This is my first time meeting the gruff old man I’m interviewing. He walks into my hotel room without knocking, with little fanfare and no introduction. He drops rigidly into a chair opposite a camera, fold his arms over his chest and acknowledges me with the curt nod. He immediately reminds me of what you would get if Clint Eastwood played R. Lee Ermey in a movie, or vise versa.
A common question I see from new or newer bloggers is “What should I write about?” or “What niche should I choose?”, and they always seem to get the same answer.
When you write you leave little bits of yourself on the page. Try as hard as you might, but this can’t be stopped.
It’s all too often that marketing and sales are lumped together, and while they depend on each other, they are quite different. Marketing turns cold leads into warm leads, and selling converts those leads into sales.
I believe I speak for a majority of writers when I say that freelancing is not the bed of roses it’s set out to be. I can only assume that those not in the majority are either just starting out or have some of the best working conditions there are.
We are going to take a little trip today. A trip down memory lane. I want you to take a second, close your eyes, and think about grade school. Go back as far as you can. Try to picture your classmates. Picture the odd one. The kid that kind of smelled funny. The one that seemed to always wear the same clothes.
Just using the right keywords and headers isn’t enough to get ranked highly on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). There is so much more to it than that. Search engines are getting smarter
Out of all of that I guess the question is, is it necessary? Is it necessary to put myself though everything involved in getting a degree at this age, or in fact at all?
Even with all of that going for it, I see conversation threads every day about people not making the necessary sales to qualify for the program. If you don’t make three qualifying sales in 180 days, your application to the program is rejected.
You can’t have random axes AND an open bar, someone will get very hurt, and that someone often ends up being me. Besides we thought going with Harry Potter opened up many more options for decorating.
When I started my site I didn’t have a lot of experience building a website, and by not a lot I mean none. Absolutely none. Not a little bit, not I’ve seen it done once, not even someone told me I could but I didn’t believe them. Absolutely none. I didn’t have any idea that someone could build a site on their own without 6 years of schooling and two masters’ degrees.
When you are a newer blogger one of the riddles you struggle to overcome is how to drive traffic to your page. You will see hundreds if not thousands of articles on how SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the best way to drive organic traffic to your site. Which is absolutely true, however SEO is a long game. Even if your SEO strategy is absolutely perfect, as a new site it can take many months to make it to the first page in search results for your niche. So where do you get your views?
There is a doubt that winds its’ way through the community, touching on everyone here and there. Occasionally it strikes quickly then fades away. Sometimes it lingers like a summer cold and affects our work twice as much. It isn’t specific to writers, but it is definitely prolific among us.
The act of building and running a website can take up a lot of your time, especially if you are new to the process. There is an extensive amount of behind the scenes work that can’t be seen by simply visiting a site. Endless research on techniques for design or advertising. It’s enough to drive a person out of their mind if they don’t take a break every once in a while.
The fire is burning low. It’s little more than hot embers at this point. We have to push through. Success depends largely on constitution, on how badly you want it. Do you have the testicular fortitude to continue to bust your ass with very little to show for it?
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