Don’t listen to others! Do your own thing.

Read, Think, Focus

There are countless blogs out there; tens of millions if not more. How many of those are the worthy ones? A few hundred thousand? Maybe… I think that there are much less.

I visit a few hundred blogs a day. I read a few dozen posts a day and comment on some too. The majority of blogs I come across are about things that relate to what I am doing. I try to see what is going on, what other are writing about, to connect with others with similar interests and get some buzz going for my blog.

Out of the few hundred blogs I visit daily, I can confidently say that there are a handful of people out there who are getting it.

I haven’t been blogging for to long to be in the position to judge others about what they do and how they proceed with their blogs, but I can freely say that not that many people out there are efficient in what they do. Not saying that I am …far from…but still, I have managed to get this blog out of the experimentation stage of development and learning and into the implementation stage.

The experimentation stage
I will focus on the blogs that are about ways to make money.
This stage is when someone starts a blog. They visit one of the big blogs that post how much money they make and are impressed. So they start their own. The thoughts that come in mind are:

How difficult can it be?
If he/she can do it why cant I?

And so the blogging journey begins, or I should be more specific? The making money blogging journey. Making money blogging is easy and difficult at the same time. It is easy because it does not take any special training, expertise to start learning how to make money on the internet and particularly blogging. All you need is access to some information; get a few good leads and practice. Practice what you learn, see if it works, if it does, do it again but better. If something doesn’t work, stop doing it and try something new. It is difficult because aside form the fact that you need to be able to sell something, you need to constantly educate yourself about SEO, network, promote and write. Aside from the everyday things I just stated, I believe that there is one thing that every blogger goes through and it is the most difficult thing to overcome.

The most difficult thing for any blogger to do is to stop listening to other people’s advice. I am not saying that reading other blogs is a bad thing; it’s just that if you are constantly following what others do, in the end of the day you will have started a bunch of things but not necessarily completed or done well in any.

So by visiting other blogs I come across a lot of bloggers who are in the experimentation phase or the listening stage. I can tell because I was in that stage a few months ago. Signs of someone being in this stage are:

Tons of widgets
Affiliate Links
Advertisements

Those bloggers are just adding things with the hope that something will work. In the end nothing works, and they have expended all their energy reading, posting, and placing widgets. Don’t get me wrong experimentation is a great thing, instead of trying a million things at once, experiment with one thing a week, or a month depending on your traffic. See if you make any money and if you didn’t try the next one. If something is not working for you, try to fix it, if it is still not working, it didn’t for a reason…move on to the next one.

Before you proceed in one direction…don’t forget to use your judgment, think for a second and make sure which direction you would like your blog to go in.

The implementation Stage

Someone arrives in this stage after they have decided which direction they will follow. Once you decide what monetization method you will use, you implement it and focus on how you can maximize your revenue. Think of it like this: if you are trying to dig a hole in the ground, will you use a dull object or will you prefer a sharp one? I like the analogy of the spear. All of its weight, when held the right way, is concentrated in its point. When energy comes in the equation, that point can really do some damage. In our case, it is not damage we are looking for but better content, more traffic and more money.

See what works for you, focus your energy on one thing, and do it better and maximize its potential. I suggest you pick a maximum of three monetization methods and keep working on them. Write, promote network, optimize and focus on these three methods and it wont be long until you start making some money blogging.

If you are interested in reading more about what I do, I suggest:

Make Money with Entrecard
Blog Marketing and then some more
Blog marketing

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