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Archives for October 2007

Write Write Write.. Do You Write Regularly?

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If you are a blogger, you would have heard many bloggers saying “Write, write and keep writing”. If not, you hear it from me today. You have to write everyday to develop your skills. Especially if you are a blogger, you really need to write everyday. Though many bloggers don’t do it everyday, most of the successful bloggers have followed it and advice others to follow it. If you are wondering why you should write, here are some reasons:

Why Should You Write?
Writing everyday helps you to think more. It will be tough for you to blog everyday, but once you start doing it continuously, you will find it more comfortable. You will be able to write articles of 750+ words everyday. After a month of practice, you will be able to write two or even three posts a day.  If you are trying to become a freelance writer or a blogger who wish to own many blogs and write there everyday, this type of practice will be helpful. Most probably you won’t be able to write articles of 750+ words everyday, but you will be able to do it in few days with practice.It is said:
“Practice Makes A Man Perfect”

What You Should Write?
When it comes to writing content everyday, you feel you don’t have anything to blog about for that day. On those days, browse forums for new topic ideas. You can write for magazines or write press releases at these times. Better, select a product in your niche and write a review about it. Even after trying all these if you don’t have anything to write, then take a paper or open a word document and start writing scrap. Write what you know, write what you don’t know and write what you wish to know. Just write some crap. But don’t post it in your blog.

If you can write something of 750+ words everyday, then you can consider yourself a “half writer”. Practice, practice and practice. Once you are able to write one post of 750+ words everyday, expand your goal to 1500+ words/post or two posts of 750+ words. So stop checking your blog’s stats every now and then and start writing.

How to Explain Blogging to the Old Folks

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How to Explain Blogging to the Old Folks

Last week, my mother’s two old aunts came over for lunch. The elder of them was so old; she walks by shuffling her feet forward like a Chinese granny with lotus feet and the younger of them lost all her teeth about a decade ago. I was in the middle of blogging when they arrived so I didn’t get to welcome them. I was summoned by my mother when it was time for lunch and I had to go through the perfunctory greetings between relatives — you know how it goes. My mom told them I was working as a writer and Lotus-feet Granny smiled widely and detailed about her stint as a journalist (way before World War II). She asked me what subjects I write and for what newspaper I was working for. I shared a look with my mother in knowledge that it will be a hard-time trying to explain blogging to my ancient grannies.

I stuttered a little and tried to think of a way to analogize blogging with something they could understand. And believe me; it took me more than just a couple of minutes to explain. When I told them I mainly work through the Internet, they both ogled at me in disbelief and proclaimed that the Internet is “evil” and it’s the “demon incarnate.” I almost choked on my fried chicken.

So, how do you explain blogging to the old folks who don’t have a clue? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Granny, It’s Sort of a Diary, Only More Modern

I think this is the easiest way to try and give them a visualization of what blogging is. I also started with this explanation for my mom who, unfortunately, used to be just as clueless about technology like my grannies. So, I told them it’s pretty much like a journal, except it’s accessible by anyone and everyone around the world. I saw my grannies gasp in unison and then they asked me why the hell I would want my journal read by pretty the much the rest of the world. When your oldies ask you the same question, tell them…

2. Granny, I Meet Friends From Around the World Because of It

Tell them blogging introduced you to many people from around the world who share the same interest. It might be hard explaining that not all blogs are akin to personal journals, but unless you’re willing to spend the next X number of hours explaining, then you better stick to the basics. My grannies, however, didn’t look pleased when I told them I met quite a number of people through blogging. In fact, they look scandalized. They think I ought not to associate myself with strangers from the Internet. Why in the world, they ask, would I want to meet people from other countries when I can make friends with people from my own? Well, since all else failed, I told them…

3. Granny, It Earns Me Money

This one got them. Just imagine their surprise when I told them that one could earn money off the Internet! I do think I went too fast. Thinking about it, I shouldn’t have introduced them to blogging and told them it’s a possible way to earn money all on the same day. Perhaps I should have just left the money part for latter visits. However, I was out of any more explanations and changing the subject won’t do any good since both grannies were onto me like vultures are onto carrion. So, out of explanations, I told them this…

4. Granny, Blogging is a New Media Pretty Much like a Magazine

I don’t think my grannies really understood what I meant. But I told them that it’s comparable to a magazine, only, of course, different. I told them that it’s the media for the new generation and that it’s fun. And the conversation ended with that. Though how much they really got from everything I’ve said — I have no idea.

Not all oldies, however, are tech-illiterate. I know someone who’s almost seventy who still writes fan fiction for the internet. If you, however, have old folks who don’t understand what you do, try the tips above to explain — but only if they ask. If not, then save yourself the headache.

Poaching Writers and Blog Network Ethics

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One of the big plusses of the Internet is the ability to hire people from across the globe and have them work for you remotely. As a blog (and blog network) owner, I tend to take it for granted that I can, at any point in time, contact any of my bloggers and get them to write something on a particular topic without leaving the comfort of my office (or indeed, home).

The downside is that in the absence of any physical connections (they don’t come to the office to work for you every day), it’s a lot easier for other blog owners and blog networks to approach them. I’m not saying that it makes it easier for bloggers to leave – not at all, loyalty extends beyond borders and physical proximity – but with the access there’s a much greater chance of:

  • You not finding out about the exchange until its too late.

  • The poacher finding out the details of the arrangement from your writer and offering them a better package, perhaps something you can’t offer at the time.

Recently, a blog owner in my network forwarded an email conversation he’d had with a major retailer in our niche. They were interested in having him come on-board as one of their columnists. He’s saying no, but when you start discussing pay packages and everything the only thing a blog owner / network owner can count on is loyalty.

Which brings us to the question for the day: What do you do to keep your employees / network members loyal to you / the network?

10 Simple Rules For Online Success

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This article was inspired by an offhand rant in an IM session with David – thank you for listening mate.

Over the weekend I was looking at my own life (you know, the usual introspective Sundays) when I was – to put it mildly – interrupted by another whining session from someone who has been seeking success all their life and hasn’t achieved it. It made me angry at the time (hence the rant) but after a while I figured that for most people, going from failure to success was a process that they just couldn’t get started on.

I’ve tried to catalog that process here. It all starts with a plea to …

10. Stop Whining.

The world is a tough place, we get it. We ALL GET IT. You’re not doing yourself any favors by focusing on the bad stuff. In fact, you’re just polluting the world and bringing down the energy of the people unfortunate enough to be in hearing distance at the time (or as the case may be, to read what you write). The faster you get over your self-importance and start working on making things better (you know, real shit, like working on that linkbait that you can’t crack, or those blog posts that you don’t have the time for, or outsourcing that theme you just don’t know how to code), the faster you’ll get to where you want to be.

The fastest way to stop focusing on what’s wrong and start working on improving your current condition is to…

9. Channel Your Energies

Suppose that you’re shafted in a project you’re working on – the person who’s hired you collects the work and makes off without paying you. Understandably, you’re angry. But how would you deal with this anger? Venting is good (and necessary), but there is a difference between using that anger to achieve something positive and letting that anger eat you up inside.

Could you set in place practices that ensure that you get paid for 100% of your projects? Is there some way you can get back at the person who’s wronged you (religion allows for revenge, in case you’re objecting) without spending too much time / energy (publicly cataloging this incident on your blog / website / forum you frequent)?

At every junction of your life you’re presented by choices – and (as I venture dangerously into feel-good mumbo-jumbo) you’ve got a responsibility to yourself to make the right choices – the ones that help you move your life forward and take you towards your goals.

If something evokes a strong emotional reaction, find an outlet, get the initial and strongest reaction out of your system and then channel your remaining emotions into something constructive. To do this, you have to…

8. Focus

It’s easy to tell yourself that you must focus on a particular task, in practice its virtually impossible to do so if you have problems with paying attention. There’s no big secret to razor-sharp focus – barring genetic pre-dispositions and childhood habits, the best you can do to help yourself focus is to:

  • catalog distractions and ruthlessly eliminate them.
  • setup a stable daily routine for your work – forming stable work habits are the best way to get (and stay) focused on your work.

The biggest obstacle to focused effort is your resistance to doing tasks / work that you’re not interested in (and in contrast, the easiest way to build focus is to work on something you enjoy). This leads us to the next two steps…

7. Find Yourself and Your Target

When it comes to success (and making money), it’s important to know what you want. To figure that out, you need to know what your strengths are (fields of work as well as type of work) and what impassions you. While your interests will evolve with time, getting your bearings right at the start makes it easier to make course corrections in the future.

Once you know what you want, you have to figure out what to do.

Let’s say you’re struggling to provide a comfortable living for yourself, and your aim is to earn at least $5k / month. Knowing what you want at this point is not enough – you need to choose projects (and therefore develop habits) that bring you to that total. In other words, if you cannot achieve a goal in your current circumstances then you need to change them, step out of your comfort zone and in short cause radical change in your life in order to get to where you want to be.

The most common excuse (see #10 on how to deal with such excuses) I’ve heard (and given a few times myself) is that stepping out of the comfort zone is difficult, and there are risks involved with it. A different version of this is the worst excuse known to man (because it is self-deceptive and only manages to keep you stuck in the same place for a longer period of time):

“I’m working on it, and I’ve got it all figured out – it’ll take me this long (insert fashionably long period, more than 6 months) to achieve this target (something that this person could achieve in less than 3 months if they changed the rules and made a genuine effort to step out and take a risk).”

Yes, take risks … but calculated risks, backed by knowing exactly what you want and knowing how to get there (points 6 to 3 will help).

6. Sacrifice / Self-Discipline

So now you know what to do. The problem is, you probably don’t have the time to get it done (sound familiar?). When we talked about ‘Focus’ (#8), the key ideas were to eliminate distractions and build habits that help you focus more.

Eliminating distractions means sacrificing things that you may enjoy ‘now’ but are not helping you achieve your goals – such as talking to your friend on the phone at 10am in the morning, or browsing Amazon for Dilbert books at 10:30am. Switching your phone off (having an assistant or using a second number that’s only for emergencies works better), avoiding checking your email like the plague (twice a day, max – otherwise you’ll spend your day looking at email piling up) and staying offline (unplug your DSL / cable modem and hide it if you have to) when you’re working are just a few of the sacrifices you’ll need to make, and this requires self-discipline.

It’s not rocket science – by establishing a regular routine (and thus making it easy for you to develop habits), you can eliminate distractions to a large extent. The problem comes when you have a variable routine (like me) – in that case, at least ensure that you work for the same amount of time, at the same hours, each day.

5. Consistent Effort

It may seem moronically obvious to hear this, but you need to work hard consistently on a project in order for it to be successful (insert suitable plant growing analogy here). While you don’t have to wait a century to get something done, you also can’t build Rome in a day (or something to that effect).

The unfortunate thing is, most people are divided into two categories. They’re either bloody impatient, or they’re stuck in the pattern on wanting to do everything by themselves. Neither approach will succeed. You need some patience (consistency is more like it), and more importantly, you need to leverage…

4. Other People’s Resources

By yourself, you can only expand to a certain point (self-cloning is out of the question, at least for now). With the help of others, there is no limit to what you can do (although self-cloning would still be out of the question).

Outsource. Hire. Give yourself more time to do the important stuff by getting others to do the unimportant stuff. This form of leverage usually costs money, but the time you free up can allow you to earn a lot more – allowing you to be better off than when you were doing everything yourself.

If you haven’t done this yet, stop everything a read this article.

3. Always Improve

Most people will read this article, bookmark it and then forget about it. Some will apply one thing from it, and then forget the rest.

Truth be told, improving one time is almost as useless as not improving at all. If you take one step forward and then step, you haven’t really gone anywhere. The real benefits will come when you’ve taken several steps forward, one after the other, in a short period of time. You don’t change your life with a single step – it takes a journey (even a short one) to move past old comfort zones and establish yourself at a higher level of success.

And whatever you do, don’t settle for being good enough.

2. Share

Sharing your knowledge, your expertise, your experiences – sharing what you know – is one of the fastest ways to improve your own understanding of how things work. And (to take the cynical route) even if you think you’re successful enough, the network benefits you receive from helping others ensure that sharing is perhaps the best way to achieve #4 (leveraging other people’s resources).

1. Act Now

Do you still think that there’s any ‘secret’ recipe to success? Everything I’ve said here is common sense – find out what you want, do whatever it takes to get it, even if it means giving up on smaller dreams and getting help from the world around you. It’s not magic, there’s no mystery, the keys are right in front of you.

All you have to do is take action and get started. What are you waiting for?

Why Blogger is the Best Blogging Platform for Beginners

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If you’re just considering starting your own blog, you may be wondering which of the many blog services will offer the best blogging platform for your needs. If you’re new to blogging, are on a budget and/or are not tech-savvy, I recommend Blogger as the best blog platform for beginners. Here’s why:

It’s free, with no strings attached.

TypePad has some great features, but you’ll pay for them. Their most basic level starts at $4.95 per month (after a 14 day free trial). WordPress.com is free, until you want to do things like include Adsense ads or display your blog on your own domain name. Blogger is completely free.

It’s easy to use, even if you’re a tech-dummy.

Blogger, in my experience, has always been the best blog platform for the tech-challenged. However, their new version makes customizing templates and rearranging widgets easier than ever before. Their XML templates allow for dragging and dropping of widgets, which means you don’t have to know HTML (even a little bit) to make your blog look the way you want it.

You can show up in search results faster.

Because Blogger is now owned by Google, you’ll have a powerful spider on your side. In general, when you start a new website or blog it can take weeks for the search engines to crawl the site, which means you won’t appear in search engine results for a while. My Blogger-powered blogs have all shown up in search results the same day I post my first post. I have one client whose Blogger-powered blog ranks higher than his own website. I have another client whose newly created Blogger-powered blog out-ranked her already popular MySpace blog in less than a week. There is power in having Google on your side.

There are plenty of free templates available.

If you don’t like the classic templates offered by Blogger, you can choose a more attractive template fairly easily. There are many tech-savvy folks online who spend a lot of time creating new Blogger templates and/or converting free templates from other platforms to work for Blogger. If you want to browse your choices for more attractive Blogger-compatible templates, I recommend the layouts at FinalSense, Isnaini and GeckoFly. For more recommendations, check out the Top 5 Free Blogger Templates listing at About Weblogs. You can also Google “free blogger templates” and browse the results.

Of course, there are also some disadvantages of using Blogger, like not being able to file your posts in traditional categories and the inability to “drip” your posts to show up on future dates. For a new blogger on a budget, though, I wholeheartedly believe the advantages of Blogger outweigh the drawbacks. Especially if you’re as tech-challenged as I am, I don’t think you’ll regret giving Blogger a try. If you’re really worried about the decision, you might want to open free accounts both with Blogger.com and WordPress.com. Play around a little bit on both and decide for yourself which is the best blogging platform for you.

Whether you’re a new or seasoned blogger, I’d love to know your experience. Which platform did you use for your first blog? Any advantages or disadvantages? Which do you feel is the best blog platform for new bloggers?

What Makes A Home Business Successful?

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2 things that have added fuel to the fire of home-based business are the rapid pace at which the Internet is spreading on the back of high-speed broadband connectivity, and the easy ability of marketing yourself with audio/visual tools as against simple texts only.

True, you can spend ad dollars to bring in prospects, but that is just half the job done. After they arrive at your website, it becomes incumbent upon you to live up to the promise you made in your ad.

Which means you have to again market yourself – this time more convincingly for otherwise they will leave your site as fast as they had come.

Why is the focus on audio/visual content? There are several reasons for that. Here are some:

  1. A majority of people is averse to read contents because for them that is almost like wasting time. Yet unless they actually go through your content they are unlikely to get a full grasp of what you wanted to tell them. The dilemma is how to make them read the whole content without letting them feel bored.
  2. On the flip side, audio/visual contents are usually far easier to follow and form opinions about. Just as a picture speaks more than a thousand words, audio/visual contents can convey a message you want to transmit easily.
  3. Unlike in the past, major search engines now consider audios and videos too as contents as they do in case of text content. Considering that Google is implementing universal search to include all forms of contents in search results, there is no doubt that relevant and targeted audio/video contents will increasingly attain high visibility.
  4. The cost of producing audio/video contents has come well within the reach of small website owners. For example if you have a video camera you can easily upload a short, well-made video clip to YouTube or Google Video or Vimeo, which in turn you can embed in your webpage.

What however still remains a puzzle is what home business should you be considering to make a head start?

I believe this is where most of us get stuck. Before I started this website on sharing information on search engine marketing I too was hesitant for long. I have seen that even when you know what your home business is likely to be, you are still held back for the fear of unknown or because of plain lethargy.

Let me mention 2 scenarios most of us pass through:

  • Even before we take the first step we look for assurance that our home business will succeed. This seldom happens. Like any business, a home business too has to face ups and downs, and there is no certainty that it will succeed.

    However as you proceed, face obstacles, and commit mistakes you need to keep your eyes and ears open so that you are not averse to learn what went wrong. As long as you do that you’re unlikely to face a complete wipeout, and you’ll find you’re nimble enough to change track when the going gets tough for reasons beyond your control.

    The lesson therefore is you need to be willing to learn as you go along instead of fearing the unknown or just sitting tight and doing nothing.

  • On many occasions we look for immediate results. Once again that seldom happens. True, there are Amazons, Googles, and eBays that are phenomenally successful. But for each of them there have been hundreds of thousands that simply perished after glowing for a while.

    What this means is that the days of quick results are truly over. You’ll be struggling like many others from every corner of the globe. But then the opportunity to make it big has also increased dramatically.

    What’s the lesson? Just stick around and have faith in your ability. Do everything ethical you can to promote your business steadily in place of either dashing through or placidly sitting back. It’s more than likely that you’ll succeed in your home business.

Blogging for money at Performancing

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I want to thank Performancing because you have really given me valuable resources. I like reading other blogger’s posts and learning about what’s going on with them. I like their tips on what to do, or what not to do when looking for jobs, I really enjoy the content. And I come here whenever I am down on a my luck, and sure enough things start to turn around for me.

I’ve been shopping around now for a few weeks for really great blogging jobs, but I guess I have to start small and build my profile up. I’ve gotten a few smaller paying gigs, so there is hope. I still blog a lot for free at Performancing, my own blogs, and Piggybankpie.

So for now I am plugging away at ehow, and a few sites as a ghostwriter…still waiting for that big blogger job. Or even a medium one. I am hoping to do this full-time someday soon.

Performancing has helped me hook up with a few potential leads, but nothing turned out. One site was too hard as I didn’t know the content (MLM business). The other one seemed interested but kind of left me hanging.

I want to know how many people have had success and whether it is possible to blog in the long run. I read one blog that was worried about writer’s block. I have so many ideas, I don’t know how someone could get writer’s block. If anything that person is extremely lucky to have said all they had to say and than run out of things…I can only dream.

So for now I am still waiting for that special job offer, blogging away. Hopefully soon it won’t be for free.

Thanks again performancing, for being my resource.

12 Tips for Battling Blogger’s Block

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The other day I received a letter from a woman asking about whether or not she was cut out to be a writer. She mentioned starting about nine blogs and abandoning them because of having < a href="http://performancing.com/the-only-way-to-beat-bloggers-block">blogger’s block. While I won’t go into whether or not she has what it takes, I will say that good writers know blogger’s block or writer’s block happens, and take steps to deal with it.

It’s frustrating not knowing what to write about, here are some of the things I do to overcome blogger’s block.

12 Tips for avoiding bloggers block:

  1. Make a list – I have notebook on my desk filed with ideas. If I need inspiration, I look through my notebook.
  2. Check out other blogs – Not just blogs in your niche either. My bloglines has hundreds of blogs listed and even though I don’t visit all of those blogs every day, I do have daily stops. Making the rounds never fails to provide me with a topic or two.
  3. Go out for a while – Go for a walk, run some errands or have a cup of coffee with some friends. Take inspiration from the world around you.
  4. Subscribe to Google Alerts – Set up Google Alerts to notify you of any new news or blogs posts.
  5. Read past blog posts – Is there anything you can update or expand upon?
  6. Blog somewhere else – Move to another room or bring your laptop to the local coffee shop, Internet café or library.
  7. Check out your comments – I get my best ideas from the comments section of my blogs.
  8. Put it to your readers– Offer a poll, a quiz or take questions from your readers
  9. Enlist the aid of a guest blogger – Even if doesn’t give you new ideas, it will give you a break.
  10. Make a list – – List posts are a great way of presenting lots of small ideas instead of one big one.
  11. Visit some website’s offering writer’s prompts – Many writing websites offer writers prompts to help battle writing block. This may be a good way to get back on track.

  12. Filed Under: Blog Tip