When you start blogging, the natural questions you ask yourself are things like this: What should I blog about? How can I get people to actually read it? Is it possible to make any money from it?
All of these questions have received a good deal of attention recently, and if you just do a quick search around, you will find literally thousands of people giving their own opinion. I think I must have read just about every one of those thousands - it certainly feels like that anyway! I have picked up a few tips along the way, but there is one thing I have learned that I consider is the most important of all in blogging.
This article is coming out so that I can share that truth with you.
You see, when you read what other people have read, you just have to add a little pinch of salt. I am not saying that these people are lying to you - far from it. Of course, there may be some liars and scammers out there, but you do not ever have to have anything to do with them. To use the current phrase, you do not have to invite them into your experience. But I am not talking about such people, I am talking about the people who have tried something, found it to work, and now they are telling YOU that if only you do exactly what they did, then you will get the results they did.
Often this promise comes with a condition, by which I mean that one of the steps involved in reaching your success, in making money from blogging, is to buy something from them, some software, or a template or the like. Now I am not saying they are wrong to do this. Everyone is entitled to try and make a living in any way they can, and I have no doubt that some of this stuff may well be effective, given the right circumstances. What I am saying is that going along with their scheme is not necessarily going to take you where you yourself want to go, it will take you along their rails like a little train carriage.
The internet is absolutely huge and there is a lot of room for diversity. What works in one situation might not work in another, even if they appear to be very similar. And by the same token, lots of ideas and techniques which at first may not seem very promising have suddenly gone viral in their popularity. What I mean to say then, is that if someone tells you that their way is the only way, then you should reserve judgement until you know a bit more about it, because what they said is just not true.
For the people who are saying this, the important thing for them is to get you doing the same thing they do, so that they can be lifted up by what you do. This is called "duplicability" in the parlance of our times. However, at least for bloggers, duplicability is not necessarily the most desirable goal.
You see, we bloggers are in a uniquely powerful position. Most of us are posting on a blogging platform for which we do not have to pay so much as a dime, we can pick and choose what we want to advertise, who we want to affiliate with, when we choose to work, say what we want to say with no corporate agenda controlling us. We are the people, and blogging has given us, for the first time in history, the opportunity to do and say whatever we want to.
So now I come to what I want to share with you. In blogging, the key thing is to experiment for yourself. Keep trying new things. Keep yourself as free as possible from commitment to anyone else's scheme. That way you have no vested interest in whether it succeeds or fails. Be like a scientist and try out ideas and adapt ideas to see if they work in your own context. Do not be discouraged if such and such an idea does not work - learn from it. It is possible for you to make money from blogging, but don't expect it to come in very quickly at first, you need to be patient. Just keep trying things and finding out what works for you. Reject what does not work and keep going with what does. Your success will eventually arrive.
Then you truly will be your own boss.
| This article was first published on Qassia. Robert Paterson writes for "About Blogging" with advice, help, tips, ideas, information. Read more at http://phe-about-blogging.blogspot.com/ and please feel free to leave a comment there. |
0 comments:
Post a Comment