There is No Way Other Than the Hard Way
18. May, 2010 
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I’ve seen the question asked over and over again…and the same answer is always offered. No, there is no fast path or easy way to be successful, period.
Many bloggers today make it seem easy to make money online however, although it may appear to come easy for them now, it wasn’t a yellow bricked road lined with roses and butterflies when they started out, either. There have some some of the lucky (or the extremely motivated) few that have beaten the odds and have made a handsome living from their online efforts in short time, but you’ve seen the disclaimer all over the place that reads, “Typical results may vary” and blogging or online success is no different.
Starting up a blog and making some awesome content or pillar posts simply isn’t enough to get the ball rolling so don’t expect to hit publish on your greatest post ever and assume that people will be breaking your host’s server to read what you have without you putting in some real effort to get that information on the radar first.
Why Doesn’t My Blog Pull in Readers??
What are you blogging about? If you’re posting information on how cute you cat looks in a tutu, then I’m doubting your ever going to land anywhere close to the top 150,000 results in a Google search so don’t expect much link love…no matter how cute that cat is. There are some key points to put in the forefront of your mind before and even after you hit that publish button on your post:
- Who Cares About this Information?
- Who Can I Help?
- What Problem Can I Solve and for Who?
- How Much Effort Am I Willing to Put Into this, Myself?
If you’re having difficulties answering these questions, then who are you really writing for? If you can’t answer your own questions, how can you expect to answer the questions of others?
Applying this way of thinking is only a small part of the equation, not only do you have to ensure that the content you are churning out is valuable and useful to others, but you have to actually work to put your content in front of the eyes of the people that could use it. In order to be seen and trusted, you have to exert yourself as an authority in your market or niche; let’s face it, there are probable a million other experts in the same field that you are in, but the goal is to go up one or two more levels than the rest of them.
Follow the Basics, But Do it With Passion
You can find countless online courses or guides in how to generate traffic to your blog, but they pretty much all say the same thing such as comment on other blogs, participate in subject specific forums or online communities, hook up with like-minded bloggers and so on and so forth. These are all fine and I encourage them, but the Golden Rule of blogging is, “Give First, Receive Later” and that even goes as far as putting some attention to the works of others just as much, if not more because successful blogging is more about connections than it is content.
If you’re commenting on blogs, don’t just tack up a, “Nice post…come visit my blog!”; that’s just bad form and you’re essentially drive-by spamming the online homes of other bloggers. Put in the effort to make a connection with not only the author of the post you’ve enjoyed, but also participate in further communication with others that commented as well.
Some of the bloggers that I know today, I have never heard of until I started seeing them commenting all over the damn place. But, their comments were valuable, they added substance to the original article and they weren’t simply going in with the mentality to drop a backlink and never stop by again. There is passion and desire to connect behind this type of interaction and those are the ones that will be remembered and be drawn to.
When Can I Expect the Payoff?
Who knows! Unfortunately, the world of blogging puts out an image that it’s easy to replace your job if you start a blog. Simply not true and most of the successful folks have reported that it’s taken them anywhere between two to five years before they ever turned a profit in the blogging efforts. This is why I promote my passion blogging mentality because if you go in with the quick fix, not only will you disappoint your one or two readers, but you’ll end up disappointing yourself even more.
Blogging for money and making money online is a lifestyle, not a hobby. Not only do you have to put forth some real effort, but you have to put yourself into it as well. If you don’t like writing, that’s fine…but write about something you are passionate about at least. Don’t go into this game expecting payouts immediately, then it becomes work which you will end up burning out in a few weeks anyway. This lifestyle can be easy, eventually, but it will never start out that way so get your hands dirty, break out the climbing chalk and get up there and do it, now.
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