Evergreen, Colorado
Blogging teaches you harsh lessons sometimes.
It never spares the rod.
But quickly learning from blogging mistakes accelerates your success, freedom and peace of mind.
I used the term “modern day blogging mistake” to highlight a glaring error I spotted over the past 6-12 months. Goodness knows I made a bunch of blogging boo-boo’s over my 15 year career.
I have since corrected it and observed the benefits of my correction.
You need to learn from it too, guys.
Most of you are probably making this error, on some level.
Big Blogging Mistake
The big blogging mistake I pinpointed within the last year was this:
I stopped scaling, leveraging and reaching out to help more people because I thought, felt and acted small by relying only on my *established* blogging tribe for my success.
How did I spot this huge mistake?
My blogging tribe at the time came and went on a day to day basis. Organically, my blogging success came and went on a day to day basis, because a part of my mind just waited around for them to spread my reach.
Some readers showed up weekly to read and share my posts. I got some weekly shares from ’em, here and there. Some appeared monthly. Others appeared every few days.
But the root of the problem was this: thinking, feeling and acting small by relying on a fixed blogging tribe to boost my traffic and business via referrals brought me small results for this period of time, relatively-speaking.
As a practical example, imagine if 20 active readers visit your blog. 5 visit daily. 10 visit every 3-5 days. 5 visit weekly. Each promotes your posts and refers your blogging courses and eBooks to their networks on a regular basis. Then…..traffic and business growth seizes, via their referrals, after they stop promoting your blog.
In a world of 7 billion people it probably ain’t the best idea to rely on 20 people.
Google, Amazon and Apple did not stop leveraging after growing loyal tribes consisting of 20 people.
You may want to think a little bigger than 20 people, too.
I did.
But it did sting the old ego a bit, to own thinking small, and to begin thinking big, like Bob the Dinosaur above, whom I met in Colorado.
Yes; his name is “Bob”. Said so on the placard.
The Correction
Think big. Dream big.
Otherwise, you will think small, dream small, blog just to survive and struggle, 100% of the time.
You cannot live beyond your vision.
Practically, take baby steps each day to slowly but surely access a targeted, larger, ever-increasing readership.
First, admit your mistake if you are making it. Focus on the fact that you rely on a small, fixed group of people to grow your referral business, some of whom come and go, as even loyal fans do.
From there, follow guidance from full-time blogging tips bloggers to:
- target
- leverage
- scale
slowly, calmly, mindfully and patiently.
Gradually, an increasing number of highly-targeted readers will flow to your blog passively, organically and quite successfully.
Your success will expand exponentially. But you need to patiently dream bigger then take practical baby-steps to allow in your ever-increasing readership.
Practical Ideas for Thinking and Blogging Big
- dive in to guest blogging
- hop on genuine blog commenting
- publish long form content
- engage in blogger outreach
How I Did it
I intuitively felt like I’d be truly helpful for 5 billion social media users.
A growing chunk of these 5 billion meat suits run blogs.
I:
- joined social media groups for bloggers on Facebook and LinkedIn
- published detailed blogging tips to these groups
- answered blogger’s questions via these groups through in-depth replies
- tweeted an increased volume of blogging tips updates on Twitter
- published an increased volume of blogging tips via my Facebook profile, page and group
- published an increased volume of blogging tips via my LinkedIn profile and group
Blogging tips hungry readers from outside of my tribe patiently migrated from social media to Blogging From Paradise.
I received positive feedback on my blog, boosted my quality traffic and some bought my stuff to increase my blogging income, too.
However, the turning point was spotting that relying on a few loyal people with busy lives was a poor way to build my success.
I had to get my ass out there and help new, highly-targeted bloggers who’d love Blogging From Paradise the blog.
The Cliff’s Notes Version
Basically, the gist of this post is:
Always keep helping new, highly-targeted, pinpointed people who fit the profile of your perfect reader.
Sure you want to build relationships with loyal followers who help build referral business. But even rabidly loyal followers have busy online and offline lives. What happens when they attend to life offline? If you rely on them heavily for your success….your blogging growth stalls.
Some loyal followers become fickle, disillusioned or flat out pursue other interests.
Never depend on people to grow your business because people can and do change. Hell…not to be humorous, but a small collection of my readers died during my 9 year Blogging From Paradise run. One gobbled up my eBooks. Imagine relying on dead people to buy your eBooks?
Would they remember me during their next karmic incarnation/incarceration here on planet earth?
Would they have access to Gumroad and PayHip?
Mindfully follow an intelligent, helpful, genuine process to accelerate your blogging success exponentially over the long haul. People come and go but a smart process sends the right people *who need your help now* to your blog for growing your quality traffic and business.
Processes are not fickle, do not have offline lives, never turn from fan to foe and remain true as long as you stay true to the process.
Remember this before you mentally imprison yourself by thinking, feeling and acting small and relying solely on a fixed tribe to accelerate your success for you.
What About Honoring Tribe Loyalty?
First, stick to your blogging process of meeting and helping new, targeted readers.
Then, reply to people who:
- share your content
- comment in reply to your content
- buy your stuff
- hire you
to grow a strong blogging community.
Yes; doing this requires maintaining a bit of a balancing act. Helping and drawing new blog readers while bonding deeply with loyal readers rockets you outside of your comfort zone in moments.
But the increased blog traffic, blogging profits and freedom which you crave awaits you outside of your comfort zone.
If success were found in doing comfortable things then planet earth would be 7 billion billionaires.
Conclusion
Keep meeting and helping targeted, new people on a daily basis.
Expand your blogging reach every day.
Think big.
Help more people.
Have fun.
Accelerate your success.
Enjoy worldly freedom.
Resources
