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The Sin of Originality (and the Truth about Building a Popular Blog)
Note from Jon: This is one of the most shocking lessons you can learn as a blogger. We’re all trained to believe originality is essential for standing out, but the fact is, it can be dangerous, even deadly. In this guest post by Henneke Duistermaat from Enchanting Marketing, she shows you when originality is good and when it’s bad, and she also gives you a strategy for exactly how to do it right. Enjoy. 
Okay, show of hands.
Who else is still searching for that perfect, original angle that’ll make you stand out?
Yeah, most of us are. The fact is, the blogosphere is a crowded place, and if you want to stand out, you need to be original.
Right?
Well, yes and no.
As it turns out, sometimes originality isn’t quite as important as we all think it is. Sometimes, it can actually hurt you.
Let me explain.
read more21 Warning Signs You Chose the Wrong Topic for Your Blog
You’ve wondered, right?
Back when you started, you were just stoked to have a blog. You picked a topic that seemed interesting, fired up WordPress, and proceeded to write your heart out, certain you would eventually gather a following, and it would all prove worthwhile.
But now you’re getting a little worried.
You’re not getting much traffic. You’re not getting many comments. You’re not making any money.
Not that you haven’t tried, of course. You’ve done all the things popular bloggers say to do, like publishing great content and commenting on other popular blogs and getting accounts on Twitter and Facebook, but no matter how hard you work, no matter how many different techniques you try, none of it is working.
So you wonder…
Could you have screwed yourself in the beginning?
Could you have chosen a topic for your blog that never has a chance of becoming popular?
Could you in fact be wasting your time trying to keep your blog alive, when really the only sensible thing to do is junk it and start over?
Well… let’s find out.
read moreHow to Be Unforgettable
Can I tell you my worst nightmare?
I’m lying in bed in a nursing home, sick and dying, gasping for breath, knowing that any minute now I’ll be passing into the great beyond. And I’m scared, really, really scared, because I’m all alone, and I don’t know what’s going to happen, and oh God, it hurts so much…
But then it stops. My body goes limp, my last breath rattles from my lungs, my bowels release, and the heart monitor beside the bed flat lines, loudly proclaiming the end of the great and mighty Jon Morrow.
A few moments later, a nurse walks into the room, checks my pulse, and looks at her watch. She writes down my time of death on a form, pulls the sheet over my head, and goes back to her office, where she calls the morgue. A day or two later, I’m cremated with five other bodies, all of us too important to even get our own urn.
And the worst part?
The next day, the sun comes up. The birds are singing. People eat breakfast, go to work, attend meetings… and nobody even notices I’m gone. The great wheel keeps on turning, and for better or worse, I’m forgotten. Goodbye cruel world, nobody gave a damn about me after all.
Scary, isn’t it?
Just writing it down gives me the willies.
It’s not just dying, although that’s certainly gruesome. It’s being forgotten. Down deep, I believe all of us have a primal need to be remembered, to pass something on to future generations, to leave some mark on the world saying, “I was here.”
If we’re being honest, I think maybe that’s one of the reasons many of us start blogging. There’s something immensely comforting about knowing your thoughts are out there for the whole world to read. You could kick the bucket tomorrow, but your words will live on, teaching, inspiring, and taking root in the minds of readers for generations to come.
Or at least that’s the idea.
What really happens, of course, is that you pour your heart and soul into a post, and no one seems to care. No comments, no links, no nothing. Come on over, friends, and check out my blog. We’re watching my ideas die in real time. Yuk, yuk, yuk.
And it’s disturbing.
When you pull up your blog, and you see it says “0 comments” next to every post, you feel like nothing has changed. Once again, you’re slipping through the cracks, passing into oblivion, one more nobody with a stupid little blog, God save your soul.
The good news?
It can change. You just have to realize your writing by itself isn’t a magic key to immortality. If you want that, you have to be unforgettable. You have to touch people so deeply, connect with them so powerfully that your ideas are burned into their minds.
Here’s how:
read moreWhy Posting Every Day is a Silly Strategy (And What to Do Instead)
Note from Jon: This is a guest post by Dries Cronje from Productive Entrepreneur. If you’re like me, you often turn your nose up to guest posts on popular blogs, because most of them are by beginning bloggers who are still learning their chops, and so the posts kind of suck. Not so here. I couldn’t have said this better myself. It’s a freaking awesome post, and I encourage you to read every word of it.
Someone, somewhere, told bloggers to post every day.
So you do. And you give it your best shot.
But posting daily just doesn’t work for you. You don’t meet your traffic and income goals, you don’t get a flood of visitors, and your subscriber numbers stagnate.
Now you’re doubting your ability to be a successful blogger, and you feel like a sweatshop worker, working super-hard with no real reward.
The post-every-day strategy takes all the fun out of blogging.
Deep down, you suspect this strategy is downright dangerous. And you’d be right for the following reasons:
read more14 Devious Tactics for Getting More Comments on Your Blog Posts
You have a lot to be proud of, you know.
Most folks who start a blog quit within a few weeks, their dreams of fame and glory crushed by a cold and uncaring world who doesn’t give a damn what they think.
But you?
You hung in there. You kept writing. You’re even managing to get a little bit of traffic.
And you’re pleased with your progress. Rightfully so.
The only problem:
You’re not getting many comments.
read moreThe 7 Dumbest Mistakes You Can Make When Launching a New Blog
So, let me guess.
When you started blogging, you probably plunked your butt down in a chair, rifled out some thoughts on your trusty keyboard, and punched “Publish,” right?
After all, that’s what blogging is about. It’s the place where you write, and the world gathers to listen.
It’s supposed to be simple. It’s supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to be fun.
But is it?
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