Recently I’ve been going through a pretty stressful time with my blog. I’ll be the first to admit that there are some issues, and most of them are the results of feeling fear, lack of motivation, carelessness and so on.

These things include the integration of social media to drive traffic and build the conversation, getting highly targeted word-of-mouth traffic, SEO, design, content, post ideas, community building, and more.

Sound like something you could relate to as well?

I’m not just a blogger that writes like a human. I’m a human that writes a blog. I am not perfect, and guess what? Neither are you!

Across the vast interwebs you’ll find article after article about how to create a successful blog. There is a ton of great information out there for you to partake. Blogussion is certainly one of those blogs (shameless plug). You’ll find others like ProBlogger, QuickSprout, Seth Godin, just to name a few.

But let me be very clear:

It isn’t all sunsets and tailwinds

These guys will be the first ones to tell you that, too.

As a pilot, I wish I could be flying into the sunset the whole flight, and I wish there was a tailwind taking me to that ‘point B’ faster. The truth is, I go through my share of scary takeoffs and landings, hefty headwinds that seem to make the flight drag on, and plenty of vectors from Air Traffic Control taking me away from my destination.

Blogging has been the same exact kind of experience for me.

I don’t profess to be a “blogging king“ (if I was though, I’d definetely get a king suit like the Burger King mascot), I’m actually a lot like you I’ll bet.

If there is one thing I know, it’s that I know I don’t have it all figured out. With that being said, we’re all working towards a “greater goal” if we are on a site like Blogussion looking to improve our internet authorship. You and I, my friend, are moving in the right direction.

So how do you make it through all the “scary takeoffs and landings, hefty headwinds, and vectors from Air Traffic Control”?

Two words that your mother would be happy to repeat:

Don’t complain.

Here is what happens when you complain:

• You will kill all the great ideas and positive thoughts you have
• You are focusing on things that don’t matter – things you can’t change
• A baby gets punched in Switzerland, one of the most peaceful countries (proven fact)
• When the sunset comes, you’re too grumpy to enjoy it
• You miss great opportunities in the blogosphere

Be very clear. You’re not going to make money blogging as fast as your most hated rival, or have a blog look as good as that guy who spends hours tweaking every pixel…at first. The sooner you face that reality, that everything comes in time, the sooner you can use the pieces you have.

But you know what? If you’re loving what you’re doing, and you’re getting great interaction – why fret about the intangibles that you can’t control?

A blog is an evolution. It’s a flight path, just like a real airway laid out in front of you. But you have no idea what is going to happen. You can steer the aircraft where you would like to go, and fly at an altitude where you are pretty sure the winds will be safe. But at the end of the day, you and I have no idea what the actual path will be like.

There is one quote from The Matrix that is perhaps one of the best quotes I’ve heard, movie or not:

“There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path”

Speaking for myself, if I knew the path laid out in front of me with all the details and the end result, I can’t say I’d actually do it.

Part of the beauty of life is embracing the fact that in the dark of night or the hot midday, where there isn’t a beautiful sunset, you and I can still push through these headwinds, make it happen, not complain, and get on with it.

Make your blog live for TODAY and THIS moment. Find the positive in what is happening now. Don’t worry about the rest.

Besides, in these moments when you’re feeling frustrated, gloomy or fearful, it means you’re on the brink of making a major breakthrough.

Now, 3 things to do, TODAY -

1. Just for today (do it tomorrow to even) don’t complain or have a thought of a complaint about your blog. If you try, just shutup.
2. Think of ONE easy thing you can get done – and do it. Write a blog post, come up with a few post ideas, I don’t care. Something.
3. Report back in the comments section here and tell us what you did.

I will be doing the same thing. I’m eager to hear your reports!

Photo by Kevin Dooley

Bloggin Discussion, Tips & Tricks Copyright 2009 Blogussion. All Rights Reserved.

Blogging Isn’t All Sunsets and Tailwinds

Some of us are workaholics, and like to spend hours working on our blog. Some people can do it, they can sit around for a long period of time and be alright putting in that amount of work for free. I know that when it comes to writing and designing, I will have sessions where I’m focused on them for a few hours at a time.

I’m somewhat of a perfectionist and often take extra time to make sure everything is as good as it possibly can be. It’s a good and bad thing to think the way I do about the “minor details.” But all is fine when it’s just one thing. What about when I have multiple things going on, and I want everything to be perfect?

With a blog, you never just have one thing happening at a time. There are a lot of things you need to do and a lot of time to spend. You can’t just can’t get everything done in a single sitting, or work on multiple things at one time. If you try to do that, you will not produce the best work you can. And the perfectionist in you will not stand for that.

So, are you doing too much?

It’s a desirable thing to get as much done as possible; to have the highest level of productivity possible in just one day. I know today I want to get two articles written, work on some WordPress development, reply to emails/comments, and market some things. That’s a lot to do, and I’m usually drained after writing those articles.

The problem is that the idea of blogging success will be achieved…one day is hurting many of us. We want that day to be today, right? How great would it be to just open your blog, find hundreds of new comments, dozens of new guest post submissions and thousands of dollars earned from affiliate links. These are all achievable things, and they have all been done before.

I want to do all of those things I mentioned today, but I know I won’t. And it should kill me, because I want that success now. But guess what I have learned?

There’s a tomorrow.

Some of us work like there isn’t a tomorrow and we have to be successful today. Is it really necessary to do all of the things on my todo list if just accomplishing one of them harms the rest of my workflow? No, it’s not. So I should save it for tomorrow.

Less is OK

I do believe that doing less work in a day is better than doing more. Why so crazy sounding you ask? Think of it like this:

• If you focus on just one, or a few things a day – time becomes less of an issue.
• Since you have that time, you can actually focus on one thing at a time, and not worry about other things.
• If you’re focusing on just one thing, you will produce better results as you will not be rushing through it to get to other things on your blog schedule.
• The better work you produce, the more you will understand the importance of working easier and you will be less stressful.

So really, if you want to succeed in blogging, you actually have to work less. The more work you do, the more harm you will do and the more time you will waste. Being the best blogger in your niche is all about having the most quality blog, and the fewer things you do, the higher the quality will be.

Success will be achieved faster by doing less

Sounds a little ironic, doesn’t it? It would make sense that if you get 10 things done in a day rather than 3, you will be creeping closer and closer to your success. But if you follow the principles I have talked about in this article, getting 3 things done rather than 10 will actually be a lot more beneficial.

Since you only did 3 things in your entire work day, which hopefully you spent plenty of time and attention on – you have the best work you can achieve. When you’re working on less, you aren’t worrying about running out of time, or wondering if you worked at your best. Because you did have time, and your focus was only on one thing at a time.

Or you can just do all 10 of those things you originally intended to do all in a single day. Rush it all into one day so you can get to your list of other crazy things for the next day. When you rush, you make mistakes. As a blogger trying to beat others out of “the top authoritative spot,” plenty of mistakes are already made; don’t make any more for yourself. Take your time.

So I ask you again: Are you doing too much?

There are so many things that we need to get done in order to accomplish our goals. But, the more we work to try to get all of these things done in just one sitting at the computer is the worst way to accomplish anything.

If you find that you have trouble figuring out where you want to start working on your blog, or feel like you are spending too much time working and seeing weak results – you’re doing too much. Cut back, do less, and I promise you will become a better blogger.

Photo by Tim Caynes

Bloggin Discussion, Tips & Tricks Copyright 2009 Blogussion. All Rights Reserved.

Are you taking productivity the wrong way?

Once again, it’s the weekend! How do you plan on spending it? Have you set yourself up for a weekend of relaxation away from the blog, or did you plan your relaxation period blogging? Whatever you choose to do, it doesn’t hurt to try to get some reading in.

Let me tell you, I have some great stuff for you guys in this edition of Wired Weekend!

The thing to note about the following articles I have for you today is that your article can just as easily be included the next time we do this. Simply participate in the community discussions around here, talk to us on Twitter and we may go to your blog and feature your best articles from the week here.

Blogging Tips from the Community

The following articles are all excellent sources for valuable blog content, and they were all found thanks to you participating in our community discussions.

Blog better by imitating a blogger who does it well

The best way to learn something is to see it done right in front of you. How can you apply that concept online when you don’t actually see face-to-face with another blogger? Well, you’ll have to read to find out!

How to overcome bloggers doubt

Often times it is easier to feel doubt rather than motivation, or a will to work. If you can’t work, you can’t succeed – no questions asked. In this short, but inspiring article, key ideas you need to understand about success and work methods are gone over. You should probably write them down.

The last time I’ll force myself to write

A great article that explains why it is harmful to not just your blog – but maybe even yourself to force yourself to blog.

How to overcome the fear of writing

Sometimes it is just so hard to come up with great ideas for an article, or – too hard to get your ideas out of your head onto your blog. Whichever it is, it’s important to try and overcome them.

Targeting long tail keywords on your blog

It’s always important to at least try to rank as high as possible for some keywords. The better you can rank for any keyword that gets search for, the more clicks you will get to your site no doubt. But, have you ever thought about long-term keywords? Do you even know what they are? Guess you better read and find out!

• The 1 trap when it comes to making money online
• Why you need to have goals
• 10 accurate predictions about social media in 2010
• What Do Blog Readers Want? Fast Food Content Or A Home Cooked Meal?
• The 3 unwritten rules of blogging
• 5 golden rules of relationship blogging

Blogussion Weekly Recap

Just a quick overview of the four articles that have been published during the last week on Blogussion.

I Don’t Feel Like Blogging Today

A motivational post about dealing with the common problem we all face as bloggers: doing nothing. I have said before that doing nothing can make you a better blogger, but there’s a certain point when it just starts hurting you. You will really enjoy this post I feel, and is probably my favorite article for the week.

The Iron Maiden Guide to Rockstar Blogging

A very detailed article comparing the success of the legendary band Iron Maiden to the success of you. A lot of points are covered in this article, and it really forces you to think about the direction you are heading towards on your blog.

Interviewing Bloggers and the Tremendous Value it holds

Interviewing other bloggers is a strategy that hasn’t really been adopted by all too many bloggers these days. Interviews actually hold an enormous amount of value in them as they are all unique thoughts and ideas coming from a single person about any topic. Learn about more important things that come from an interview in this article.

The Easy Blogging Life: Are you Ready for it?

An easier life is what we all want, right? In blogging, an easy life is when you have everything done for you. Writing, marketing, making money – it can all be done for you if you really grow your blog up. However, it’s incredibly difficult to achieve. And what happens when we stop living the hard life? How do we get back to work and start working for that simpler life?

All the Talk on Twitter

These are some of the things our followers have tweeted to us, and we have seen people retweet. Follow us on Twitter.

• How to Blog: Choose a Niche for Your Blog [Why Niches are Important] – ProBlogger
• Interoperability – Can it work for your blog? – BloggingTips
• How to recycle your existing content – ThouShallBlog
• The power of confident writing – CopyBlogger
• How to optimize your blog SEO – HowToMakeMyBlog

What are your plans?

So, after seeing all of this great content – what do you want to do on the weekend? For me, it will be blogging! We are expecting some hellish storms up here in New Jersey, so I can expect a lot of relaxation and blogging over here. How are you spending your weekend?

However you choose to spend it, I hope you enjoy it. See you all Monday.

Photo by Jack Wolf

Bloggin Discussion, Tips & Tricks Copyright 2009 Blogussion. All Rights Reserved.

The Best Blogging Tips From Around the Community – Wired Weekend

We want everything to be easy. Things are nice when they’re handed to us, aren’t they? The more handouts, easy breaks and close calls we experience, the more we want. All of these things have to do with luck, and the people you interact with on your blog.

The “simple life” I’m talking about above is not created by you. In fact, nothing is easily accomplished if you’re the only person in the picture. It’s the people who are around you, and interact with that help make things easier for you. In the world of blogging, those people are your readers.

A blog is nothing without readers, and generally without any readership – a failure. Since readers play such a massive role on your blog, it is often that we turn to them to do things for us that will help us achieve success.

But you can’t rely on other people to do everything for you. That’s not what blogging is about, and that’s certainly not how life in general works.

Because of that need for simplification and a goal for an easy life, some of us start depending far too much on others to do the things we need to get done. A blogger usually wants the following things from their community:

• Content – Nearly every blogger accepts guest posts from their community.
• Conversions – Affiliate sign ups, product purchases, etc. Generally anything that makes a blogger money.
• Marketing – Share articles on social media sites, and help bring traffic to the blog in any way possible.
• React – To comment on a post and start discussions with others.

Now, doesn’t that sound like just about everything there is to do on a blog? Look at it this way:

I would breakdown the time I spend working with 50% of it for writing content, 20% marketing, 10% monetizing and 10% participating in community discussions. That leaves out a 10% gap where I can be spending my time on something else, related to or unrelated to my blog.

Now, all of that work is work that can be done by my community members. If I had my readers doing all of those things for me, those numbers would look a lot different. The idea of having other people working for us and writing our content and giving us their money is any bloggers dream. But, it’s a dream that is also self-destructive, if put on the mind too early.

It All Comes Down to You

It’s possible, and smart to rely on others to do things for you, don’t get the wrong idea. But becoming too dependent on that help is something that will ultimately lead to failure. Because what happens where people don’t show up to make things easier and do work for you?

You have to pick up on their slack, and if you became too reliant on that help, you will never get the job done. I learned this the hard way, and it’s not a very comforting thing to admit to yourself that you’re lazy. But, it’s also step one to getting yourself back on track.

When we have other people do those important things I mentioned earlier in this article, we start doing less of them ourselves. When it’s time for us to start doing them again, we have to know how to get ourselves back into gear.

I have broken down those things yet again, and this should hopefully help you figure out what you need to do to start depending on your own self to get things done.

1. Writing Content

Run out of guest posts? Sick of editing poorly written guest posts? It happens, and when it does – it means you have to write again. But, writing a good, quality article is not meant for the lazy! Try following these writing tips to get you back on track:

• It’s important to make your writing process easy to make writing less stressful.
• Know where to find sources of fresh ideas so coming up with new ideas for content takes less time.
• If you just can’t find the time to write an entire article – recycle it.
• You may want to incorporate some new writing habits into your writing style. You may find an increase in content production by making tweaks like these.

2. Marketing your blog

Marketing is not a strong point for many bloggers. Trying to get back into marketing habits is not much fun, and most will be hesitant to do it. However, it’s vital that you can get back in the game as swiftly as possible. Your brand depends on it.

• Remember, you want to try to get as much help as possible. Ensuring your blog can market itself is a great way to find that much-needed help.
• Start off with easy tactics like blog commenting and tweeting older posts. Methods like that are great to send in some traffic, then work your way up to guest posting and maybe even purchasing ad space.
• If you need an extra push to get yourself into a marketing mood, look at your blog statistics. Compare traffic levels of the current month to last month. You may not like what you see, so you need to let things like that motivate you to get back into gear.

3. Making money blogging

This is a tough thing to keep working at, even if you are motivated to do so. Say for example you launched a product, and it did really well at first. You just let it sit around and enjoy all of that income. Then, sales started slowing down, and because you were so used to just sitting around and making passive income, you forgot that you still had work to do. I went through this in the beginning of the year, actually.

• There are millions of ways to earn millions online. You just need to get out there and learn all of the different ways to make money blogging.
• Never forget that your community should always come first. That means, just because you went through a bit of a lazy period, don’t throw out sloppy money-making schemes.
• Making any decent amount of income online isn’t something that just happens overnight. You have to work hard at it, and chances are, work without money on your mind.

4. Keeping up with user engagement

Talking with people on Twitter, replying to blog comments and just interacting with your community in any way can get tough. After all, it’s just you communicating with anyone who visits your blog.

• Make it a practice to reply to comments as soon as they are published on your blog. People will appreciate it more than you may think, and some will even come back to talk to you more.
• The more you communicate with your fans, the more motivated they will make you feel. So, if you are feeling lazy, you need to look back at some of the things people have complimented you on and use them to get back to work.
• Dedicate a certain part of your schedule to focus in on just interaction. Set a whole day for it, a few hours a day, anything that will get you focusing on just talking to other people. Don’t be shy!

Relying on others to do the work for you when it comes to blogging is only really possible for those of us with thousands and thousands of readers and hundreds of thousands visitors a year. You want to do the best job you can to get others to pitch in and help you with the main things I highlighted in the article, but you are still the one who needs to take the initiative and the majority of the work. Remember:

Success achieved with others is rewarding, but when achieved by yourself – defining.

Photo by slack12

Bloggin Discussion, Tips & Tricks Copyright 2009 Blogussion. All Rights Reserved.

The Easy Blogging Life: Are you Ready for it?

Today, Srinivas Rao, talks about the benefits he has enjoyed by interviewing bloggers for his own site, BlogCastFM. Want to write for us too?

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is the minimal usage of multimedia content by bloggers. As the host and co-founder of BlogcastFM, a podcast for bloggers, it should come as no surprise that I’m a huge fan of doing audio interviews. I’ve benefited tremendously from conducting interviews and they are starting to feel like the gift that keeps on giving.

I feel like the industry is lacking in real quality, that I want to send a message to bloggers out there. I want you to really understand that interviews hold tremendous value in them, you just have to go out and actually do them.

After conducting so many interviews over time and improving my interviewing process, I like to think I have experienced the real benefits of them. I want to share with you six of the most important things I have discovered as a result of conducting interviews on my own blog.

1. Relationships

First and foremost, interviews a great way to expand your network. At the end of the day, relationships are going to play an integral role in the growth of your blog.

Interviews give you a great opportunity to connect with somebody and learn about them beyond their digital persona that you interact with. My business partner, Sid Savara made an interesting observation about the relationships interviews create:

People who might not normally respond to you are much more likely to talk to you and connect with you for an interview.

I’ve seen bloggers who have only been around for a month or two connect with people who are much more established by using an interview. We’re still human, even if we interact with each other primarily in the digital world. We have a need to connect and tell our stories.

2. Collaboration

Interviews provide you with a great opportunity to collaborate with bloggers on other potential projects. Do you want to know how I know this? The podcast I am currently involved in is a byproduct of me interviewing my business partner.

I’ve also come up with tons of new ideas for collaborative projects because of something somebody tells me during an interview. While you might not figure out some amazing joint venture right away, you’ll be planting the seeds for a future opportunity.

3. Great Content Value to your Readers

Interviews provide excellent content for your blog. They enable your readers to discover someone new, and even follow along with their blog as well. It’s like having a guest speaker come to talk to a class where you are the teacher.

But realize, students need to hear different perspectives. When you get an interview up on your blog you are questioning the beliefs and values of a totally new person. Some people in your community may never even have heard of them, and already they are being introduced to a new person and learning new things from a different perspective.

4. Enhanced Knowledge

You will learn so much more by interviewing bloggers than you will by just reading through the step-by-step course you purchase. It’s like you are meeting with an expert one-on-one for free and picking their brain for content to share with readers.

If I were to go through all of the interviews I’ve conducted and find one thing that I’ve learned – I could probably stretch that idea out so much and write a book about it.

Turns out, I have written a book from some of the best interviews I have done. It’s called Blogger Gems and it’s yours free (no email address or anything else required). You always learn something from everybody you talk to, and you have a lot to learn from the book.

5. Differentiation

The the current rate new blogs are launching at, it’s important for you to find the thing that makes you unique. Some people do this through their writing style, some use humor, and some even create videos to get their content out.

Because interviews are basically Q&A sessions, the content is almost guaranteed to be unique. The information that is covered in the interview will all be personal thoughts from one individual. If you were to go to the next step and record those thoughts in audio – you have unique content and unique presentation. Two things that just aren’t as common as they should be in the blogosphere.

6. Discovering new bloggers

This is hands down my favorite thing about interviewing others. In any interview I have ever conducted, my interviewees have told me about a blogger that they know of. I may know who they are talking about, but I also may have never heard of them.

I can’t tell you how many bloggers I have discovered through the people I have talked to for my podcast. Come to think of it, I may have found Blogussion through an interview I conducted not too long ago. Now I’m writing a guest post for them. Isn’t it cool how things work out?

Impact on Community Building

We hear over and over again how important building a community is for our blog. Interviews enable you to develop a really great community because you form an individual relationship with every single person you interview.

Is this approach time-consuming? Yes. Would it be faster to write as many guest posts as possible? Probably. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to real relationships. 10 people who read your blog every day will trump 1,000 one hit wonders in the long run.

Interviews may not be for everybody. It definitely helps if you are an extrovert. But, it’s worth a shot regardless. Like anything else, it’s a skill that can be developed. Just get out there and give it you best.

What are your thoughts on interviews? Do you agree that they are great sources of unique content, or do you think otherwise?

Photo by Seven Morris

Bloggin Discussion, Tips & Tricks Copyright 2009 Blogussion. All Rights Reserved.

Interviewing Bloggers and the Tremendous Value it Holds

Becoming a huge hit in the world of blogging is tough. Henri Junttila diagnoses the success of his favorite band, Iron Maiden and shows you what you can learn from that success. Want to write for us too?

Being a successful blogger depends entirely on what you want to get out of it and what your goals are.

When the English heavy metal band, Iron Maiden started, they were nobodies. They remained nobodies for quite a while, until of course their popularity exploded and became known all over the world. Now, the band is quite legendary.

I grew up listening to Iron Maiden. Partly because when I was 6, my brother, who was going through his rebellious teen phase, got me into them. He always had great taste in music: Skid Row, Iron Maiden, Metallica (the old albums) and Megadeth. All amazing bands.

The point I want to get across is that it doesn’t matter if you want to create a popular band, brand, product or blog, because a lot of the same concepts apply everywhere. They are universal.

When you learn these concepts, you will not only have learned how to take your blog to the next level, but also how to succeed in other areas of your life.

I noticed this myself as I went from a professional poker player to making a living online from my websites and blogs. I played online poker for almost 5 years, and during this time I learned many things that now translate over to blogging.

With all that said, let’s check out how exactly Iron Maiden can help take your blog to the next level. Don’t worry, even if you don’t like their music, they still have some things to teach you.

1. Start where you are

Iron Maiden didn’t become famous overnight. It took them years of hard work before anything happened.

For an outsider, it always seems like everyone’s an overnight success. But that observation couldn’t be farther from the truth. It took Iron Maiden around three years before they got around to recording their first demo in 1978. Most bloggers give up before even a year. Talk about perseverance.

You don’t have to have permission from the gods to start making a difference with your blog. Start with what you have and go from there.  Start writing a blog post. Start connecting and start having fun. If you’re not having fun then what are you doing? You’ve just created another 9-to-5 job.

If you don’t have a blog yet, the first step is to find your passion and then to start taking action. You will run into fear and resistance, but that is natural and something that I went through as well. There are plenty of ways you can overcome fear, so don’t worry!

Be different, and they will remember you.

2. Try Everything

Iron Maiden went through an incredible amount of line-up changes before they started releasing platinum and gold albums. It took a long time before they got their act together and found the right people who would eventually catapult them into fame.

When you’re first starting out blogging, or even if you’ve been blogging a while but aren’t reaching your goals, you simply have to work hard and try different things. It took me a long time and many ideas before I started making money blogging.

Sometimes it seems like people expect everything to happen faster just because it’s the internet. It would be great if things worked that way. But the harsh truth is that they don’t. At least, nothing quick happened for me.

Blogging is hard work. You also have to realize that blogging won’t automatically make you money. You have to have a plan. You have to know how you are going to monetize. I’m not talking about just hoping on making money from advertising and affiliate links.

While that may work, it isn’t as good as producing your own products, offering consulting or whatever you like. You may say to yourself “I can’t make my own products” or “No one would want to buy anything fro me.” That’s where many bloggers go wrong, they lack confidence.

If you are truly passionate about something, then you will always work as hard as you can to do it for the rest of your life. People will buy a product you make, or a service you offer if they can see you have that passion on your blog.

3. Produce Memorable Riffs

If you want to stand out and be remarkable, you have to create something unique. Don’t get the wrong idea – you don’t have to be a genius to create something unique, you just have to be yourself.

It is so easy to get caught up wondering what it takes to be remarkable, so I’m just going to come out and tell you right now: if you want to stand-out, be yourself, quirks and all.

Iron Maiden would never have made it if they didn’t produce music they loved. They became famous because they experimented with new styles and lyrics. They created songs that became memorable, just because of how different they were from the “regular music.” When I think of Iron Maiden, I instantly think of their song Fear of the Dark because it is so unique to me.

They didn’t try and go after a general audience. They did what they loved and it resonated with some people but not so much for others. If you want to succeed in blogging, you have to be yourself and target the group of people who most would benefit from what you have to share.

Remember: you can’t please everyone.

Listen to your community, and they will love you.

4. Keep Your Ears Open

Iron Maiden has always stayed true to their roots, which is one reason why they have been able to build such a large following. When you’re consistent in the message you send out, you will have a lot more success.

When you first start your blog, you will mostly be writing about whatever you want. But as your audience grows, you should listen to them and let them guide you.

There’s just one problem, however.

When I say that you should listen to your audience, I don’t mean you should only listen to the people who comment on posts, or email you all the time for example. Not only is that canceling out many opinions from other sources, but you’re sticking to the people who are on your blog the most frequently and probably enjoy your blog enough as is. There’s not as much innovation.

If you listen to people who have launched products, you’ll hear over and over again that the people who brought their products never commented on their blogs. Why do you think that is? And how does it change the way you think about things?

Listen to your audience, but don’t solely rely on certain sources. Go everywhere and anywhere and listen to everybody. Look through your most popular posts. Look at the e-mails you get from your readers and even join blogging communities and talk about your blog there.

5. Self-Sabotage

You can check your stats and earnings all you want, but don’t get addicted. By 1981, the Iron Maiden vocalist Paul Di’Anno had become increasingly unstable. It is believed that his self-destructive behavior was caused by drug use. But we’ll never know, will we?

The important thing to take away is that it is easy to sabotage yourself. Many bloggers have fallen prey to self-sabotage just as they are about to reach the next level. Maybe it’s because of laziness, maybe it’s because they weren’t passionate about their topic. You just can’t figure it out sometimes.

There’s something deep down in many that prevents them from achieving success. Before you are allowed to level up, you have to become aware of what this belief is. Shedding light on it alone will lessen its strangle-hold on you.

Just as Paul Di’Anno was replaced by Bruce Dickinson, so can you be replaced by someone else. The blogosphere is a living entity that does not have favorites.

If you mess up and don’t even try to recover, you will fail. But there’s something I have left out. If you mess up and fall off the bandwagon, you can always pick yourself up and learn from your mistakes.

No matter what, you just have to keep going. Right big guy?

6. Accept Change

Iron Maiden has been through a lot of change. They’ve gone through band members, drug abuse and what have you, but they’re still standing and producing great music.

The same applies to blogging and business. The only constant in the universe is change, as they say, and you have to be ready for it. You may be successful now, but that may change.

Something that doesn’t change is your inner drive and your motivation to share what you have to share with the world. It doesn’t matter if things fall apart, because we can always try again. That’s a part of life, and what fun would it be if everything were easy?

Facing your fears can be challenging, and of course: scary. But once you’ve done it a few times, you’ll knock out your next fear quicker. And your next fear even quicker, and so on until you start forming an addiction to combating fear and feeling accomplishment. They’re pretty important feelings for any blogger, right next to happiness.

Most bloggers are not willing to do these things unfortunately, which is why it is so refreshing to see an up and coming blogger hit so much success just because they were willing to get out there and face their fears.

Ask yourself, what are you afraid of when it comes to growing your blog? Then go out there and start doing it over and over again. It doesn’t matter if you fail. You will succeed if you keep learning and trying.

Photo by Samuel Viani Bastos

Bloggin Discussion, Tips & Tricks Copyright 2009 Blogussion. All Rights Reserved.

The Iron Maiden Guide to Rockstar Blogging

I‘m not kidding either. For the first time in weeks, it is warm out (about 57 degrees today), and there is actually a field of green grass showing under the bright sun instead of a blinding white. Why would I, or anyone else want to sit inside on the computer on a day like today?

It’s not that I don’t like blogging, or getting to know you guys. It’s all actually very fun to write and interact with everyone who reads my stuff (thanks, by the way).

But today, I don’t know. Today, I just don’t feel like it. But I’m doing it anyways. Talk about commitment, right?

No. I’m not rewarding myself for doing what I am supposed to do; what I promised myself I’d do every day of the week. I’m proud of everything I have accomplished in a year and 2 months here (has it been that long already?), but I’ve learned not to celebrate too much and not become too over zealous about getting my articles ready for the week. I’ll just have to do it all again next week.

As pessimistic sounding as that is, it’s true. I believe that if you get overly cocky about something, that it will eventually turn into something that brings you down the second even the tiniest thing goes wrong. Hence the “I don’t feel like blogging today” crap that is going around.

The above paragraph isn’t a call out for help from me. I’m fine actually, everything is going pretty well for me. And I did lie. I do feel like blogging today.

After a year of blogging on a regular basis (at least 5 times a week), I have learned that it’s not about what I feel like doing anymore; it’s what my community feels like doing.

And when I’m not pushing out content 5 days a week, replying to comments, and coming out with new things to make you happy – you will probably start feeling like you should stop visiting my blog. And I totally understand. I don’t deserve your time if I can’t deliver what I promised I would.

Unfortunately, not everyone has the courage, or even the content to back up a statement like that. Lucky for me, I do, and I do actually care enough to keep pushing out content and new features to improve my blog. Even on those days where I don’t feel like it. And I do have days like that, we all do. No matter how much we tell ourselves we love blogging, it still happens.

Maybe it’s healthy for us as we get the rest we need to keep blogging later; to do nothing and get better. Maybe it’s not, because we will get too accustomed to not working. That’s for you to decide.

But the day where you choose to not update your blog, or miss an important deadline for something is the day you will start losing interest in your blog. A blog is not something you can just let sit and hope for the best, it’s something that needs attention every day.

What do you think starts happening?

I chose to keep this post short compared to the regular behemoth-sized posts you see here so I can get my message across to those of you with a shorter attention span (oh come on, you know I’m only joking! Most people probably stopped reading after I said “I don’t feel like blogging today”).

When you decide you don’t feel like doing something that could have any kind of positive impact on your blog, I want you to come back to this post and read it again. Seriously, bookmark it. Keep it where you can get to it thoughtlessly.

Or, just read this list. I call it the “get you ass in gear or bad things will happen to your blog…list.” Here we go.

The official “get you ass in gear or bad things will happen…list”

1. Either get it done now, like you planned – or get it done later when you’re stressed out, have other things to do, and feel like crap for not getting it done when it should have been done.
2. Thoughts like “I’ll just get it done later” turn into “F*** that, I don’t want to do it” turn into “I wish I had done that.” Always think “I’ll just do it now” and actually do it so you don’t regret anything later.
3. Once you stop doing the things you should and actually have importance to do the things you shouldn’t do with little importance – it will turn into a bad habit. And you will almost never want to do what are most important to you. This goes for blogging, and your life in general.
4. If you work on a blog for any period of time and then suddenly stop, then you have just successfully wasted your life. Why do you think people say bloggers waste their life by sitting on the computer for hours? Because they QUIT! Simply stay committed, finish what you started, and never feel like you are wasting your time, and you won’t be wasting your life.
5. Remember the goals you set for yourself at the beginning of your blog. What were they? Did you accomplish them? Well, what the hell are you doing doubting yourself? Go get them done!

Okay, that last one wasn’t really a bad thing, but I hope it will serve its purpose: to motivate you. How would you add to my list? If you give me something good, I’ll really add onto it in this article. If we can get a great list going…well, you’ll see.

There is a reason why I represented this post with an image filled with hearts…can you guess the metaphor behind it? Look closely at the image, and all of the details. I’ll be impressed.

Image by Norkin Glibert

Bloggin Discussion, Tips & Tricks Copyright 2009 Blogussion. All Rights Reserved.

I Don’t Feel Like Blogging Today

I have been talking a lot about SEO (search engine optimization) over this past week on Blogussion. I started the week off with an article about good headline writing techniques, and ended it talking about optimizing content for search engines.

With all of the discussions those two posts generated about search engine optimization, it left me with some interesting insight about what others think about SEO. From the comments I read, I came up with the following impressions about what some of you think about SEO:

1. Many of you do worry about SEO, and took the tips I wrote about into consideration for your own optimization practices.
2. Some reactions were, to my surprise, confusion. There were many people who didn’t understand even some of the basic concepts I was explaining, or were just hearing about them for the first time.
3. And the most interesting reaction I heard was someone telling me how they didn’t worry about SEO on their blog.

I was more surprised by the second and third reactions than I was the first. I never would have imagined that some bloggers would actually spend little to no time at all worrying about search engines, considering I do spend time on it.

I’m glad there are such diverse opinions about the topic here, as it leads me to ask you this question:

Is SEO worth spending time on?

I know I have spent a lot of time on the optimization of my blog. I spend at least 15-20 minutes per post just on fine-tuning every article I write on Blogussion to maximize its effectiveness in the search engines.

But I have to wonder, am I just overdoing it? Am I spending too much time worrying about the optimization of my content and even my whole blog in general?

You tell me:

• I bought the Thesis framework, a theme created with SEO as one of its strongest features.
• I pay a monthly fee for a plugin that checks the optimization of my blog articles.
• I spend time (like I said, 15-20 minutes) making sure I use the right keywords in my articles and headlines.
• I try to link back to past articles on my blog as much as possible.
• I try to make content as easily accessible to search engines as it is my human readers.
• I like to keep a tab on what keywords my blog is being found for in search engines.

I can keep going, but those are the main things I think about when I focus in on SEO.

Let’s Debate

I am curious now about your SEO practices. How often do you take the time to try to rank well in those search engines? Do you think that search engine traffic is even the traffic source to fully focus on? I want to know every thought on your mind about SEO, and I want to have a debate with you.

Because I think good SEO is very important to a blog.

I don’t think I would have spent so much time (or money) on it if I didn’t think it wasn’t important to a blog. I am very curious to hear what your thoughts are on the topic, however.

Enjoy your weekend!

Photo by Reuben Stanton

Bloggin Discussion, Tips & Tricks Copyright 2009 Blogussion. All Rights Reserved.

SEO: Is it Really Worth all the Fuss? – Weekend Debate

The most important factor that leads up to a post being read is how well you can hook a reader into it. Today, Chris Scott of Blog Tap teaches you how to hook a reader in just two paragraphs.

What do elephants and blogs have in common?

Absolutely nothing.

But now that I’ve exemplified one of the many methods writers use to capture a passive reader, I’m going explain all of the reasons why you should spend 90% of you time, when writing a blog post, on the first two paragraphs.

Not only do creative leads (like the cliffhanger lead above) cause your visitor to read on, but they also set the tone for your entire blog post. I used the word ‘tone’ instead of agenda because your lead paragraph does not have to limit you to a particular topic. Take this post for example — is it really about elephants?

The nut graph (which is journalistic lingo for second paragraph) can alternatively be used to identify the thesis or topic of your post. In the journalism world (yes, I am a journalism student), when the topic of the article is not identified until the second paragraph, it is called using a delayed lead.

The delayed lead is a very powerful tool. In the world of blogging, it will make you fishers of men, err, readers (read your Bible more if you didn’t get that).

Think of the lead as a punchline to a joke. You can’t always get away with a jokey, fun lead but you will do well to constantly attempt it. If you’re just not feeling funny, there are a number of other fail-safe techniques you can use to snag a reader.

1. Tell a Story

Everyone loves stories, especially stories that teach something. Beginning your blog post with a once-upon-a-time like lead has the potential to transport your readers to early childhood where they are snuggled in bed, attentively waiting for Momma to turn the next page of Curious George.

If you ask yourself how you came to the decision of blogging about a particular topic, you will many times discover that it was through a simple course of events. A course of events is a story! Tell it. And use it to your utter advantage.

When something interesting or funny happens to you – write it down! You may some day need to use the story to amplify a point with a metaphor.

2. Create a Problem

Problems are what run the commercial world. You can’t have a solution if you don’t have a problem and people are always looking for solutions. Even if that problem doesn’t exist or is extremely vague – it is your job to mold and expand that problem in your lead paragraph.

The Monroe Sequence, discovered by a psychologist in the 30s, was originally designed to be a technique for developing persuasive speeches. It has since become the weapon of choice for marketeers who sell products through TV and the Internet.  All bloggers, whether they would like to admit it or not, are marketeers. Even if the price is only the readers’ time, blogging always involves the selling of information whether it be for entertainment or practical purposes.

The first and second steps of the Monroe Sequence are Attention and Need. Most bloggers realize that the first paragraphs need to grab attention but often neglect creating a need. Be straightforward. Tell the reader why he/she needs something by first explaining why you need it.

Virtually every television commercial begins with an individual pontificating a problem. Your lead should be like a commercial that advertises the rest of your post.

3. Spark a Curiosity

Did you know that 75% of web links are clicked out of pure curiosity? Did you know that I just made up that statistic? Did you also know that I am trying to fuel your curiosity by asking questions?

People just want to know things – it’s human nature. If we didn’t want to know things, we’d all still be sitting around in caves, drinking our own pee and using banana leaves to wipe our asses.

Manipulate the need to know by beginning your blog post focusing on a little-known obscurity, some interesting news event or some personal fact about you.

Unify Your Post with a Solid Lead

Writing your lead and nut graph last (which some bloggers do) is very unwise because you need to have a firm foundation to build upon. Your entire post should reverberate the focus and style of your lead and nutgraph. If it doesn’t, you may be disappointing readers.

Remember – no one would be reading the body of your post if they did not first become seduced by your leading paragraphs.

The web is a highly passive reading medium. Even more passive than magazines or newspapers. This is part of the reason why Twitter caught on so well; people want their information on the web to be highly condensed. Blogging is of course a step above Twitter (as far as content length goes) but you should still learn to develop Twitter-esque post leads and headlines.

Of course it helps if you add a little pizazz to your writing. For God sakes, say something different. Be a rubble-rouser. Start a fire. Use commas like scimitars and periods like cannonballs. I am still recovering from the explosive writing style of Kelly Diels, which I happened upon the other night.

Reading the creative writing of other bloggers will of course impact your style. The process of forming words on paper – writing – for the most part, is something that takes place at the sub-conscious level. You can’t train your sub-conscious, you can only expose it to new things.

Read and the metaphorical jibble-jabble and word-like-creeping-things will just come to you one day. You will be sitting at your kitchen table eating a doughnut and you will all the sudden have the impulse to write something down.

Photo by John Dalkin

Bloggin Discussion, Tips & Tricks Copyright 2009 Blogussion. All Rights Reserved.

Capturing Readers with Creative Leads

When it comes to writing content, you have a lot of things you need to take into consideration before publishing that final draft onto your blog. The one thing you need to consider before publishing anything is whether or not your article is ready to be seen by many people.

There are a lot of ways an article can bring in traffic. It can be from social media websites, a mention on another blog, link directories, newsletters, etc. However, there is one method of driving traffic to a blog that is pretty difficult to wrap your head around.

Search engine traffic.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a tricky subject to say the least, but it’s a method that can bring thousands of visitors to your blog easily. Do you know what the only thing you need to do to achieve SEO greatness is? Keep writing blog content.

When it comes down to it, all that truly matters for good SEO is good content. It’s not about writing content that humans will enjoy for SEO, it’s about writing content that search engines will enjoy (but don’t get me wrong, always put the humans first).

Because of the confusion that this topic causes, there are many bloggers out there who simply do not understand how SEO works. With that lack of understanding, many ignore it, and many approach it the wrong way. Lucky for us (yes, I consider myself a pretty dumb SEO’er), there are people who understand how search engines work and are nice enough to help us dumb-dumbs rank better within the search engines.

For you today, I have a list with three of the absolute best tools there are out there for making SEO seem almost easy and effortless. I use all three of them here on Blogussion, and so far I have been pretty pleased with the results of each.

1. The Thesis Theme for WordPress

You guys are probably tired of hearing about it, but Thesis has had such a huge impact on the SEO of my blog that I can’t help but mention it anytime I bring up search engines!

I won’t go over the millions of things Thesis does to help your SEO, but I will tell you the one feature that is particularly useful to your content.

One of the coolest things that Thesis has to offer are the extra options it adds into the post screen section of your blog. You can add a custom title tag, meta descriptions and post tags to match the content of your article. Those three things have an impact on how well your content can rank in the search engines, and Thesis makes dealing with those important things easy.

Buy the Thesis theme →

A simpler alternative

If you don’t own Thesis (what are you, crazy?), you’re still in luck. There are plugins out there that have the same features Thesis does to your post screen to help you better your SEO for articles. There is a plugin for WordPress called All in One SEO which is a must have plugin for any WordPress user not on Thesis (as Thesis eliminates the need for All in One SEO).

2. Scribe SEO

I have just recently started using Scribe SEO to optimize my articles, but I have to tell you – it is one of the most useful services I have signed up for in a long time.

Scribe basically acts as your very own SEO instructor. It analyzes your content, and grades you on the optimization of your article. It then works with you, generating a list of things you can do to improve your article for the search engines until you have a “perfect SEO score.”

What a post with a perfect grade will appear as after review by Scribe

Did you know, for instance, that a good SEO practice is to add at least 1-2 hyperlinks towards the beginning of your article? I didn’t, but Scribe has taught me little tricks like that, and so much more.

The only thing is, Scribe is a paid service. There are monthly subscriptions, but it is well worth the money to have a tool that will help you with the SEO of your articles as much as Scribe does. I will write a more detailed review of Scribe later, because I just flat-out love this service.

Like any good service, there is a free trial for Scribe available if you would rather try it out before you buy it.

Useful Scribe Links:

• Pricing Plans
• Video demo
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Introduction on Copyblogger

3. Insights Interlinking Plugin

Insights is a totally free plugin that helps you do one thing: interlink. Interlinking blog posts is a technique that helps older articles on your blog with a few main things:

• Drive traffic back to your older articles.
• Helps search engines get to your older content and increase PageRank, index them (if for some odd reason they were never indexed), etc.
• If you choose a specific set of keywords to link back to that article, those links will help you rank for those chosen keywords in search engines.

Interlinking without any tools to guide you can be tricky if you have a lot of posts on your blog. We can’t remember every single article we write on our blog to interlink, so that’s where Insights comes in.

The plugin adds a new menu to your post screen that has a search bar in it. With this search bar, you can type in keywords of posts you want to find so you can interlink to in your current article. Not only that, you can search Google and many other sources right from your admin panel.

This plugin makes interlinking a breeze, and I recommend it to every single one of you reading this article.

That’s what I use

Those are the three amazing tools I use here to prepare my articles for a run in the search engines. Even though two of them are paid for, they will pay off for you immensely with proper use. If a 16-year-old kid can afford them, I’m sure you can too.

Are there any SEO tools you use in particular? There are more that I have found, but I chose to limit this article to just these three major ones. But I would love to hear what you guys use to optimize your content.

Photo by cobalt123

Bloggin Discussion, Tips & Tricks Copyright 2009 Blogussion. All Rights Reserved.

Blog Content Optimization Made Easier…Much Easier