7 Habits of Incredibly Successful Bloggers – Pierce Through the Noise
We are obsessed with success and admire successful people. We spend most of our dreaming hours dwelling on and envisioning our own victories. We wear ourselves out with the mountain task of getting traffic, acquiring fame and making the sales but for the most part we erred in our ways and thinking. The road to success is not a complicated one but is attainable for anyone willing to sweat and stick to a well laid plan.
What’s this plan you ask? The plan is based on Thomas Edison’s quote:
“Genius: one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”
Mr. Edison’s statement is very accurate since often when we analyze the greatest writers’, inventors and business people’s history and stories, most were not born geniuses or passionate but worked extremely hard and focused most, if not all, their energies on very specific things until they became better than everyone else and achieved greatness. Let’s apply this to blogging! Let’s anaylze what it really takes to be an Incredibly Successful Blogger. You’ll be surprised how easy it is.
Habit 1: Layout Your Blogging Goals, Strategize & Re-strategize
Most bloggers I’ve met do not have a medium to long-term goal for their blog or online business. They’re simply doing it for some reason, whether its to make more money or get their voices heard. I often ask, “how can you achieve any goal without a strategy? How can any ship reach its desired destination without a map?” Without a plan or setting certain targets and expectations of yourself you’ll find that you quickly lose focus of the important work and lose sight of where you want to be.
Set and write out clear tasks and goals. Split these tasks and goals into daily, weekly and monthly chunks to make them more manageable and take your time and work your way through them. Each daily victory will give you the reward and motivation you need to keep going and your mission will always be before your eyes.
– Successful bloggers plan and stick to it while its relevant.
Habit 2: Be Consistent
There are many debates about how frequently you should blog or how many times to do this or that. Regardless of whichever schedule you choose the absolutely most important thing is to be consistent with what you decide to do. Your audience will appreciate and anticipate your predictability and the search engines will weigh in your favor. It doesn’t matter if your posting schedule is daily, weekly or monthly, find your inspiration and comfort sweet spot and work it.
– Successful bloggers stick to what they decide to do.
Habit 3: Be Human
Quit thinking like a marketer and start being a storyteller, a friend and strip away the notion of building a “corporate” brand. People no longer relate to big branding and advertising, its all about who makes them laugh, understand the complex topics and provide the services they need in a free, easy-going, no strings attached way. Every conversation on social networks should not be about selling your book, buy my product or download my new app; talk to people, offer assistance and engage in relevant conversations. People can easily detect B.S. so be genuine, be real and you don’t have to always be closing.
– People love talking to and following the blogger who’s easy to talk to and not trying to shove their new article down their throat.
Habit 4: Forget About SEO, Just Write
The more you think about writing and tweaking for search engine benefits the more you and your content suffers. If you haven’t noticed, Google is killing traditional SEO and is using radically new signals for ranking sites. They weigh sites that consistently provide value and new information to users more than even the sites that have the best and most optimized themes and techniques. Its about relevance, share-worthiness and consistent value.
Whichever topics you choose to write about, bring something new to the table, make your readers say wow, offer added value through deeper insight and qualified information. The happier you make your readers the happier Google will make you.
– Successful bloggers focus on delivering superior products versus gaming search engines.
Habit 5: Shun Procrastination
Procrastination is a disease that will tear any talented person’s life to the ground. We all suffer from it at varying degrees throughout our lives and I seriously consider it a disease because of the impact it has on lives. Lost opportunities, regrets, depression to name a few. There’s always the feeling that what is due now can be done later and feels better doing later. Kill that thought, prioritize your tasks and get them done. Not necessarily in a mad rush but get things done. Our habits and thoughts are like muscles so we must work as a bodybuilder or athlete would, to train ourselves into the habit or doing continuous work on time. Got that amazing article idea or a cool new idea popped in your mind on how to get the word out on your new product or service? Don’t put it off, get it done now.
As you go through the motion of putting your plan in action, all sorts of doubts about the idea and your abilities will flow through your mind, ignore them and push on. Ignore the fear of failure as there is no such thing as failure if you keep moving.
– Successful bloggers get things done today!
Habit 6: Maintain a Healthy Family Life
Its not all about your business and admirable goals, your family and loved ones play key roles in your life and overall success. I know there’s always that aunt or some other relative who never fails to piss you off but the more you connect with the people you love and share yourself in that love, the greater will be your power to achieve your life goals. The person who nourishes his or her marriage or other relationship is nourished and empowered.
– The most successful people keep those who love them close.
Habit 7: Embrace Disappointment
The traditional definition of failure is incorrect in my mind. Failure occurs when you have accepted defeat, when you give-up on something because of a little hardship. Don’t get me wrong, there are times when you need to disconnect yourself from projects that take more from you than they give but these are far and few in between. We are more inspired than we admit to ourselves.
Every experience and disappointment can be used to fuel a new powerful blog post and perspective on your approach to your business. In fact, I can guarantee you that some of your most successful blog articles will be the ones where you’re most honest about your life and experiences of shortfall because these are stories that people connect with and are subconsciously search for others who have shared their plight. Searching for some light.
– Don’t be afraid to “fail”, never fail to share.
Its time to form new habits in your life and start getting things done. Don’t over complicate the process, take little steps towards your goals. Be authentic, be relevant and connect with your audience on an emotional level and you will certainly pierce through the noise and your voice will be heard.
Let me know how you to intend to approach your blog and business in the comments below, I would love to hear your ideas and experiences.
Robyn-Dale Samuda is a Web Developer & is owner of Yuraki, a Website Development, IT Consultation & Online Marketing Firm in Jamaica. He has a passion for the web and helping clients achieve more online.
I agree about leading a good family life. That is so important, and especially to take a break because sometimes it’s good to just get away from the computer and screen and experience life. Also about embracing disappointment, I totally agree there, because every step is a small step closer towards your eventual goal, and baby steps are better than doing nothing.
You’ve got the idea Mark, especially about taking a break. Taking breaks help to gain varied and improved perspectives on the tasks at hand. Being relaxed helps to bring a bit more inspiration too.
Thanks for reading!
It is all very true. I am having a big problem with procrastination at the moment with my writing in general, it is indeed like a disease! A blog is such a difficult thing to keep up with when you have no sure way of knowing if there is going to be anyone out there who will read it! I think it helps for me that I love my subject – I love finding out the ins and outs of what I am writing about and would just write for myself and friends and family if nothing else. I guess in that way I need to follow your advice and become more focussed on the end goal of getting more people to read it! I am yet to truly understand how I can get that to happen, other than regular updates.
Hi Jo,
Don’t think too much on the end goal but be aware of it while focusing your intention on acquiring 1 loyal reader at a time. Its the long road approach but it yields much greater results and reader loyalty. Just keep sharing, look for opportunities where your content is relevant and go for it. Identify a blog in your niche and contribute a powerful article there. That will leverage an already existing community and lead more eyes to you and your blog.
Keep pushing.
Thanks for reading.
Hi Samuda,
I am very new in blogging and I just started my blogging life.
To become a successful blogger i have googled and found lots of articles and most of the articles are about SEO. I think this is a path to success but i got a new idea from your article how to be a successful blogger.
All of the habits are simple but tough to manage because you cant be constant or cant follow others advise if you do not believe him.
But i think i can believe you though i don’t have enough idea or info about you but i liked your advise to be successful.
Hope i can reach my goal of blogging and you always will be with us who need help.
Best wishes
moman