5 Reasons Why Comparing Your Blog To An A-List Blogger Can Ruin You

Almost everyone has a blog today and the three main things new bloggers want are massive amounts of traffic, tons of subscribers, and lots of money. Let’s stop right there. These three goals are all possible, but in the beginning stages of blogging, they are unrealistic.

Ultimately all they are at this point in the early blogging stages are goals. Its good to have goals, but try to give yourself more concrete goals with a substantial number. Numbers are great, but you should start by looking at a monthly basis with what you would like to accomplish with your blog. So, what’s the ultimate thing holding you back from setting these goals?

You’re reading a blog put together by an A-List Blogger and you see they have 100,000 subscribers marked with a little chicklet in the sidebar, they broadcast their numbers (30,000 visitors a month) on their site to get you motivated, and tell you how great the blogging lifestyle is. That’s all great, but I hate to break it to you. This isn’t going to be you in the beginning stages. This could one day be you, but its going to take quite some time.

What most A-List Bloggers would fail to tell you is how long it took them to get to this point and the countless hours of work they put in until it became something they could call a career. New bloggers make the mistake of looking at what an A-List blogger does and telling themselves, “oh look, they are making money easily online, I can do it too.” Its not that easy and second of all…STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO THEM. The worst thing you could do is compare yourself to an A-List Blogger. You need to factor in a few things…

1. They have been at this a lot longer than you.
2. Many have been blogging before the internet was the “internet”
3. You need to really put in the effort to get the results – day in and day out.

So, here are 5 reasons why comparing your blog to an A-List Blogger can ruin your blogging efforts.

1. Achieving your goals becomes impossible – You are trying to run before you can walk. If you focus on making a 6 figure income from blogging before you’ve made $10, then you’re never going to reach your potential. You need to think smaller in the beginning. Start off with trying to make side cash from your blog, whatever your goal may be. It might be $10 a week. Try doing that first and building upon it. Maybe a couple of months from now, you will reach $20 a week. Thinking smaller makes the larger numbers more achievable.

2. Putting in the work becomes impossible – A-List Bloggers tend to write a blog post everyday. You shouldn’t get into the mindset that you need to do the same thing. Its better to write 3 high quality posts a week instead of 5 sub par posts. Remember, A-List Bloggers have a larger audience who want that daily content. Chances are with your blog only having a few subscribers in the early stages, those readers aren’t going to be expecting a post everyday. Secondly, its about how you structure the mold of your site. If your subscribers become used to 3 posts a week, that’s what they will expect. Don’t feel the need to do exactly what an A-List Blogger does because you will burn yourself out and will not want to do the work.

3. Fun becomes a thing of the past – Start blogging your passion because its something you enjoy. You hear it all the time and its so true, you should be blogging about something because its an interest of yours and not for the money. The majority of A-List Bloggers started blogging as a hobby because they enjoyed it and they were not doing it for the money. Don’t look at the money as your ultimate reason for blogging. If that’s the only reason you are doing it, then you are going to be disappointed as your blog will have no passion behind it and no money.

4. Become Your Own Blogger - The main point I’ve tried to make clear throughout this post is trying to compare yourself to an A-List Blogger can ruin your blogging efforts. Ultimately, you want to become your own blogger. You want to be a source readers want to go to and trust. Don’t copy an A-List Bloggers style, create your own style and voice – separate yourself from them! Instead of trying to compare yourself with them…network with them; they will talk to you! Pick their brain and learn what has worked for them and implement ideas that sound good to you. Rather than become them, become something that is unique.

5. Frustration becomes a continuous process – Blogging is a frustrating process. Most of the time, the things you are trying to accomplish are not going to go the way you want them to. I’m sorry to say it, but that’s blogging. You need to keep trying new and innovative things with your blog. The minute you stop doing this is when your blog becomes like every other blog out there. A-List Bloggers are always changing things up, but don’t do what they are doing. The things that they are doing may not work for you. Instead, pay attention to their habits and pull together fresh ideas that work for you. If you stick to the same idea and give up when something doesn’t work that’s when blogging becomes too much of a frustration and you sit there wondering how do these top bloggers do it?

Look at it this way, no matter what you do, those A-List Bloggers are always going to be at the top of the food chain. They have been at it a lot longer. You can’t expect to be at their level from the beginning. You can eventually build up to that level or somewhere along those lines, but don’t EVER compare yourself to them. It doesn’t matter what they do, it matters what you do and you decide what defines success. You need to feel accomplished with what your producing and not worry about what another blogger is doing. Believe in what you are producing and people will care.

About the Author: Frank Angelone is the founder of SocialTechZone.com and has been blogging since 2008. Since that time he has provided readers with tips on improving their social media reach as well as offering tech tips for improving computer performance.

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Five Ways to Become a Better Writer and Take Your Blog to the Top

This guest post is by Ali Luke of Aliventures.

Does great writing matter in blogging?

It’s a debate that isn’t over—yet. But it’s one where more and more blogging experts are emphasizing that your writing does matter, and that readers are drawn in by a strong, engaging voice.

Great writing will:

• encourage people to share your content
• persuade readers to subscribe for more of the same
• get a powerful response—like comments or sales
• make you look like a big player in the blogosphere, even if you’re just starting out.

You might not think of yourself as a writer, but your writing skills will make or break your blogging career. Here are five ways to improve.

1. Blog regularly

If you talk to any writer, they’ll tell you that you need to write regularly. We bloggers, of course, have an advantage here; there are a bunch of good reasons to produce frequent posts (encouraging search engine traffic, and keeping readers engaged, for instance).

Blogging regularly doesn’t necessarily mean daily. In fact, you’ll almost certainly do better by writing slightly less often and putting more time and effort into your posts: after all, wouldn’t you rather your readers were eagerly looking forward to your next in-depth post, instead of skipping past yet another mediocre 300 word piece that you’ve churned out?

To get into a regular blogging habit, try setting up a blogging calendar. Once you’ve found a comfortable routine, it’s easy to keep going.

2. Learn actively

Just writing regularly won’t get you far. It’s also important to actively learn about writing—to look for areas where you want to improve.

You need to slow down when you write. You need to think about what you’re writing, and how it works to capture reader attention. You need to devote conscious attention to improving your work to make it more effective. More readable. More captivating and compelling.

—James Chartrand, Why You Shouldn’t Write Often, Men with Pens

So how do you give your writing that “conscious attention” which James is talking about?

• Read writing blogs. Ideally, subscribe to them so you get daily tips and inspiration. I’d recommend Daily Writing Tips, Copyblogger, and Men with Pens, for starters.
• Invest in great ebooks. The Copywriting Scorecard for Bloggers is a fantastic resource to have to hand. And if your grammar and spelling could use a bit of work, get 100 Writing Mistakes to Avoid (from Daily Writing Tips).
• Read brilliantly-written blogs, and learn from them. All the writing blogs are great examples, but it’s also a good idea to find blogs in your own niche. If you come across a particularly engaging or well-written post, print it out and go through line-by-line to see how it works.
• Go to a writing class or course. Try your local college, or look online—for instance, Darren and Chris run Creating Killer Content.
• Form a writing circle with blogger friends. You might not be experts, but you’ll probably be able to point out the potential flaws or trouble spots in one another’s work.
• Get one-to-one support from a writing coach. Although this isn’t cheap, it’s an incredibly effective way to get advice specific to you and your writing.

3. Read widely

How much reading do you do outside the blogosphere? When did you last read a book?

Although blogging is a particular form of writing, you can learn a lot from other mediums and styles. You might find a great technique in an advert in a newspaper, for instance, or you could use a brilliant headline that you took from a magazine.

Most books have been through a number of gatekeepers before being published—agents, editors, marketing boards, and so on. Not all books are well written, but many are, and they can give you a sense of what’s possible. Try out some novels (ask friends for recommendations)—novelists have the toughest job of all writers, because they have to convince us to care about imaginary people in made-up situations.

Look for good non-fiction books too—I particularly like the writing style of Richard Wiseman (Quirkology and 59 Seconds) and Chip and Dan Heath (Made to Stick and Switch).

4. Write creatively

As well as reading outside the blogosphere, try writing outside it. Okay, you may not have any ambitions to be the next J.K. Rowling, but by trying out different writing styles, you’ll find yourself becoming more comfortable and fluent in your blogging.

A great place to start is with the Creative Copy Challenge, run on Mondays and Thursdays. You’re given ten words or phrases as prompts, and you have to work them into one short piece of writing on any topic you like.

You could also try these ideas:

• Write short pieces of fiction. These can work incredibly well on blogs, particularly when they offer a different way of looking at your usual topic. A couple of examples are How to Attract The Most Awesome People Into Your Life by Vlad Dolezal and What Hope Really Means by Alex Blackwell.
• Write poetry. I’m really not a good poet (I wrote such awful poetry as a teen that I swore off it for life!), but occasionally I’ll try out poetry because it encourages me to focus on the full value of each word.
• Write the same post or page in several different styles. This is a great exercise if you’re struggling with how best to write something. Your “About” page is a good one to try this with. How about:
  • turning it into a story (not your whole life story, but the story which matters to you)
  • using a question and answer format
  • writing it from an unusual perspective, like Darren’s piece from his son’s point of view.

5. Use feedback

I’ve touched on feedback above, suggesting that great ways to learn are by working with friends or by hiring a coach. But you’re probably already getting plenty of feedback on your writing.

This feedback might come through:

• Tweets (either directly at you, about you, or retweets of what you’ve said): what gets a great response on Twitter? Look at the way you phrased things, and the content, and see if you can figure out why it engaged others.
• Comments on your blog: which posts get the most comments? What do readers seem to particularly like? If you’re experimenting with different styles—maybe writing a short story with a point, like Alex and Vlad did in the examples above—then pay attention to the comments and see what’s resonating with your readers.
• Emails that you receive: these may give you ideas of particular topics to write on (and choosing the right subject for your post is an important part of writing well). In some cases, they may also indicate when your writing has touched someone deeply.

Want to get more in-depth feedback on a particular post? You could ask on Twitter—making it clear that criticism is welcome—or ask on a forum. If I’m working on a high-impact piece of writing, like a sales page, I often ask in the Third Tribe for feedback and suggestions—and I’ve seen lots of other bloggers do the same.

How are you going to take your writing forwards, today?

Ali Luke blogs about writing and the writing life at Aliventures, covering topics like Finding Your Writing Voice. You can

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The Top 7 Pitfalls of Affiliate Marketing for Publishers

Running affiliate offers on your website can be a fun and rewarding experience, but there are quite a few challenges for you on your road to strike it rich. To help you on this journey, I’ve compiled a list of the top 7 pitfalls of affiliate marketing for publishers.

While this list is by no means comprehensive of all the challenges you’ll face in your campaigns, it’s a good place to start and might help you avoid some headaches along the way.

Also, check out my companion post The Top 6 Pitfalls of Affiliate Marketing for Advertisers.

1. Canceled transactions

Making money on your affiliate offers has a lot to do with the volume of traffic to your website. To crank up your earnings you might venture into purchasing traffic through PPC or some other medium. Before starting your new campaign you need to be aware that some of your “conversions” may be canceled before you get your first check.

Advertisers often have the ability to cancel transactions several days or more following the end the month. If you start dumping a bunch of PPC money into driving traffic to your site based on ROI derived from estimated commissions, be warned that many of your transactions could be canceled leaving your monetization model worthless. Be cautious and watch canceled transaction rates very closely during the first few months so you’ll know your PPC investments will net a return.

2. Fake EPC

EPC refers to earnings per 100 clicks and is a metric used by many affiliate networks to help differentiate between advertiser offers.

Before you go out and start promoting offers with the highest EPC, you should take note of a few points.

If the offer is new, the advertiser may just have a hand full of affiliates with good conversion rates resulting in a high EPC.

Additionally, if many of the advertisers’ affiliates are running sites where the product or service is discussed in detail, the visitor is much more likely to make a purchase than if they had visited through a traditional banner ad. Try to find examples of affiliates promoting the offer in the wild before making your decision.

On the more nefarious side of things, and as @affiliatetip pointed out to me Tuesday night, advertisers can also use PPC campaigns with high converting keywords to send traffic to their own affiliate program and drive up their EPC. To be fair, advertisers may also just have a high number of (or a few high volume) affiliates who send PPC traffic from high converting keywords, thus inflating the aggregate EPC.

While EPC may be a guide for the profitability of offers, just keep in mind there are a lot of factors that can influence it. Try to stick to picking offers you think will convert with your visitors. Let everyone else worry about their own results.

3. Many programs want traffic now

If you’re new to affiliate marketing and you want to start building a website around a specific offer, you should do your research on the offer ahead of time. Many top affiliate programs will require you to have an existing website and can even include traffic minimums. Do your research on offers and requirements before spending a lot of time on your website and strategy. There’s nothing more frustrating than building a campaign around a specific offer only to realize you don’t meet the traffic requirements. You might need a few backup plans to your target offer as you ramp up your traffic.

4. Impatience

This was a big theme of Austin’s @imarketingparty on December 14th as emphasized by @affiliatetip of Affiliate Summit and @DushR of ClickBank. Just because your campaigns are not working initially, does not mean it’s time to give up.

To quote Texas oil tycoon Ross Perot “Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a winning touchdown.”

Before you declare a specific campaign a failure or affiliate marketing in general a waste of time, think to yourself, did I really do all I can do to make this a success? Is there something I could try differently or test to improve my profitability? How much time did I spend on the couch when I could have been working on my campaigns?

While the 2 hour work week sounds good, most people find success after a lot of hard work, a good measure of pain and a whole lot of patience.

5. Not picking a relevant offer.

As we discussed already, picking an offer is a lot more than just picking the offer with the highest EPC. When you’re on your hunt for the perfect affiliate offer, make sure to find offers that are relevant or at least complimentary to your site.

Just because the Plasma TV site pays 50% commissions does not mean this is the best offer for you. Evaluate your site and make sure to pick offers that fits the mindset of your visitors.

As always, test a variety of offers to find the one that generates the highest EPC for you.

6. Laziness

Just because your campaigns are up and running, you’re generating profits and you’re cruising around the Caribbean in a 100 foot yacht, this is no time to rest on your laurels. You could be cruising around in a 150 yacht if only you’d spend a little more time on your site.

Don’t forget, that what works today may not work tomorrow. Watch all your campaigns closely. Become intimate with your ads and your advertisers. Join advertisers’ press release feeds, ask about new products, update pricing data as needed and make suggestions. If the advertiser has a seasonal offer or one that expires, make sure to set a reminder to update your ads after the offer is over.

Nothing will drop your EPC faster than running the wrong offer on your site.

7. Not shopping around.

So you’ve found an offer that works, now what? More golf?

Actually, it’s time to shop your traffic around.

Start by running your current advertiser(s) in even rotation with competing advertisers. Identify the EPC of each. Contact all advertisers and request bids for increased commissions. When the bids come in, calculate the revised commissions into your EPC formula and presto-chango you should have your winner.

Keep good relationships with your old advertisers. You never know when you might want to run their offer again. It’s also a good idea to run competing advertisers in a lighter rotation than your highest EPC advertisers, but keep in mind you might pay the price of exclusivity for higher commissions.

As always, factor in payment schedules and affiliate support into your decisions on offers. When something goes wrong (and something will), you want a partner who will pick up the phone and make things right.

****************

So what about you? What pitfalls have you encountered with your affiliate marketing campaigns?

Don’t forget to check out my companion post The Top 6 Pitfalls of Affiliate Marketing for Advertisers.

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How to Optimize Your Sales Funnel for Success

This post was written by the Web Marketing Ninja — a professional online marketer for a major web brand, who’s sharing his tips undercover here at ProBlogger. Curious? So are we!

As online marketers, we often devote a large amount of time to finding ways to attract eyeballs to our online assets. We put such effort into simply get the readers there that we allow the rest to take care of itself. Money will flow, Ferraris will be purchased, and we can all retire nice and young…

Then we discover the concept of sales funnels.

You may already know what a sales funnel is, but if you don’t, let me quickly describe it for you.

A sales funnel is a simple map of your lead-to-sale process.

1. Let’s imagine you start with 1,000 leads (visitors to your web site).
2. 100 might click on a sales page link for of one of your products.
3. 50 might click your Order Now button and enter your shopping cart.
4. Ten complete the checkout process and buy the product.

So your sales funnel starts and 1,000 and ends in ten sales—that’s a 1% conversion.

That’s a bare-bones view of a sales funnel, but as you can see it takes four steps, not one, to increase the amount of sales your site delivers. If we put all our attention on attracting new visitors, we’re essentially forgetting 75% of the puzzle—and we’ve all done that.

But that’s not where online marketers go wrong!

It’s not hard to sell people the idea of the sales funnel—it’s simple to understand and easy to quantify. It’s also been around for a long time. Offline sales professionals have been using it for decades.

The problem with the sales funnel is that in the offline world it’s a simple and straightforward methodology, but in the online world, it’s not.

The image below is a quick process map I prepared for a Managing Director of a large retail operation, who’s focusing heavily on online strategy.

As you can see, that organization’s sales funnel is a lot more complicated than the simple four-step process I mentioned above. There are some key points I want to highlight in this map:

• Seven different types of traffic that visit the site.
• There are multiple behaviors that we need to analyse: what pages visitors view, how long they stay, the navigational path, and their user profiles (locations, browsers, etc.).
• There’s a connection outcome, as well as a buy outcome.
• A visitor can become a customer in a range of ways.

Now my idea of a funnel resembles something I use to fill my car with oil, and this looks nothing like it. This depiction reminds me more of the tubes game I play on my iPhone. In even more bad news, I made this process map in five minutes. The reality is that this business’s online sales funnel is probably twice as complicated!

The key to sales funnel success

The key to creating a more successful sales funnel is: step away from the keyboard. While I work in an office, I actually have a whiteboard in my house. I actually use it, and it’s better than any online tool I’ve seen for laying out the bare bones of a real, live sales funnel.

I start by detailing every single way people can enter the funnel, identifying where they have come from, what their persona is, and where they’re at in the purchase cycle.

Then, I identify every activity that someone can undertake on the site: read some content, read some more content, subscribe to a newsletter, view a social media profile, buy something, or exit the site.

Finally I detail the measures I can put on each activity: time on page, entry path, exit path, and so on.

Then I start connecting the dots and putting together all the different pathways a visitor can take thought my funnel. The key here is not to change anything about your site yet.

Putting theory into practice

Once the funnel is mapped, and the measures are in place, I start collating reports at every step. What I’m trying to do here is understand how my funnel works in practice, not in theory.

Try this on your blog. Once you’ve collated enough information to start making decisions, I guarantee there will be obvious points of failure in your process, and they’re likely to arise in two main areas:

1. a page that does a great job at encouraging a secondary behaviour (that is, rather than keeping someone in the sales funnel)
2. a page that fundamentally fails to move a customer to the next step in the funnel.

Initially, you’ll probably feel like there is a lot to do, so you’ll need to prioritize the changes you want to make. Focus on the areas that are costing you the most sales (which might actually be at the bottom end of your funnel).
With time, effort, and focus, you could see huge improvements in the performance of your site, without your having to attract one new visitor to your site. Sounds good to me!

Have you tweaked your sales funnel recently? What changes have worked best for you?

Stay tuned from most posts by the secretive Web Marketing Ninja—a professional online marketer for a major web brand, who’s sharing his tips undercover here at ProBlogger. Questions? Suggestions? Email him.

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10 Blogging Myths You Must Ignore

This guest post is by Onibalusi Bamidele.

I’ve been blogging for almost a year now, and like every other new blogger, I spend a large percentage of my time reading other blogs. While there are some great blogs out there, I have also read blogs that are otherwise. Most of these blogs are misleading and some helped contribute to a delay in my blog’s success. I also discovered that most of these blogs are owned by those who have no experience building a successful blog—they’re either blogging just for the money, or they’re simply copycats.

There are many blogging myths that, if followed, will lead to the death of a new blog. Many new bloggers read and follow these rules religiously because they heard it from someone they respected, but the end result is that they quit out of frustration—the frustration of not getting results from their efforts.

From building a successful blog and observing other successful bloggers, I have realized how dangerous and deceitful these myths can be, so I’ve decided to bust them in this article. Some of these myths will be shocking, and some will spark debate, but they represent what I’ve learned from experience.

Myth #1: Content is king

How can this be a myth? I knew it’d surprise you, but the majority of bloggers have been made to believe it. Yet highly successful blogger and copywriter, Brian Clark, says himself that a word has no life of its own if it is not read. It doesn’t matter how great your content is: you need people to read and share it. The truth is that even if people share your content, or a post on your blog goes viral, you still need a community to give it a lasting boost.

Through the emails I get, I’ve been able to discover lots of awesome content on my readers’ blogs. That same content might have gone viral if it were published on mine, since I have a stronger audience. But they don’t, and no matter how great their content is, it still can’t go viral, or bring them success, if they have no audience.

Many new bloggers spend the whole of their time crafting great content, based on the “content is king” myth), yet they can’t achieve anything, why? Content is not king!

Myth # 2: Marketing is king

I know I’m not the only one who disagrees with the myth that content is king. Yet many who doubt that content is king argue that marketing is king. It’s not. You can’t market nothing, and no matter the type of marketing you use, if you have a mediocre blog, you will end up with little in the way of results.

I once wrote a guest post that sent me over 1000 visitors in a day (before I wrote the guest post, I was averaging 150 visitors a day). But after two days of attracting those 1000+ visitors, my blog returned to the 150 visitors a day average. I was of course disappointed. But I realized that the traffic had fallen because I didn’t have solid content to back up that initial guest post, and sustain those traffic levels.

It doesn’t matter what your marketing budget is: if you don’t have solid content, it will end up being wasted. So marketing is not king.

So if content is not king, and marketing is not king, what is king? You might not expect this answer, but I believe the blogger is king. The blogger should be able to strike the right balance between content and marketing—this is the only path to true success.

Myth #3: SEO is bowing to social media, so neglect SEO and focus on social media

While Stumbleupon or Digg can send you 1 million visitors in one day, have you ever sat down to think about the value of those visitors?

Online success has nothing to do with the quantity of traffic you receive—what matters is its quality. While a social media site can send you several thousands of visitors in one day, the same number of visitors from a search engine may be far more effective. I discovered Problogger from Google, and I discovered Copyblogger from Google, but I can’t remember a blog I discovered it from a social media site, and now read loyally.

Also consider that more traffic from search engines can lead to greater social media success. I wrote a post on success quotes weeks ago, but I got little to no social media traffic to it. I spent a few days doing some SEO for it, which generated more search engine traffic, and that lead to thousands of visits from Stumbleupon thereafter.

In a nutshell, social media traffic hardly leads to more search engine traffic, but more search engine traffic leads to more social media traffic. After all, more visitors means there are more people sharing your content (social media), but more visitors won’t lead to an increase in your search engine rankings (more backlinks do this).

Myth #4: Social media is useless

I have heard this myth more than once. Most of the bloggers who promote this myth are bloggers who rely on search traffic.

While I said earlier that SEO does not trump social media, Im not trying to rule out the importance of social media. There are a lot of bloggers who started with nothing, but have been able to take their blogs to celebrity status using social media sites. Things are becoming better with the advent of Twitter and others—what matters most is not social media traffic, but how it’s being used.

You shouldn’t just focus on gaining more social media traffic; rather, focus on converting the traffic you do attract into repeat readers who will yield more dividends for you in the long run. Social media is the future of the web. A good blogger will not put all his or her eggs in one basket—we have to adapt to these kinds of changes and make them work for us.

Myth #5: More traffic = more money

This is probably the greatest myth of all. If it takes Darren 100 visitors to make $1000, it will take me far more than that number of visitors to make the same amount.

A lot of factors come into play when it comes to getting the best from your traffic and one of the most important is the authority and reputation of the blogger. If people see you as a mediocre blogger, attracting more traffic won’t make much of a difference, but if people see you as an authority blogger, you get a bigger bottom-line impact from every new visitor you capture.

I know some bloggers whos sites have less traffic than mine, but have several times the number of subscribers I have. What matters most is not the sheer number of visitors, but your relationship with them.

Myth #6: Not responding to comments means you don’t respect your readers

I have always wanted to be a successful blogger, but I never knew it could be a burden. With countless emails unattended to, and comments awaiting my reply, developing quality content starts to become a burden. Replying to comments doesn’t generate traffic: quality content does!

One of the best decisions I’ve made in my blogging career was to make sure I only reply to comments that really need a reply—after all, my content is what my readers want. This decision sparked a lot of debate. Some of my readers stopped commenting and one of them even went to the extent of ranting over my decision.

Yet, months later, the average time people spend reading my posts has increased from 2 minutes to more than 7 minutes.

Don’t waste your time doing things that are not necessary because people think it is a must. Rather, spend your time on what matters: developing great content that will keep your readers coming back. If you always strive to give your best, your “true” readers will stick with you, and invite their friends. But if all you can manage is to write sloppy, slap-dash posts, even those commenters you’re always replying to will eventually stop reading your blog.

Myth #7: Longer posts bring more traffic

I have been a victim of this myth not once or twice, but several times. I have observed some successful bloggers who write longer posts and this led me to write single posts as long as 5,000 words. Even though I fell for this myth, I was fortunate to learn an invaluable lesson in the process: your best post is what comes freely from your mind, nothing else. It doesn’t matter whether a post is short or long: its success has nothing to do with its length. What matters most is the uniqueness and consistency of the blogger.

A good example of someone who has great success with short posts is Seth Godin. Seth can write successful posts as short as 100 words. Someone who has great success with longer posts is Glen Allsop. Glen rarely writes posts less than 2,000 words, yet all his posts go viral and bring the desired result.

From these examples we can see clearly that what matters most is finding your voice. If you do better with short posts then stick to it; if you have more success with longer posts, don’t look back!

Myth #8: Selling ad space is the best way to monetize a blog

Another blogging myth that dominates the blogosphere is the belief that selling ad space is the best way to monetize a blog. In fact, I think selling ad space is one of the poorest ways to monetize a blog.

The problem is that many people are only blogging for the money—they are not ready to focus on building a true community with which they can later turn their blog to a business. You won’t make any real money from your blog until you have a community, so, instead of spending your time on ads that don’t work, focus on building a community. Once that community is there, you won’t find it difficult to make money blogging.

I’m not trying to rule out the possibility of making money from online ads—in fact, there are several successful bloggers (like Darren) who are making thousands of dollars from selling ad space every month. But the reality is, Darren has several hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors to his blog and unless you have visitor levels like that, you shouldn’t expect to make a solid income from selling ad space.

Myth #9: The best way to get traffic is by implementing as many tactics as you can

While there is nothing bad in learning and trying many traffic generation tactics, you should also remember that the greatest traffic-generation secret is to master that which you know.

I regularly hear people advise learning various traffic generation tactics. I’ve tried several tactics, such as blog commenting, guest blogging, forum posting and other methods, but only guest blogging seems to be working for me, and the moment I dropped other methods and started focusing on guest blogging I began to get incredible results.

If you’re a new blogger, try to start with three or four tactics. Observe which one works best for you and stick to it. Drop other tactics: they won’t take you far.

Myth #10: The key to blogging success is getting backlinks from an A-list blogger

It doesn’t matter if you’re expecting a link from an A-list blogger or a major media site: your success shouldn’t rely on any one person other than yourself.

Recently, I was reading a blog post by Brian Clark in which he said he didn’t get links from any A-list bloggers before his blog became a success. Stop waiting for the golden bullet (or link): don’t let your success depend on anyone but you! The key to blogging success lies with you, it lies in you giving your best and being consistent with it.

What blogging myths can you bust? What hasn’t—or has—worked for you?

Onibalusi Bamidele is a 16-year-old entrepreneur and founder of young entrepreneur blog, YoungPrePro, who writes practical tips to help you succeed online. Subscribe to his blog for more from him and get his guest blogging guide for practical tips on getting success from guest blogging.

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Doing Good with your Blogging Skills

It’s that time of the year again and I’m sure all of you are busy trying to get your last-minute holiday shopping done so that you can sit back and actually try to enjoy the season. It’s hard not to get caught up in the commercialization of the season as you are being bombarded with the myriad of holiday sales on television, radio, and, of course, the internet.

If I were a betting man I would imagine that if you are reading this post, on this extremely popular blog, that you are a blogger. Maybe you are a newbie just getting into it or you could be a seasoned blogger who has already gone through the trials and tribulations of starting up and running a blog. I know that a lot of bloggers get into this avocation in the hopes of making online money. There’s always that allure of making it rich sitting at home in your pajamas working in front of your computer. Believe me, it’s not as easy as it is portrayed by some to make any money on the internet. It’s possible but not without a lot of hard work and, of course, trial and error. I know. I’m working on an online venture myself.

But that’s not what this post is about. Just the opposite. It’s not about adding to your own coffers but it is about adding to your sense of satisfaction, your peace of mind, and hopefully your gratitude. We, as bloggers, possess something that others do not. We have specialized skills and knowledge that we can use in a positive manner. We’ve worked hard to put together an online presence through our blogs. When we started our blogs maybe we knew squat about blogging platforms, plugins, or widgets. But we learned out of necessity. We learned because we wanted our blogs to be someplace where others wanted to visit regularly. We now have a wealth of knowledge that we didn’t have before we started blogging.

Being armed with these technical blogging skills we all have a chance to make a difference. The holiday season is a time for giving and with your blogging skills you now have a chance to give back. How, you might ask?

Donate your blogging services to a charity

Back in the summer, I agreed to help out my daughter with a charity that she was setting up with some high school friends of hers to raise money for a local homeless shelter and food pantry. The girls didn’t have any knowledge of how to set up a website to advertise their mission. That’s where I came in. I set up a WordPress site for them that includes a blog, their mission statement, an events page, an “In the News” page, and a donation page. Believe me, it was nothing elaborate and I even used one of the default header images that came with the theme. What is great about this effort is that they could reference the website in all of their documentation. It also allowed them to have a place to keep online documentation like pledge sheets that people could download. And the girls had a chance to write blog posts about their mission which they really enjoyed. Since this is a year-long project, to date they have raised almost $3,000 and counting, which they will present to the homeless shelter at the end of the year. What I feel most proud about is that any time a donation is received online, I feel like I had something to do with getting that donation. It has been quite an experience.

Donate a percentage of your online earnings

If you have an online business, that actually makes money, you could donate a percentage of your earnings to your favorite charity. You could even state that on your website which could, possibly, increase your sales. You could even add a Donate Button on your blog that could go directly to a specific charity. This is a great way to give back with your blogging skills.

Promote community service on your blog

As you all know, blogging is an extremely popular communication platform. Utilizing your blog forum to promote community service is a great way to get your philanthropic message out there. If you have a local or regional blog, you could tout any charitable projects or events in your area. Maybe you could create a post asking for help building a new playground, volunteering at elderly housing, or helping out at a local library. The field is wide open on how you can promote community awareness on your blog.

Promote what is good

I wrote a blog post on the benefits of giving blood and I was heartened by the fact that it actually inspired others to do the same. I wrote that I had never given blood before the age of 50 and my daughter inspired me to do so, even at that ripe old age. Based on the comments on that blog post, it actually prompted others to give blood. Just talking about the benefits of the experience was enough to light a fire under others to make a donation.

And when Veterans Day rolls around each year, write a post about the importance of military service. Thank the brave men and women who have given of themselves so that we can remain free to be able to express our views in our blogs.

You will be amazed at the power that we all have as bloggers to do some good with our blogging skills. I challenge all of you to help out a charity, write a blog post promoting community service, donate a portion of your online earnings, and promote what is good in life. You can make a difference and, by doing so, I’ll bet that your holiday season will be that much more joyful.

About the Author: Bob Bessette writes a blog called TotallyUniqueLife which is geared toward practical solutions, tips, and advice for your life.

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Is Blogging Really on the Decline?

An article on Mashable today discussed a study by Pew Internet that broke down the online activities by age groups, starting with as young as 18 and working up to 74+.

Many of the results were not surprising. Email was an almost uniform activity across every age group, as were searching and getting news online. Also, younger individuals were more likely to play games online, IM and use social networks while their slightly older cohorts were more likely to visit government sites and check financial information.

All in all, the younger the respondent, the more activities they likely did online, though it seemed almost no one was using virtual worlds.

However, one thing that did catch some off guard was the decline in blogging. Not only was blogging an unpopular activity across all age groups, less than 10% said they blogged and less than half said they read blogs (with younger respondents having the highest percentage), there was a marked decline from the previous year's survey.

Many will undoubtedly look at this and see dark things in the future for blogging. However, the truth is likely much different and there are very simple reasons for the numbers and why they aren't very important.

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