must be “pining for the Fjords”? Read and listen with an open and curious mind, then do your research—it has never been easier.

Michael Schuermann is a German born journalist (formerly with the BBC World Service in London and was a sports commentator for Eurosport in Paris). Discovering hiking late in life, he is now blogging in English as Easy Hiker.

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How to Use Blogging as a Job Search Tool

This guest post is by Lior Levin.

Blogging is not just writing your personal notebook these days: it’s a truly open platform where people share their ideas, passion, goals, and thoughts on subjects they care about. Gone are the days when people would consider blogs “a personal affair.” The scene has long since changed.

Image copyright Luna Vandoorne - Fotolia.com

As a job seeker, you can use the power of blogs to reach potential recruiters and make them aware of your existence. Googling for potential employees is slowly becoming a trend among recruiters, and you should definitely use the power of blogging to elevate your job profile and establish yourself as an expert in your industry.

Of course you’ll face challenges, and there is no guarantee that you will get hired as a result of your blog. But it never hurts to give this idea a decent try, and see the feedback and response you get from employers who stumble upon your blog.

If you’re seeking a dream job and want to use the Internet to drive potential employers to your online resume, here are a few tips you should keep in mind:

The very first thing you should do is set up your LinkedIn profile and connect with like minded people, who share common interests and professional backgrounds. LinkedIn is the social hub of career professionals, and employers are always scanning this social site to find enthusiastic candidates who love their work, and are considered leaders in their fields.

By engaging with like-minded people, you’ll understand what they want from you.

Keep your blog focused and up to date on specific topics. It would be better if you leave aside personal rants and ramblings. Instead, blog about your career goals, past projects, lessons, assignments, and so on. The more you blog about your career assignments and skill set, the more people will consider you an “authority” and a “focused person” who knows what they’re talking about.

If your last blog post was published couple of years back, potential recruiters will think you’ve lost interest. Write often—at least twice a week. Blog about your latest project, blog about the work culture, and remember a golden rule: “Never criticize any of your past employers.”

This is really important. Write about your interests, but at the same time, engage with the most important asset in any organisation: “People.” Visit their blogs and comment on a post you loved reading. Reply to their tweets, start a conversation with them, and maintain healthy relationships with your peers. Sooner or later, people will notice your online behavior, and they might shoot off an email expecting to hear more from you.

Never lose patience. It takes time to grow a tree, but once it’s there, the shade lasts forever. Just because you don’t see anything on the surface doesn’t mean the plant isn’t growing beneath it. Give your blog some time and keep writing about things you love. That’s what matters most if you want potential recruiters to notice you.

This post is written by Lior Levin, a marketing enthusiast who works for a start-up company that offers a to-do list app for businesses and individuals. Lior also advises for a web hosting company that offers consumers a list of the top 10 website hosting companies available online.

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The Most Essential Blogging Tips That You Must Know

These days, many people are trying to make money online with their blogs. However, not everyone knows that a blogger can become successful if he or she applies some specific – and in most cases unwritten – rules that relate to blog posting. Thus, if you intend to brand yourself as an expert within your niche, you must comprehend a few important details that can help you to become a very successfully blogger. This indirectly means that you will be able to generate an immense amount of leads and traffic to your website, that will make you some pretty good income online.

Blogging Tips for You and Any Other Blogger

The following paragraphs are here to uncover a few important tips that can literally teach you how to make money with the help of your blog. Although many marketers already know that creating presentations, videos and articles represents a very important point of online marketing, they do not really comprehend that there are a few more things that they must do. In order to start, you should know that building a large customer list and driving traffic towards your blog are not enough to become successful and make money blogging. If you want to turn your blog into a money-making machine, you should:

Get as many high quality backlinks as possible. You can achieve this goal by looking for blogs that operate within the same niche as you do. You can start commenting on their posts.  Make sure that you are adding your URL address in the “website” section, if the blogs allow you to do this thing. You will see that your rankings will improve in only a few weeks time.Give Something Away for FREE.  Giving something on your blog for free that creates value is a great way to get additional readership to your blog while creating a customer that now trusts every word that you say.  Once your readers trust what you say, they will buy anything you put in-front of them.Look for massive exposure. You can do this thing by using free syndication tools, which can help you to find different business prospects. And even greater is the fact that you can get most of these tools for free. Thus, you can finally promote you videos and articles on different social bookmarking and media websites in a truly professional manner.Choose pop-up autopilot formats. This can help you to get free leads through automatic tools. There are a few things that you can complete with the help of the automatic tools, including auto responses and pre written follow up messages. This way, anyone who subscribes for any items that exist on your blog becomes a new lead on your mailing list.  A good system for this is aWeber for an autopilot system.Have a professional header. Although most bloggers consider that the most important thing is the content that exists on their blogs, you must bear in mind that a professional image can always help you to get what you want faster than many other marketing strategies. For this reason, make sure that your blog is very appealing, with a professional header and the tools that you provide are fast and reliable. This is a great way to get new clients that will visit your blog over and over again.

You can implement these simple blogging tips right now and start reaping the rewards of your online business. Although it might take some time until you will get the expected results, you must know that the sooner you implement the aforementioned blogging tips, the faster the benefits will come along.  If you’re looking for additional tips on how to promote your blog check out “5 things you need to know about your website visitors” that will teach you what to do with your website visitors once you have them!

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6 Tips to Help You Survive Your First 3 Months of Pro Blogging

This guest post is by Glee of Creative Fashion.

I was a high-school Maths teacher for eight years and for all those years, my life evolved in writing lesson plans, producing teaching materials and worksheets, dealing with parents, teaching some well-behaved and some rude students, and pleasing demanding bosses. When an opportunity came for me to finally be a full-time blogger, which allows me to be my own boss and set my own schedule and calendar, it was a dream come true.

Yet, as it turn out, building a website and establishing myself as an authority isn´t all fairy tales.

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I was a part-time blogger for two years, juggling my full-time day job, after-school tutorials, and blogging until late midnight every day. My first blogs were built through a free blog platform, on which I learned HTML, SEO techniques, and a little online marketing. I had enough experience and I was quite ready to do blogging full-time before I decided to quit my job.

I built my professional blogs and now I’m working toward my dream of making them big: I’m officially a full-time blogger. But there are stumbling blocks that I had to deal with more than once in those first few months of pro blogging; here are the techniques I used to beat them.

The good thing about full-time blogging is you don’t have a boss. And the bad thing about full-time blogging is you don’t have a boss.

The freedom that full-time blogging offers is what makes people want to become full-time bloggers. However, it’s the same freedom that sends them to failure fast if they aren’t careful.

I’m a stay-at-home wife and a self-confessed online entrepreneur (a fancy name for a blogger), and when my husband kisses me good-bye in the morning, I’m still in bed … and so tempted to go back to sleep.

It takes discipline to beat this behavior. I soon realized that if I go to work late, I can’t keep working until late. When my husband comes home, I have to start preparing dinner—plus there’s a couple of hours for our bonding time which include going to the gym. I clean the kitchen after dinner, and then it’s already very late at night. So basically my job ends at 5p.m. I can only do a little work on my blog late at night.

This urged me to create a schedule and to stick to it. When hubby goes to work at 7:45 in the morning, I’ve got to be fixing the bed, then have breakfast, shower, do a little housework, and be at my desk by 9a.m. I get a break for lunch around 1p.m. and the hard work ends at 5p.m. If I’m really good, I can do a little more work after dinner.

The bottom line: create a daily schedule and stick to it. Treat blogging as a real business.

When I see my traffic numbers start to rise, I feel so happy. It gives me energy to work harder. This is especially true when I see my Alexa rank increase.

However, there are times when the scenario is reversed. I get up in the morning excited to see how my site is doing, thinking, “Did it increase from last night’s Alexa rank?” But I’m disappointed if it didn’t. In fact, if the rank has decreased, I’ll feel sad and my energy levels will drop.

Another discouraging experience is seeing my subscribers leave. It´s fun to see them increase, but it´s never fun to see them decrease. If I’m not careful, I am really emotionally affected by these events. I keep asking myself, “What made them leave?”

What to do? I figure that it’s best to apply sportsmanship in this business, and not to take it too personally. Some people are happy to join your list but sometimes, for some reasons, they no longer need your service, so they have to go. It’s not always all about you so there’s no need to mourn for it.

However, if the percentage of decline is quite big, it makes me re-evaluate my site. Am I posting enough quality content in a day? Which content items are sending me most of the traffic and why do they perform better? What do my readers want to learn from me? And so on.

The bottom line: Don’t take discouragement too personally, and don’t let it affect you negatively. Use it to re-evaluate and improve your site.

Burnout is one of the most common enemies of full-time bloggers. There’s just too much to do! You become overwhelmed if you try to do everything at once. Not good! When you suffer from burnout, you no longer feel happy doing what you love. How can you avoid it?

I created a “To-do” list for my website and I order the items according to priorities and timeframes. I learned to set a target each day, each week, and each month. For example, guest posting here at ProBlogger is my “To-do” task this week, and I had to set time to write this post, inserting it in my everyday schedule. The “must-do” tasks are done right away, while those in the long-term list are done little by little each day.

If I don’t escape burnout and it strikes me, I find ways to unwind. For example, I focus my energy right now on my fashion blog. At times when sitting at my desk and seeing HTML makes me feel ill, I grab my camera, dress up, leave the house and do outfit pictorials. This allows me to take some fresh air and re-charge my energy. If I’m not into dressing up, I take my fashion magazines and do some reading instead.

The bottom line: create a “To-do“ list and learn to prioritize your tasks. If burnout strikes, find ways to refresh your mind. Do something that makes you happy other than blogging.

I have twice survived the horror of hacking and viruses—and I didn’t escape without trauma. There was one day when my then-fianc? (now husband) made a long-distance call from Germany to infrom me that something was wrong with my site. It didn’t display properly on his monitor, everything was in disarray, and there were some scripts that would flash on the screen before my messy website loaded. To my horror, my friends confirmed via Facebook that, indeed, they couldn’t access my website. But it was displaying all right in my monitor. No matter how I tried, it really worked just fine in my computer. I’d been hacked!

I immediately did a complete malware scan and started to troubleshoot. I got plenty of “Cannot modify header information” messages, which I was completely unprepared for. I was crying my eyes out because the solutions that I googled didn´t work. I spent two days hunting down the illegal scripts before I finally found their file location.

The next attack was through my Feedburner service, which was corrupted by a virus so that nobody could access it. This time, I spent a day troubleshooting before I was able to again locate and remove the illegal scripts.

Then one morning I received an email from my webserver host informing me that they did a cleanup of my FileZilla because they found some suspicious activities. They also informed me that they’re available 24 hours if I need help and that I could access them via chat.

How come I didn´t know that? Those days of troubleshooting could have been reduced to hours if I only used some help! Now I know better.

The bottom line: Full-time blogging isn’t just about writing, publishing, promoting and designing layouts; it’s also about troubleshooting. Therefore, be prepared to roll up your sleeves when virus attacks or other technical errors arise, but be certain to make use of the tools and help that are at your disposal.

Commenting and visiting other blogs in your niche is one way of getting social and promoting your site. As you do it, you encounter blogs that are already big, with a wide following. It’s easy to get inspired and jealous at the same time. You tend to compare yourself and your site to theirs. However, remember that even big brands took time to bring their website to where it is now. Tell yourself that you, too, someday will become as big as them. Think big, get inspired, and work hard.

The bottom line: Learn from the leaders in your niche, and be inspired, but never compare yourself to them. Take your time.

Sitting in your own home office, alone, for the whole day is never easy. Much harder is to stay focused and committed to blogging all the time. It’s easy to miss the work community that you once had—the lunches with your office mates and the after-work shopping at the end of the month. You turned your back to those parts of life because you opted to carve your own territory on the Internet. That, by itself, is an achievement. Not everyone can do it, so reward yourself for that.

Also, before you close your laptop each day, think of both the little and big accomplishments you’ve made for the day and be thankful. Congratulate yourself. It helps in maintaining your faith.

The bottom line: It’s difficult to quantify how much you’ve done for the day. But your mind and self-esteem need to be fed every day. By appreciating yourself for all the little achievements you’ve made on your site, you are helping to maintain your drive.

Once you’ve survived the first three months, you have a better grip of full-time blogging and you know better how to set and follow a schedule. You’re more equipped to overcome discouragements as you blog your way to success.

How did you survive the first three months of full-time blogging? What stumbling blocks did you meet and how did you overcome them? What are your techniques for staying focused on achieving your goals?

Glee Josko teaches women how to be creative and joyful fashionistas through her blog, Creative Fashion. She also explores the ways to achieve happiness in extra-challenging marriages such as intercultural marriage at Offbeat Marriage.

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What Aspiring Actors Can Teach You About Blogging

This guest post is by Tom Ewer of Leaving Work Behind.

If you were an aspiring actor, and you spotted a famous movie star on the street, would you run up to them and ask them for help? You might, but I’m willing to bet that 99 times out of 100, you would get nowhere. In fact, those odds are probably very generous.

I am willing to bet that those odds would improve if you were to approach them, briefly introduce yourself, compliment them on their work, and ask if it would be okay to write to their agent with a few questions that they might consider answering if they get time.

When you’re dealing with people above your station, the hard sell is almost always a failure. If you were to deal with your fellow bloggers in the spirit of the more polite and unobtrusive aspiring actor, you would establish some highly valuable relationships.

As Darren explained, it’s wise to embrace the competition. It doesn’t matter what niche you are in—there are almost always going to be more authoritative blogs already in existence. And that is a good thing, for two key reasons:

It demonstrates that there is a market for your niche.It provides you with an opportunity tap into an established audience.

Who wouldn’t want to take advantage of a resource of already warm, highly targeted leads?

So how can you tap into the audiences of your contemporaries? Not in the way that many people try to, that’s for sure. Do not emulate the method of the rude and desperate aspiring actor. There is few things more irritating to a blogger than being contacted by another who simply asks for a link to, or mention of, their site.

Assuming that you are the proverbial minnow, you only need to concern yourself with one thing when reaching out to your peers—providing value. Whilst simply asking for help may occasionally reap short term rewards, it is far more valuable to establish long term relationships based upon giving.

The desire to reciprocate is human instinct. For the most part, if you offer value to your peers, they will eventually be inclined to return the favor.

So what should you do? Here are a few things you can do to get started:

Drop them a line and compliment their work.Share their posts.Add useful and insightful comments to their posts.Link to posts of theirs that you find valuable.Review their products.

Please don’t let your imagination be stifled by my suggestions—more inventive ways of reaching out to your peers can offer higher rewards! For instance, you might choose to post a video on your blog entitled “Five Reasons You Should Be Following (insert name here)”. That might grab their attention!

Always make sure that your complimentary nature does not turn into overt fawning, and don’t go out of your way to tell the person in question that you are doing all of these lovely things—it will look disingenuous.

The key is to do all of the above (and more) with absolutely no expectation of a reward. I would like to think that I have already established some really positive relationships with bloggers in a short period of time, and for the most part, my generosity has not been reciprocated. How does this make me feel? I’m totally okay with it. Reciprocity is not an obligation, and what you consider due reward for your generosity may not be realistic.

When I get in touch with a fellow blogger, it is not in the vain hope that I can get something out of it. It is because I think they offer quality content, and I want to get to know them better. If something comes out of a burgeoning relationship that positively affects my blog, that is a wonderful bonus.

Once you have started befriending bloggers, you’ll have to play it by ear. Your new friendships will probably bring about unexpected benefits without you having to do anything. But if you think that there is some way in which your friend can help you, and it is not asking too much, then once you are on good terms, you may consider asking for a favor.

If you do decide to, then make sure that you are not asking too much. Put yourself in the shoes of your compatriot—would what you are asking for make them uncomfortable? Always err on the side of conservatism if you feel compelled to ask for something. I personally am far more inclined to never suggest anything that does not offer some kind of benefit in return. Simply saying “can you please link to my site?” is not something I would recommend, because if you already have a great rapport with someone, they would have done so already if they wanted to.

You probably know of many bloggers in your niche. You have probably contacted some of them before. You may not have gone about it in what I consider the right way.

Now is the time to make amends. Start engaging with people—start helping them. You are entering into a long term process, but one which is bound to offer fantastic rewards, given enough time and the right attitude.

Tom Ewer is the owner of Leaving Work Behind, a growing community of likeminded people with a unifying goal—to create scalable and sustainable online incomes. He aims to leave his career in property development just as soon as his online pursuits can support him. If you enjoyed this article then be sure to sign up to Tom’s newsletter, which has exclusive content not available on the blog.

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How I Started Making $3,000 a Month Blogging About Travel

This guest post is by Marcello Arrambide of wanderingtrader.com.

It has been about one full year since I started blogging about travel, and I have started to generate $3,000 or more a month via my travel blogs.

My very first post was published on May, 4th, 2010, and it was nothing but grammar mistakes and partaking in an activity that I really don’t enjoy: writing. I’m telling you this because even though I am a horrible writer, English os not my first language, and I need other people to proofread my work, I’m proof that you really don’t have to be the best at something in order to do make money via your blog. I have started to make at least $3,000 a month via my main travel blog, wanderingtrader.com.

Initially, I started my blog to capture traffic for a day trading business that I was running. I wanted to get more people interested in day trading and, well, get more sales. What it turned into was my own personal travel blog about my passion for travel, and tips about day trading and travel. My whole blogging strategy is based on exposure; you might have read my post about focusing on quantity of traffic instead of quality when you first start out.

There are a million posts on ProBlogger about making money blogging online and frankly almost everyone online makes money the same way. It seems there aren’t very many new ways that bloggers can make money from blogs. Darren wrote a great post on how bloggers make money from blogs if you are interested in learning your different options.

Instead of talking about ways to make money blogging I’m going to share how I managed to start making $3,000 a month via my travel blog in less than a year. I consider it ten months, really, since I took two months off when I got extremely frustrated by a small change in my blog design that crippled the traffic to my main blog. The list below is what I started focusing on, in order of importance.

There are some instances where you find advertisers, but for the most part advertisers find you.

Once you have the right criteria you are eligible for a range of money making options with your blog. The most important thing is getting your name out there. You want to try to focus on guest posts, SEO, and getting on every single blog list that’s related to your niche. The more people who see your blog, the more likely it’ll be that advertisers will find you as well. Below are some examples of the travel-related lists that my blogs are listed on on.

By working on exposure, authority will come naturally. You want to be careful how quickly you build your authority online, because you can’t become an expert in your niche if you only launched your website yesterday.

Creating solid authority for yourself, and advertisers will know that you have a website that is both legitimate and powerful in the niche you’re covering. If you achieve enough exposure, and have good authority, then you may be considered for things like a press trip. That’s a bonus that might be restricted to the travel niche, but you get the idea.

How we measure authority is something of a debatable issue, since most of the lists on the web have some kind of limitation. Either way, when I have asked people specifically about this they have repeatedly given me the same information:

As I explained earlier, there was a time when I got extremely frustrated and just gave up. A redesign to my blog caused me to take a giant hit from Google, and I was extremely annoyed. I just gave up!

If I didn’t take that two- or three-month break, I might have been on my way to making double what I make now. The tactics I’ve outlined so far helped me in the very first month that I started to make money with the blog. I’ve now nearly doubled my income using the strategies I’ll share below.

When you get started blogging, you have to understand that you are the new kid on the block. There are people I know personally who have been blogging for five to ten years, and I call these people the Rat Pack. They’re the cool kids on the block that you want to get to know and work with.

How did you feel when you met that new kid in your class back in school? The way for them to succeed was to avoid being pushy or asking for too much. They had to be part of the community.

I made the new-kid mistake of approaching people the wrong way, and asking for things I shouldn’t have. Luckily I had a few bloggers point me in the right direction, and that allowed me to get to where I am today. Be engaging, but not demanding. Be interested, but not needy. It’s all about being part of the community and not trying to force your way into the cool kids’ group.

By interacting with the Rat Pack, you’ll open yourself to an extensive group of people who already know how things work and can share best practices. Since these people already have exposure, that may allow you to take a shortcut when you are ready to start making money with your blog. By talking to other bloggers in the field, I went from zero advertisers to having a list of over 60. Use the tools above for exposure and authority to find the Rat Pack in your niche.

I’m busy, the guy at Mcdonald’s is busy, your kids are busy. I get it, you’re busy. When I first started blogging I was running a day trading business, traveling around the world, day trading, and running my blog. How did I handle all of this? I hired help. I found what now is a team of employees overseas that I pay to do a lot of the admin and back-office work for me.

The old adage is really true: it takes money to make money. While you may not have hundreds or thousands of dollars to invest in getting someone to help you, you may be able to afford, say, $100 a month. Understand that your time is money. By outsourcing mundane tasks—even if it’s just a few hours’ work a week—you will free up your time to do more important things, like creating quality content and thinking of better ways to make money with your blog.

The one goal I had for my blog was to break even. Any business or blog that you create should at least break even. You’re not going to be doing something for very long if you keep losing money. I pay a team of two people a total of $510 a month for roughly 45-50 hours a week of work. Just imagine the things I can accomplish during that timeframe!

After you have successfully started making money with one site, you can continue on to other ventures to increase your income and your online empire.

Think about expanding to other niches online. My main niche is travel which is absolutely massive. I now am branching out to my other passion, which is day trading. I have started an Online Day Trading Academy to help others, and now I can blog about day trading and travel across two sites, which will significantly increase my exposure online.

What about you? Are you making money from your blog yet? Which of these strategies do you use?

Day Trading from 8 different countries Marcello Arrambide has begun to chronicle his travels around the world on his Wandering Trader Travel Blogs site. He has traveled to over 40 countries in his lifetime and is currently exploring South America. You can find out more about Marcello on his Facebook Page or RSS.

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Action! Can Our Hollywood Experiment Help You Make Money Blogging?

This is a guest post by Joke and Biagio of JokeAndBiagio.com

Setting: a busy production office in Hollywood, California. Joke stares at her husband Biagio in disbelief.

Joke: You bought another book from Darren Rowse?

Biagio: Well, uh, no…this one’s actually by the Web Marketing Ninja…

Her face goes blank.

Joke: Did you just say…Ninja?

ProBlogger, Joke and Biagio

That kind of back-and-forth’s been typical ever since we tip-toed into blogging in 2009.

Sure, it’s always fun to think about monetizing the blog or read about ways to get big traffic.

But realistically, our blog for filmmakers who want to break into Hollywood has been more of a fun distraction than a tool to make us money.

Maybe you’ve felt the same about your own blog? Wondered if banging away on your laptop at 2am would have any (positive) effect on your business? Questioned if the “standard” ways to make money blogging were right for you?

We’ve had those doubts over the past few years.

An idea struck. A new approach to cashing in on our blog that seemed obvious and frightening all at once.

In fact, just saying it out loud freaked out our friends and colleagues.

But we really believe this idea is a win-win scenario for both our readers and our company. It’s a concept that just might work for you, too.

More on that in a minute. First, some background…

As working producers and directors in Los Angeles, blogging was not high on our “to do” checklist for Hollywood success. But we had a personal reason for writing: to create the film and TV blog we wished existed when we were starting out.

You know, back when we were banging our heads against Hollywood’s closed doors, trying to get noticed by anyone in “the game.”

Two-hundred posts and 2500 Twitter followers later, we found ourselves with a small but engaged group of readers who wanted to succeed in film and TV.

And no idea how we were going to monetize our blog.

Other than a few affiliate banners and the occasional Adword, we never embraced “selling” to a community largely made up of struggling artists (an accurate description of us just a few years ago.)

And, since blogging will never be our main income stream (we make a decent living in film and TV) the thought of turning our filmmaking blog into a six-figure sensation seemed pretty silly.

While the notion of being “top bloggers” was romantic, were we really going to:

create e-books?promote affiliate programs?find joint venture partners?

Or were we gonna’ keep chasing Oscars?® and Emmys?®?

Then, the crazy idea came along.

The number one rule of a blog is to provide value, right?

We asked ourselves, “What’s the ultimate value we can provide to our readers? What do they want more than anything?”

In our hearts, we knew the answer: the same thing we wanted while living in our shoe-box, one-bedroom apartment not so long ago.

Access to Hollywood.

So after spending two years educating our readers on what it takes to make it in this business, we’re now opening the same doors that were closed to us for so long.

We’ve invited them to pitch TV shows to us.

When we do sell a project with an aspiring filmmaker (like we just did with our upcoming documentary series Caged on MTV) that person will be paid to work on the show, receive a producer credit, and take a giant leap forward in their careers.

Plus, selling just one series with a reader will instantly make us “six-figure bloggers.”

As a bonus for both us and our readers, anyone who submits a show must join our newsletter. We send out tips and tricks on turning ideas into concrete Hollywood pitches, as well as up-to-the-second info about the kinds of shows we think we can sell at any given moment.

When the day comes that we do take a little time off from making film and TV, that list will prove invaluable should we want to write a book or put up speaking events on working in Hollywood.

How about you? Have you spent years educating your readers on a particular topic? Why not tap into the pool of experts you’ve created?

Most bloggers see readers as potential customers. Maybe it’s time to see them as potential partners instead. Are you:

An independent software developer kicking out posts on the Objective-C language? How about taking pitches from up-and-coming coders on new iPhone apps?Blogging how-to posts about the furniture you craft by hand? Why not expand your line by accepting product concepts from your most accomplished readers?Writing about designing and selling great widgets? Let your fans bring you valuable ideas for better widgets.

Just think: one great idea from a reader could be worth a lot more than your commission on that “weird old trick” affiliate product you’ve been eyeing.

Of course, we had to have our lawyer draw up a proper submission agreement, and anyone wishing to pitch TV show ideas to us will have to go through a formal process. Before you open yourself up to pitches, make sure you’re not open to potential lawsuits. Consult your lawyer.

Biagio: Not bad, right?

Joke nods. Her expression…a glimmer of hope?

Joke: Does this mean you’ll stop shopping at ProBlogger now?

Biagio: Well, uh, no…

Joke sighs.

Joke: Better sell some more shows quick!

Joke and Biagio are a married filmmaking team (Joke’s the wife, Biagio’s the hubby.) Their goal is to help aspiring filmmakers and TV producers break in to Hollywood by providing real-world filmmaking advice and taking TV show pitches from talented, hard-working dreamers. Their current film Dying to do Letterman has been invited by the International Documentary Association to qualify for 2012 Academy Award® Consideration, and they have numerous unscripted TV shows to their credit. Keep in touch with them on Facebook and Twitter.

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The Science of Blogging

This guest post is by Syed Farhan of www.purephysics.net.

The word “science” comes from the Latin root “scientia,” which means knowledge. This is the reason why the word science is attached to many “non scientific” terms like “the science of theology.”

A blog is defined as follows:

A blog is a type of website that is usually arranged in chronological order from the most recent “post” (or entry) at the top of the main page to the older entries towards the bottom.—Darren Rowse, What is a Blog?

Most websites are intended to acquire or spread knowledge, hence science and blogs have a lot to do with each other.

The following scientists’ quotes do not refer specifically to blogging, but I think they can teach us a lot about it.

I am sure that I am not smarter than other scientists. Psychologists have said that my IQ is about 160, I recognize that there are one hundred thousand or more people in the United States that have IQs higher than that.—Linus Pauling; Nobel Laureate of Chemistry (1954) and Peace (1962), in an interview to the site Academy of Achievement, Nov 11, 1990.

An authority on blogging, Darren Rowse said in Blogging Takes Super Human Effort vs Blogging is Easy [Misconceptions New Bloggers Have #1]:

“Before I started blogging I had had 20 jobs in ten years, none of which were in anything to do with the online space and most of which were fairly manual/physical jobs.“My only qualifications were half a degree in Marketing (which I failed half of the subjects in) and a Bachelor of Theology.“I’d received a ‘C’ in English in my final year of high school.“I was incapable of making text bold on my first blog for several weeks—I wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed when it came to anything technical!”

Some people think that only people with exceptionally brilliant minds can become good bloggers (or good in anything). This is nonsense. Just work hard with devotion. You will make it. There are no magic people.

If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.—Sir Isaac Newton; English physicist and mathematician, in a letter to Robert Hooke, 5 Feb. 1675 or 1676

There are always good resources available on any niche you choose, and there are always some people who are “giants” (authorities) in that field. By “resources” I don’t only mean blogs. There will always be excellent books, magazines, videos, and so on in your niche. Utilize them.  I don’t mean copy their content. I mean learn from them, put your on voice in it, and produce fresh content. If you can do your own research and take the current material a step ahead, even better.

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.—Albert Einstein; Nobel Laureate of Physics (1921)

To make a blog successful you must keep working on it regularly.

Despite the fact that there are thousands of articles on ProBlogger, I keep returning to this site to read the new ones. Though sometimes I read some old articles, mainly I concentrate on the latest material. I think most readers do the same, as the latest posts’ comments are the most frequented.

If you make a blog and update it once in two months, it will collapse. Readers usually want new content, latest happenings in your niche. Also, readers want regular replies from you. If they are taking the trouble of sparing some time and commenting on your blog, they want the favor to be reciprocated.

You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.—Albert Einstein; Nobel Laureate of Physics (1921)

To be a good blogger, you need to know a good deal about blogging. For example you need to know which is a good blogging platform, the methods of monetization, how to set up an email newsletter, how to use sites like Facebook and Twitter to your maximum advantage, and more.

The rest is mind game and hard work. Keep blogging diligently. You’ll learn many things practically that you will not learn by referring to blogging resources. Use this information to create better blogs than your competitors.

I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.—Galileo Galilei; Italian physicist

Do you think visiting “bad” blogs is a waste of time? Not at all! By visiting them you can learn why that blog didn’t do well. What mistakes did the blogger make? Pay attention to those mistakes so that you may not make them.

The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to.—Richard Feynman; Nobel Laureate of Physics (1965) in a letter to Koichi Mano, February 3, 1966

Though there are thousands of problems that humanity is facing today, you should select a niche of which you have a good knowledge. Then, write posts that can really help people live better lives by solving their problems. If you can solve their problems, they will visit your blog.

The lecturer should give the audience full reason to believe that all his powers have been exerted for their pleasure and instruction.—Michael Faraday; English physicist, as quoted in A Random Walk in Science (1973) by Robert L. Weber, p. 76

Give your readers the true impression that you really care for them and you have put up a lot of energy and hard work into your blog. Don’t try to fake yourself.  You must really make all attempts to please your audience.  If you yourself won’t take your blog seriously, don’t expect your readers to take it seriously.

Do you know quotes from other scientists that reflect and fit with blogging? Share yours in the comments!

Syed Farhan is a Physics graduate who’s working on a Physics-based blog at www.purephysics.net. He lives in Lucknow, India, and can be contacted at 4farhan4 [at] gmail [dot] com.

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Seth Godin on Blogging and Productivity

With the launch this week of Seth Godin’s latest book, We Are All Weird, we wanted to share this interview we recently conducted with Seth on productivity and blogging.

Seth’s among the world’s most prolific bloggers, but he’s also a profuse book author and serial entrepreneur.

How does he fit it all in?

Seth (image copyright Brian Bloom Photography)

One of his secrets might surprise you: “I’m America’s worst attender of meetings,” Seth reveals. “I don’t do any of that.”

“A meeting is a very special thing: it’s three or more people talking to each other about a decision that’s going to be made, and probably trying to get someone else to make it,” he explains. “And so I don’t have those. If I need information I have a conversation with one person. That’s not a meeting, that’s a conversation.”

He refers to Al Pittampalli’s book Read This Before Our Next Meeting, which was released in August through Seth’s publishing venture, The Domino Project, and which suggests more productive approaches to the traditional concept of the “meeting.”

Of course, that’s not the only way Seth manages to keep on top of things. As the interview reveals, his philosophy rests on a very clear vision of what’s important to him. It’s that vision that motivates him, helps him choose where to direct his energies, and enables him to make the everyday decisions that keep his media empire growing.

Our favorite piece of advice from the interview?

In a world where there’s not a lot of scarcity of ideas, and where digital stuff isn’t going to be able to be priced based on scarcity, ubiquity is a better strategy. If you can help change the conversation, if you can say stuff that’s worth saying, the money takes care of itself.
—Seth Godin

Start listening!

Or read the interview transcript in full:

Today I’m talking to Seth Godin of SethGodin.com. He’s a blogger, he’s a bestselling author of thirteen books including Poke the Box, he’s the inventor of permission marketing, and founder of Squidoo.com.

Seth, if there’s one word that could be used to describe your work, it’s prolific. You have six websites, you blog every day, you’ve written thirteen books, you do plenty of public speaking, you’ve founded dozens of companies and you carry the weighty mantel of “America’s Greatest Marketer.”

But when I emailed you about this interview, you replied. You set the appointment in Google Calendar and you sent me your Skype details. So I’m wondering, is it possible that America’s Greatest Marketer doesn’t have an assistant?

That’s correct.

How can this be? We imagine that you’re America’s Greatest Marketer, and America’s Busiest Man. Is that not the case?

Well, neither one of them is true, to be fair. I guess you make decisions about how you want to spend your time. What you didn’t mention is that I’m America’s worst watcher of television, cause I don’t spend any time doing that, zero. And I’m America’s worst attender of meetings, cause I don’t do any of that, zero. So I know people who do five hours of each every day. So right there I save myself ten hours a day.

The part about not having an assistant has to do with how permeable do you want to be to the world. You know, I don’t use Twitter, I don’t actively use Facebook, because I can’t do them justice. But if I hired someone to answer my email, it’s be better not even to use email. Cause what’s the point of having that filter? So I try to sort of strike this balance between doing some things at an insanely quick, prolific rate and doing other things not at all.

So in terms of permeability, you run a company, and you have publishers. I’m just wondering, if you don’t attend meetings, then how does permeability work with those kinds of operations that you’re working in?

Well, you know, we just published a book two weeks ago called Read This Before Our Next Meeting, and the author Al Pittampalli argues that a meeting is a very special thing: it’s three or more people talking to each other about a decision that’s going to be made, and probably trying to get someone else to make it. And so I don’t have those. If I need information I have a conversation with one person. That’s not a meeting, that’s a conversation.

If a decision needs to be made it gets made and then followup happens about what we’re going to do about the decision, but that doesn’t need to be a bunch of people around a table either. So there’s lots of interactions I have with people. I just don’t have those things that so many other organizations have where everyone sits around looking for the tallest poppy to chop down.

Fair enough. So can you tell us a bit more about what productivity means to you, and what motivates you to be so productive? Because obviously you are very productive.

Well you know, I think that it doesn’t count unless you ship it—that planning it and noodling it and refining it and thinking about it and keeping it in a drawer don’t count. You might as well do nothing. I think there are lots and lots of people who put in way more time than me, who may even create more than me, they just don’t ship.

No one calls up a plumber and says, “Wow, I can’t believe how many toilets you unclogged this week!” No one goes to short-order cook and says, “Wow, that’s your eight-hundredth hamburger of the week! That’s incredible!” Right? That’s their job. They ship for a living. If they don’t ship, they don’t get paid. And somehow we’ve seduced ourselves into thinking that it’s okay to hide. It’s okay for a playwright to write a play every five years. What was going on the other four and half years? I don’t know. If no one’s seeing your play, you’re not a playwright.

That’s interesting because I think many bloggers tend to see writing as a creative pursuit that does require shutting yourself away from the world, and having quiet time, getting in the zone, and noodling, as you say. And you’re not just writing blog posts—you’re writing book after book. How does the creative thing work for you? Do you take time out of your other work? Or is it just part of your regular routine? Are books and blog posts different for you? How does that work?

Okay well we need to be really careful here because a lot of times creative people want to know what other creative people do to do their work, as if using the same pencil as Steven King is going to do anything for you, ’cause it’s not. I know lots and lots of productive creative people and we all do it differently. So I think at its face, it’s not a particularly useful philosophy.

I will share one tactic which is that I write like I talk. The reason that’s important is that no one gets talker’s block. And so if you wake up in the morning unable to speak, then you need a physician. Everyone else doesn’t have that problem. So if you can train yourself to talk in complete sentences, and actually come up with thoughts that are worth sharing, then writing isn’t particularly hard—you just write down what you say.

That’s an interesting point you make about coming up with thoughts that are worth sharing. You’re a marketer so I’m thinking that you’re constantly looking at the market and looking at what people need to know or want to know or have a desire for information on. Have you trained yourself or honed your thoughts to meet those needs? Or are you just coming up with ideas every day? How do you make sure that your thoughts are worth sharing?

Oh they’re usually not!

What percentage would be worth sharing?

Five, maybe two.

Well how do you differentiate between the ones that are and the ones that aren’t?

Well, I notice things. That’s what I do. If I see something that I don’t understand I try to figure it out. If I see something that’s broken, I try to understand why it’s broken. And then you say either in writing or out loud what you noticed, and if it sticks with you for ten or fifteen or twenty minutes, maybe it’s worth writing down. And then you look at the ones that you wrote down and sometimes they’re worth sharing.

So in that regard do you use your blog as a bit of a proving ground, I guess, for ideas? ‘Cause a lot of bloggers would do that—they’d use their blog as a proving ground, and then they’d go away and write a product based on what they’ve honed over time on their blog. Do you do that or is your blog just as finished as a book would be?

In some ways it’s more finished because I get feedback as it’s going. I can fix something on my blog the next day, etcetera.

I don’t have products. I don’t think about products. And I’m not trying to monetize any of this. It monetizes itself, which is fine, and if it didn’t, that would be fine. So I think that when people start to think, “What can I hold back? What can I sell? How can I move people through a sales funnel?” they start getting themselves into trouble.

Why? Specifically why?

Because then who’s the customer? Who are you serving? In a world where there’s not a lot of scarcity of ideas, and where digital stuff isn’t going to be able to be priced based on scarcity, ubiquity is a better strategy. If you can help change the conversation, if you can say stuff that’s worth saying, the money takes care of itself. And too often the $59, $99, $499 special report is neither special nor a report.

It’s true. Well, we’ve talked about the writing a bit. Let’s talk about the bigger picture. It’s very easy to look at the Seth Godin we see in the media and say, “Okay, this guy’s in the business of content. He’s a content producer.” But you’re not that. You’re also a marketer, you’re a business owner, and the reason you’re a bestselling author is because you’re one of the most innovative marketing brains in the business. So I’m wondering what do you describe as being your true passion? And how important is that passion in your level of productivity?

You know, I have way too many conversations with myself about this. I would say that my passion is having people surprise themselves by what they’re capable of. And if I can be present at least a little bit for some of that internal dialog, that’s a privilege and a thrill for me. And when I hear from somebody who was working as a janitor for some company, and then four years later they own it, and they give me, right or wrong, some of that credit, I’m pretty pleased with that.

Because I think that people have way, way more potential than society lets them believe, and if I can help unlock that, that’s a privilege.

So that’s what motivates you when you get out of bed in the morning?

It is. It’s exactly what it is. I think if I was trying to make money, I would do something else for a living. There are certainly more lucrative ways to spend one’s time, and I think if I was trying to work on my tan, I wouldn’t sit indoors in front of a computer screen all day. So yeah, this is why I’m doing it. For that.

So how do you prioritize? That’s your passion, and it drives you to do a lot of different things, so how do you prioritize the different interests that you have? And how do you decide that you’re going to add something new to the list? Cause I’m imagining that the list is pretty full.

Yeah, I’m very bad at this. The answer is “poorly.” I decide poorly. That’s my only answer: I’m bad at it.

So what kind of internal struggle, if you like, do you go through when you’re facing doing something new. For example, if you were thinking of writing a new book. You’ve just written a book, but how do you decide when it’s time to start a new project?

Well, books are different. The only reason I ever start a new book is because I have absolutely no choice. There’s no excuses, delaying or anything else left. The book forces itself to be written. That’s been true for the last probably seven books. It’s such a long journey, it’s so frustrating, it’s such a hassle, so few people read it compared to my blog. There’s only going to be a book when the muse insists on a book.

Okay, so what about things like new businesses? Because you’ve started dozens of companies, so how did thy get onto the list?

I have, but I’m getting better at breaking that habit. The last company I started was six years ago, and Squidoo is doing really nicely—we’re the 76th biggest website in the United States. But I started that because there were some people I really needed to work with and they wouldn’t work with me unless I had something to work on.

But there’s tonnes of businesses that someone who was willing to work harder than me would start if they saw what I see; it’s just really hard to persuade myself to sign on for a ten-year project like that. I probably should get better at that.

Right, so I’m just thinking one of the things you mention is delaying, delaying projects and also the ten-year thing, the timeframe. So do you prefer to go for things that are a bit of a shorter timeframe or … I’m just trying to get an idea of how you would sift out these things. ‘Cause obviously you’ve got lots of ideas and lots of possibilities and I’m just thinking if, indeed, the average person has this great potential that you see, then that’s potentially overwhelming to have that potential. So I’m trying to get an idea of how you would prioritize.

Yeah, the book I wrote, The Dip, I take very seriously. I think that being the best at what you do is far more important than most people think. Which means that you need to make the thing you do small, so that you can be the best at it. And I also believe that we live in revolutionary times. Which means that…

You know, Henry Ford could have done anything he wanted once he got started. He could have started any one of 500 other businesses. And you know, he did cars, then he did trucks. But he could have done golf carts, he could have done boats, he could have done motor scooters, he could have done motor cycles—all these things. At one point Henry Ford had Ford shepherds who were tending Ford sheep so they could shear Ford wool to weave it on Ford looms to make fabric for Ford seats to put into Ford cars. Because he could.

You need to make the decision about what change are you passionate about making, cause it’s all a hassle. And there’s no formula. You just have to have an instinct, I think, for how hard are you willing to push to be the best at that thing. That’s why I don’t use Twitter, right? Because I get why people think it’s fun. But I also know that I couldn’t be as good as it as I could be and still do everything else I do.

Thinking about Twitter, and Facebook—you said you’re not on Facebook—and you don’t do meetings, are there any other tools or approaches or philosophies that you have to manage all the tasks that you do? Obviously not doing, not subscribing to certain things that you can’t give your all to is one of your approaches for getting through all the tasks, but are there any others that you can share with us?

Well I think, you know, I posted a couple of weeks ago about the Zig Ziglar Goal Planner that we published, and it really is my secret weapon. I mean, it saved me from bankruptcy. There were seven or eight years in a row where I was within two weeks of running out of money. That’s a really long time. 900 rejection letters from publishers everywhere. Window-shopping in restaurants cause there wasn’t money to buy a plate of spaghetti. And the Goal Planner saved the day.

We’ve update it; we’ve modernized it, but I don’t care which version you use: there’s something extraordinarily powerful. I have never met anyone who has seriously written down their goals, and done it properly, who is stuck or is considered a failure. Not one person.

Excellent. That’s great. Just before you go, I wanted to ask if you could share with us one piece of advice that you’d give to other bloggers who want to increase their creative productivity to a level that they can use to generate a full-time income.

Oh, I don’t think you should do that.

Excellent! And why not?

Because then you just, you’re doing it to generate a full-time income, aren’t you? And this is amateur media; this is not professional media. And every once in a while an amateur gets so good that people come to them and beg them to take money. But if an amateur sets out to be a professional, she starts making short cuts and she starts trading in relationships for cash. And I don’t know how to tell people to do that.

So obviously for you the relationships are where it’s at, not the cash.

Yeah, because if you do care about cash, sooner or later enough people who admire your work and trust you, it’ll turn into cash. But in the long run, we never ever keep track of how much cash someone has. We always keep track of what their reputation is.

Very true. Well, that’s an excellent note to finish our interview on. Thank you very much for your time, Seth.

Thank you Georgina, it was a pleasure.

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Blogging Tips That Can Help You Become Successful

For many people, blogging represents a steady source of income. However, this activity can easily bring along not only a nice monthly income but also a great reputation. In this post we will go over thing that you should do to help you achieve online success, while making good money doing it. However, if you want to get some truly amazing results, you must consider a few important tips to help you become everything you possibly can.

The Most Important Tips for Successful Blogging

The most important element, which can help you become successful and earn money, is the traffic towards your blog.  Getting traffic and knowing things about your traffic will play a vital role. The more visitors you have, the better it is for your income and reputation. Furthermore, if you are able to write interesting posts in a truly unique manner, you can make a name among the other bloggers. Gaining a good online reputation will bring along important benefits to online success. But, in order to achieve this you must take into account the following tips:

Time Management: Management of your time represents a very important aspect in the online world. Posting some truly interesting and high quality content on your blog, including posts, videos, and feedback becomes very time consuming and you can only do so much of it. Additionally, social media marketing and link building also require a lot of time. Thus, making a daily plan of attack can help you divide your time efficiently. If I have a plan, I find that I make better use of my time everyday. First step to doing this is to realize that your blog just like a full time job.  You have to put in daily work and work overtime some days to make it work.  I personally use Basecamp to organize my life and assign myself things to do.  It’s a little bit pricey ($100/month) but if you have people working with you it’s a great way to keep track of everything and assign yourself things to do, then mark them off.  Great for keeping track of clients as well!Build a List: Another thing that you must do is to build a list. This aspect is very essential especially because the list can easily help you double your profits. Building a list will enable you to properly communicate your readers whenever you need to. When you have a list you can send offers that will help your readers out while making money if they buy it.  We recommend aWeber for managing your lists.Build the Relationship: Keep in mind that building a relationship with your readers is the key to your success. Your readers and website visitors are who is going to be buying your products, reading your posts, telling other people about your site.  You must build this relationship, get to know them. You need to give them your attention. Most people want to know that someone actually listens to what they are saying and cares about them as a person. In order to build a strong relationship with your readers, you should start discussing their problems and help them find solutions to help them solve all those problems.Choose a Niche: This is the very first thing that you must do prior to creating your blog. In order to achieve some amazing results, you have to know what you want to write about. Furthermore, try to find a topic that is not very competitive but still has a lot to offer.  Make sure that you are passionate about this topic or you’ll blog for a couple months and get sick of it and quit.  Readers can always tell if you are passionate about something, it will show in your writing.

While considering all the topics above, keep in mind that blogging will take time and patience. Blogging can allow you to supplement some or all of your income from money you make on your blog. You can earn good money, become popular and even build a serious business. But until you can reap the benefits of this activity, be ready to put in a lot of time, dedication, and a lot of hard work!

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If You Don’t Stop Doing This One Thing, Your Blogging Business Will Never Go Anywhere

This guest post is by Tommy Walker, Online Marketing Strategist and owner of Tommy.ismy.name.

Why are you reading this article?

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it, but isn’t there something else you could be doing?

What are you putting off?

I’m going to be straight with you. You are your own worst enemy.

And you are killing your business.

Photo by Stephen Brace on Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons

If you’re blogging regularly, at some point you’ll delude yourself into believing that reading every “5 tips to do this thing with your blog” article, and bantering back and forth with industry folks on Twitter, is “work.”

This delusion usually starts at the point where you hit a plateau, and your feedback starts to stagnate or wither.

So you hunt through other people’s work in search of the magic bullet.

Maybe if you read more, you’ll learn the secrets.

Maybe if you talk more, someone else in the industry will take notice and launch you into blogging superstardom.

If you just share more, create more, or interact more, eventually, somehow, you’ll make it.

Take this a step further, and you start buying information products, thinking that might somehow fix the problem. It doesn’t.

Meanwhile, your understanding of your audience hasn’t deepened, your writing hasn’t actually improved, your traffic hasn’t increased, and you still haven’t made a cent directly from your blogging efforts.

And you don’t understand why.

I know this, because I am you.

My blog has been live for a while, and granted there has been some steady growth. But when you’ve seen others rise up from nowhere in literally half the time, and make at least ten times your income, that extra 100 or so visitors isn’t really all that encouraging.

They get invited to speak at major conferences across the country, they get asked to do interviews with popular bloggers, they make six figures on their first launch.

You’re getting rejected from events from your own chamber of commerce.

And when it comes to talent level, their demonstration of knowledge is, well…

Doing more, giving more, and creating more, without having a purpose or an end goal in mind does nothing for your customers, and it does nothing for your business.

When you watch newbie after newbie surpass you in record time, it gets on your nerves.

After a while, it doesn’t make you want to learn more, it makes you want to quit.

For me, the moment came when I thought I was getting tired of working for myself, and considered taking a no-pressure sales position at Men’s Wearhouse selling suits.

But then I remembered,I got fired over a pair of pants in my last “real world” gig, so going back wasn’t really an option. It just seemed safer.

Of course, your customers don’t know any of this.

All they see is you phoning it in.

They see boring, haphazard updates desperate to grab their attention with no mission or purpose in mind.

They’re not sure what to think. You’re not helping them do anything specific.

So why would you expect them to do anything specific (like click the Buy button)?

I knew if I was going to revitalize my business, it was going to take something big.

I needed to prove I could do something impossible.

But let’s be real. There are plenty of reasons you can’t take on big projects, right?

For me, I have a nine-month old son.

I’m getting married in a month.

We’re moving into our first house.

I have a full-time client.

I conduct coaching sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I just started working on a collaborative project with seven other people.

While these are plenty of legitimate reasons to not do anything differently, the reality is that if these things controlled my business development, six months from now, I might not have a business at all.

Are you doing the same thing, day in and day out? Do you feel bored?

Have you convinced yourself you can’t do something because there’s too much other stuff going on?

Listen, the world is too small and life is too short for you to not do everything you can to make a dramatic impact.

One thing we have in common is that we share 24 hours in a day. Your impact on the world is a direct result of how you spend that time.

What do you have mentally filed away in the “I’ll get to it eventually” folder in your mind?

Chances are, that’s the best thing you could do for yourself, and you know it.

So really, what are you afraid of? Because isn’t that really what it comes down to?

Is it that that you might get criticism? Or that others’ expectations of you will increase?

Are you afraid that nobody will see it?

So what?!

“To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing”—Elbert Hubbard

Critics and downright haters mean you’re doing something right.

“Safe” inspires nothing: you don’t get people to think, or dream or hate.

Not everyone will love you. But consider yourself lucky that you’re able to inspire such a passionate response, even if it isn’t overwhelmingly positive.

And if nobody sees what you’re doing, do it again. And again, and again.

You are the only person in the world with your perspective, and to the right people, your perspective could hold massive transformational value.

So, with all of this in mind, I realized I didn’t really want to quit.

Knowing I had to prove I could do what I thought impossible, I decided to over-commit myself to a project.

Specifically, a project called 21 Days to a More Engaging Facebook Presence.

The problem with the “Facebook marketing” world is that too many marketers are focused on the “get more fans” aspect, and completely neglect how you can use the platform to genuinely learn more about how to communicate with your customer base.

I wanted to put out a free series that wasn’t just about Facebook marketing, but focused on developing an engaging voice that could be woven into every aspect of a business.

The principals really are universal, because it’s about truly connecting and bonding with your customers.

And like Gary Vaynerchuk says, “It’s the message, not the platform”

But here’s the thing: I didn’t plan.

Maybe three days before the beginning I said, “I need to sketch this thing out if I want it to be successful”

But three days came and went…

Plan or no plan, if I didn’t start on pre-designated Day 1, I knew I wouldn’t do it.

I scanned my brain for some of the most common complaints people had.

14 hours later, I scripted, screen capped and released a video entitled “Navigating Facebook to Gather Customer Intelligence” and introduced it as Day 1 in a 21-day series (which I still did not have planned out)

The reception to the video was overwhelming. New people as well as those who I had established relationships with were cheering me on and were very excited to see the rest of the series.

Each day, I thought about the problems that I had heard about, and created a new video.

Most days, I had no idea what I was going to do. But I knew I couldn’t stop.

I also knew that I wanted the information to be higher quality than some of the paid training that was out there, so many days involved a ton or research, and testing and experimentation to make sure that it was a caliber that would make people say, “WOW!”

It was hard.

Some days took 16 hours, other days the screen capture program would crash.

At one point I had to buy a new external hard drive, because I filled my existing hard drive with video data.

2 hours, 31 minutes and 4 seconds of video were produced.

My traffic is up 13% , people are taking 42% more actions than before, and my time per visit to my website is up 41%

I see a steady flow of daily traffic that is roughly double what I got before the series, and my Facebook Fan count is about 75% more than it was before.

Now here’s the kicker. I didn’t do much at all to promote the series. Between creating videos, doing client work, coaching, being a father, and being a fiancee, I didn’t have time.

It was pure organic growth, and every day I see inbound traffic coming from new links from websites I never heard of.

Anything worth doing is friggin hard.

In order to raise the bar, you have to over commit to something.

You’ll never learn how much you can do, or exactly what you’re capable of, until you push yourself to the limit.

Why are you holding yourself back?

Honestly.

Quit looking for dime-store tactics and commit to a project that forces you to level up.

Define a mission.

Develop your voice.

Do the impossible.

Then, and only then will you able to have a business that has any meaning for yourself or your customers.

So do yourself a favor, turn off twitter (after you share this article of course) close your email, and start fleshing out that idea you’ve had that you’ve been “too busy” to do.

Because your blogging business will never go anywhere if you don’t.

Tommy is an Online Marketing Strategist and owner of Tommy.ismy.name. He is about to release Hack The Social Network, the ultimate guide to Facebook Marketing, and is currently developing a “mind hacking” course.

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