Archive for john chow
Being One of the Sheep
Posted by: | CommentsThis blog is about making money online, also it is a personal blog. Now as you read that you are thinking what makes this blog different then all the other blogs on the net teaching you how to make money?
I am just another sheep following the examples of the well known bloggers like John Chow or Darren Rowse? Don’t get me wrong, I respect both John and Darren for the effort they have put into making money over the years. I didn’t make this blog to follow in their footsteps though. In some ways this blog is like theirs, but in other ways it is completely different.
Yes, this blog is setup to make some money. Yes, I’m teaching you honest ways to make a buck online. That is where it ends though, I’m not a sheep. This blog is going to follow a path not taken by others. You won’t find the answers here you will find on other blogs. I’m not going to hold your hand and treat you like a little kid nor pretend you don’t have some common sense.
My blunt warped sense of humor will direct this blog. If you don’t want a truthful answer don’t ask the question. I don’t know everything so don’t think I do. That being said, I’m not a sheep.
The title of this post is “Being One of the Sheep”. I see it all the time on the internet. Blog after blog coming online and trying to follow in the footsteps of bloggers who have gotten rich. After a few months to a year, their blog goes belly up and they try again. If you ask them where they failed, they will say, “I couldn’t write well”, “I didn’t follow the path” or some bullshit. The point is, they failed because they tried being one of the sheep, following in a path which wasn’t meant for them. They read every thing they could and decided on a niche, set it all up, but failed because they knew they would.
Blogging is like every thing else in this world. If you want to be happy, do what you like to do. Pick the niche which you enjoy the most. Screw how much has already been said on the subject, screw how many people are already blogging about it. If no one is blogging about the subject then don’t worry about if people would be interested. People will read your blog if you care about the subject. If you can think of the niche then someone else on the planet will also like the same niche. If someone out there doesn’t like your niche or your view on it, then GREAT! All that means is you will get more people coming to your blog. Pissing people off is a great way to get people to leave comments.
Set the blog up the way you want it to look. Use some common sense though, don’t have a black background and a dark Grey text. Make sure your blog is easy to read, easy to search, and easy to follow. If you want people to read your blog, they first must be able to read it. Yeah, you heard this before, but it is common sense, if you can’t figure it out then maybe you don’t need to be blogging.
Stay on topic. Stay in your niche when you blog. If the blog is about “How to shop at the cemetery” and you start posting stuff out of the blue on the latest concert you attended, don’t be surprised when people quit coming to the website. If you want to talk concerts then create another blog for concerts.
Common sense will tell you a lot when blogging. Yes, there are certain things you must follow, but many things you don’t. Many ideas and tips just simply might not work for your blog. The types of ads, placement, when and format of posts, colors and photos are all dictated by your blog and niche.
Don’t set anything in stone. Yeah, you have heard it before. Your blog isn’t set in stone, the template you use, ads, and other fluff you have on your blog can and should change as you create your blog and as it grows. Don’t set a goal, don’t look at tens years ahead and say this is what I want my blog to be. Let your blog become what it is. As long as you are making daily posts and trying new things your blog will be fine.
What is going to get your blog noticed is NOT being like all the other blogs in the same niche. You have to stand out, you must stand out, and if you don’t then you will get sheared like the sheep you are being. People who stand out will get noticed.
Take a hard look at the niche you want to start a blog in right now. Check out all the website and see what they are doing. Are they successful or do they all look the same? Which blogs stand out to you and why?
There is nothing personal in blogging, it is just business. Once you break out of the mold on your blog you will find people will noticed you. So quit being a sheep and start being yourself.
Blogging for Money – Knowledge
Posted by: | CommentsTo continue my series about Blogging for Money – The Basics, I want to talk about knowledge. Time, Work, and Knowledge are the keys to making a blog successful.
If you live in the USA, then you went to school for 12 years or so, then off to college for 2-10 years. Hopefully you got a degree, otherwise you got screwed like a lot of other students have been over the years. In that time you learned a lot. You obtained the skills to go forth into a career and to work for someone else the rest of your life until they kick you out once you get to old.
What did you really learn in college? You learned a lot about the subject of your major, and you learned to work for someone else, probably in one of those damn class groups. Do you see the problem? You learned a subject and how to work for someone. That is all you learned.
When it comes to being self employed, going your own way, thinking outside of the box, being creative, being an independent thinker, you didn’t get that education. You also didn’t get taught much on how to educate yourself once you leave college. Knowledge is a lifetime adventure, we are always getting an education even if we are not in school. Like in learning how to do anything, learning to blog and be a blogger takes time. It actually has a learning curve to it, and you can’t avoid it. Well, you can if you can plug yourself in and download the knowledge like they did in “The Matrix”.
The point is, to become a professional successful blogger like John Chow or Darren Rowse, you have to learn all the same things they did about blogging. They didn’t know much when they started either. It doesn’t stop there though, you will be learning the rest of your life. You already do now with technology as it changes all the time. Blogging is the same way.
So now that I showed you how to make time to blog even working a 40 hour a week job. Showed you how much work blogging really is in the real world. Now I just told you that you will be educating yourself about blogging the rest of your life. Is this a bad thing though? NO! While some people would think so, to do this right, you have to look at all of this as fun. Learning and educating yourself in new things is fun. If you see blogging as a chore then you will give up quickly. That is the problem with most bloggers, they give up because they can’t make time, didn’t realize it was actually work, or hated learning things.
How much knowledge do you need to begin blogging? The amount you have now. Everyone starts somewhere. Yes, you have a lot of work ahead of you but it will be worth it.
The key to planning your blogging is to take one thing at a time. Here is a list in the order I do them when I start up a typical website this will help you get going.
- Decide the topic of the website
- Ask myself if the topic is something I really enjoy
- If I didn’t say “yes” to step 2, then I pick another topic and start again.
- Create a domain name, one that isn’t taken. I usually make a list of possible names.
- Setup up web hosting. Setup is kind of the wrong word, actually just pick the web host and pay them to set up the account. If creating a blog I make sure they have “Wordpress”.
- Then I get Wordpress installed.
- After Wordpress is installed I log into the website and start selecting my settings and then I can write an “About Me” page and write the first post.
- Over the course of days I do a few steps at a time to the website, like design, templates, and so forth.
It takes a day to setup “Wordpress” on a website. After that it is just a matter of taking it one step at a time.
No, I didn’t forget about the topic or blogging in general. You picked a topic for your blog because it is a subject you like, so you must already know something about it. Since you already enjoy the topic you won’t mind reading everything you find on the topic, you want to become an expert in the topic.
While you are at it, read everything you can find on blogging. Even if you don’t fully understand it, read it anyway. Once you have it in your head, it will come back out later once you learn enough to completely understand it. Look at blogs on blogging, books on blogging, and talk to bloggers. There are a lot of websites out there that are on the subject of being a better blogger, as time goes by you will find most of them I’m sure.
While all of this seems overwhelming it isn’t as bad as it might sound. Each blogger on the net has went through the same blogging learning curve. We also continue to learn because of software updates, new websites, new software, and changes in technology. You never stop learning and if you can’t find the answer ask someone. A lot of bloggers on the net will answer questions.