Posts Tagged ‘Blogging’

53 Reasons Why Readers Aren’t Coming To Your Blog?

May 15th, 2010

Have you been blogging for a while, and you haven’t increased your readers? Here’s a list of reasons why this may be the case.

  • You don’t provide readers with useful content
  • What you say, readers already know
  • You are just copying other people’s idea’s
  • There is to much information already out there
  • You are not writing your best content
  • You have no authority in your niche
  • Your writing has to many spelling and grammar mistakes
  • You aren’t doing enough marketing
  • You are doing too much marketing (spamming)
  • You write for Google and not for people
  • Your blog is always down
  • You make it hard for people to navigate around your blog
  • You have to many broken links
  • Your website is hard to find
  • You don’t have any content on your blog
  • You are not capturing your readers details such as email addresses to tell them to come back
  • You don’t know what you are talking about
  • People can’t understand your instructions
  • You don’t have any fresh idea’s to write about
  • You don’t read into the full story
  • You don’t spend enough time Blogging
  • You read more than you write
  • You failed English or you don’t speak English
  • Everything you do is put off until another day
  • You are not part of a community
  • You are too predictable
  • You don’t understand what blogging is
  • You don’t put yourself in your readers shoes
  • You don’t invest time, money, and effort into your blog
  • You hurt or mock your readers beliefs, values, and feelings
  • You don’t have any initiative or goals
  • You aren’t inspired by other people
  • You hate blogging
  • Your expect to much from yourself
  • You are too negative
  • You don’t see the whole picture
  • You don’t explore or take risks
  • You don’t make use of your opportunities
  • You have not analysed your strengths and weaknesses
  • Readers don’t know who you are
  • You always say “I can’t” or “I’ll do it later”
  • You don’t have a schedule or you do, but don’t stick to it
  • You don’t set a clear picture with your writing
  • You don’t analyse the information you have
  • You are against your competitors, not working with them
  • You are too secretive
  • Your content is lame
  • You don’t want to blog, or don’t have a passion for blogging
  • You are not consistent
  • You lie, or twist the truth
  • You break your promises
  • You think about yourself, and not about your readers
  • You spam your readers with ad’s to make money

So if you try and not do the following, you will  be well on your way to creating a successful blog. Do you have anything else that should go on this list?

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Can You Make More Money On Your Own Blog, Or Writing For Someone Else’s Blog? – Monday Morning Questions

March 22nd, 2010

Before I get started, if you would like to ask me a blogging related question, please email it to or send a tweet to @blogcourses.

This mornings question is: “Can you make more money writing content on your own blog, or writing for someone else’s blog and get paid for it?”

To simply put it, it depends on what you do and how much effort you put into it.

By creating your own blog, you will not get a good flow of income within the first year, but after the initial growth stage of your blog, and you monetise your blog correctly, you can potentially earn more money in the long term with your own blog. That being said, you have to put a lot of time and effort into your blog. At least 2-5 hours every day and posting new, and unique content everyday.

However, if you are not willing to put that much effort in and not get anything out of it in the first year (which also may be a little risky), you could get a blogging job with some larger blogs. Taking this route, you will be guaranteed an income from day one. By using this method, the more posts you write, the more money you make. But if you stop writing for other blogs, you stop getting paid.

This may not be the case if you have your own blog though. If you develop your own blog to be reasonably large, you can pay other writers to write content on your blog, or get people to guest post on your blog, and you should get enough money from displaying ads and selling products, that you don’t have to put any work in (or put a little amount of work in), and the blog pretty much runs itself and gives you an income as well.

So it is really up to you on what path to take. Create your own blog and see if you can make some money in the long term, or get a paid job and get an income straight away. If you are thinking only to blog for someone else and not have a blog yourself, you may want to read these 28 tips on why you should have a blog.

However, nothing is stopping you from doing both at the same time. And if you want to get a blogging job, you usually have to show off some of your work. So it might be a good idea to start your own blog and try to make that work; and write for someone else on the side and get paid for it.

If you decide to look for a blogging job, you should check out Weblogs, Inc which is owned by AOL. You can write about pretty much any topic you want and for any blog on their network, or even start up your own through them. I am not sure about what they pay, but it was rumoured to be $4 per post, but don’t quote me on that as it seems pretty low. Another great site to work for is Make Use Of.com, but there are heaps of blogs around looking for paid authors. Just find a blog you regularly read, and see if they are hiring.

So my question to you, have you got or had a paid blogging job? What was it like, who was it with, and how much did it pay (if you are allowed to disclose). This was this Monday mornings question.

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How To Remove The “Can’t Be Bothered Blogging” Syndrome from Bloggers?

February 3rd, 2010

If you are a blogger, you might find yourself in situations where you just can’t be bothered to write new posts, or even finished your half written posts. You really want to write, but you just can’t be bothered. So how do you get rid of this can’t be bothered syndrome? Here are a few hints and tips to help get you motivated again.

Ask Yourself: Do I really want to be doing this?

The most common reason of not being bothered writing posts is that you don’t really want to be doing it. It could be that you have better things to do in your life, you are sleep deprived, or you just don’t enjoy the topic you are writing about. So think long and hard if this is something that you want to be doing.

Ask Yourself: Is this something I am enjoying?

Blogging is fun, social, and it allows you to express your views on your favourite topics. If you can’t be bothered blogging, then think to yourself, ‘is blogging actually fun and do I enjoy it? If you don’t enjoy what you are doing, then refer back to the first step.

Ask Yourself: Is the reward beneficial?

Every blogger blogs for a purpose. Because it is rewarding in some way – but it is different for everyone. Some people find it rewarding because they are making money, other people as it lets them escape from reality, and others because they know they have a loyal reader base and people are reading what they write. So what reward are you getting for Blogging? Do you even get one? If you don’t, that’s a reason why you’re not enjoying it.

Tip: Set yourself 10 small goals to reach one large goal

If you are writing an eBook, you might start writing and say to yourself, “I have a long way to go”, then just give up. But don’t. The best way to tackle this is to breakdown the eBook into sections. Don’t have your eBook all in one document. Break each chapter down into a file. This allows you to focus on the chapter you are working on and forget about the rest. Sooner or later, you have finished one good quality chapter and feel a sense of achievement. Keep doing this, and you will soon find yourself having completed the eBook without even knowing it.

Tip: Set yourself a deadline. And enforce it!

Set yourself a deadline to get what you want written done. Not only this, but make sure you enforce it and set a punishment to yourself if you don’t. Remember the days in school and university? What happens when you don’t finish it on time? You get an afternoon detention or you fail the course? Blogging isn’t any different. If you miss your deadline, you lose your readers. Don’t make your hard work go to waste.

Tip: Write heaps when in the mood, have a break when you are not

If you are in the mood to write, then do a whole week worth of posts. If your not in the mood, then write a little bit, then come back to finish it off. By doing this, when you are not in the mood for Blogging, you don’t have to write because you have completed your weeks work already. Make sense?

Tip: Don’t force yourself

Your best writing will just come to you. If you don’t currently feel like writing, don’t do it because your readers will know that you don’t care and don’t have the passion for what you are doing.

What have you done to help get you back into the mood of blogging when you can’t be bothered? Please share in the comments.

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12 Steps to Successful Blogging

January 22nd, 2010

Becoming a successful Blogger is a very hard task. So here are 12 steps to help you on your Blogging success.

Where to start?

The first step to take is to work out where to start. The first step is to give your Blog a home. Find a hosting provider if you want to run your own Blog, or sign up to sites like WordPress or Blogger if you want to go down the “free solution” path. If you have the money, you might want to consider buying a domain name. This gives your Blog a bit more professionalism.

Find your niche

Before you give your Blog a name, you have to find a niche to Blog about. To find a good niche to Blog in, you need to be experienced in the topic, and you don’t want to have many competitors and other Blogs in that niche. Make sure you research on the niche before you set your decision in stone.

Update Daily

A successful Blog needs to be updated daily. One post every second day is the bare minimum. Anything less you will not build up a readership. Also, don’t publish 10 posts in one day otherwise you will give your readers information overload. So make sure you use the schedule feature. This allows you to write 10 posts in one day, and allows you to publish them over a period of time. It will also keep your readers coming back to check if anything’s new if they no you publish new content frequently. Make sure you also have a publication schedule and make sure that you follow it.

Build up your traffic

Building up your traffic is the hardest stage in creating a successful blog. It requires a lot of work by you and it takes a long time. But once you have the momentum going, it pays off. There are many ways to build up your Blog traffic. These includes paid and free advertisement, search engine optimisation, viral marketing, submitting your feeds, word-of-mouth and writing articles for other websites who link back to yours. Once your traffic is on a steady rise, you’re going in a good direction to have a successful Blog.

Track your Blogs performance

The only way to know if people are visiting your Blog is to track your traffic, otherwise how do you know how many people are actually visiting your Blog? Setup Google Analytics on your Blog and analyse your stats. Look at your bounce rate, make sure it’s low, and have a look at the percentage of returning visitors.

Get input from your readers

Once you have a steady reader base, it is a good idea to get input from them. Ask what they like and don’t like about your Blog. Ask for suggestions and what they would like to see in the future. They will give you great idea’s, and they will even get more visitors to your Blog.

Be short and Concise

When writing your articles, make sure you are short and concise. With the amount of information that is published on the internet everyday, people are now skimming through articles looking only for keywords. Unless it really interests them, they don’t read the article word-for-word. By using keywords and making use of headers, this will have a greater affect of readers reading your Blog.

Use great titles

As I mentioned above, readers will only read posts if the title catches their eye. Make sure the title reflects the post, uses key keywords so the title get their attention. This increases the chance of them clicking a link to your site to read the post.

Keep it personal

Depending on your Blog, it is a good idea to add a personal touch to your writing. Blog from the heart, not from the brain. Express your views and feelings as people tend to comment more on these type of posts.

Interact with your readers

Don’t just write articles, publish them and leave it at that. Make sure you communicate and interact with your readers. Respond to all their comments, make them feel welcome for visiting your blog, and if they ask you a question, try to answer it in much detail as you can.

Make Money

The term success can mean many different things. A successful Blog can be that it generates revenue that you are happy with, you have a loyal reader base, or you are performing well on search engines. For everyone, it is different. But the most common way people determine if a Blog is successful is that it makes them money. Have a read of 7 common ways you can monetise your Blog for ways how you can make money on your Blog.

Be Professional

One final step is to be professional. Have a unique theme, a domain name, host your own Blog and make sure your posts have perfect spelling and grammar. If it interests you, you may want to team up with another Blogger. As they say, two heads are better than one. This allows you to work as a team, and write better content.

If you want to go that extra step, when you Blog, wear a suit and tie to your computer desk.

So there you have it, 12 steps to successful Blogging.

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