You don't need to spend full
time hours on your blog in
order to succeed.
Find out how I learned this
lesson and how you can change
how you go about building your
blog too...
---------------------
Hello There,
Is your goal to become a full time blogger?
Do you like the sound of blogging for a living?
Yeah, me too. At least I did anyway. But then I
learned the truth. I don't like doing anything
"full time".
Even something as fun as blogging is not an
activity I would want to do for the majority of my
day. I like variety in my life and while I want
blogging to be a part of it, I don't want it to be
the main labor. I want to do it because I like it,
not because I need to do it to make a living.
I remember when I first decided to become a
serious blogger. I monitored some of the other
professional bloggers, the guys and girls making a
living from blogging. Darren Rowse
[www.problogger.net] was of particular influence
on me because he was doing very well, had started
off as a complete Internet beginner and was from
Australia like me.
I tried to emulate Darren's blogging style. I knew
I had the skills to do it and in fact more
experience than Darren in a lot of ways because I
had been working online for over seven years while
he started much later. I had plenty of material to
blog about so I knuckled down and committed myself
to posting multiple articles every day.
It didn't last long.
Maybe I was lazy, maybe I was blindly following
someone else's lead without really thinking it
through. Whatever the reason I wasn't cut out for
writing blog posts each and every day. My blogging
strategy had to change...again.
Darren and many other bloggers are machine-like in
how efficient and how frequently they can pump out
good content for their blogs. These people work
hard. They enjoy solid rewards for their labor,
but my motto is not to work hard, but to work
smart, so I needed another way to make blogging
work for me.
REALIGN YOUR GOALS
I'm going to assume you are like me. You blog, you
want to blog, you enjoy blogging and you want to
increase your blog traffic. Most importantly you
want to do it quickly and efficiently and not
waste time putting energy into activities that
don't produce fantastic results.
The first thing you have to do, and this is what I
did when I decided full time blogging wasn't for
me, is to decide what your blog is for - what you
want to get out of it and consequently what your
audience should get out of it as a result?
I decided that I would use my blog for two main
activities -
1. To dump all my knowledge built up from years of
working online into article and audio format. I
wanted a repository of my skills and experience.
2. To increase my exposure and enhance my
credibility - to improve the "Yaro" brand.
With these two goals in mind I went to work
producing some big meaty solid how-to articles,
stuff you would read in books and manuals on
Internet marketing.
I didn't bother blogging too much about news or
linking to other blogs in my industry at this
point because those activities were not aligned
with my goals. I wanted my best stuff out there so
other people could learn from me and I could
demonstrate that I was an expert in my field.
In your case your goals should dictate what you
want to achieve with your blog.
If your blog is designed to help you get freelance
writing gigs, then publish lots of original
creative articles.
If you are interested in selling your consulting
services then go to work putting out articles and
case studies on the work you have done.
If you want your blog to become the news source
for everything related to Michael Jackson
celebrity gossip then aim to post multiple
news-bite sized articles per day.
The point is to define your objectives and work to
your goals. Don't follow someone else's goals just
because they appear to be doing well.
THE LAZY BUT SMART BLOGGER
I want to be clear about one point - you *don't*
have to work hard to be a successful blogger.
You don't have to post an article each and every
day. You don't have to create something of
'genius level' creativity each time you blog.
Ahh, see, now you can relax.
Of course if you don't write articles you won't
get traffic but as long as you post something
interesting, creative, practical or valuable every
once and a while your blog readership will
increase. People that like your work will look
forward to it regardless of how frequently you
post. A little anticipation is a good thing.
When you start to post regularly, not hourly or
daily but at least weekly, people adjust their
expectations accordingly. Remember you don't owe
anyone anything when you blog. Blogging is only
about putting in as much effort as is required to
meet YOUR goals.
If you post new articles six times a day people
will start to expect it from you. You will start
to expect it from yourself and blogging will feel
like a job because of pressures to publish a
certain amount of new content each day.
Now if that's your goal, that's fine, just
remember you can change things if you find
yourself suffering because you set unrealistic
goals. Don't ever feel obligated to do anything.
In my case I started to post between one and two
big articles per week and about one or two
podcasts per month. I'd also do a little news
linking or track-backing of other articles I had a
strong interest in during the "heat of the
moment". I could brain-dump my thoughts quickly
and effortlessly into a blog post whenever the
inspiration hit me.
I did most of my early foundation blogging while
at work. I worked at a computer help desk with
Internet access so I could blog in between helping
people at my job.
I ended up blogging collectively for maybe 2 hours
per day on average and I still managed to grow my
blog traffic to 1000+ daily readers within a year
and then 5,000 by the end of the second year, and
I didn't have to post each and every day to do
it. There is a smarter and easier way to get blog
traffic.
Here's to your blogging success,
Yaro Starak
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com
PS. If you like the idea of working smarter but
not harder on your blog and would like to learn
how to get the most out of those two hours per day
you spend on your blog, I invite you to join my
coaching program.
Blog Mastermind is all about finding the highest
points of leverage when you blog so you work less
for more reward. It's not a walk in the park, but
it's not about working 8 hour days on your blog
either.
Find out more here -
http://www.blogmastermind.com/coaching/
---------------------
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