Category: Blogging

Stop Following the Blogging Crowd. Reform!

Post author By Gloson
Post date September 17, 2010
51 Comments on Stop Following the Blogging Crowd. Reform!

Hey guys! This is a short but thought-provoking guest post from one of my favorite bloggers, Onibalusi Bamidele. I think you should really read it! 🙂
___________

One major thing you’ll see many bloggers do is that they tend to follow the crowd. If you have a decent audience and you come up with something unique today, give it a few days and you’ll be amazed to see it everywhere.

You don’t need to copy everything you see to succeed as a blogger and even if you will copy (or better said, learn) you should do that wisely and use it to improve your business.

We’ve already millions of blogs talking about how to blog and how to make money online, and we see new blogs covering this same topic popping up every day. Unfortunately enough, not all of them succeed.

Why Don’t Bloggers Follow Their Passion?

One thing you will notice in common among so many bloggers is that they keep choosing the same topic, and that topic is “blogging”.

Why?

It isn’t because many of them have something unique to say about the subject or because they have any plan to contribute to people’s life…

…but because they want to make money from it.

Many people are fueled by money by seeing a lot of gurus talking about how they made thousands and millions of dollars in the blogging niche and they think it is fun, so they can also go into the blogging niche and replicate the success.

You don’t need to blog about blogging before you can make money online! A better way to get more results from your efforts is by following your passion and by being unique in your own way. If you’re a professional medical doctor, why not start in the health niche?

You Can Make Money in Other Niches You’re Passionate About!

I have noticed one major misconception among most of the new bloggers in the blogging niche.

And that major misconception is that they think they can only make money from the blogging niche.

There are lots of untapped niches waiting for you to come and tap into them, many of these niches have a lot of traffic and little competition.

And it is relatively easy for you to profit from these niches than the highly competitive blogging or make money online niche.

I recently started a blog in another niche, and on my first day of starting the blog I got 31 unique visitors (I am using Google Analytics).

It was crystal clear that if I had invested all the efforts I had invested on my main blog on it then I should be getting over a million visitors monthly (no exaggeration!).

Read Blogging Blogs, Too

Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling you not to read blogs about blogging. In fact, they are one of the great types of blogs you can read.

It is because, due to the high competition and millions of people blogging in that niche, there’s always a need for new discoveries and you can easily implement that in your own niche and profit from it.

What is your general opinion about blogs in the blogging niche? Do you think that is the only way to make money blogging? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section!

Gloson’s comment

A very thought-provoking post, Oni! Too many people fall into the blogging niche not because they like it, but because they want to make money.

Many people don’t realize that they can make money from any niche at all, as long as they are passionate about it. So don’t follow the crowd! Follow your passion!

So, being inspired and motivated by this post, I’m also planning to post more articles and funny poems on Poetry Talents after my UPSR exam on 21-23 Sept 2010. 🙂

photo courtesy of stevewampler & davidsurfer

Blogging My Guest Posts

My Guest Post: An Effective Way to Get Blog Ideas

Post author By Gloson
Post date September 4, 2010
38 Comments on My Guest Post: An Effective Way to Get Blog Ideas

Searching for ideas
Photo by Stephen Poff

Last month, Peter Joseph made a guest post on my blog called How to Generate Blog Post Ideas in Seconds to help overcome blogger’s block – lack of ideas.

Well, I was motivated by that article and also wrote a post about another effective and easy way to overcome blogger’s block, that is, blogger’s writer’s block!

The post is called How to Get Blog Post Ideas – A very effective way to conquer blogger’s block!

It’s just been published on my friend Gerald Weber’s blog as a guest-post-entry for his SEO blogging contest.

If you want some blog post ideas, please read it! 🙂

Here is the excerpt of the post

Most of us have been trapped in blogger’s block before – very determined to write the next high-quality blog post to benefit your beloved readers! Woohoo! 🙂

So you sit down and your fingers are ready to type! But after several minutes, you are still stuck on a blank page – you haven’t wrote anything at all. You can’t think of even a single idea! Aww man! 🙁

But your problem is now over! Here’s a very effective and little-known method to help you get blog post ideas in no time!

Link to full post:

How to Get Blog Ideas – A very effective way

I hope you’ll find it helpful. I will really appreciate it if you could support me by tweeting it, stumbling it, or leaving a comment. Thank you so very much! 🙂

Sponsors of the contest

Here are the awesome sponsors of Gerald’s contest.

$200. Prize Sponsors
Daniel McGonagle Link Building

BestTravelWebsites.com Best Travel Sites

ArrangeYourVacation.com Vacation Rentals

$150 Prize Sponsors
Candy Store

$100 Prize Sponsors
Alisa Bowman Marriage Advice

Internet Marketing Services

SEO Software

SEO Ottawa

Virtual Assistants
Hesham Zebida Thesis Skins
Gerald Weber Houston SEO
Toni J Young Network Marketing Training
Quillcards Distinctive Ecards by Quillcards
Ghostwriter Dad Ghostwriting services

$50 Prize Sponsors
Whitney Segura Whitney Segura’s Internet Marketing Blog
James Brown James Brown
Raxa Design Houston web design
Eric Brantner Freelance Copywriter
The Servant Media Houston Business Development
Ana Hoffman, Traffic Generation Cafe Increasing Targeted Website Traffic
The Lane Real Estate Team Kennewick Homes

Other prizes: Non-Cash Sponsors
Hostgator.com 1 year Business Hosting plan. Includes toll free phone number and SSL $179.40 value Business Web Hosting

David Harry A full years membership at SEO Dojo, a value of $250.SEO Training Dojo

Link-Assistant.Com SEO PowerSuite Enterprise (max. functionality license) $599 worth with a life-time Live! Plan subscription. SEO tools

Special thanks to the contest media partner: My Blog Guest. MyBlogGuest.com is the free guest post exchange community where users meet to exchange guest posts and network.

________________________________________

Some news

Meanwhile, on the 21-23 of September 2010 is UPSR (Primary School Evaluation Exam), the most feared exam among Primary 6 students.

I’m gonna spend more time studying so you wouldn’t see me online very much. I hope to get 5 A’s in the exam! 😀

Also, I have a blog post for you after the exam, so stay tuned! You can submit guest posts if you like. Just use the contact form. I appreciate it! 🙂

Tags News, writing

Blogging Guest Posts

How to Generate Blog Post Ideas in Seconds

Post author By Gloson
Post date August 6, 2010
35 Comments on How to Generate Blog Post Ideas in Seconds

This guest post is written by Peter Joseph, a 15-year-old blogger from Australia.

Often when we blog, at times there may be moments when we have absolutely no ideas on what to blog about.

The worst thing we can do is leave our blogs dormant. If we have nothing to blog about that people want to read then we will quickly lose readers, subscribers and worst, the grip on our blog.

If you have no idea what you want to blog about next, here are the best tips to avoid this and come up with blog posts ideas in seconds.

Photo by JJay

Don’t think of blogging as a must do

One heavy mistake everyone seems to make is they think that blogging is a must do.

They have a requirement that you must write a blog post at specific times on specific days or you will fall short of the cycle.

Only write a new post when you come up with a decent idea. It is better to leave your blog blank for a few more days then publish a blog post that isn’t of good quality and can put your readers off.

Here’s how to come up with post ideas in seconds and completely remove this step.

Photo by Jonno Witts

Start with the topic

The first thing you need to do to start coming up with ideas is to define your topic.

What actually do you plan to write on, is it blogging? Something about cooking?

Generally to get this far, it isn’t too hard, take a look on your blog, what topics does it cover; this is generally what you should write about and focus on in speed idea thinking.

Once you’ve done this, you need to start thinking up the catch phrase.

Photo by Ezu

Find out the catchphrase

Forget any form of creativity; all the catchphrase is, is a jumble of words which you are going to use to formulate your ideas.

Catch phrases can generally be very simple. Just make sure you remember to pull it back to your topic; just come up with anything at all.

Right now, for a catch phrase at this very instant, the thing I came up with as I write this is “blogging in a line”.

Now this might not sound like much at the moment but there are various different topics that could come around this catch phrase.

The next thing you need to do is formulate your catch phrase and come up with ideas around it.

Photo by ethangibbs808

Formulate everything around your catchphrase

Using my blogging in a line example, the next thing you need to do is formulate everything around your catch phrase.

What comes to mind when you think of “blogging in a line?”

To me, I think kof the importance of having multiple blog posts and moving them down into various parts, also making your posts flow concurrently so that everything works together.

What comes to mind with your catch phrase? Look at each of the different words in the sentence and then the whole sentence and ideas will quickly come to your head.

Photo by woodleywonderworks

Conclusion

After doing the tips above you will slowly realize how quickly coming up with blog post ideas is. No longer will you ever have to stress about meeting a post deadline with nothing to deliver.

Just remember now, all you have to do is think up a topic, find a catch phrase, formulate topics around it and you already have a perfect idea.

The idea behind this post took me around is seconds to think up, idea generate at that speed and you will save heaps of tine.

Only downside is. Now you have too many ideas and not enough time to write them all down.

Peter Joseph is a passionate 15-year-old blogger from Australia, where he blogs on his blog Ideas bubble, which he shares all his blogging tips and ideas.

Tags blogging, writing

Blogging Guest Posts

8 Important Things Every Blogger Must Know

Post author By Gloson
Post date July 9, 2010
19 Comments on 8 Important Things Every Blogger Must Know

This guest post is written by Onibalusi Bamidele, a 16-year-old entrepreneur.

More and more blogs are being created everyday. Since we have hundreds of millions of bloggers with more evolving everyday, there’s competition and only the best will survive.

To be successful, you need to know some things you can implement to make your blog a success. Below are 8 great and very important things every blogger must know.

1. Great Design Matters

With more blogs being added everyday, many blogs begin to look alike, and so you should stand out from the other blogs.

One of the most important things in an online presence is a great user experience, which design is part of.

If you have a unique and attractive design that gives a good user experience, it’ll be easy to promote your blog and gain loyal readers.

In blogging, many judge by design. No matter how great your content is, if they see a bad design, they conclude that your content is also bad without even reading.

Also, many skim blog posts. A very readable typography helps to encourage readers to read it instead of skimming it.

Photo: silkegb

2. Research and Write Valuable Content

With more blogs being added everyday, it is very important to make your blog stand out, not only by design but also by valuable content.

Many blog about “general blogging tips”. This might get you search engine traffic. But it also determines your blog’s growth and what kind of readers you gain.

When you write valuable content, your readers share your content with their friends, on their blogs, social media, etc.

Photo: Paul Watson

3. It Takes Being Creative

Many new bloggers say they’ve been blogging for some time, but are not seeing results. It’s very important to know that in blogging, you need to add your own spice of creavtivity to be successful. So, be creative.

You can be creative in so many ways:

coming up with an topic nobody else had came up with
the style of your writing
the angle of your post
how you promote your post

– It is all about doing something unusual, a little going out of the box.

Photo: Mrs Magic

4. Goals are Important

One very common thing I notice among bloggers is they lack goals. Many of them don’t set goals and wait for things to happen, and this continues to fuel their laziness.

One of the most important things you can do for yourself (not only in blogging, but in life in general) is to plan your future.

You should not just wait for things to happen but have a way you want it to happen.

It’s also important to set achievable goals using a time-frame. It’ll be unrealistic for a new blogger to say “I want 10,000 daily visitors in my first month!” An example of a good and realistic goal is, “I want to get 300 subscribers this month.”

And even though you might not achieve your goals, they would drive you toward working harder to take your blog to the next level.

Photo: Rigmarole

5. SEO Matters

Many bloggers obviously don’t know about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and funny enough, some are not even ready to.

SEO is very important, so invest your time into learning a good deal about it. You might also want to hire an SEO expert if you’re not ready to learn it.

One SEO tip is get a good and fast wordpress theme because a clean code is easy for the bots to easily and properly crawl your blog.

Then you’ll get better page rankings and overall traffic (Also, Google’s ranking is now partly based on site loading speed).

Here’s a blog post I wrote on wordpress seo to get you started.

Photo: Danard Vincente

6. Promotion is a Must

It surprises me that my 1-month traffic surpasses the traffic of 4 months of a blogger who blogged for months before I knew what blogging was.

No matter how valuable your content is, you will still need to do some PUSH in order to get the desired traction.

You don’t just sit down, do nothing, and expect people to flock to your blog. Even if you think your content will go viral, you’ll still need some readers to give it a push before it does.

The number of readers you have can determine how successful you are. Traffic is a must. For more tips, please get my free ebook on how to get lots of free traffic.

Photo: roland

7. It Begins With Your Headline

Having personally suffered from this, I’ve also seen many bloggers with great content but nobody to read it. I figured out one of their major problems is: their headline sucks.

Yeah! No matter how great your content is, you should have a great headline to back it up.

So if you have a truly great content, you should make sure it goes viral by giving it the right and magnetic headline.

Spending a few minutes tweaking your headline might be what makes the difference. I’ve seen a fairly new blog go popular on StumbleUpon because it has a powerful headline.

So, never underestimate the power of an headline.

Photo: UnstablePixel

8. Networking is the Key

Yeah! Networking is very important to the success of any blogger.

Two or more can achieve far more than one. Networking with bloggers in your niche is very important to your success.

You can network with other bloggers by commenting on their blogs, writing for them (like what I’m doing here), and meeting on social media sites, like Twitter, Facebook, Sphinn Stumbleupon, Digg, etc.

Photo: Matt Hamm

____

This guest post is written by Onibalusi “Oni” Bamidele, a 16-year-old entrepreneur.

He owns a young entrepreneur blog, where he shares some great entrepreneur tips with his readers. Please check it out! 🙂

He also blogs at WP Kube where he shares some great wordpress tips. Also, if you want to boost your traffic, be sure to get his free ultimate traffic ebook!

Tags blogging, social media