Have you been here before? I do not just mean here at my blog, but have you been faced with questions or doubts about your efforts? Maybe you question whether people understand the intent and purpose of your blog, or maybe you question the intent and purpose of the blogs you read. These are legitimate considerations for a lot of bloggers, whether producers or readers.
I am a big proponent of blogging. In fact, if you just google “reasons to blog”, you can see that I am practically a poster child for the benefits of blogging. If you need encouragement, I suggest giving my list of “10 Really Good Reasons to Blog” a thorough read. If you need blogging tools, I would recommend “6 Essential Blogging Tools for Bloggers and Non-Bloggers“.
Let’s face it, great blogging is hard work. I have actually considered making a video of my steps to produce a blog article, but then I want to break my own fingers just to avoid the temptation of all the video editing on top of the other efforts.
What does it take to produce a blog article? Here is a one-sentence rundown for you: I get a bright idea, then I research, write, print, proofread, edit, print, give it to an editor, edit again, find a graphic, edit the graphic, categorize it, tag it, keyword it, write a description, produce an excerpt, record a podcast, upload podcast, title and tag the podcast, review the podcast, preview the article, edit it, preview it again, publish it, tweet it, facebook it, linkedin it, stumble it, reddit it, ping it, diigo it, mixx it, delicious it, then watch my web stats and keep my fingers crossed while hoping that some people will digg it, stumble it, facebook it, tweet it, and etecetera.
Somewhere in blogging, there must be an earthly reward. This is not the extent of what it takes to produce and promote a good article, by any means, but I was running out of breath trying to fit it into just one huge run-on sentence. There is a whole lot more to it than just that one breath. Through all of this effort, I hope that readers will appreciate it just a fraction of how sincerely I was trying to benefit them. If I benefit them enough with useful topics, they may help pass my blog along to somebody interested and in need of my marketing services, so that I can keep blogging without my kids getting too skinny.
Fun and Simplicity of Blogging
I already pointed out that I am an advocate of blogging. It it true that blogging holds many great rewards, but blogging is not an easy task for most of us. Some people will promote how fun and simple it is to produce a blog, but then I once heard a woman say something similar about having a baby, too. Yes, blogging can be very worthwhile, but there is also a pregnancy and labor side of blogging. Good blogs come from things like pixie dust and unicorns, but great blogs come from mind-numbing levels of creative effort. This is especially true if they are business blogs, which require a high level of marketing talent.
Knowing that it requires a lot of work to produce a useful blog, it would be a horrible shame to create and promote all that great work and not at least receive a few comments from readers, more subscribers, additional business, or something to justify all the effort and keep you wanting to continue giving your works to this amazing Internet resource we all build together.
Why Do I Make So Much Effort to Blog
Yes, here comes the reason I work hard to serve you. I will break it down really simple to tell you why I work hard to provide benefit to my readers. It is not as despicable as you may have thought.
If you are a subscriber to my blog, you have seen my crafty works to help get your thoughts racing about SEO and social media marketing. You may wonder why I work so hard to help people with marketing tips and ideas. I do not sell advertising here on my blog, so how can this possibly be worthwhile to me? I do not even promote my own company. Actually, the opposite is true, and my company promotes my blog.
What the following description of my efforts should drive home for you is the very most essential piece of the combined art and science of online marketing. Here it is: The most important thing about my blog is to serve people with something useful and compelling. The short version that I often tell people is “be useful!”
Yes, there you have it. The emphasis of my effort is to be useful and compelling. The kicker is this: When I am useful and compelling, people will share my work with others. If they share it on their blogs and social networks, my search engine ranking is improved, my readership is improved, and far beyond any big ego boost you may suspect, I actually stand a greater chance of having a paying customer ask me to help to do the same for them. Now that does not sound so much like the kitten-killer you may have made me out to be, does it? I did not even con you into buying something you do not need. That is refreshing in this day and age, don’t you think?
Have I Helped You?
I want to ask that in consideration for my efforts for you to pass along my work. If you are a do-it-yourself’er, please pass this along to people who may hire out my marketing services. If you are a marketing person and you do not have a conflict of interest, please spread this to others in our field. If you are a marketer seeking a client, just like me, I want to ask you to reach out to me so we can share ideas. Maybe I can guest blog for you and help promote you to your best audience.
In any case, if you find it useful, I want to ask you to subscribe to my blog and share your comments with others here. Also, please do not be too ashamed to pass along what I offer to others on your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, or other social networks. I am not your embarrassing Cousin Eddie. Helping me to share my work with people who can benefit is nothing to be ashamed of. I may be just “a web guy” to you, but I may provide a lot of benefit to somebody you know.
I promise that, although I am from Kansas, I will not behave like the famous Cousin Eddie from Kansas depicted in this video.
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