If you wish to achieve Ninja status as a blogger, get ready, hard work is required. The way of the Ninja is complex: being highly trained in various skills and techniques is necessary. Will you live up?
The blogosphere is loaded with its share of Ninjas. Most of them taught themselves while others benefit from the help of mentors, blogging coaches, so called experts and so on.
One of the most important tips you should learn early on about blogging, social media or just life in general: learn from doing it yourself! Listen up, stop throwing your money way because some guru promises that his training will help push you over the top.
Don’t misunderstand me, I’ve benefited from E-Books, coaching, reading the top blogs and so on. However, it’s up to you to implement: apply the knowledge/abstract ideas.
ONLY YOU CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN
For example, we can read the best books on writing or swimming but if you never actually practice writing/swimming as often as possible, guess what? You won’t perform, impress, grow or learn to teach others. The most influential individuals are those that share out trial and error; meaning, you can’t effectively talk about what you don’t know. It’s as simple as that.
The Way of the Ninja
Here’s four areas you need to consider and then master.
Write About Something You’re passionate about. If money is your only motivator, you’re in trouble. Making money online isn’t impossible but it’s demanding and requires skills. Your passion about whatever it is you write about, needs to drive you toward action.
- Look for ways challenge yourself.
- Never think you’ve arrived as a writer.
- Yes, read about writing.
- Practice daily
- Expand your horizons ( you properly better at something you might not have expected- try mixing up your writing/blogging format)
Be a Producer not a consumer. This applies to both newbies and experienced bloggers. If you’re too busy consuming: using more time for social media activity and blog commenting (on other sites) than producing content for your own blog, you’ll never achieve ninja status.
What I’m saying isn’t anything new, you’ve likely heard it before. But as already noted, the game is about action, implementation doing! How are you taking action today?
- Respond to readers on your site.
- Email a reader.
- Answer a reader’s question (you’ve likely overlooked some).
- Learn to write in 20 minute bursts.
- Set writing goals
- Write, write, (step away from the work) review later, revise and publish.
Don’t sabotage other bloggers. Ninja usually are pretty good at screwing up what plan you want to carry out. Get a sense of the blogosphere; meaning, most bloggers are kind, helpful and willing to offer a helping hand. Learn what manners are expected. Don’t spam another bloggers site, email or social space.
Determine what works for you. You’ll hear this over and over again from me. What works for someone else won’t always work for you. While it doesn’t hurt knowing the methods or approaches of others, each person is different. This is a general rule to keep in mind when your debating about buying a E-book, site membership and so on.
Blogging isn’t about secret formulas for success that just happens to work for whoever knows what numbers to punch. Sometimes, it may be by chance, random or simply because you developed a plan that works for you.
Learn to leave quality comments
- This is your chance to leave something worth while, treat it like a guest posting opportunity!
- Your space is limited, so make the most allotted to you while being meaningful.
- Is your comment just another “great job” blog comment or will you be different?
- Look for ways to contribute something to the post; consider how it might help other readers.
- Engage with other comments; again, this is your chance to possible connect with other readers.
- Don’t be aggressive… being honest don’t mean you have to be rude.
- Who are you? Are you being genuine? Shine through your comments! :)
Best,
Miguel
Simply Blog
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{ 35 comments }
Pretty obvious but it’s always good to be reminded about these things!
I agree but for many, in their own minds blogging becomes something much bigger than expected. For some, that’s a mountain they don’t believe they can climb. :)
-mig
This is something that happens to a lot of people. For some reason we love to gather information and can spend hours every day reading blogs, eBooks, listening to podcasts, etc. The problem is that, just as you said, it doesn’t matter how much you think you know if you never use it.
A simple rule to start with is the 50/50-rule where you spend as much time working as you spend reading. If you want to work more, it’s OK, but you should never spend more than 50 percent of your time reading.
Hey Stefan,
Right now, I like your simple rule but most importantly, it works for you! :) Thanks for sharing and visiting. Let’s use our knowledge.
-Mig
Hey Stefan, the 50/50 rule is a nice simple way of looking at things, and I reckon I am pretty close to sticking to this rule. Sure I leave a lot of comments on blogs, but I think this is necessary. On the other hand I also spend a fair bit of time composing posts.
I agree with most of this apart from:
“Write About Something You’re passionate about. If money is your only motivator, you’re in trouble.”
The one thing you learn very quickly in the kind of blog writing I do is that you will have to write about things which bore you to tears.
Yes, even the things I write about get very, very boring after a while :)
You just have to find something within that post to focus on and try to empathise with.
But as you say, making money online is demanding and requires skill.
And that’s where passion alone can let you down.
Zania,
Oh yeah, thanks for your feedback! :) I agree, even something you’re first excited about will slowly become boring. For others, I know they find themselves in situations where writing about the boring is a must to maintain some sort of income. Thanks again for sharing!
-Mig
I applaud you for stating: “Write About Something You’re passionate about. If money is your only motivator, you’re in trouble. ” I got into a debate with a friend who blogs as well and he didn’t think there was anything wrong with buying content. I rebuked by saying the same thing you articulated. Isn’t that the point is you have a forum to express your opinions, perspectives and knowledge and you’re going to rely on someone else to do it for you? Doesn’t make sense in my book. Thanks.
Hey Rick
Thanks for visiting and sharing. Yeah, I’d rather have someone I trust, and a person with experience in my site’s community. A solid insider is always handy. Cheers!
-Mig
You’re passionate about. If money is your only motivator, you’re in trouble. ” I got into a debate with a friend who blogs as well and he didn’t think there was anything wrong with buying content.
Why the way of ninja? Not samurai? Or other warriors? Ninja also feel very sneaky to me and not as honorable and hard-working as samurai. Hey, but that’s just my two cents.
Hey! Thanks for sharing information. Write about something you are passionate.
Yes Miguel, mostly you are right, but there is another posibility. You can train another person to do the comments for you, and you can stay focused on your own blog. And ofc you show him this post as a first lesson of his training :))
“You’ll hear this over and over again from me. What works for someone else won’t always work for you. While it doesn’t hurt knowing the methods or approaches of others, each person is different.”
Exactly! I hate seeing people try to parrot each other, especially in the “earn money online” niche…
Thanks to everyone for all the comments! :)
@ Andi, I guess you’re on to something there, perhaps? Your options are always welcomed here.
@ Michael, you said it! That’s certainly a help.
@Fotograf I guess you could do that but isn’t interaction an essential aspect of blogging. I have to admit, dealing with tons of comments isn’t always the easiest thing. However, what a neat opportunity to connect with ones readers; this is where we learn from one another by the sharing of information, which suits to benefit all those who come to reader thereafter.
@ Cynthia yeah, it’s getting old. Thanks again! :)
Yes Miguel the best solution is to find a way in which you can mentain a good relation between posting, reply to the comments, reply to emails and also comment to others blog. But since not every time the schedule alows us this, i think a good relation between a trained “commentor” and yourself can at least gives you the information you need from time to time. I am not saying that should be done all the time…
Great Post! When leaving comments on a related blog, there is a high chance for you to attract the attention of other bloggers, take care y writing carefully, spelling checkers are important! writing well and contributing wisely will encourage people to take you seriously.
Thanks, you touched on other notable factors that bloggers should strive to improve in. Appreciate the input! Cheers!
You’re right, Mig, about “blogging isn’t about a secret formula”. But because of the absence of the so-called secret formula, novices like me are simply puzzled. Scams are scattered anywhere. There’s no certain, fixed standard to determine our success as a blogger. I love the freedom, but with freedom, comes uncertainty. And in the jungle of blogging, uncertainty of where we’re heading to is so scary, occasionally. I wish I had some patrons or the like ^_^
So, in my humble opinion, differentiating ourselves from the rest and ordinary is the key to blogging successfully?
You are right when you say “write about something you are passionate.”Your passion about whatever it is you write about, needs to drive you toward action. Thanks for the info.
Quality comments are so important. I get tired of the drive by comments that doesn’t help or mean anything. I am bookmarking this because I am sure that I’ll make reference to it as I am still learning about blogging.
I’m in total agreement on this one. You can read 101 ‘how to get rich from blogging’ e-books every single day but if you are not putting things into action, not creating content for your blog, testing and measuring what works and what doesn’t, then you will not get to where you want to be.
Make sure you have a clear goal in mind, work towards that goal with devotion and determination and you will see the results. Be passionate about your work, your blog, your success, and also, the success of others.
Keep blogging Ninjas,
Karl :)
The bets trick to blogging is to develop your own trick. Enough said. Well done. ;)
Blogging is becoming more popular everyday and people think that they will be get rich with blogging, yes you can make a living for sure like some other Bloggers but it really needs time and work, the success doesn’t come easy… If you check popular blogs you will see that they have been blogging since 5 or 6 years, but don’t get it wrong I’m sure you will be one of them soon :)
I loved this post. You brought up some very good points. I especially liked your statements about learning by doing and spamming. On my blog, I deal with spam comments everyday. They get very annoying. I have added your blog to my blog reader. You have another satisfied subscriber.
I loved this post! Absolutely interesting; quite a must-read for beginners and not so beginners. Blogging can really be hard workd. It demands a lot of reading, writing, editing and creating content that’s both interesting and useful for your followers and attractive to new ones. Everybody dreams about making lots of money out of ablog. But if you don’t put your mind and heart into it, you’ll get nowhere.
I totally agree with you about learning by doing yourself. There is so much information out there on strategies for successful blogging. Maybe they all work but perhaps it depends on the alignment of the stars… it could be that mysterious. I think success will depend on the subject/niche you select and your craftsmanship as an author.
Hi Miguel,
Yep, great summary… I want to be a ninja someday (although I agree with Andi, samurai seems more honorable ;-) ), but I’m at the beginning of the road. I have a lot to learn, but I give you that one, that the only real way of learning is by doing.
Thank you.
Cheers: Rob
hi Miguel,
i agree with you that its better not to get motivated by money buy we can get motivated for money if we blog well
bunch of brilliant ideas here and i think they can be very useful for both novice and ‘expert’ bloggers. i agree on the part that writing for the sake of money might put you in trouble, because some people/audience really come back if they see that you are writing for them.
Talking about spamming. Bloggers have to realize that they need to take care not to spam in their comments. Remember that spamming in comments would be defined as commenting solely for the purpose of building links. Commenting should add to the original post, and not take away from it.
Great blog by the way. I love the theme.
The only way to become a blogging ninja is to write interesting content that somebody wants to read and write regularly. Try to write once a day or once every few days if you can but make sure you write at regukar intervals. Ideally you need a lot of good blog articles so that you can build up a loyal following and try to be controversial at times. If you don’t want to be conterversial then make sure your content is unique and very interesting, Be patient and you will succeed…eventually !
Ok, I have read it several times. I always blog about things I know and about things that are very important to me. My problem is that I don’t get any respons from my readers. I want to establish a dialog. For instance; I am very interested in our food and what we put in our mouth. I want to discuss this with people, but they don’t respond. Perhaps I’m to aggressive? Ok, I will read it one time more…
You’re passionate about. If money is your only motivator, you’re in trouble. ” I got into a debate with a friend who blogs as well and he didn’t think there was anything wrong with buying content.
kemer
I love the idea of being a Blogging Ninja!! Maybe I am going to invest in some black clothes and learn how to jump on people in the middle of the night like a silent assassin lol :)
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