How to Start a Blog and Write Your Own Blog Success Story -Blog Your Way Out of Broke

“Always remember that you are unique. Just like everybody else.”- Despair.com

Okay, funny, but not true. You’re special, and you can be even more special. You’ll see. Read on.

Imagine TV’s Survivor show with a limo full of the web’s highest paid bloggers. Dropped off in the middle of nowhere. Stripped of their possessions, their networks, their friends.

Chances are, you’ll only make about 25 house payments (if you can) before these guys/gals are back in the big money.

What will you be doing in 2 years?

Will you have a comfortable income too? Probably not, if you keep doing what you’ve always done. People who depend on paychecks lose their job. Self-reliant, self-confident, self-respecting people eventually become their own boss.

If you need to change who you are, the way you think - that’s alot to expect from one article, isn’t it? So bear with me and let’s see how far we can get.

Rewind the clock a few months, before the layoffs and bailouts. What if you’d turned off the TV an hour early each night to work on your blog?

Not to focus on what could’ve/should’ve/would’ve been…Think about the one-hour-each-day thing. “I don’t have an hour a day!” you protest. Your day is probably like everybody else’s: packed to the hilt and brimming with Stuff.

When life was better, you’d probably rant and rave about it: “Why in the world should I work for free? No promise of when I’ll ever get paid? Are you CRAZY?” But things are much worse now. Maybe you don’t have another choice but to try.

I’ve been there. A few years ago, this was me. My job let me go. I pleaded with my landlord not to kick me out. Things were bleak.

Fortunately, I ran into someone who knew what they were doing online. Someone with some confidence. Someone with no-nonsense, treat-it-like-a-business tenacity. Someone who eventually made 7-figures on the internet.

Relax. I’m not going to sell you his program. What he did (using pay-per-click to get mortgage leads) isn’t making money like it used to. But I did gain a good friend and mentor. And what I learned along the way inspired me to write about making money online…and about confidence and tenacity.

“Make money with a blog? Too much work!” My friend laughed. Maybe you did too. He was right about one thing: It’s work. It means time and commitment. Too much work?

Let’s see. If you learn to be efficient by writing an article in 20 minutes and doing your research in 10 minutes - that leaves you 30 minutes to edit your article and publish it on your blog. Your WordPress blog, that is.

Of course, this doesn’t include the time planning a formula for your content. But this planning is not an everyday thing. So this works out about right, doesn’t it? About an hour a day, as Tony Hung says in his blogging tips on ProBlogger.

Of course, when you get more blogging success, you just may want to do professional blogging full-time like Ben Yoskovitz. Then you might be tempted to ’spend all your waking hours on your blog’. Sounds like he could save a lot of “thinking time” by researching his posts differently.

Not to belittle Ben, though. He was quoted in the New York Times. How in the world did Ben get this honor? As Tony points out in his ProBlogger post, if you talk long enough and smart enough about the same thing - people see you as an authority.

That’s real power. Superhero power.

In fact, read that bolded line about authority again. You deserve to know and apply this.

THIS is why you shouldn’t worry about your writing talent. Just commit to the time and effort it takes to make your blog succeed.

I’d have to agree with Brian Clark about the most powerful blogging technique there is:

Study great writing examples and imitate them. If something written actually makes you want to buy something, take note of HOW they wrote it. In fact, file that advertisement away somewhere in some organized way. Trust me: you’ll want to study it and copy their methods.

Let’s get something straight about this whole content-is-king thing: Don’t vomit pages of worthless words into the web. Learn to write your very best.

But you probably need to worry a lot less about blogging original subjects. Whatever you say, someone else already said it, and probably said it better.

Take time management or weight loss for example. It all boils down to: plan your time, plan your meals, plan your exercise.This subject has been covered to death.

But people still want coaching. They want what you have to say. That’s why new people still get on Oprah all the time. And they make tons of money with these subjects.

Some say you’re starting a blog in a chokingly competitive environment. But there’s two ways to look at the numbers. Sure, there are at least 133 million blogs.  Sure, some say Google may “sandbox” you (keep your blog somewhat unknown for up to 6 months.)

But one thing’s for sure if you write every day (c’mon, at least 5 days a week): at the end of 6 months your website will be VERY special. Why?

As Technorati’s numbers reveal, less than 1 in 133 blogs (much less than 1 percent) post daily.

Wow! You really CAN be in the top 1 percent.

Blogging business is great, even in this recession. Sifry.com recently said blogs average $75,000 in profits if they have 100,000 or more unique visitors per month.

If what I’ve said so far doesn’t convince you this is really doable, read this. (15,000 pageviews a day at 4 views per visitor is 112,000 visitors per month.)

Your readers want to know you’re in it for the long haul. You’ve faithfully posted. You’ve proved yourself. You can be special, see? And if you’ve lapsed? Did you skip a whole month of posting? It’s never to late to learn to stop being a flake and get things done.

Okay, that was harsh. But I used a keyword here. And I have a link to someone else’s site. And I used the keywords (”flake” and “getting things done”) in the link. That helps Google see what you’re doing here. Supposedly this gives you more searchy points.

I also went to my keyword tool, found lotsa people search for “how to start a blog”. Notice I put that in my title above? And “professional blogger” in one of my links above? Even my picture has a helpful filename. More search love from Google, they say.

I don’t know whether Sonia over at Remarkable Communication or Neil at Quicksprout will notice me, but it doesn’t hurt to try. Sonia and Neil both list trackbacks on their blogs. What’s a trackback? If you check out Sonia’s blog at Remarkable Communication.com, scroll down to the part of the page where it lists “trackbacks”. This is a list of people who’ve quoted her blog.

For Wordpress users, when you link to another WordPress blog, the trackback all happens automatically. People click on these links too. This is a huge internet marketing strategy.

See how many other links to other blogs I’ve put in this article? Remember what I said about others saying things better than you? I was leading up to something here:

It doesn’t hurt you to point to OPW’s (other people’s words). In fact, link like mad. It’s one of the easiest, simplest, and most powerful ways to market your blog.

So there you have it. Work on those commitment issues you have. Blog every day. It unleashes your inner superhero. As every good superhero knows, with great power comes great responsibility. (Spidey actually says more about blogging here.)

Learn to be interesting when you write. (Study copywriting.) Link like mad to market your blog. Finally, use your closing to invite other people to comment.

So did I convince you that you and your blog can be special? C’mon, even just a little teeny tiny bit?

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