Which Seinfeld Character Are You When You Blog?

After all of these years, I still challenge anyone and everyone to find a show that can trump Seinfeld in overall awesomeness. Smart, funny, easy to connect with and understand—Seinfeld is everything you wish your blog was. That said, I got to thinking about the characters on the show and what they’d be like as bloggers. Here are a few of the best and the worst. Which one best describes you?

• Jerry—Sure every Seinfeld character was funny in his own way. And honestly, I don’t think Jerry was the funniest character at all. However, funny was (and still is) his business and he has a knack for taking mundane topics and talking about them in a way that they haven’t yet been addressed. Of course, this sometimes led him to get hung up on issues that didn’t really matter, but let’s call that a minor character flaw. Overall, I’m thinking Jerry would make quite the blogger.
• George—Liar. Self-loather. Sloth. Largely unemployed. Completely unlikable. Yet he’s probably the most adored Seinfeld character amongst diehard fans. A George Costanza blogger would be one who BS’s his way through just about everything. He’s a good writer, but can we really trust anything he says? Whatever it takes to get someone to buy a product or click an ad.
• Kramer—Some bloggers just write about the strangest things they can come up with. Except they aren’t “trying too hard.” They’re just downright quirky. A Kramer blogger is a fun but not so deep read. And chances are, he’s going to get super lucky and win a blog contest.
• Newman—Completely unlikable, yet irreplaceable. Newman makes his sole mission to instigate at every turn. As a blogger, he would garner a large audience by pissing people off. People would love to hate and comment nonstop.
• The Soup Nazi—Some bloggers just have no patience for those who don’t share their opinions. This blogger either heavily moderate their comments or else he constantly get in fights in them. But his words command your attention, so you keep reading his blog. And if the Soup Nazi was a forum moderator, you’d be watching your every word because you’d get banned.
•  David Puddy—Let’s face it—Puddy was stupid. If he was a blogger, bottom line he’d suck. If you’re a Puddy blogger, you might have a few fans like Elaine who like you for, well, some reason or another. But do yourself a favor and quit.  Disclaimer: When I say Puddy is stupid, I don’t mean I don’t like his character. He was hilarious. Just dumb in a typical paint-my-body-and-go-to-a-football-game kind of way.
• The Maestro—Was there ever a Seinfeld character more pretentious than this guy? Remember how he insisted that everyone call him the Maestro, even Elaine? The Maestro made everyone around him feel like they weren’t as good as him. And who likes that guy? Certainly not blog readers.

I’d like to think I’m a Jerry blogger. But sometimes I can come off as a Maestro blogger. Which one are you? And what Seinfeld characters should I have included here that I didn’t? Tell me all about it in the comments.

Surviving the Blogging Hangover

So we talked about BWI (for those just no joining us, that’s “blogging while intoxicated”)—but what about what follows? You know, the blogging hangover.

Everyone’s experienced it. You wake up early in the morning and force yourself out of bed. You wince as you plop down in front of your computer and turn on the screen. Forced to shield your eyes from the piercing light, you groan as you face the reality—what the hell are you going to write about this morning? And furthermore, how the hell are you going to get rid of this pounding headache?

Yep, you have it. After a night of overindulging in BWI bliss and having the best post of your life, you’re facing the blogging hangover. Now what?

Blogging Hangover Cures

• Rehydrate—Anyone who has ever drank too much knows that the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is get a big glass of water (or as I like to do, stick my head under the faucet). Well, similarly, when you’re dealing with that blogging hangover, you need to rehydrate. In this case, that means you need to pull up your favorite blogs and pour through them. The more you refill yourself with good content, the more likely you are to suddenly have a great idea for your next post.
• Eat something greasy—The only good thing about a hangover is it gives you a great excuse to eat something terrible for you. What’s better than that giant, greasy burger to calm your twisted, churning stomach? So what does this mean for blogging hangover cures? Same thing. Take a break and go get something to eat! Give your mind a minute to clear and give your brain some fuel. It’s much harder to think of a topic for your next post if your stomach is growling. Your brain just can’t focus.
• Pour yourself another—As a last resort, or just for the true alcoholic, if all else fails you can always hit the bottle again. Another drink the day after will quench that hangover in no time. Of course it will also lead to BWI again. But hey, if the BWI leads to another hilarious, engaging post…does it really matter?
• Go back to bed—If all else fails, give up and go back to bed. Look, sometimes your hangover just isn’t going away until you sleep all the way through it. And sometimes, no matter what you do and how hard you stare at your screen, you just aren’t going to come up with anything good. If you continue to sit there, the only thing that will come of it is a really crappy post. Do yourself a favor and go sleep it off. Try again tomorrow. 

I’m writing this at 5 AM. So glad I’m not dealing with a blogging hangover today. But then again, I wasn’t engaging in BWI last night. I try to keep that to the weekend as much as possible so I can get up early and get to work.

What about you guys? Anyone suffering from a blogging hangover? How do you guys handle it?

Buzzed Blogging is Drunk Blogging (How to Write a Blog Post That People Will Remember)

I have a confession to make. I have an ice cold Shiner Bohemian Black Lager sitting next to me as I type this. Sure it’s no Shiner Bock, which happens to be my favorite beer in the world, but it’s a pretty solid beer—Shiner’s #2 selling beer, to be exact. But anyway, I’m drinking this beer as I blog in remembrance of a post I read a year ago, “Why You Should Blog Drunk.” It was part of The “Bad Ass” SEO Guest Blogging Contest. In fact, it was posted on this very blog.

If you go back and read the post, it wasn’t actually advocating drunken blogging. Instead, it was a metaphor for how the no B.S. in-your-face-who-cares-what-you-think attitude you get after two too many drinks would serve you well as you blog.

But what can I say? I tend to take things quite literally. Excuse me a minute while I go grab another beer.

An Idea That Sticks with You

However, the fact that I’m actually drinking as I blog about a post based on drinking and blogging isn’t really the main theme here (albeit it is certainly an interesting little side thread).
What I’d really like to focus on here is why I still remember that post a year later. And I bet I’m not the only one that remembers it.

Now I haven’t actually spoken to Gerald about how much traffic that post got, but it did get well over 100 tweets. So I’m going to guess it was pretty successful. The question is—why? What did Jennifer Van Iderstyne, the author of the post, do to make it so memorable?

To be honest with you, I haven’t really thought it out yet. But as soon as I get another beer I’m going to dive into it and figure it all out. Excuse me for a second.

Why “Why You Should Blog Drunk” Was Such an Awesome Post

Okay, where was I? Oh yes, what was so good about that post… okay let’s start from the beginning:

• The Title Caught My Attention There are lots of good titles out there. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the catchier the title, the more people will want to read it. But in this case, the title isn’t just catchy. It’s different. And not only is it different, but the whole “Why You SHOULD Blog Drunk Thing” made me think Wow, how in the world are they going to argue in favor of this?! See, if the title had been “Why You Should NOT Blog Drunk,” then I wouldn’t have been as intrigued. Of course you shouldn’t blog drunk. Any rational human being would agree. Instead, she took the opposite of the obvious answer and made it work. That’s skillzzz.
• The Metaphor Wasn’t Forced or Trite Metaphors are hit or miss. And when it comes to blogging, a field that is flooded with a few really good writers, a lot of decent or average writers, and a BLEEP LOAD of really terrible writers…well let’s just say you get a lot of crappy metaphors. And these crappy metaphors can be broken into two categories. Either they are really forced and try to compare two things that are absolutely not related (I’m trying to write a post comparing the Houston Texans to copywriting on my personal blog but haven’t figured out how to avoid this pitfall yet). Or the metaphor will be so overused that I want to kill myself halfway through the post. Example? Eh, don’t want to call anyone out. You know what I mean.  But this post… comparing blogging to drinking. Wow. And not just the act of drinking, but the mindsets you run through as you progress through a drunken night. I’m serious—it’s genius.
• It gave me something I could use that I hadn’t already read or thought about How often do you feel like you’re reading the same old crap over and over and over. Seriously, go to one of those sites like SERPd.com and come back and try and tell me that half the stuff isn’t just the same BLEEP, different BLEEPhole. Hey, even I myself am guilty of this. You are too. After all, it’s difficult to come up with completely original themes every time you blog.

But those posts we all do from time to time that don’t really offer anything new—they don’t resonate with people. They don’t stick with you. They’re just filler to meet a quota. You know, getting that link you want so bad.

Don’t shout me down because I’m telling the truth.

How Would You Grade This Post?

Okay, I’d say that about covers it. Now let’s take what I’ve determined makes a sticky post and apply it to what I just wrote. Did I succeed in creating a memorable post? Or did I feed you the same ol’ BLEEP?

Comment and let me know while I go grab another Shiner.

Should You Have Someone Writing Your Blogs for You?

Among other things, I do business blogging (ghost blogging). And it never ceases to amaze me how many peers and potential clients and just random people have never even heard of ghost blogging. In fact, a recent client asked me “can you even do that?” when I told her I could take over her blogs for her and build her reputation as an expert by tagging her name on each of them.

It gets funnier. I was contacted a while back by a writer who wanted to do some work for my agency. While I’m not actively looking for writers, I did talk with them about what sort of work I do, and what kind I might consider using another writer for. Read more >>

5 Ways to Lose Blog Readers

To put it as simply as possible, a blog without readers isn’t a blog at all. It’s just you talking to yourself. For a blog to be successful, it needs to have readers. More specifically, it needs to have readers who will interact with you and share your posts with their friends.

So what can you do to get more readers for your blog? To understand, you need to first know what things you shouldn’t do as a blogger. These are the 5 things that will cause you to lose blog readers.

Read more >>

7 Sure-Fire Ways to Get More Traffic to Your Blog

This is a guest post from Onibalusi Bamidele. It is part of The “Bad Ass” SEO Guest Blogging Contest.

Getting traffic to a blog has been one of the utmost fears every blogger and webmasters face. We all want traffic and a lot of it.

Traffic is really very important to the success of any blog and it doesn’t matter what you do online, it is traffic that brings the sales. There are several ways to increase blog traffic but this post will be talking about 7 sure-fire ways to get traffic to your blog, these are the strategies I have used and is working for me.

1. Guest Blogging

I know this has been oversaid, nevertheless it works. You surely have heard about guest blogging to get traffic before but I doubt you have tried it.

This is my number one traffic formula for many reasons and one of the most important reasons I so much love this formula is its effectiveness. Guest posting for traffic is an effective way to get traffic to your blog and it can also help improve your search engine rankings if done properly. Another importance of guest posting is that it helps you build your reputation online. I once wrote a guest post for a blog which brought me almost no traffic, I thought my efforts has been wasted only to see one of the readers of that blog who read my guest post link to me from his blog (months after I wrote the post) which in turn brought some readers.

Guest posting helps in so many ways but it is always very important to keep the quality of your blog so that those who came to your blog through your guest posts will not be disappointed.

2. Blog Commenting

Another great and effective way to increase web traffic is through blog commenting. One mistake I see people make in this aspect is that they only comment for traffic and this makes them just make any comment which in turn destroys their online reputation.

Everything you say online is being archived and can eventually stand against you, if you tell me you will help me optimize my blog for search engines and I once saw you commenting on a blog using your keyword as name I will most likely tell you not to worry.

Blog commenting brings traffic but it must be done wisely.

3. Forum Marketing

So that you will know how effective this is I will give you a little background of myself. I started online as a forum spammer (then I didn’t know I was spamming ). I got over 150 unique visitors to my website the first day after creating over 30 forum accounts. I created over 120 forum accounts in my first month and the end result is that my posts on the forums got deleted minutes after I posted them and all my accounts were banned.

It is very important to make effective use of forums and not to spam. I recently started using the warrior forums and after replying to less than 50 threads I have gotten over 100 visitors to my blog from there. Marketing your blogs on forums is really effective if properly done.

4. Blog Carnivals

This probably hasn’t been oversaid but it is very effective. When trying to get traffic to your blog using blog carnivals, what you will have to strive for is making sure others link to your blogs which in turn brings more traffic.

Blog carnivals are a great way to get traffic to your blog and what you will do is submit your best (only your best) post to blog carnivals, if other bloggers love your post they will link to it from their blogs. A great place to get started is blogcarnival.com

5. Video Marketing

Another great way to get traffic to your blog is by making videos to promote your blog. While this might be effective in other niches it isn’t as effective in the MMO niche but can still bring great results if you put a lot of efforts into it.

There are several ways to get the best from video marketing and one great way to get more results from your efforts is by effectively researching before you come up with your videos. What do you think has a huge demand and has rarely been touched? Begin to create videos on this and it will go viral and eventually bring more traffic to your blog. Your vidoes won’t bring traffic automatically even if they go viral, what you need to do is to make sure you link to your blog in the description space and also in your video.

6. Blogging Communities

Another great way to get more traffic to your blog is by making effective use of blogging communitites.

Blogging communities such as BlogEngage and MMO Social Network are great ways to get more traffic to your blog because they are more established and consist more of bloggers. Another great advantage of these communitites is that people visiting your blog from there are most likely going to comment and subscribe to your blog because they are relevant to your niche and they are prepared to read, unlike people from digg and many other big social bookmarking sites.

When trying to get more from submitting your blog posts to blogging communities it is very important to make sure you use attractive titles (even if it means modifying your original blog title) because this will make sure you get more votes and traffic to your submissions.

7. Trackbacks

Yeah, this sounds dumb? But believe me, it is not. I have gotten over 40 visitors from copyblogger using this method and I only linked to a post or two.

One great way to get traffic to your blog by making effective use of trackbacks is by linking to posts on other blogs, this will help you get traffic in many ways. First, it will help you get more traffic from the reader of the blog (especially if you have an attractive title) and second, it can help you get on the radar of the blogger who might in turn return the favor one day.

Conclusion

What has been your best way to get traffic to your blog? Is your traffic increasing or decreasing? Which other tip do you want to add to this post? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section!

How to Get Blog Ideas – A very effective way to conquer blogger’s block!

This is a guest post from Gloson. It is part of The “Bad Ass” SEO Guest Blogging Contest.

Most of us have been trapped in blogger’s block before – very determined to write the next high-quality blog post to benefit your beloved readers! Woohoo! 

So you sit down and your fingers are ready to type! But after several minutes, you are still stuck on a blank page – you haven’t wrote anything at all. You can’t think of even a single idea! Aww man!

But your problem is now over! Here’s a very effective and little-known method to help you get blog post ideas in no time!

Step 1 – Visit other blogs in your niche

If your blog is about entrepreneurship, visit other blogs about entrepreneurship, business, marketing, blogging, social media, and those kinds of stuffs.

Examples of great blogs on those topics: Chris Brogan, Problogger, Copyblogger, EpicLaunch, Income Diary, and lots more.

Step 2 – Look for list posts

Some examples of list posts are ‘10 Ways to Become a Successful Blogger’, ‘50 Ways to Become Super Productive’, ‘12 Ways to Maximize Your Influence on Twitter’, and other posts like those.

Step 3 – Read the list posts, and get ideas from the points!

Next step is to read the post and get the goodies.

Most blog posts about overcoming blogger’s block mention that reading other blogs helps you get ideas for your next post.

However, they didn’t mention that you should read list posts, which are a much easier and faster way for getting ideas!

Here is how to get blog post ideas from list posts!

Here are the first 2 points from one of my blog posts, 22 Reasons to Blog.

1. Writing skills

One thing blogging has improved a lot in my life is my writing skills.

I have noticed that my writing skills started to improve rapidly during the first few months I started blogging. And soon, I realized that my writing was becoming more professional.

2. Communication skills

When you blog, you get feedbacks. And when it comes to feeding back the feedbacks, you have to communicate. And when you learn to communicate, you improve your communication skills and learn to communicate better.

So, what blog post ideas can we get from these two points?

• How Blogging Improves Your Writing Skills
• How Blogging Makes You a Better Communicator

And then you can write blog posts about those two topics! Isn’t that easy?

So basically you are just expanding the points into a detailed blog post.

Here’s another example, from Mashable – FOLLOW FAIL: The Top 10 Reasons I Will Not Follow You in Return on Twitter. Here are 2 of the fails.

1. You have no user avatar

…or your user avatar is neither a personalized photograph nor reflective of a brand.

More important than whether or not your Twitter profile background is “designed” is how you choose to present yourself in that seemingly insignificant 48×48 pixel square. If that square is empty, impersonal, or otherwise lacking any qualities that will immediately allow me to visually associate it with you, that is an immediate Follow Fail. If I am going to build a Twitter relationship with you, I want to see you, or your brand, and not, however humorous I may find it, a screen capture of a magical leoplurodon.

10. You do not engage your Twitter followers

Probably the most important reason why I will not return your follow, though, is if it is glaringly obvious that you do not engage your Twitter followers. Here I suppose I need to make a distinction between those Twitter users who use Twitter to broadcast their content, as opposed to everyone else; these broadcasters, in my experience, are generally the ones who are followed, not those who are following.

Obviously, engaging their followers is not a priority. Twitter is a major platform in social networking and social media, and they aren’t called “social” networking and “social” media for nothing. There are other people out there, and if you are not engaging or interacting with those users who take the time to follow you for whatever reason, that is a huge follow fail in my book.

So, what ideas can we get?

• How to take a great photo for your profile picture
• 12 Ways to Engage Your Twitter Followers

Let’s take another example, this time in the Personal Development niche. What blog post ideas can we get from 6 Traits that Separate Winners from Whiners?

1) Whiners Focus on the Past, Winners Focus on the Present and Future

Whiners love to dwell on the past. “I wish this never happened!” or, “if you had just done what I said we wouldn’t have this problem,” or everyone’s favorite, “I told you this would happen!”  The past is done and over and can not be changed. For some reason this simple concept eludes Whiners.

Winners understand that we live in the here and now. Rather than dwelling on the past, Winners focus on the future they want to create and think of actions they can take in the present to make that future happen.

2) Whiners Cast Blame, Winners Take Responsibility

When something goes wrong, the Whiner’s “blame radar” kicks into full gear and they start a CSI style investigation to find the guilty party. This hurts morale and takes away energy from the most important task: fixing the problem! Winners take responsibility for your actions and simply say, “what can I do to solve this now?”

There is a time and place to identify what went wrong, why it happened, and what can be done to make sure it doesn’t happen again. That time and place is after the crisis is resolved, not before.

By the way, that post is really interesting and inspiring. You should really read it.

So, what blog posts ideas can we obtain?

• How To Let Go of Your Past
• How to Plan Well for the Future
• How to Stop Blaming Others
• How and Why You Should Take Responsibility

And more!

There! I hope this article helps you to to eliminate blogger’s block and lack of ideas! Now the only problem is that you have too many ideas and no time to write them all . Haha

Hmmm… maybe you can write a blog post about that! – How To Find Time to Write Blog Posts!

So, is this method for getting blog ideas working for you? I would love to hear your comments below!

10 Ways to Speed Up Your Blog

How much time do you expect it to take for a blog to load? Many users start to get impatient after waiting for five seconds. Others are more generous, allowing for ten seconds to reach that great content. There are many factors which affect loading time like pictures, your hosting services and your database. Here are ten ways which will help you optimize wordpress speed.

1. Deactivate Post Revisions – If your blog has a single author, do you need to have your post revisions activated? Every time that you create or update a blog post, more lines are added to the wp_posts table. This is something which can be turned off in your wp-config.php file.
2. Remove Unnecessary PHP tags – There are probably PHP tags which can be removed from your style sheets. Is there any site information which is static and can be ‘hardwired’ directly into your blog? Here is a great primer for taking out those tags.
3. Get Quality Hosting – Free hosting services are not paying attention to the bandwidth that you are receiving. Servers will regularly fail and load times may suffer as a result. Fortunately, web hosting is not terribly expensive. At Hostgator, you can pay less than $10 per month for quality web hosting.
4. Turn On Caching – Your site will take longer to load with each PHP script that is running on your site. Static HTML files take less time to load. See how much time that you can eliminate from your load time by using caching. Use the WP Super Cache plugin if you are a WordPress user.
5. Optimize Your Database – Like defragging your hard drive, it is necessary to optimize your database. Occasionally, small fragments of posts and plugins are left behind and need to be removed. For those who have WordPress blogs, WP Database Optimizer is a great place to start.
6. Crunch Images – Look at the images that are on your site. Is the coding doing all of the work to resize your pictures? Can the screen resolution be reduced? Take a moment to use an image editor to reduce the size of your pictures. There are free web services like Crunch 4 Free which will reduce the size of your images without reducing their readability.
7. Store Images Elsewhere in the Cloud – You might want to store your pictures elsewhere to avoid the issues of hotlinking. Use somebody else’s bandwidth to serve optimized images to your site. You can choose from popular sites like Flickr or Photobucket to store your shots.
8. Compress Your CSS and Javascript – Chances are, there are ways that you can compress and streamline your style sheets and coding. The faster that the server can see your instructions, the faster that it can follow them. For WordPress bloggers, take a look at CSS Shorthand to see where reductions can be made.
9. Drop Unwanted Plugins – Take a look at the plugins that you are using for your blog. Are there any redundancies? Are there any which are obsolete? If you cannot find a good reason for the plugin or the plugin has served its purpose, eliminate it.
10. Disable Hotlinking – Hotlinking is the process of allowing other users to put your images on their site. They are accessing your pictures directly instead of downloading them and hosting them directly on their own site. You can remove hotlinking by altering the code in your .htaccess file.

With each second of loading time, you are trying your blog reader’s patience. Fortunately, there are several easy ways to speed up the loading time of your site. Each little nudge of speed helps you to have happy visitors.

Why You Should Blog Drunk

This blog post was originally part of a different contest, but since apparently someone got drunk and deleted it, we’re giving it a second chance in The “Bad Ass” SEO Guest Blogging Contest. Enjoy!

So most people would tell you that blogging under the influence is like drunk texting everyone you know at 3am to tell them you’re at the IHOP to get your short stack on.  Not many people are gonna advocate topping off an evening of Irish car-bombs with an unbridled WordPress rant. Sure it SEEMS appropriate to explore your mommy issues or publish the tale of an ex who still won’t return your calls or your Weezer CD.  But the light of day is looming. And like any kind of drunken communication, you’re likely to wake up nauseous; half from your hangover and half from the realization that your cyber humiliation is irrevocable.

But, this post is called why you SHOULD blog drunk. Am I really about to encourage you all to engage in BWI? Well based on certain criteria, I say it’s not a bad idea. My inspiration comes from one of my favorite drinking jokes; the one that explains the various phases of drunkenness. Oh, you’ve probably hear it. It’s this one. According to this, there are 5 Stages of drunkenness. All together, they make for a pretty good night out and if used properly, they can also help make you a great blogger.

Stage 1: Smart.

The formula says that when you’re drunk you know everything. A person in the “smart” phase of drunk is confident in their mastery of every subject known to man. Well a good blogger doesn’t need to be omniscient, but a little mastery of your niche is helpful. This does not mean to blog like you know what you’re talking about if you’re actually an idiot. If what you are contributing to your subject area is as valuable as an arm pit noise, here’s a hint; people are going to catch on. Well, the people who aren’t dumber than you anyway.

That doesn’t mean that you are relegated to blogging on subjects you are already an expert on. There is something human, honest and even inspirational about following a blogger as they study, and learn something new.

What it does mean, is that the age-old writers credo “Write what you know” is true for bloggers too. Before you start writing about anything be smart on the subject first, and be smart in choosing your topic. Or if the first 2 ships have already sailed, well, then it’s never too late to get smart on your topic.

Stage 2: Good Looking

This isn’t about physical beauty, this is about a mentality. Someone in the Good Looking stage of drunk BELIEVES themselves to be the most attractive person in the room. Reality is not a factor in this belief.  Feeling attractive makes you believe that people are interested in you, and want to hear what you have to say. That assumption can even help you get the digits of a girl you thought was way out of your league two vodka tonics ago. In blog world, it can help you get a following you never believed you could have. Most people will tell you that hotness is 90% confidence. If you’re Smart on your blog topic then be confident that people are into you.

Stage 3: Rich

If you’re ACTUALLY rich you’re probably too busy picking out new rims for your Maserati to care about where you stand in Technorati. Being drunk Rich means betting Günter, the 300 pound biker, a Grand that you can take him in arm wrestling. Or buying that entire Bachelorette party a round of cosmos because you like their falic little straws.

Blogging like you’re Rich means blogging like you don’t care if it ever makes you rich. People who start a blog because they think it’s a quick route to early retirement are due for a reality check. Or a bitch slap. Or both.  According to these numbers, 72% of people report NO income from their blogs, but 61% of people report blogging to supplement their income. Um, I’m no good at math but that seems off. If only 28% of people are reporting an income from their blogs… then a lot of people are either liars…or screwed.

Even if you are making money with your blog in order to have a really good one, it’s most effective to write like you AREN’T. Huh? Listen, writing once a week about the virtues of Pay Day Loans or the dangers of Mesothelioma is a dead give away that your wallet is more engaged in the blog than your heart. Whether you are running ads, affiliate programs, writing reviews or however you are monetizing your blog, the key is to keep the content authentic. Writing like you don’t care about the money is the best way to ensure that everything you put out is high quality work that you can be proud of. Coincidentally, that’s the same kind of content that can help you make better money.

Stage 4: Invincible

This level of drunk is where you can easily break a toe kicking an insubordinate dartboard, or Günter, without noticing. Nothing hurts, and you can’t BE hurt. To apply this concept to blogging it means… well it means pretty much exactly the same thing. Courage is a part of blogging I’ve struggled with myself; fear is something that affects most bloggers at some time or another. Fear of backlash, fear of retribution, fear of mockery or hell just a fear of being called wrong. But in order to be truly successful as a blogger you have to get past the fear. No one achieves greatness by playing it safe.  If you blog long enough and build a big enough following as a blogger, then the fact is that, yes you will say something stupid, yes, you will piss someone off and yes, people will make fun of you and hate you. Once you accept that inevitability, once you can convince yourself that sticks and stones may break your bones, but trolls can never hurt you, you’ll be fine. When you are true to yourself, and write what you truly think and feel without that fear, you are blogging like you’re invincible.

Stage 5: Invisible

When you’re an invisible drunk, you have the freedom to do whatever you want because, what the hell, it’s not like anybody can see you! Or you’ve just has so many Long Island Iced Teas that the concept of “shame” eludes you at this point. Invisibility in blogging, at least to me, is two fold.

First an invisible blogger is transparent. Reputable bloggers have been talking about the importance of transparency in blogging for years. It’s not new. The idea is simply to be honest about who you are, your motivation for blogging and the intent of your blog. If you run ads and try to hide them you look super shady and people won’t feel like they can trust you. And in case you’ve been busy re-directing Ring Tone sites to Porn sites, let me fill you in; trust is a huge factor online. In cyber-world it’s way too easy to scam and be scammed. People worry about liars, hijackers and spam pretty much with every click. So everyone has grown increasingly wary and cautious online. For bloggers that translates to, be honest and you’re good; lie and get caught… yeah you’re pretty much done.

The second part of invisible blogging involves getting out of your own way. It’s really easy to develop an ego when you acquire a following. People start thinking “Wow, all these people are reading what I have to say, I must be awesome…and rich and smart AND good looking!  You know what, you may be… and even if the blog is about your personal stories and experiences, the blog really shouldn’t be about YOU. It should be about the message. And, of course the people who take the time to read and comment on it. That’s why it’s important to make yourself, and your ego, invisible on your blog. Take pride in your work but check that pride at the publish button. Learn to accept constructive criticism and for god’s sake, interact with the people who care enough about your point of view to weigh in on it. You are not the pied piper of subscribers so learn to become invisible on your blog so that the content can take center stage.

Buzzed Yet?

Ok so if you were hoping for a blog that endorsed doing keg stands before sitting down at your computer, I’m sorry to disappoint. But if you can manage apply the 5 stages of drunkenness to your blog, you might find yourself a little tipsy on the joy of blogging. And who knows, you might even be able to get away with a little pre-blog pre-gaming, I mean after all your Smart enough to know when you had too many…right?

How to Get More Comments on Your Blog

About six months ago, I had 1500 blog subscribers—all of whom left few if any comments. On a good day, I would get maybe 8 comments.

On a bad day, I might get zero

It hurt my feelings more than a little.

And it made me wonder: Is anyone actually reading my blog? Or are all of these people pressing the delete button whenever my blog feeds into their inbox? Am I the most unloved blogger on the planet?

I thought about throwing a De-Lurking Party, as I’d read about other bloggers doing that sort of thing. But that seemed, well. In a word? Terrifying. What if I held a party and no one showed?

No, I couldn’t do that. No. No. No. A De-Lurking Party? That was waaaaay too risky.

So I did all of the usual things that people tell you to do in order to get more comments. I ended each post with this line, “Please leave a comment.” I installed the Comment Luv and the Subscribe To Comments plugins. I begged my Twitter followers to please comment on my blog.

Nothing.

Then, one day, I accidentally purchased the wrong size of bed sheets. I opened the package and washed them before realizing the issue. I didn’t know what to do with the dang things, so in the middle of a post Of Cobwebs, Bedsheets and Butter I wrote: Would you like a set of free Bakugan bed sheets? Leave a comment on today’s post that makes me laugh and forget all of my life’s problems and they are yours.

It was a joke. I didn’t think anyone would want them. I mean, seriously? They were kid’s bed sheets. They were already out of the package.

They had Bakugan designs on them.

That post? It generated 23 comments. As the comments flowed in, I danced around my room saying, “Who-hoo. People really do read my blog. Who-ho. People love me.”

Reward Your Readers

Let me tell you something. I. Did. Not. Want. To. Come. Down. From. That. 23 Comments. High.

Did not.

So I decided to give away more stuff.

I included a line from Where the Wild Things Are in one post’s headline and offered to send a chocolate bar to the first reader who figured out the book from which I’d stolen the line.

I won a bunch of dildos at a conference (don’t you just wish you were at THAT conference?), so I gave two away to my readers.

I re-gifted swag. I gave away crap that I didn’t want anymore. I gave, and I gave, and I gave.

Here are some other things that I did:

Created a Reader of the Month award. I give it to one frequent commenter each month.

Thanked my readers. I thanked them in my posts. I thanked them in the comments area. I told them just how much their comments helped inspire me. I told them just had crappy I felt whenever a post did not generate a lot of comments.

Started a Reader Participation post. I did the first one on a morning when I was busy and didn’t have enough time to write a real post. So I posed a question, asking, “What was the best marriage advice you ever got?” In the body, I told readers that they would write the post instead of me. I would, however, reward one commenter with a subscription to Wired magazine. That post? It got 46 comments. Now I regularly post questions—usually ones that were sent to me by readers—and I ask my readers to answer them.

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