You hear it all the time – to become a successful blogger takes a lot of hard work. Seems logical enough, like everything else in life, if you want something with big rewards then it will take hard work.

To become the CEO of a large corporation is hard work. To become a movie star is hard work. To write a book that becomes a New York Times bestseller is hard work. And so of course, to become a successful blogger takes hard work.

But what does hard work mean? To dig a six foot hole in the desert sun is hard work. To carry a piano up ten flights of stairs is hard work. To copy the entire dictionary under candle light is hard work.

So when the advice is: to become a successful blogger you need to do a lot of hard work – what does that mean?

What Most People Think Hard Work Means

Some confuse hard work with time. They believe that doing something for many hours a day means that they are working hard. They say, I have been working so hard – I work on my blog from 7pm to 1 am every evening. For them hard work means spending a lot of hours working on the blog.

Then there are those that believe that simply doing something, anything, relating to the blog means they are working hard. They do not specify what they are doing because it is not important. They say: I am always doing something to my blog therefore I work hard.  For them it is important that they are working on the blog and irrelevant what they are doing.  If they are doing something to the blog then they are working hard.

Finally there are those that think working hard means finding the time to work on the blog amongst all the other things that need doing throughout the day.  They have a full time job, 2 kids, and a dog with a broken leg.  Their days are busy at work, feeding the kids, and rehabilitating the dog.  The fact they also manage to work on their blog for 2 hours a days means that they work hard.

Spending lots of time on your blog, doing something to the blog and being a busy person does not mean you are working hard.  Working hard by carrying a heavy rock up a mountain everyday for 6 hours a will not help you become a successful blogger, neither will these forms of working hard.  They seem like hard work, but they are not and so will not increase your chance of having a successful blog.

What Does Hard Work Really Mean?

Working hard has nothing to do with how much time you spend on your blog, or how busy you rehabilitating your crippled dog.

Working hard means doing things that are hard to do. To succeed with your blog you need to do the things that most people do not do because they are hard.  Most people are lazy and gravitate towards the easy road – most people have failing blogs.

Everybody can change the background color, leave comments on other blogs, visit forums, submit low quality articles.  Doing these things might help your blog a little bit but they will not make you success.  Becoming a successful blogger is hard work – if you are doing easy things then you will not succeed.

Think of the thing that you keep putting off.  The thing that you know you should do but always find an excuse to do something else – something easier.  That thing is the hard work.  That’s the thing that will increase your chance of becoming successful.

By doing actual hard work, work that most people do not do, you raise yourself above the masses.  Most people would rather spend the whole day leaving comments on blogs, then spend 2 hours doing concentrated and mind twisting work.

Writing a guest post is an excellent example of real hard work.  Guest posts have to be good or they get rejected.  You have to think, write, rewrite, rethink.  Not everybody can write a post good enough to be accepted.  Its hard work and easy to avoid doing.

Writing comments on other people’s blogs is simple cruise control work.  No thinking required.  Read the post, something pops in the head, spit it out and hit submit.  No risk of rejection.  No stress.  Its so easy anybody can do it.  And that is the problem.  Leave comments on blogs if you enjoy it, but do not consider it as working hard on your blog.

Fortunately differentiating between imagined hard work and real hard work is not difficult.  Just ask yourself, I am doing something that most bloggers do not do because it is difficult?  If the answer is yes then you are really working hard and the rewards will come.

Any Comments?

What YOU Expect vs Reality, What YOU Should Do

Among the usual bunch of praise filled comments my previous post has a very interesting comment:

Come on dude.  Update your blog.  How do you expect your website to be a success with no updates?

Good point – how am I going to be successful without frequently updating this blog?  The song sung every week by  the choir is “Frequent posts lead to success”.  The preacher thumps his fist on the Good Book and sprays the first row as he shouts, “A website will die if  unattended – DIE!”.  Traffic will decrease, readers will unsubscribe, Google will stop sending you traffic.

Ignoring This Website And How it Effected The Success of This Website

For a couple of months my gaze has been elsewhere.  This website and blog have been on their own.  I have done nothing to prop or push it.  The last blog post was on Feburary 25, 2010.  Three months between blog posts – that can’t be good.

Normally things ignored deteriorate.  Empty houses spawn cobwebs, boards fall off fences, rust grows on pipes.    Without constant care lovers turn into ‘friends’; without constant care pet goldfish start doing the backstroke.

But surprisingly this website  did not  mind that I was gone.  There has been no deterioration, no rotting – the fish did not die.  3 months unattended was no worse for the website then 3 hours unattended.  Actually the fish are fatter and swimming faster.  Some of my stats have gone up in my absence.

Website’s Daily Visitors

Average daily visits has increased by 20%.  Nothing spectacular for 3 months, but pretty good for not doing anything at all.

But if the content is not changing then how can the traffic be increasing?  Without visitors coming back and reading new content you would expect traffic to go down as visitors realize the website is static.  How is it possible that the average daily visits has increased?

The answer is simple.  Even though the limited number of subscribers are not coming back, the almost unlimited number of non-subscribers are increasing.

Website’s Search Engine Traffic

Google seems pleased with my website – it keeps sending more and more .  Although not shown on the graph May 2010 is already at 290 Google visitors and will be at least 350 by the end of the month – making it the second best month ever.

There are millions of internet users for whom this website is fresh and new.  For them 3 month old website is fresh content.  They are looking for answers and this website provides them.  They do not care that it has not been updated in 3 months.  Google knows this and sends traffic my way.

Google does not care that my subscribers have not been provided with new content.  Google is concerned about the millions of internet users looking for answers to their’ how to make money with a website’ questions.  Which of course, this website provides.

Website’s Subscribers

But what about my poor subscribers?  Every morning they check their RSS readers with anticipation only to be disappointed – every morning for 3 months.  The agony and despair they must feel.  You can only court a crush for so long until repeated rejection forces you to look elsewhere.

The subscribers to this website did not miss me at all.  There was no despair due to my absence.  Hearts were not broken, dreams where not shattered.  There was not a mad rush to unsubscribe.   Nobody seem to care that I did not post – no one was angry  enough to unsubscribe.

The only reaction was from the commenter above who pleasantly requested that I write another post soon.  He did not unsubscribe, he simply and kindly asked for more.

This website had  around 80 subscribers 3 months ago and it has around 80 subscribers today.

What Will Happen If You Stop Updating Your Website For 3 Months?

Nothing.

Feel burnt out?  Is the sight of low traffic and no revenue really starting to get on your nerves?  Are you yelling at the dog for no reason?  Are you twirling around on your pivot chair trying to force new content out of your head?  Are you starting to think that the time spent on your website has been a complete waste of time?

If you answered yes to the above then you are like 99% of all webmasters.  You have 3 options:

1. Keep yelling at the dog.
2. Quit.
3. Take a 3 month break.  Don’t worry about your website, it will be there when you come back.

About Traffic, Visitors, Promotion, Actual Stats From The Website Used, What YOU Should Do

The concept is simple.  Buy an empty lot, build a little office,  toss in  a desk and two chairs.   Go through the newspaper classifieds and buy a dozen used cars.  Hose the cars down, put on a fresh layer of wax, buff and shine, vacuum the carpets, Armor-all the interior and kick the tires to make sure the car holds together.  Get a bright shiny red pen and write a price on the windshield – add an exclamation point and circle.  Then wait for the customers to arrive.

Had I been born 30 years ago I would have tried being  a used car salesman.  I understand cars, know how to fix and clean them.  Nothing about the prospect of selling cars would of scared me.  Just like blogging – easy money.

But this website has taught me that I would have been a terrible used car salesman and would not of made any money – just like blogging.

A family walks onto the lot, I approach them.  They tell me what they want and I show them a car.  They like the color, it is clean and it runs.  Does it run well the father asks.  Yes, it runs well I reply with honest smile.  The man takes it for a test run.  Good acceleration, good brakes.  The kids like it too.  Daddy, buy this car.  The man looks at the price, then at the sky, then at his shoes and finally after a short pause at me.  The car is a little out of our price range.  What is your price range?  The man looks at his kids, then at the car and then at me.  He coughs out a price 40% lower then the sticker price.

The family drives off in their old car.  Another sale lost.  Haven’t sold a car in weeks.  I would have been a terrible used car salesman because I cannot convince people to buy at sticker price. That is why I am also not making money with this website.

It Is All About The Dazzle, Lights And Big Signs

Used car salesmen do not work with new content.  They are selling used cars, not making new ones.  Every used car lot has the same bunch of cars.  Being successful is all about how you present the used cars.

Successful  used car salesmen are flashy, fast talking, excited, and they can convince their customers that lemons are chocolate ice creams with rainbow sprinkles on top.  Their lots have blinking lights and neon sings.  Prices are crossed out, slashed and reduced.  They have the best deals in town.  Their deals will not last – limited time offers.  They have grand openings, clear out sales, end of years sale bonanzas.

They will do almost anything to sell you a car.  No restraint – it does not embarrass them to embellish.  The actual condition of the car is irrelevant.  It is everything around the car that matters – the salesman’s slick haircut, the sexy receptionist, the bright lights and exlamation marks.

Successful bloggers would be great used cars salesmen.  Especially the bloggers in my niche – ‘make money online’.  There is no new content in this niche (true for most niches except probably astronomy and Britney Spears)  – it is all used content.  Everything about making money has been said.  There is no new information – it is just repackaged information.

But there are good salesmen on the internet.  They can take used information, put lights on it, wax it, call it a limited offer, and make you feel like you need it.  They can take something that is free and sell it for $99.99.  It is not the information that they provide, it is the packaging they present it in.

Being a used car salesman is a talent.  Not everybody can do it.  Not everybody can get into the roles of adding value to something by making it sparkle and shine.

Becoming a successful blogger is the same as being a successful used car salesman.  It is not enough to just get a lot and put cars on it.  You need to get into character.  Your content is the least valuable part of the blog.  Everybody has content.  It is all about how you present the content.

Have a look at the successful bloggers.  There are some wild characters out there -  successful used car salesmen.  Cowboy hat, chest hair growing out in-between his top shirt buttons, proud father of a new baby boy.  A college football trophy on his desk.  You feel good around him –a friend.  All smiles and good news.  With all the lights and sounds of the lot every day is New Years Eve party.

Compare that with this blog – a parking lot with a bunch of old cars on it.  Someone approaches and asks, can I make money online?  In plain black unbolded text I reply, ‘ya maybe, but it’s a lot of work’.  No wonder nobody is buying cars from me.

Making More Money Online, What YOU Expect vs Reality, What YOU Should Do

The Problem Of Being An Organ Grinder…

The problem with being an organ grinder is that the monkey will dance only while the music plays.  So to make the monkey dance you need to be there to turn the handle round and round, over and over again.  You turn, music plays, monkey dances.

As an organ grinder, everyday you get up early in the morning.  Feed the monkey a date, shine the organ, and head to the streets.  You drudge along and push the organ to your allotted spot on the corner – the monkey still tired, sleeps on your shoulder.

At 7:30 you start.  Put the monkey on the organ, place the jar in the curb and step behind your organ.  Seeing the first group of people come around the corner you place your hand on the handle, heavy breath, sign, and spin.  For the next 8 hours the monkey will dance and you will spin the handle.  All day you hear the same melody round and round interrupted only by the sound of quarters clinking as they fall into the jar.

The monkey needs you to be there.  Without you spinning the handle there is no music, without music the monkey does not dance, without a dancing monkey nobody puts money into the jar.

The Problem Of Being An Employee…

The problem with being an employees is that your boss needs to see you dance.  5 days a week 8 hours a day you need to dance in front of your boss.  Your boss only pays if he sees you at the office performing the employee dance.

7:30 you arrive at the office and the music starts.  “Good morning boss”, “Good morning employee”.  You hang your coat in the cloak room, say hi to employee2.  Turn on your computer, go to lunch room, get coffee mug with company logo, pour coffee in cup, say hello to employee3, walk back to desk, check your email, the phone rings, you click some keys on the keyboard, 8 hours to go.  Your boss needs to see you dance for 8 hours a day.

If your boss sees you dancing for a month then at the end of the month he will throw money into your jar.

The major drawback of being an employee is that you only get paid while you are at work.  You only get paid if your boss sees you in the office.  As soon as you leave the office the money stops – you are off the clock.

To get money, you need to be in front of your boss going through the motions of an employee.  It doesn’t matter if you are adding value or not, only that you are there.  As long as you are spinning the handle the monkey dances.

This is a huge waste of your time.  The work that you accomplish in a day could be done in a couple of hours.  You are smart, you know what you are doing, you know the most efficient way to do your job – you could have everything done before noon.  But that does not matter.  You have to be there all day.

Also being an employee means that throughout the working day, regardless of what you are doing, you get paid the same amount.  One hour you are designing a product that will make the company 1000’s of dollars in revenue – you get paid $15.25 for that hour.  The next hour you are painfully relieving yourself from last night’s spicy chili dogs – you get paid $15.25 for that hour.

As an employee there is no way to value your time.  Each hour has the same value to you, every hour you get paid the same amount.  So the obvious thing to do as an employee is to try to do the least amount possible – the amount just above the point of being fired.  And why not?  Why work hard, why try to get things done efficiently, properly and quickly?  Regardless of how it is done you get paid.  Why get it done early?  You have to do the office waltz till 5pm regardless if you are done or not.

Being an employee sucks all creativity, productivity and incentive out of you while while you are there – and when you are not there you do not get paid.

Websites Are the Perfect Dancing Monkeys

In one hour I have to be at work.  The next 9 hours will be a complete waste of time.  So, to cheer myself up I will remind myself of the benefits of having a website:

• Websites work all the time.  You do not need to be there.  You can be clipping your toes, tormenting the cat, or wondering the street aimlessly – does not matter what you do – the website will be working.  You do not have to be always spinning the organ’s handle to make the music play.
• Working on your website you become a productive and optimized superhuman.  You do not look like you are working – You are working.  It is not a dance.  You are actually trying to get the most done in the least amount of time.  And there is a direct relationship between the quality of work and the amount you get paid.  The better your product the more you earn.
• As an employee you only get paid one time for your effort.  If you write a great report you will get paid the hours that where spent writing the report.  Even if that report is used by the company for years after you leave – you still just get paid one time.  But for a website the webpage you write keeps paying over and over again – potentially forever.  You only need to write it once.  Online it will be generating revenue for you 24 hours a days, every day, for years.

Websites are dancing monkeys that never stop and you do not need to always be there turning a handle round and round for it to dance.

So You Want To Be A Webmaster...Get in my Head, What YOU Should Do

Like a green oasis in the desert, a life giving miracle has appeared.  This website is making a profit.  Finally after 320 days this website has incurred $538.23 in costs and made $544.71 in revenue – revenue is a bigger number then the costs number.  That is a cool $6.48 that goes straight into my pocket.  A crisp five dollar bill and some jingling change.

Of course $6.48 is a lot less then the $10,000 I was hoping to have.  But I take is a learning experience.  I have no other choice, the only other thing I can take it as is a total failure; so in this case I am choosing optimism over the truth.  I learned that my expectation was way to high.  I year ago I thought that in 320 days I would be drinking hundred dollar wine and deciding between a red or black corvette.  Instead, I have made just enough money to buy a coffee and ride the bus.

Bitter?  Yep.  Basically I got ripped off.  I have put in 494 hours of work and received a meager $6.48.  This is criminal – a scam.  A rational human being would never accept these terms.  The only way a person could end up in this situation is by force or trickery.   In my case it was not force – nobody made me make a website.  I chose to make a website.  I chose to build a website because I believed that I would get paid fairly for my efforts.   

Who knows how I fell for it.  Or who did it to me.  Or how they benefit.  It is like the Kennedy assassination – the deeper you look the more mysterious it gets.  I have tried to analyze what happened, how I get duped, where did it all start.  My investigations have led nowhere.  Somehow I believed that the internet would be a great source of income.  I have no idea who did this to me.  But to keep my sanity I have stopped asking who and why.  Kennedy is dead and the circumstances around it strange – period.  I spent 494 hours to get $6.48 – period. 

What To Do With The Bitterness?

Being bitter raises an interesting problem for a webmaster.  There is no way to vent or redirect negative feelings.  At the work place it is easy to redirect bitterness. 

Let’s say you do not get the bonus you expected.  No problem.  Do not buy toilet paper, pens, calculators, or coffee – the office will supply you with these.  Take one or two items a day.  It’s not stealing, it is your bonus.  You can come to work a little later, have a longer lunch, leave a little earlier.  Its is not abuse, it is your bonus.  One way or another you will get your bonus.

Boss does not appreciate your work?  You work over the weekend to get the report on the boss’s desk first thing Monday morning and all you get is a ‘great – thanks’.  No problem.   Monday and Tuesday you play solitaire and browse your favorite websites with a clear conscience because you are simply recouping your weekend.

Having a bad day at work:  Co-worker talking in your ear about her stupid domestic issues?  Crappy computer crashes?  Client upsetting you with unrealistic demands?  Phone keeps ringing?  No problem.  Hit the keyboard a few times, open and close the laptop monitor many times and really fast, hang up the phone extra hard, start a dirty rumor about your co-worker and give her real domestic issues.

That’s what so great about the work environment.  You get bitter and upset, but at least there is something you can do to vent.  The workplace offers many ways to redirect that bitterness onto other people and office equipment.

Sadly a webmaster has no such luxury.  A webmaster works alone and with their own equipment.  Nothing to steal, nothing to hit, nobody to bad mouth.  Something goes wrong and all you can do is sit there and stew.  You could hit the keyboard but then you need to buy a new one.  You could have a longer lunch but then you will have to make it up later.  You could yell at the dog but he will just wag his tail and want to play catch.

Like a egg, a webmaster can only boil in their pot and harden.

Raking The Sand

The other day I was browsing Amazon for something to spend my $6.48 on.  I quickly discovered that I have enough money to pay for shipping but not enough for the product.  So I went to the only place where I can spend my website profits – the dollar store.

The pin wheel hat was too tight and the plastic gun did not look real.  But then I saw it.  As soon I as I tried it I knew it was exactly what I needed.  It is a simple thing.  Sand, rock and a rake – a mini zen garden.

Now it sits beside my computer.  Before I check my stats I pick up the rake with my left hand and begin to slide it across the sand.  It has a calming effect.  Little rocks are placed randomly in the sand so I rake around them.  The four little lines in the sand twist and turn around the rocks and relax me as I check my revenue stats.  Monks have zen gardens to bring them closer to nirvana.  I have my little zen garden to avoid destroying my own keyboard.

My zen garden has taught me something else.  Just because I spend lots of time on my website and receive almost nothing in monetary return, does not mean my time is wasted.  Now I know that there are even bigger wastes of time possible – like raking sand around little rocks.  This calms me and the bitterness floats away.

I strongly recommend that you purchase a zen garden.  It will really help you as webmaster and make you gentler and kinder blogger.

If 26 of you buy the zen garden via the Amazon link above then I will earn $6.50 from Amazon – almost doubling my annual profits.  I am raking with my left hand and pecking the keyboard with my right.

Bitter and Pessimistic When I Wrote this, What YOU Expect vs Reality, What YOU Should Do