There is no doubt, blogging is the poor man’s entry into the online world of E-Commerce. Least, that is what some say, but you know, there is nothing ‘cheap‘ about using Wordpress. Oh, sure the program itself is free, as are most of the plugins and themes, but it costs, in TIME.
TIME is perhaps the most important resource any business has. The more TIME you put into a project, the greater the chances are of success, and that holds true with your entry into the world of Blogging.
Now there is a school of thought, that by automation, you really can set the parameters, and let the scripts do the work, while you kick back, rake in the dough and enjoy the good life. To be honest, at times, it seems like maybe they are right, because they do SEEM to be making loads of money. BUT ARE THEY REALLY?
I have been online for what seems like eons. From the old dial up back in the 1990’s to todays throttled cable, and I have learned one thing:
PEOPLE BULLSHIT A HELL OF A LOT.
Now, there are grains of truth in what many will tell you, yet when it comes to how much they make, it seems those are awfully tiny grains of truth in there. Fact is, the vast majority of webmasters online barely make a living, yet to listen to them, they are Millionaires.
Part of the problem, is we expect too much, immediately. Not just in our online business, but I think also in our lives. We expect INSTANT ANSWERS & SOLUTIONS, and frankly there is nothing INSTANT about the Internet Business. It takes TIME to garner traffic, real traffic that sticks and keeps on coming back, as well as growing. It takes TIME to establish your rapport with those who do make it to your site. And, it takes TIME to produce your product online, whether it is a free site or a paysite.
IT TAKES TIME, LOTS OF TIME.
So, when I hear about how you automate this, how you do this for RSS feeds, and get tons of income, I cringe, because the truth is, the online customer isn’t STUPID. Many webmasters seem to think they are, especially the more arrogant one’s who also happen to be the one’s doing the biggest bullshitting. There are many, who when a question of ” how were sales this month? ” will always claim to have had their best month ever. Not once do they say they had a bad month, and the laws of probability clearly would dictate otherwise.
THERE ARE GOING TO BE SOME REALLY BAD MONTHS, NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE, WHAT YOU SELL, OR WHAT YOU PROMOTE.
Get used to that, and keep in mind, if you want to bullshit, that is your choice, but the real problem with that, is you wind up believing your own bull, and that is a recipe for disaster. Blogging is not about automating posts. The more ORIGINAL your content is, the more you will sell, unless you really suck at writing. Then the solution isn’t to automate that kind of crap, but to hire someone who can write it for you.
Updates, schedules of postings, need to be made to appear random. Setting an update for a month ahead is fine, but not at the same time, every day. Mix it up a little, so that people will want to come back throughout the day. Mix up the number too, if you can. In short, if you manage one post every two days, fine, but every now and then, add an extra post. Make it feel like you are truly the one writing the stuff, that it means something to you.
IT IS CALLED GIVING YOUR SITE A PERSONALITY.
Automated scripts, blog feeds from sponsors, are nice, for FILLER. However, it doesn’t give your site any PERSONALITY, and believe it or not, but that helps sells whatever you are selling. Keeping to a posting schedule shouldn’t be routine, in that you should vary the times, and should vary the lengths of your posts.
Whatever schedule you do decide upon, make sure you can keep to it, and vary it a bit, every now and then. BUT KEEP TO IT!
Mar 17th by Malcontent