Blogging 101: Lesson 1 – Laying the Groundwork

So now you have created your blog. Confused on where to go next? The next step is actually quite easy and simple. In the process of becoming an elite blogger, you have to get your name out there; you have to grab readers attention. Good content and setup is a key but when no one can find your blog, in the end of the day you are left unsatisfied with the lack of responses to your piece. There is a simple way that proves to be very useful in promoting your blog without having to spend any money or even much time. If you are looking to get your foot into the blogging industry, you need to start somewhere. The easiest way to get rolling is to comment on other people’s pieces.

This proves to be very successful for many reasons. If you post your comment on a very popular blog that gets viewed often, as a result, your comment will also get viewed often. Make your comment something out there and something not everyone might think of to grab some attention. Now that you have the reader of the blog interested in your opinions, they go to view your page for a more detailed view of your thoughts on the subject matter. Your blog now gets hits and hopefully some subscribers.

If you really want your blog to succeed, then repeat this process multiple times each day. Remember, the more comments you leave, the more feedback you receive. With all of the blogs that are out there, it is admittedly tough to get people to come to yours when it is just starting out. That is why you have to go out there and reel them into your site instead of sitting back and waiting. The key to this is ambition and the more you are willing to go out into the blogging community and voice your opinions, the more people will be spurred by them and inclined to visit your site.

Now you may be saying to yourself at this point, that this is more work than you had in mind. This statement would be utterly foolish to think because what you are doing is hardly work. Whether you have a free minute during work or school, just read someone else’s blog that interests you. This reading will only take a couple minutes and it will be a topic which you enjoy. This step is hardly work and can be fit into any nook or cranny of time that you may have throughout the day. The second part of this is leaving the comment. A comment does not have to be made with every blog you read, but when you do have something more to add to the idea presented in the blog, go ahead! Make your voice heard! Say what’s on your mind whether it concurs or dismembers the bloggers point. Any comment will get you recognition which will lead to more views of your blog. Try doing this exercise four to six times a day and when all the dust settles, you will be getting more hits than you ever could have imagined.

Congratulations, at this point you now have some people coming to your blog interested in what you have to write. You have made the first step to becoming a great blogger. Now your job is easy. The key to keeping these readers and expanding your list of subscribers is to keep posting. This point cannot be stressed enough. Stay on top of your blog and make sure to make new posts often. This will keep your readers coming back and at the same time telling their friends about your blog. With this networking you are sure to become a blogging legend.

This way of going about attaining readers and keeping them is what I believe to be the most simple and also extremely gratifying. It should be known that there are alternatives, some that require more work but in turn yield greater results. Some of these other, more advanced strategies can be found here.

Building a Foundation for Life

After reading Michelle Slatalla’s Building a Web of Influence, I was interested in the idea of advancement over the internet. It intrigued me how she was so meek and yet she was able to make connections without actually meeting anyone. I was in disbelief after reading her piece because I doubt that anyone can make any true advancement without putting themselves out there. What Michelle is doing has to be, for the employers, a very last resort of finding people to work for them. People in a position of hiring take to the idea of initiative, as they should, and it gets rewarded.

She seems very proud of her accomplishments and I am not sure why this is. Has she done something great? Has she come up with something new that has not been yet discovered? The answer to both of these questions is no. Instead of improving on her weak skill set, she chose rather to find the easy way around it. To anyone who would think of taking this route in the business world, I warn you not to get too involved. This path is the path that a failure and a quitter would take as an easy alternative to the process of self-improvement. I’m quite confident that if Michelle really wanted to become better with people and less anxious when dealing with them, she would be able to achieve that. She is letting her fear cast a shadow over her life and this is preventing her from progress.

Lets for a moment speak about the faint possibility that an employer does want to talk with you and meet you. Now you are all excited and you finally made it. You are sitting back telling yourself “Hey, this site really did make a difference.” This is when you realize that you are right back on square one. Now you have to go in for that meeting with your “could be boss” and you are as nervous as ever. At some point you have to overcome that fear to succeed. In an ideal world everybody would be great dealing with people, but the world is not like this and most of us have to work and improve on these characteristics. Even if you are not the best at working with people or talking to an individual at an important meeting, you still have to try. If you go and talk to this employer that found you on the internet without using the internet as a middle man, the employer will also have a certain amount of respect for you. Now he will see that you are filled with initiative and are willing to go the extra mile for what you want and this alone will lead him to hire you over any mystery online character.

All in all, you have to be willing to work and improve on yourself to be able to have success in your life. If you just keep taking the easy roads to avoid fixing problems you are going to look back one day and realize that you are just a mess. This is the trap Michelle seems to be falling into with her online service. Speaking with someone live makes a terrific difference along with a much greater impression which could be the difference between getting hired as the file clerk or the executive.