Sad News As A Woman Dies…

A woman named marinna rollins had charge of a handsome little pit bull named Huey whom she was looking after whilst her estranged husband was stationed in Korea. Huey had been adopted from an animal shelter in Cumberland County, North Carolina, so one can imagine that he had already experienced the arse end of humanity.

She and her boyfriend jerren heng took Huey to a wooded park, tied him to a tree and shot him multiple times whilst recording the event and laughing. heng can be heard asking to shoot the dog also. A friend of theirs posted the video on Facebook in the hopes that it would highlight their actions and lead to punishment.

I was very saddened to hear that the woman was found dead in her home on Sunday.

It was suicide and not payback.

When is the right time to move from WordPress.com?

The quick answer is either when you have a very loyal following or right at the beginning when it’s all nice and clean with few or no followers to lose.

Whether you are at that decision point or not the following post is worth reading so you know for future use whether to stay or go.

I have chatted with people who have left at the wrong time and the stories are always the same. ‘Boy it’s lonely out here!’ The move has usually also been complicated by having to transfer lots of previously accumulated posts. Then they find that the culture outside of WordPress.com is very different.

There really is little point in moving if you can do a better job of building your readers on WordPress.com than out there in the cold harsh internet all by your lonesome.  WordPress.com is at least based around a community which allows you access to people quite easily. (I’m sure most of you will know that WordPress.org is the paid version and people jump ship there mainly to have full ownership of their blog and domain name).

The other platforms like Blogger or Tmblr or even WordPress.org have a whole other vibe to them which may or may not suit you. I would not abandon WordPress.com until I have experimented with other platforms and I am sure that I could do better elsewhere. A lot of folk like to blame their tool for lack of visitors and wonder if moving to another platform would solve the issue. The truth is, the issue is not always the tool but often the user. If there is a problem with your marketing, SEO, or traffic it will follow you to wherever you go if you don’t deal with that specific problem head on.

Remember, plenty of people have succeeded on paid platforms and plenty of people have succeeded on free platforms.

There is a fairly big difference between a free blog platform like WordPress.com or Blogger and a paid one such a WordPress.org. Apart from the money (which if you are aiming to do big things is really negligible), being on WordPress.org is like paying a mortgage for a home you ostensibly own.

WordPress.com is like renting a room and has the same kind of limiting limitations from the landlord!

• a) You can’t place ads of your choice.
  b) You can’t play with the overall coding or look of your site from what your template and their system allows.
  c) You can’t SEO your blog as freely and comprehensively as you can on WordPress.org.
  d) You can’t access full stats as freely and comprehensively as you can on WordPress.org.
  e) Plug-ins are extremely limited on the free platform with swathes of choice on the paid one.
  f) If you are ready to branch out and earn from marketing, brand sponsorship, affiliation or advertising opportunities certain platforms will not work with you if you have a WordPress.com account because of it’s limitations.

Plus there are some various other rules about what you can and can’t do which are not imposed on a paid platform.

Now if you are a newb this will not bother you one jot. But as you start to learn about the possibilities of blogging and your confidence and audience starts to grow you may start to rub up against those WordPress.com limitations and feel that you need to stretch those wings and own your own home. And as I said, if you are halfway in your journey with neither a particularly large audience or a particularly small one, but you have committed to quite a number of posts that are important to you, switching platforms has been known to be a little stressful technically to say the least.

 

The cleverest thing to do?

Keep both.

A lot of people who make a clean transition from WordPress.com to WordPress.org start to feel the cold reality – the harsh wind and the blowing tumbleweed of isolation. But actually, there is no reason that states that you have to make a sharp blogxit! <—topical!  🙂

I would suggest tapering things off and testing the waters before you make the big move. Think of it like leaving your parents home as a young adult, but they allow you to keep your bedroom as is …you know…just in case.

So what you do is keep writing for your WordPress.com base and invite your existing followers to visit a few posts on your new WordPress.org blog from time to time.

You can simply start your post on .com and then have them click to your .org to complete it. Often people just say ‘I’ve moved – here’s my new blog, click here’ which actually gives very little incentive for a passer by to ‘click here’. But if you wrote a post that was exciting, interesting, funny, moving or informative, who wouldn’t click through to read the end of it? Who doesn’t want to hear the end of a knock knock joke…even if it isn’t funny!

I would repeat this over a number of months, some posts for .com some for .org. If your audience follows you to your .org posts repeatedly then you know you have a loyal readership who are willing to follow you to your new home permanently. If they don’t, then you know you have much more work to do to build that loyal readership.

 

Do You Need Help With Twitter?

Are you aware of how powerful Twitter can be?

Do you even use it or are you one of those people who simply rubbish a tool you don’t understand?

‘Ah Twitter, what rubbish…it’s for twits.’

Would you like to know how to build a huge Twitter following? People who will back your blogs, books and products?

Tell you what, forget comments – I’m switching them off. Write to me direct with your Twitter issues, queries etc and I’ll tell you in seconds why and HOW you should be using Twitter – the PROPER way.
We have multiple Twitter networks ranging in the millions just so you know that we know of what we speak.

I’ll only do this for a limited time then the email sesh is over, so come and get educated 1-2-1 on how Twitter can help your blog TODAY!

Just so you know I get paid for 1-2-1 sessions but I’m giving them free today as a mini Blog Surgery because I really want you to understand these powerful tools that can help you achieve your blogging / sales / artistic goals. Not only that but how to use them P-R-O-P-E-R-L-Y. There’s a lot of people using Twitter and I often wonder why they even bother. What use is a great car if you try and drive it incorrectly by sitting in the boot?

Mail me now HERE! Let’s get you using Twitter like a pro and get your posts shared by hundreds, thousands…if not millions!

Don’t Tell…

 

 

Have you noticed that usually the people who talk the most do the least? I often watch out for this when choosing potential people to work with. I once worked with a guy who could put an insomniac to sleep with his continuous verbal diarrhoea. Not only was he incompetent he killed a few major deals to boot.

How ‘Bout Choo?

Have you any examples where you worked or hung out with someone who could do or had done everything, but only with his mouth and not his actions?

Or are you a ‘I’m gonna do this… I’m gonna do that…’ person who looks back every year and yet again nothing has been done?

How Long Does It Take For A Blog To Be Successful?

Depends.
On so many things.

Depends on what you mean by successful.
Lots of readers?
Income?
A place to let off steam?

If you are looking at blogging for a possible income then you have to treat your blog like a business. Invest in it. Both time, passion and money if and when appropriate.
That applies if you are using your blog to springboard something else such as a book release or training videos e.g. yoga, makeup or cooking.

If that is the case then take the example of Victoria Beckham. People have derided her fashion business because at Companies House (the UK business registry) it was shown to be losing money year on year and being bailed out by her ex footballer husband’s money.

Well, only someone who doesn’t understand business would deride this. Her company is still fairly young. Businesses can take up to 5 to 10 years to turn things around and show a profit. That also depends on the type of business you get into. Money moves through businesses in many different ways depending on each individual set up.

Blogging (seriously, as opposed to a hobby) is much the same. You have to give it the time it needs to establish itself and that too may vary based on your topic and how hard you push it yourself.

I have seen blogs get established in literally months (I’ve seen a few quirks where they were established in a matter of days with huge traffic!) and I have also seen them climb real slowly for 3 to 4 years and then suddenly WHOOSH! A catalyst pushes it to the stratosphere… and of course  there are also those that continue to climb slowly but surely.

So the answer to How Long Does It Take For A Blog To Be Successful is ‘X’.

And X very much depends on the blogger, their choices and sometimes a fair sampling of old fashioned luck.

The one thing that IS guaranteed is that if you are not open to change where change is required, A/B test out the different paths to your goal to find what works for you, rest and reinvigorate your passion for blogging regularly, treat marketing seriously and most important stick at it, it definitely won’t be successful at any point. As with most things in life, with blogging you get back what you put in.

 

How ‘Bout You?

Are you happy with your blog growth or concerned that your visitor numbers are not increasing?

Do you know where you want to go with your blog or are you quite relaxed about wherever it takes you?

 

Wanna ask a blog question specifically about YOUR situation?

Make sure you come to Blog Surgery, free 1-2-1 blog tuition and advice.
Get your question ahead of the queue HERE.

Media Request: Looking for parents who are worried about their child’s weight. #weight #pbloggers #mumlife

Contact us here.

Never Think You Are Not Good Enough…

Whenever I’m silly enough to doubt my ability with anything,

I always take a quick glance at people in the public eye earning millions for their ‘skills’ and back I bounce. Not in an arrogant ‘I’m so much better’ way, but simply in a ‘if they can do it so can I’ way.

Here’s an example:

A music producer friend of mine had the tuning tool that all producers use these days to whack up a note that was either slightly sharp or flat whilst mixing or producing in the studio. It’s called Auto-Tune.

For good singers it was a tool used merely to sustain a great ‘take’ or performance where everything else was great bar a few dodgy notes or unexpected voice cracks.

So for those it was a quick job – half hour, if that.

My friend once worked on an international star from one of the biggest bands of the decade. He had the unfortunate task of auto-tuning their vocal. When I popped into the studio he gave me a weary look.
‘I’ve been here for weeks!’ He wailed.
He told me he literally had to auto tune not just words but right down to syllables. The poor guy literally had to re-tune every breath from this multi-million selling ‘singer.’

What this reminds us is that no matter how crappy we feel our contribution to the world might be, there are people who are not quite as bothered about imposing mediocre on the world making a perfectly good living! In other words, of course we should do our best, but remember, there is an audience for everyone. Our job is to find them.

 

 

What Say You?!

Are you your worse critic and full of self doubt with any project you take on?

 

Media Request: Bloggers! Looking for women who wish to remain child free. #childfree

Contact us here. Fee Paid

We’re Open!

Introduce Yourself Here To Other Bloggers And Grow Your Audience!

So I’d been thinking since I began 11 months ago about how I could help other bloggers grow their audience as quickly as I did. Y’all know how passionate I am about making a proper living from blogging already.

I started doing Blogging Tips and then I wanted to offer online events that could help boost folks’ audiences. I had quite a few in mind but a busy schedule and some tough periods put paid to getting them up and running last year. But now…here is the first! Feel free to use this post to say hi and introduce yourself to other bloggers. Add links to your books, your poems, your enterprises.

 

This Post Is Yours!

Have at it!   If you have a social network, share this post as now you are on the list, each share spreads YOUR reach even further!