Archive for December 1st, 2009

BLOGTASTIC: Not all blogging tips are practical

by Rajesh Setty on December 1, 2009

blogtastic_coverThis is part of the the book BLOGTASTIC! Growing and Making a Difference Through Blogging. You can read the table of contents and follow the book on this page:

See the table of contents for the book here: BLOGTASTIC project

Previous article: The secret recipe for blogging success.

BLOGTASTIC: Not all blogging tips are practical

Sometimes experts get carried away too. They present their personal preferences show up as rules for everyone else. Every time you see me (or anyone else) mention rules or tips, think for a moment about the practical applicability of the advice. Make sure it fits your situation.

Specifically, here are some things to consider before you take someone’s advice about blogging.

Personal relevance: what works for the experts may not work for you—even when the “tips” are right.

Timing: Some tips lose their relevance over time. They may have been very relevant when those tips were published, but in six months they may be outdated. In other words, not all tips are timeless. So check out whether those tips are still applicable today. In the world of blogging, things move very fast and you don’t want to be following yesterday’s advice to succeed tomorrow.

Better alternatives: Your goal may be to reach a particular audience, increase blog traffic, or get more links to your blog. You can achieve these objectives in more than one way. You may find a tip that actually works against the specific 
goal you are trying to achieve.

Ultimately, you want to choose strategies that reach success through the least effort and the highest leverage. You won’t be able to achieve these results when you use strategies that are out of sync with your overall strategy for life or work.


Tip: Get help from others, but add your uniqueness to the mix

Any mature industry will give rise to a lot of experts. With the advent of the Internet, it is easy to access to these experts’ insights. If you have access to these experts, then everyone like you will have access to them too. Hence just following the best practices will put you in the “best of the commodity” category. You have to bring your uniqueness to the mix. The combination is hard to copy.


rubber_meets_the_roadRajesh Setty is an entrepreneur, author and speaker based in Silicon Valley. He maintains another blog called Life Beyond Code and tweets as @UpbeatNow
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thinkingA lot of us want to start a business, but we cannot leave our full-time jobs, because we need to take care of family.. mortgage.. monthly expenses etc. Is there a way out. yes there is .. and here is the good news

According to the data from the U.S. Department of labor, three-quarters of those who start new business are also employed in wage-and-salary jobs at start-up.. and some 60% of new firms begin at home.((Source: Doug Hall‘s book – Jump start your business brain )

Some of the largest companies which started as part-time and became hugely successful are..

1. Ford motor company : Henry Ford worked in Edison Illuminating Company ( now GE) under Edison, while he worked on building cars when he was not at work.

2. ebay.com : Pierre Omidyar the founder of ebay worked for about 9 months in a full time job, while he started and ran ebay.com as a part-time business

3. craigslist.org: Craig Newmark founder of craigslist.org worked full-time for about 3-4 years .. while he ran craiglist part-time

In the last 10 years, due to advances in technology the cost of infrastructure has fallen down so low, it has become easier to start a business thereby moving a dream to reality. The problem is not money anymore, For less than $1 a month, we can start a blog, for about $5 a month we can start a niche social network

So, What is stopping you.. is it an absence of an intense desire?..

Vijay Peduru is an entrepreneur in the bay area and is the co-founder of a bootstrapped startup. His interests are bootstrapping, leadership and spirituality.
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