One of the key themes in my books is that if you want to be successful online, you need to knuckle down and put in the work required. This is something that I have stressed to people many times over the years, though it never fails to surprise me that this advice always falls on deaf ears.
I frequently get emails from people asking for help or advice. I charge $200 for blog consultation, though I normally try and point people in the right direction when I can. Unfortunately, many people do not listen to the advice that is given to them. I found this out many times through the support forums I used to own for blogging and WordPress. I would take the time to explain what they had to do and they would not do it. Instead, they would continue to ask the same questions over and over and wonder why they were not getting results.
It is impossible to help someone like that. I still try and help people when I have time though it is something that I am consciously trying to stop as the people who are emailing me rarely take my advice. Here’s an example. The other day someone messaged me on Google Chat with some basic blogging questions about why his blog was not making money. I asked for his blog URL and visited the blog. The reason he was not making any money was painfully obvious. He was publishing one or two short unoriginal articles every month and the website was covered in intrusive advertisements.
After explaining to him that he had to focus on good content on a more frequent basis…it started to dawn on me…I had been here before. I remembered that about a month before I had the same discussion with him on Google Chat. The exact same advice was given at that time: Focus on writing quality content that drives more subscribers. A month had passed and nothing had changed. He had not worked on the blog at all and he was puzzled why it was not making money. Admittedly, I was very annoyed with him.
You Cannot Help People Who Are Not Willing to Help Themselves
I like helping fellow bloggers who need some help though I am tired of people wasting my time. You simply cannot help people who are not willing to help themselves. All they are doing is draining your time. Time that could be spent working on your own projects.
There are so many people who believe that all you need to do to make money with a blog is install WordPress and add a few articles. They are wrong. The act of blogging is easy, however it takes a lot of time and a lot of hard work to get to the point where your blog makes money consistently every month. It could take hundreds of articles before you start to develop good traffic and a loyal readership. Do you have the determination to do what is takes? If not, you would be better off doing something else as you are simply wasting your time.
As I have said many times before, if you want make money from a blog, treat it like a business and give it the time and respect it deserves. Two hours of working on your blog every week simply is not going to cut it.
Don’t let this put you off ever emailing me with a quick question. I do still enjoy meeting other bloggers and helping them where I can, I am just not going to spend any time helping people that won’t help themselves :)
Good luck,
Kevin
Thanks David.
I can imagine how frustrating that is. Being something like a teacher must be difficult at times.
Kevin
So true, Kevin…
Just recently I read this quote in the ‘Thought for the Day’ which I receive from the Napoleon Hill Foundation every day.
I experience this a lot in my own environment as well: people I care about aren’t willing to make the first step. Even if I take the first step for them they aren’t willing to take the next one… so frustrating, even more when you care about this person… :(
Some people have to feel a certain amount of pain first, be it physical of economical.
Regarding blogging: yes, treating it like a business is very important. And this means: make it your business to help someone, be it through overcoming a fear, a problem or whatever. Your financial success will then be a logical consequence, rather than the first and foremost goal.
Best regards from Greece,
David
I feel such relief :) Seriously, I was so stressed about it. And sorry for being so suspicious :)
Anyway you hit the point, since I’m trying to update blog at least once a week my traffic went from 30 to 280 visits per day. And also a nice increase was seen after optimizing site to load under one second. Hard work pays off, but often it’s hard to find time for blogging in between job and family duties.
Definitely. So many blogs get sold or abandoned because the owner thought they could make a profit quickly.
Persistence + writing useful content = Could not have said this better myself. Once people understand that, they will be able to develop profitable blogs.
No need to apologise.
Yeah it is hard to always find the time, particularly if you have a family and job. Over the last month or so I have struggled to write as many featured articles here due to working on other things (and dealing with hosting problems).
Though it is clear to see – the more you work on your blog, the more traffic you will receive. There is no secret. You just have to be willing to work hard and put in the time required :)
I feel that this post is addressed directly to me. Am I right?
No Kris. You update your blog regularly and your don’t have too many ads :)
I don’t want to name names publicly….but it was from someone who updates their blog twice a month with short articles. His whole blog is full of obtrusive ads. I advised him last month to remove these and he said he would….then he came back to me with the same questions, which is why I was a little annoyed at him. He seems like a nice guy, but it is frustrating to give up your time to help someone when they won’t help themselves.
Thanks Alex. How’s things? What are you working on just now?
Solid advice :)
It can definitely, /definitely/ be hard work at first, but perseverance nearly always pays off long run.
Absolutely agree with Kevin. Unfortunately for those who think that blogging is something like fashion and they use their blogs as an outfit to make a short time impression or they are blogging because ‘everybody is blogging now’ – these are reasons which drive their blogs to turn into a second hand store old jacket. Persistence + writing useful content. Useful not amazing.