“How to Grow Gracefully” plus 1 more

Posted: 11 Nov 2011 12:02 PM PST

This guest post is by Courtney Carver of bemorewithless.com.

If anyone tells you that launching a blog doesn’t take blood, sweat, and tears, get your money back. There is no doubt that launching and growing a successful blog takes time, energy, and dedication. There are so many recommendations about how to grow your readership that you might find yourself focusing on the wrong things to start.

When you start your blog, you will spend time …

Comparing: Not only will you spend time comparing your stats from day to day and sometimes hour to hour, you’ll also compare your progress to other bloggers that are just starting out. Even worse, you’ll compare your stats to the stats of seasoned bloggers.
Tweaking: Your blog will never look just right. Adding widgets and plugins and researching fonts and headers can become a full-time job.
Wishing: Every time you tweet a post or publish something new, you’ll wish and hope for new readers. Lots of them.

Image is author's own, copyright onemillionforgood.com

You can easily make better use of your time by writing great content. I know that seems simple, maybe boring, and a little vague, but that is what it takes. Every post should be your very best post. If you are guest posting give them your very best post. If you only have five subscribers, give them your very best post.

While you may think you will run out of your best, that you’ll have nothing left to say, the opposite happens. Every time you write your heart out, better words appear. Each time you commit to creativity through writing, another idea materializes. If you’ve thought about saving your best work until you have more subscribers or are writing for a bigger blog, rethink and release your very best work.

Instead of spending your time doing meaningless tasks to force success, grow gracefully.

Say thank you. If a reader emails feedback, thank them. When someone gives you unsolicited advice, say thank you.
Support others. Get to know a group of bloggers who write about something similar. Comment on their blogs, share their posts and grow together.
Forget your stats. It’s important to know about your readers and traffic, but not at the beginning. Try a stat sabbatical and see how your mood changes and your writing improves.
Report accurate numbers. Social proof can help the growth of your blog but understand the difference between pageviews, readers and subscribers. Readers stop by. Subscribers engage. If you have 10,000 pageviews, you do not have 10,000 readers or subscribers. Explain your numbers clearly and accurately.
Solve problems. Write about what you know, but use reader comments and feedback to solve problems. Combine the readers’ need and your experience to create a useful post that readers want to talk about.
Let viral happen. You can spend time trying to figure out how to write a post that will go viral, but then you aren’t writing for your readers. The best way to go viral is to write for them. They will spread your message.
Connect. Guest post, collaborate, and ask for help and offer help.
Enjoy. Love what you write about and enjoy the process instead of measuring your success by the results.
Engage. Use social media to talk with people, not at people.
Don’t apologize. If you miss a scheduled post, or a few, don’t apologize for your absence.
Monetize thoughtfully. Instead of becoming an affiliate for every product available, choose items that you love and genuinely recommend for your reader. When you create products, think about the end user. What will they gain? What do they need? How will this help them?
Be humble. You didn’t do this alone. Your hard work is the cornerstone of your success, but without readers that support you and share your work, you will not grow.

Understanding social media and SEO may contribute to your growth. A beautiful design and pretty font will enhance the user experience. But nothing will give you a solid foundation and opportunity for growth like writing for your reader and being graceful and grateful.

What do you think? Does grace have a place in growing a successful blog?

Courtney Carver is an artist & consultant specializing in simplicity for life and business. Subscribe to her business blog and connect with her on Twitter.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Grow Gracefully

Warning: Are You Doing the Bare Minimum?

Posted: 11 Nov 2011 06:02 AM PST

This guest post is by Paul of http://junhax.com.

Bachelor’s degree . . . bare minimum.

A Master’s degree is becoming, well . . . the bare minimum.

Posting on your blog once a day, tweeting a few times, responding to a few people, responding to a few emails . . . bare minimum.

The truth is it always seems like we are never doing enough—and it’s true, some of us aren’t.

We have huge hopes and dreams of becoming the best in our field, with a determination that is immutable and highly focused.

The problem: how do we know if we’re doing the bare minimum, and what can we do to surpass it?

Let’s talk about it in blogging terms, although this way of thinking applies to all fields.

Blueprint for great content

When I started to blog I had a firm belief that writing amazing content, connecting to social media and tweeting posts, and frequently publishing would get my name out there. It’s true to an extent, because that is just bare minimum.

In order to prove to your readers that you’re writing with heart and patience you must keep these points in mind:

Take time your time when writing. The way you’re reading it now will be completely different tomorrow morning—until you fully perfect and construct what you want to say.
Make sure your headline is as powerful as your content.
Writers are prodigious notetakers. Use your notes, round up some ideas that you came up in the past, and put them to use.
Have others read your posts. Listen to their feedback, and write it down to compare what others are saying.
Open the door and write. Close the door and write.
Read it out loud over and over, as if you were in front of thousands of students who have no clue what the subject is about.
Avoid the traditional steps of writing, editing, then publishing. Publish it the next day to be positive that what you created is valuable.
The more time spent scrutinizing your posts, the more effort you are putting into it to make sure that it appeals to your audience, contains no errors, and delivers a powerful message.
Don’t just supply the reader with paragraph after paragraph. Be unique in your content delivery and design.
Break up your paragraphs. Use bullet points, numbers, separate important ideas and sentences to guide the readers’ eyes.
Link to other blogs or posts that are relevant to what you’re saying. Supply the reader with various options on the subject to expand their knowledge.
Most importantly: put your heart, blood, sweat and tears into it. Do want you your posts to last forever, or just today?

"No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader."—Robert Frost

Being part of the conversation

When you comment other peoples’ blogs, are you leaving a message where people can follow up, and maybe even learn something, or relate?

“Oh, I love this post. Thanks for sharing!”

Lame. Yawn. Tell them why you love it, how it affected your life or work, and possible tips and ideas that were not included that you can add and recommend to fellow readers.

Draw attention to yourself. If you took your comment and compared it to the other 100 comments, does it look exactly the same? Are you sure blending in is what you want to do? Appear as an intellectual, not some robot.

Networking with purpose

Are you networking with purpose? Is your heart in it? Are they just some face online, or a potential subscriber . . . or a friend?

You’re a writer, and you know just as well as I do the satisfaction that comes with feedback. It’s the ultimate reward and sensation knowing that someone read your post and was moved. You did your job as a writer: to communicate ideas.

Find a network of fellow bloggers and writers that you enjoy reading and going back to. You will not become popular all alone, in the corner of your room.

If your focus is finance, money, and business, go out and look for all the top bloggers and people in your niche who speak that language.

Relate with them, learn from them, and most importantly: speak to them.

I went for six months of blogging without connecting or speaking to one person. After a while the mold was broken, and I was talking to a few bloggers here and there via Twitter or website; but I was slowly building a relationship.

Soon, it wasn’t weird to ask for advice or some thoughts, or just simply say hello.

The simple truth

"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple."—Oscar Wilde

It’s so true it hurts. If the results you’ve been getting are steady, and nothing has changed for you in a long time, then it’s time to see if what you’re doing is the bare minimum.

You need to exceed, lower your shoulder, and smash through the wall that is preventing you from being great. You need to be hungry for it, though. You cannot have dreams to be the best at something, and not lose sleep over that goal.

If you truly believe that you can be the best and greatest, and your work shows that you put your heart and soul into it, eventually you will earn that success; but you have to keep clawing and fighting for new ways to be above average.

You have to create a mindset that many people lack. It’s not the simplest thing to do, but it is absolutely necessary in the world we live in today to become remarkable.

Paul is a writer/blogger on http://junhax.com. He focuses on sharing insightful stories and advice for writing, blogging, and personal development. You can also follow him at @junhax.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Warning: Are You Doing the Bare Minimum?