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Minding Your Own Business
When it comes to our online businesses we all have something to say. Some say more than others and yet we don’t always agree with one another. Here is the thing, we don’t need to!
We are after all individuals on a mission to achieve. Some are anyway and for those people the worst thing they can do is to compare themselves to others. Hence the title of this post. You will have to learn to mind your own business and accept that we are and always will be in different stages in life. Even if we pursue the same dream. The dream of getting financially independent via the Internet and all its facets.
There will always be better people than you, more successful and more happy. On the contrary there will also always be those that are a lot worse of and miserable. Those who are slaves to society’s common beliefs.
The sooner we learn to understand this, the better and quicker we can move on. I often come across blogs that seemingly grow overnight and after only 2-3 month they show a huge rise in Alexa, Technorati and sometimes even Google. One of the first reactions most people would have (me included) is to think “how the heck has this person’s blog grown so much while I’m still here trying to get decent rankings after x month.”
Well, I’ve got news for you: how do you know where they come from? And how dare you compare yourself to somebody like that. For all we know, this person might have been working for Technorati, Google or whatever. They might be industry insiders with a huge background in web design and SEO. And here are you, trying to get ahead on the Internet with nothing else but your determination and a certificate as a trained butcher.
Do you get the picture?
If you compare yourself to others, it would be the worst possible thing you could do to yourself and to your business. By the way, that doesn’t mean you cannot compete with those people for higher rankings. It should simply serve you to learn more quicker and play your own strength to your advantages.
What do you think?
Monika
Comments »
Gobala Krisnan is a direct-response marketer turned blogger who makes over $10,000 a month from his blog empire. If you want to make money online from blogs, he is the only person who can reveal the secret of merging time-tested direct marketing strategies with web 2.0 traffic. Read more about him >>
Dear Monika,
Thank you for your comments about not comparing yourself to others. It is frustrating if you are new to web marketing and to blogging, like myself. I hear how people started a blog and had so many responses immediately.
I started my blog the end of September. I have been posting regularly and I get little or no comments. I really wanted two-way communication. My idea was to create a sort of advice column, “Ask Dr. Joan.” People could share their sticky communication problems at work and we could all give them our two-cents. But, that hasn’t worked.
I suppose it all takes time. Thank you for letting me know that even the biggest and the smartest are struggling with the same things.
Joan Curtis
Dear Gobala,
Obviously I’m very un-geeky about all this. I like your idea about doing a contact form plug-in. I will contact my blog person to see about that. At this point, people must login just like any other blog. I manage the posts.
If you have other ideas you could send me to make this work easier for the people posting, I’d love to hear them!
Joan
Hi Joan,
Thank you for your nice comments. I know exactly how you feel. Even though I’m quite happy with the participation of commenter’s on my own blogs, I know that it could be better.
Allow me to share with you what I have learnt so far in this regard. And remember, I’m by no means an expert. I like you am still learning and trying to apply my new found knowledge to my blogs.
I understand, that people comment if they can identify with you as the blogger. What helps this if for example you write between the first person and the third person. So the blog does have your own voice in terms of having your personality showing through, but not entirely as otherwise this can have the opposite effect than intended.
Other bloggers love to hear stories of struggles and beating the odds by others and generally those blogs get the most comments. They seem to identify with the blogger and they feel inclined to comment because it speaks to their heart.
If you are looking for the contact form plugin and using wordpress, then you can use the following.
http://www.dagondesign.com/articles/secure-form-mailer-plugin-for-wordpress/
This will allow others to contact you right from your contact page by tweaking a few things in your admin after installing it to your “plugins” directory.
I hope this helps.
Monika
“I understand, that people comment if they can identify with you as the blogger. What helps this if for example you write between the first person and the third person. So the blog does have your own voice in terms of having your personality showing through, but not entirely as otherwise this can have the opposite effect than intended.”
Good article, Monika. You’re making sense with this rational thoughts. In blogging I’ve noticed that people tend to gravitate towards a blogger who’s supposed to be a “cult figure” or who’s deemed a “clique member.” You can tell by the number of comments on the blog. In fact, another blog with awesome posts will remain relatively unknown or even if there are visitors they rarely leave any comment on that blog. Based on this observation, one tends to perceive that a lot of bloggers practise certain kind of selective bias in their blogging attitude. If this is really true, then there’s a lot to be desired in blogging behaviour. Or maybe it all comes down to this perennial malady called “herd mentality.”
Markk: I appreciate your compliment.
You know, I have had the exact same thought in regards to “herd mentality” for a while.
I read and follow a many big bloggers to see what they are up to and it is amazing how many people suck up to them just because they are “big”.
I comment if I feel the post deserves a comment and also if I can identify with the blogger on the subject, regardless of whether he/she is famous or not.
It is sad, that so many bloggers can’t seem to use their own personality when it comes to blogging and commenting instead of blindly following the blind.
Monika
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Hello everyone,
I am in agreement with you Monika on this you never know the experience level or what a person has done to get to a certain rank or even get comments. Yes, people are partial and want to associate with greatness because they feel this will get them in at the top.
My thinking has always been even the top people were on the bottom at some point and if I see a topic that I can add something to I will comment whether the person is known in the blogosphere or not.
Joan you also might want to try Stevepavlina.com and join his personal development forum as an option for networking and getting post to your blog. Don’t get discouraged my blog has been up for 17 months and I can count on my one hand how many times someone has posted to my blog but, I don’t loose hope I just keep going in spite of.
Hi Arlene,
Great to see you stop by and comment. Your recommendation for Steve’s forum is top, as I have registered there myself some time ago and I love the positive feel of it (unfortunately I don’t invest enough time to hang out there).
I admire your bite by just plugging away at it until… you have a great mind and will go places i have no doubt about that. Keep in touch pls as I love to get your occasional updates via SU.
Hello Monika,
Thanks for the kind words and encouragement. I also don’t get the time as I should to hang out at Steve’s Forum and am glad he sends everything to my email when something new comes up. As soon as this week is over I will definitely go through all of my email alerts from the forum.
I have not gotten to SU this week either which is a must.