5 Tricks to Increase Google Page Rank for Your Blog

Google page rank is an elusive term that most bloggers don't completely understand. In fact, there are probably few people in the world who completely understand it, because Google keeps the secrets of its page rank algorithm very guarded. Boosting your Google page rank isn't something you can do in a day. If it were, everyone would have a Google Page Rank of 10. Keep reading to learn a few of the tricks to increase your blog's Google page rank that are fairly easy to implement over time.

1. Get Incoming Links from High Quality Related Sites

The best way to increase your Google page rank might not make a difference over night, but it will make a big difference in time. The key is to get incoming links to your blog from highly authoritative and well-trafficked websites and blogs that are related your blog's topic.
For example, if you write a blog about finance, getting a link from The Wall Street Journal website would give your blog a big boost. If you could get more high quality links from popular sites such as Fortune.com, SmartMoney.com, and so on, your blog's Google page rank would most certainly jump.

2. Remember to Use SEO Techniques

Search engine optimization is an important part of increasing Google page rank. Read the top 10 SEO tips, and make sure you're using them.

3. Write Original Content

Do not copy content from another site. Even if you're copying and republishing your own content from one page or one site to another, do not do it. Google's algorithm cannot tell the difference and will either give the originating site the credit and downgrade the others or downgrade all of the sites that publish the duplicated content. Google acts harshly toward any kind of content scraping, even if you're completely innocent. Once your page rank is downgraded, it can be nearly impossible to get it back up again.

4. Don't Go Link Crazy

Many bloggers hear that it's important to have incoming links to boost their blog's Google page rank, so they start leaving comments anywhere and everywhere across the web, participating in random link exchanges with anyone who is willing to participate, and so on. Remember, as the first item on this list says, Google's algorithm cares about quality links, not quantity. In fact, your page rank could be downgraded if your blog is deemed to be little more than a bunch of links.

5. Write Great Content

If you write great content, people will want to link to it, particularly high quality websites. Get on the radar screen of popular bloggers and websites by leaving comments, writing guest posts, participating in forums, emailing directly, writing articles, and so on. Build relationships with people who write for high quality sites, and the number of quality, incoming links you get to your blog will grow organically over time.

How to Improve Your Page Rank

When it comes to getting your site on the first page of Google, your page rank is a great indicator of how well your page is performing. Your page rank is based on a combination of the quality of your content, your search engine optimization, and your links and viewership. Improving all of these aspects will lead to an increase in your rank. See Step 1 below to learn how.

Steps

1. Focus on your content. The absolute most important factor to your page rank is the content on your site. If your content is original and useful, it will draw more visitors than a page with poor content. Creating good content is no simple task, and involves a lot of different factors.

• You should be updating your website regularly with new content. Websites that stagnate and do not stay current will drop in the ranks. If you’re writing a blog, try to update at least once a week at the minimum.
• Make sure your content matches your site description and keywords. If readers click away from your site after discovering that the content does not match their search, you will get penalized when they leave quickly.

2. Optimize your pages. Your content should be optimized for both keywords and conversational searches. The best way to do this is to make your article titles as close to the popular search query for that topic as possible. Make sure that your content answers the questions of the readers, or provides unique insight.

• Avoid overloading your site with keywords. Google will recognize this and ding your ranking because of it.
• Make sure that your site’s meta description is accurate. This is displayed to users when your site shows up on searches. An accurate description will lead to more clicks top your site, and less bounces upon landing on your site.
• Google’s Hummingbird update for their search engine algorithms has made keywords much less important than conversational searches. This reflects changes in the way that people search for things. For example, instead of looking for the keyword “iPhone”, Google will look for pages that answer questions such as “Which is the best iPhone for me?”

3. Utilize backlinks. When search engines see that visitors are coming to your site from other sites, your page rank will increase. The more reputable the site the viewer originated from, the more impact this will have on your rank. You can add backlinks by commenting on other blogs and adding a link to your site when you sign off, or you can provide content for other websites and then link back to your site via your credit.

 

4.Capitalize on social networks. Social networks are a great way to spread backlinks among a large number of viewers. Viewers will link your site for you if your content proves valuable. This will in turn increase your traffic, which will lead to an increase in your rank.[4]

• Creating a compelling link to your site is incredibly important for social networks. The reader needs to be intrigued enough to follow the link, and it needs to stand out from the deluge of news on their feed.

5.Create and submit your sitemap. A sitemap is a text file that lays out the pages of your site. It makes it easier for the Google bots to find all of the links and content on your website, as well as determine their importance. There are a variety of websites that will generate a sitemap for you, or you can create one yourself. See this guide for more details.

 

6. Translate your website. If you can afford to hire translators or have a community willing to do the translation work, you can significantly increase your audience by making your pages available in other languages. This increase in traffic will help to increase your page rank. 7Create an RSS feed. An RSS feed will help bring in new readers to your site, as well as retain existing ones. This will show consistent traffic, which will in turn positively affect your rank. You can use automated programs or create your own. This guide explains the process in detail.

 

7. Create an RSS feed. An RSS feed will help bring in new readers to your site, as well as retain existing ones. This will show consistent traffic, which will in turn positively affect your rank. You can use automated programs or create your own. This guide explains the process in detail.

Be careful before making money from your blog

You know everyone thinks we’re fools, right?
To most of the world, blogging is a joke.

It isn’t a career. It isn’t a way to make money. It isn’t a tool for changing the world.
It’s a hobby, a diversion, a fad that’ll come and go. Sure, you can start a blog, but don’t count on it taking you anywhere. That’s just silly.
Just tell your family or friends or coworkers you want to quit your job and make money blogging. They’ll smile politely and ask, “Does anybody really make money from that?”
Yes, they want you to have dreams. Yes, they want you to chase them. Yes, they want you to succeed.
But they also want you to be “realistic.”
If you really want to improve your life, you should get an advanced degree, write a book, or even start your own business, not hang all your hopes and dreams on some stupid little blog. There’s no money in it.
Or is there?
I’m hesitant to say this, but…

This blog is on track to make $500,000 this year

Now let me go die from embarrassment.
You know those people who brag all the time about how much they’re making, just so everyone thinks they’re important? Vomit, right?
Well, sorry, I have to be one of them, just for a moment, not because I want to make you vomit (eww), but because it’s become cool to say you can’t make money from blogging, so you shouldn’t even try. Instead, you should focus on publishing valuable content and building social capital and measuring audience engagement. Nothing else.
And that’s just stupid. Not the oh-look-how-adorable kind of stupidity, either. It’s more of the driving-down-the-wrong-side-of-the-road-until-you-kill-somebody variety.
The truth is, you absolutely can make money from blogging, if you know what you’re doing. It’s easy to measure too. You pull out the calculator, add up all the money people are giving you, press the = button, and Mary have mercy, we have a miracle.
The problem is, most people don’t have a clue. They think you have to sell ads or get sponsors or publish e-books, and they can’t imagine anything else.
Well, I don’t sell any ads, nobody in their right mind would sponsor me for anything, and I haven’t yet been persuaded to publish any books. And I’m still grossing a half-million buckaroonies.
How, exactly?
I’m just running an old-fashioned business using newfangled media. It’s nothing even that original. I’m shamelessly copying the Copyblogger business model, and so is pretty much every other successful blogger I know.
And I’ll sell you the whole system… for a MILLION dollars (insert pinky in mouth).
No, seriously, I’ll give it to you in a moment. Before we get to that though, let me finish my rant about how stupid everyone is.

Why everyone thinks blogs are a joke

Well, bloggers are following the leader, and the leader is trundling right off the edge of a cliff.
Who is this leader, you ask?
The traditional newspaper.
When the blog came along, somebody said, “Gee, look at this nifty thingamajig! People are writing all sorts of neat things, giving it away to anyone who wants it, and building audiences around the topic, kind of like a miniature community.”
Then somebody else replied, “Yeah! It’s a lot like a newspaper. You know, all of those people with popular blogs should put up a bunch of ads just like newspapers do and make some money.”
And the whole world went right along with it.
Nevermind that newspapers are dying faster than cockroaches in a Raid-eating contest. Nevermind that most bloggers don’t have nearly enough traffic to interest advertisers. Nevermind that readers HATE ads, and they immediately distrust everything you say the minute you install them.
Instead, everyone just followed over the edge of the cliff, cheerfully singing Money (That’s What I Want), and when they hit bottom, the world blamed blogs, not the intelligence of so-called blogging authorities who believed modeling a dying industry was a good idea.
It’s not. It never was.

So the answer is selling e-books, right?

*beats his head against the wall*
NO!
Yes, it’s a better idea than selling advertising (whoop tee doo), but it has the same fundamental problem:
Let’s say you have 100 subscribers. Having always wanted to write a book, you settle down in front of the computer for the next three months and crank out your masterpiece. When you’re finished, you managed to convince 20% of your readers (20 people) to buy a copy for $9.99, totaling $199.80.
You might even feel pretty good about it until a big meanie like me points out you invested three entire months of your life to get that $199.80. You’re now earning slightly more than sweatshop workers in China. Congratulations.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love books. I read several every week. To me, the perfect apartment is the ground floor of the library. No kidding.
But you’re never going to make a living selling a $9.99 product.
I know bloggers with upwards of 10,000 subscribers who can’t make enough money from their books to pay the light bill. To make it work, your audience has to be really freaking huge, and even then, it’s one of the least profitable products you can sell.
So, don’t do it. It won’t work.
In fact, nothing will work until you shift the entire way you think about blogging.

How to really make money blogging

Imagine you’re out at a restaurant with your family and friends.
Everyone is talking and having fun, but eventually the chatter dies down and someone looks in your direction and says, “So, we’ve all seen you working on something on the computer. What is it? Anything exciting?” All eyes swivel in your direction.
From that point, you have two choices:
The most common answer is, “Umm, I started a blog.” In response, you’ll get confused stares followed by five minutes of awkward stuttering as you try to explain what a blog is. When you’re finished, half the table will look at you like you’re an alien, because they didn’t understand a word you said, and the other half will think you’re pathetic, because they did understand every word you said. You lose either way.
Or you can try this:

You: I just started my own company, actually. I finally get to be CEO and call all the shots.

Grandpa: Now that’s the old <insert family name> initiative we all like to see! What kind of business is it?

You: Well, imagine you own a magazine, but instead of filling it with ads from other companies, you listen to what your readers really want and then create your own product line that’s tailored to their needs. And then instead of having ads that just annoy people, you publish occasional articles showing your readers all of the smartest ways to use those products.

Grandpa: That’s brilliant! So, you’re creating product lines for magazines?

You: I’m creating both the product line and the magazine. To save on start up costs, the magazine is online, and most of the first products we release will be digital too, so there are no manufacturing or shipping costs, either. Just pure profit.

They’d be impressed, right?
As well they should be. It’s a smart business model.
Copyblogger.com is making millions of dollars per year from it. If everything turns out as planned, I will have personally made $500,000 from it less than a year after launching this blog.
Now, that’s not normal. I had a few advantages most beginning bloggers don’t have, and I’m also a workaholic who needs no night life or social connections.
But Copyblogger and BBT aren’t the only two blogs using this model.
There are thousands of them. Let me introduce you to one blogger who I think is particularly inspiring:

Meet the Man with the Perfect Life

Ever wish you could work whenever you want, take vacations whenever you want, and spend as much time as you want on hobbies that have little or nothing to do with money?
Well, that’s my friend Johnny B. Truant’s life.
To him, family is more important than anything else.
Instead of getting home late at night, only to say a few quick words to the kids before they go to bed, he has dinner with them every evening without fail, and he usually hangs out with them afterward too.
Rather than going on one or two hurried vacations per year, Johnny takes his wife and kids on five or six or even more, turning off his cell phone spending every minute of every day with them, having fun.
Not to imply that he doesn’t have a life outside of his family, because he does.
Johnny always wanted to be a novelist, so he recently started writing books and publishing them on Amazon. He’s written two already this year, and he’s wrapping up a third, all written in his spare time.
Now, Johnny isn’t what most people would call rich. He does, however, have enough money to do whatever he wants to do, whenever he wants to do it.
And the big shocker?
He does it with a tiny blog. While it’s larger now, Johnny crossed into the six-figure income range with only 2,000 subscribers.
He did it by selling tech services. He set up blogs for people, built email marketing campaigns, and occasionally oversaw the redesign and rebranding of existing blogs.
In other words, he was a freelancer. A very smart one.
To him, a blog wasn’t just a collection of posts. It was the front end of his tech services business. Nothing more, nothing less.
Look around the web, and you’ll find hundreds of other freelance writers, graphic designers, web developers, and photographers just like him. Many of them are doing quite well.
The point?

No matter who you are, you can do this

Assuming you want to, of course.
Some people don’t. They want a job and a steady paycheck and a pension, and the idea of starting their own business is about as attractive as being water boarded.
But some of us want more.
We want to take vacations without having to ask anyone’s permission. We want to travel the world. We want to have enough money to do anything we want.
That doesn’t necessarily mean getting “rich.” It just means building a business that gives us freedom.
If you’re interested in that kind of lifestyle, you should take blogging seriously. Not because it’s revolutionizing the web or replacing conventional media or any such nonsense, but because it’s a vital piece of growing your own small business.
You can do this. You really can. You just have to use the right business model.
And the good news?
This one works like gangbusters.

An Open Letter to All the Bloggers Cluttering the Web with Forgettable Content

Have you ever gotten an email from a reader who said your writing changed their life?
How about other bloggers? Are they still talking about a particular post years after you published it?

Or is it the opposite?
Visitors just seem to come and go, never commenting, never linking, never sharing, just quickly scanning your posts and then moving on, forgetting about you forever.
If that’s the boat you’re in, I certainly sympathize, but brace yourself, because what I’m about to say will be painful:
You’re not trying hard enough.
Yes, I know those are impossibly high standards. Yes, I know it takes everyone time to learn their craft. Yes, I know there are only a few dozen bloggers in the world who can answer yes to both of those questions.
But if you’ve been blogging for a year or two, and you still can’t answer yes to either of them, then Houston, we have a problem.
Fortunately, it’s a problem we can fix. Let’s start by going back to where it all started.

Visions of Awesomeness

Remember when you were little and your teacher asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up?
Your hand shot up and you answered excitedly, I want to be an astronaut and fly a rocket to the moon! Or I want to be a ballerina and dance The Nutcracker! Or a want to be a fireman and save lives!
You imagined a really grand vision for yourself didn’t you?
You were the great explorer. The famous artist. The hero.
You wanted to be awesome, right?
So that one day you could strike that superhero pose up there on that mountaintop, red cape billowing in the breeze. Basking in the glow of heavenly golden light as the gods shower their praise down upon you for saving the world from mediocrity.
But then something happened…(cue ominous music)

The Curse Of Competence

When you first dreamed of becoming a writer, I’m betting you weren’t longing to become a highly competent copywriter for some big corporation where your work could remain totally anonymous for all time, now did you?
But somewhere along the way you “grew up,” traded in your childish dreams of awesomeness and settled for something…well, a little more realistic: a job that still utilized your “skillset” and allowed you to live close to the dream.
It was just someone else’s dream you were now supporting.
But you did establish yourself a solid reputation.
Competent. Reliable… Forgettable.

The Power Of Unrealistic Expectations

Fortunately for the rest of humanity, there have always been those throughout history who were a little less “realistic” about their own potential. Through every example of their remarkable work they held up a mirror and showed us what we are truly capable of.
See if you can answer the following:
Mark Twain’s classic book, The Adventures of Huckleberry ___________
Created the most famous amusement park in the world around a cast of animated characters we have known and loved for years: ______________
Sculpted The Statue Of David_________________
Is it possible you could have taken more than a half second to answer any of the above? Highly unlikely, right?
They created art that has touched the hearts and souls of countless millions and continues to resonate across the generations.
Art that represents the zenith of our human potential.
Art that is timeless.

Now Let’s Talk About Your Blog

I know, it seems almost scandalous to utter that word in the same breath as Michaelangelo, right?
‘But wait a minute,’ you say.
‘You’re comparing a blog to serious art? Like a fine piece of music or a classic painting or fine literature? Seriously? That’s not even fair.’
‘I just wanted to rant about my overealous devotion to ham radio operators. Isn’t that where this whole blogging thing began? As a way to express myself online? Who said anything about art?’
Exactly!
Want to know why no one cares about your blog?
Ummm, it’s about those ham radio operators. (cue crickets)
Want to be remembered?
Create awesome art.
Of course, there’s one little problem:

That Four Letter “F” Word That’s F^*#ing Up Your Art

Here it comes. The four letter word…(cue the scary music again)
Fear.
More specifically, the fear of rejection.
You either conquer this beast or it will paralyze you.
You think you’ve felt the sting of rejection?
Try this on for size.
Stephen King has sold over 350 million copies of his bone chilling horror stories. But he wasn’t exactly an overnight success.
He began submitting articles to magazines at a very young age to try to make money for his family. And he would post every rejection letter on the wall with a nail. He didn’t actually get published until he was 20.
He writes:
“By the time I was fourteen … the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and kept on writing.”
Then he wrote Carrie and the rest is history.
Walt Disney was rejected for funding the building of Disneyland more than 500 times! Imagine striking out that many times and still believing in the dream so fiercely that you step up to the plate one more time and knock it out of the park?
Jimi Hendrix toured the country playing gig after gig where no one got his act. They thought he was a freak.
Even after he was introduced to major industry executives who could have made his career right then and there, they still rejected him saying they didn’t like his music and his act was too far out.
Jimi Hendrix had to move all the way across the ocean to London before he finally found his audience.
Think you can hang out like that in total obscurity and keep on keeping on. Carry that weight?
Ah, I see some hands going up out there in the audience. You say you choose to be awesome? You can hang? Excellent. Jon salutes your choice.
Now you have to do the work.

The Rennaissance Will Not Be Televised

You’re smart. You’re savvy (Hey, you’re reading BBT right?). You’ve spent countless hours researching your niche. Learning from the masters in your field by reading their blogs and books. Maybe taking their online courses. Figuring out how you will carve out your own unique niche.
Gold star for doing your homework.
But guess what?
If you want to become someone who creates timeless art you’re going to have to actually get off your ass and start doing something.

Less Squawking, More Painting

At some point you have to conclude your research. Stop reading other people’s work and start considering your own voice. Your art.
That means you have to stop squawking like a parrot, regurgitating and retweeting someone else’s content over and over again under the guise that these are your original thoughts.
Because that other person? The originator of that content? She’s getting all the real recognition.

Authenticity: The Secret Sauce Of Timeless Art

There is no recipe for creating timeless art. Many elements have to come together. But you can say that most timeless art has certain things in common. One of the key elements is authenticity.
Think about those artists from that list above. Their work is instantly recognizable when you see it or hear it or read it. It’s totally authentic.
If you’re ever going to even have a shot at timelessness, you’re going to have to produce an authentic thought of your own.
But what exactly does that mean, authentic?
And where can I find it?
In my studio, there’s a framed poster on my desk that fuels my imagination and speaks directly to this question. It’s from acclaimed filmmaker, Jim Jarmusch.
“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.”
Listen closely to Jimi Hendrix. You can hear the influences. Buddy Guy, Elmore James, Little Richard, and many more. But no one sounds like Jimi Hendrix. There is only one.

And…ACTION!

Now, you’re going to have to actually do this thing.
That means stare down that blank sheet of paper (OK, your computer screen), take a deep breath and start writing your own very crazy idea that doesn’t sound like any of those other guys.
It will probably suck at first. How will you make it better?
Read this post by Brian Clark.
Is there a message here? Yes, here it is:
YOU HAVE TO WRITE A SHITLOAD IF YOU EVER WANT TO GET GOOD AT IT! YOU HAVE TO DO THE WORK! AND THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS TO GREATNESS!

Wave Your Freak Flag High

The weirder it starts to look (the more it resembles nothing else out there), the more your lizard brain screams that you have to shut this insane idea down now or you’re going to die from exposure to deadly predators.
That’s when you have to dig in deep and keep going, riddled with fear and panic that this idea could absolutely fail.
That’s right. This might not work out for you.
And guess what? It’s OK if it doesn’t. You’ll do it again. Only better the next time.
But only if you…

Ship Or Get Off The Pot.

If you ever want a shot at worldwide recognition you have to begin by putting your work out there where people can find it and interact with it.
And you’re not going to have anyone else to blame for this. You own it. Unbelievable as it may sound, your work could actually succeed too. It might just resonate with an audience.
There’s only one way to find out.
(Yes, that means you actually have to hit the Publish button.)
Do You Want To Change The World?
Think about those artists mentioned above for a minute.
They seem somehow different from you and me, don’t they? Their vision was a bit more grand. You don’t get the impression they spent much time waxing poetic about ham radio operators, do you?
Each of them changed the world in their own unique way.
So maybe the real question to ask here is how about you?
There are maybe a tiny handful of creators out there today who are even bold enough to attempt to elevate blogging to the standard of high art. Here is a short list. You’ll probably have your own favorites (feel free to list them in the comments).

Seth Godin: aka His Sethness

If blogging had a Mount Olympus then Seth Godin would likely play Zeus. Anyone whose name elicits a “Duh?” response for seemingly stating the obvious here, deserves their place on the throne. So let’s move on and talk about some of the demi-gods who are changing the new world.

Hugh MacLeod: The Gary Larson Of The Blogosphere

Hugh MacLeod started out creating brilliant cartoons with witty captions on the back of business cards. He now creates inspirational art for businesses and sells his works online as prints and T-shirts.
Back in 2004, he offered a free download called How To Be Creative, a conglomeration of posts from his blog, Gaping Void. That post ultimately became a bestselling book, Ignore Everybody. It got downloaded hundreds of thousands of times, which showed us a couple of key insights.
1. There were a whole lot of people in the world very interested in how to assert their creativity.
2. Blogging as an artform had the power to influence a global audience.

Jon Morrow: or How To Blog Like Waldo

Jon Morrow is another one of those rare writers who approaches blogging like Emerson approached writing essays. In other words, everything he publishes is written as though it will be viewed through the lens of history.
His insanely popular post, On Dying, Mothers and Fighting For Your Ideas was a blogging tour de force. It’s an article you could have read in The New Yorker or Vanity Fair. It was that well written and pointed to the possibilities of blogging as an artform to be reckoned with.

Leo Babauta: The Yoda Of The Digital Universe

Leo Babauta at Zen Habits has over a million readers. Here’s why: He offers down to earth, straight ahead advice on how to live more simply in a complicated world.
Leo’s writing, like his website, is stark, clean and powerful art. It reminds you of Picasso’s line drawings.

Sonia Simone: The Grand Matriarch Of Online Marketing

Copyblogger’s Sonia Simone has an uncanny ability to see the entire online marketing playing field and spin it into clever stories that inspire and educate all the various tribes at the same time.
She taught us a valuable lesson in a post called Is Your Tribe Holding You Down? That two tribes (the Cool Kids and the IMers) can have totally opposing views on the same subject (online marketing). Yet each has valuable secrets the other could benefit from. It was a bit like West Side Story for online marketing.
From this post, she formed the Third Tribe, an awesome community that melds together the greatest ideas from each of those tribes.

Brian Clark: The Bill Gates Of Content Marketing

Copyblogger founder, Brian Clark disguises a highly successful software company as an insanely helpful blog to copywriters and content marketers. He also wrote a really important little post himself.
His very short and seriously awesome infographic, 10 Steps To Becoming A Better Writer should be required by law to be posted on the walls of every single person who ever chose to call themselves a writer.
In short, it’s the secret to becoming a great writer. If you haven’t read it, I don’t want to give away the secret. Click on the link. Then print it.
These are but a few people who are changing the new world today. Who have turned blogging into an artform. Maybe it’s too soon to call their work timeless. Blogging isn’t old enough yet. But we can always recognize awesome art.
And where there’s great art there is commerce.

You Can’t Touch This!

Did you ever wonder why the super rich buy priceless artwork? Why that hedge fund manager who always dreamed of playing music keeps that broken Jimi Hendrix guitar and other memorabilia in a sealed glass case?
It’s not the investment.
Oh sure, their net worth will increase. But the truth is that what they really want is to get a little closer to the dream they could never achieve. To touch the hand of the creator themselves.
Because the real power lies with the artist.
Always remember that.

The Difference Between Timeless And Anonymous

Want to know what really separates those iconic figures from you?
No, it isn’t some God given talent they were born with that you’ll never possess. It’s not the benefit of a privileged family connection that started them off with some advantage you’ll never have.
It’s having the tenacity and perseverance to wake up day after day, year after year sometimes (more often than most would care to admit), staring into the vacuum of uncertainty and rejection.
And then sitting down again to do the hard work of honing your craft to mastery because you believe in yourself and your art fiercely enough to keep pushing forward when there’s no one cheering you on.

The Myth Of Awesomeness

Even after you’ve finally committed yourself to get up there and swing for the fences with your art, the truth is you’re going to strike out a lot. You’ll certainly score some runs. The occasional double. And a lot of foul balls.
The truth is you may only achieve awesomeness once or twice in your whole life if you’re lucky. But if it’s the real genie, that’s all you’ll ever need to do.
That’s the grand slam.
J.K. Rowling could tell you a thing or two about being awesome only once. When she gave birth to Harry Potter.
That’s what we’re after here, right?

Choose Awesomeness. The World Needs You.

People don’t set out to become timeless artists. You have no say in that matter anyway. History alone will decide that.
But you can choose awesomeness.
You can choose to blow people’s minds. You can choose to show us the limitless possibility of our human potential, reflected in your awesome work.
And as strange as it may sound, your crazy idea may be the one story the world has been waiting a lifetime to hear.
And if it feels a bit lonely out there in obscurity right now, know that you’re in good company. Every great artist the world has ever known has stood there before you.
Go ahead. Hit that Publish button and stand proud.
The sun is shining and the wind feels right.
Seems like a great day to fly that red cape!

How to post during the Holidays

5 Ways to Be Productive during the Holidays

 

1. Plan your posts. If you don’t have it already, grab a free copy of Headline Hacks and plan your post headlines. It has 52 templates, one for every week of the year. Write one headline for each template, and do one post a week, and you have the entire year planned out in advance.
2. Create an incentive to join your email list. Been struggling to find the time to write a free e-book or create a video series that entices visitors to join your email list? Well, now’s your chance. Work on it for thirty minutes every day from now until the end of the year, and you will begin 2014 with a bang.
3. Create a new product. Already have a great incentive to join your email list? Well then, create a new product to sell. Survey your audience about their biggest problems, create an outline for a product that solves those problems, and send it to them to see what they think. If they like it, create it. All before January 1.
4. Research your peers. Once a year, it’s a good idea to thoroughly check out the other blogs in your space and see how they’re doing. Use tools like Open Site Explorer, Social Crawlytics, and SEMrush to get real data on what’s working and what’s not.
5. Take care of technical tasks. If you’ve been thinking about upgrading your hosting or cleaning out your WordPress plug-ins or any other technical tasks, now’s the time to do it. If you break something, a smaller number of people notice than during any other time of the year.

Top words what famous bloggers use

Let’s do a little experiment.

Just for a moment, stop reading this post, turn on the television, and go to a major news channel. Watch it for five minutes, listening for the words below.
Chances are, you’ll hear dozens of them. Here’s why:
Fear is without a doubt the most powerful emotion for grabbing and keeping an audience’s attention. To make sure you don’t change the channel, news networks load up with fear words, making you worry you might miss something important.
It’s effective. Granted, you can overdo it, but in my opinion, most writers don’t use these types of words nearly enough. They really do connect with people.
Here’s a bunch to get you started:

Agony

Apocalypse

Armageddon

Assault

Backlash

Beating

Beware

Blinded

Blood

Bloodbath

Bloodcurdling

Bloody

Bomb

Buffoon

Bumbling

Cadaver

Catastrophe

Caution

Collapse

Corpse

Crazy

Cripple

Crisis

Danger

Deadly

Death

Destroy

Devastating

Disastrous

Drowning

Dumb

Embarrass

Fail

Feeble

Fired

Fool

Fooled

Frantic

Frightening

Gambling

Gullible

Hack

Hazardous

Hoax

Holocaust

Horrific

Hurricane

Insidious

Invasion

IRS

Jail

Jeopardy

Lawsuit

Looming

Lunatic

Lurking

Meltdown

Mired

Mistake

Murder

Nightmare

Painful

Pale

Panic

Peril

Piranha

Pitfall

Plague

Played

Plummet

Plunge

Poison

Pummel

Poor

Prison

Pus

Reckoning

Refugee

Revenge

Risky

Scary

Scream

Searing

Shatter

Shellacking

Silly

Slaughter

Slave

Smash

Strangle

Stupid

Suck

Tailspin

Tank

Targeted

Teetering

Terror

Terrorist

Toxic

Trap

Vaporize

Victim

Volatile

Vulnerable

Warning

Worry

Wounded

Give Your Readers a Pep Talk

Let’s face it.
When they’re reading, most people aren’t exactly bouncing off the walls with energy and enthusiasm. They’re probably bored, maybe a little depressed, and almost definitely tired. And they’re looking for something, anything, that’ll wake them up and make them feel better.
The good news?
Your writing can do that for them. Use these power words to give them a pep talk and get them charged up again:

Amazing

Audacity

Backbone

Belief

Blissful

Bravery

Breathtaking

Cheer

Conquer

Courage

Daring

Defiance

Delight

Devoted

Excited

Eye-opening

Faith

Fearless

Fulfill

Grateful

Grit

Guts

Happy

Heart

Hero

Hope

Jaw-dropping

Jubilant

Magic

Mind-blowing

Miracle

Pluck

Sensational

Spectacular

Spine

Spirit

Staggering

Stunning

Surprising

Triumph

Uplifting

Valor

Victory

Wonderful

Wondrous

Take a Page from Cosmopolitan (or Playboy)

Like it or not, lust is one of the core human emotions.
Just look at the men’s and women’s magazines in the checkout aisle, and you’ll see what I mean. Nearly every headline on the cover is either blatantly or indirectly about sex.
And it works, not just for men’s and women’s magazines, but for anything. As a writer, you can use words that inspire lust to make almost anything intriguing.
For example: take a look at these two posts I wrote for Copyblogger:
Sex, Lies, and the Art of Commanding Attention
Copyblogger Editor Admits to Sleeping with Readers and Recommends You Do the Same
Both posts use the power of lust to teach people about headlines, of all things. Proof positive that it can be used for anything.
Here’s a lascivious list to get you started:

Brazen

Crave

Depraved

Dirty

Exposed

Forbidden

Hypnotic

Lascivious

Lick

Lonely

Lust

Naked

Naughty

Provocative

Scandalous

Sensual

Sex

Shameless

Sinful

Sleazy

Sleeping

Spank

Steamy

Sweaty

Tantalizing

Tawdry

Thrilling

Uncensored

Wanton

Whip

Start a Riot

As writers, sometimes our job is to anger people.
Not for the fun of it, mind you, but because someone is doing something wrong, and the community needs to take action to correct it. The problem is, with wrongdoing, most people are pretty apathetic – they’ll wait until the situation becomes entirely intolerable to do anything, and by then, it’s often too late.
So, we have to fan the flames. By using the below power words, you can connect with people’s anger, and slowly but surely, you can work them into a frenzy. Just be careful who you target. Lawyers can eat you alive if you pick on the wrong person.

Abuse

Arrogant

Ass kicking

Backstabbing

Beat down

Bullshit

Bully

Coward

Crooked

Crush

Disgusting

Evil

Force-fed

Foul

Hate

Know it all

Lies

Loathsome

Loser

Lying

Maul

Money-grubbing

Nazi

No Good

Obnoxious

Payback

Pound

Preposterous

Punish

Revolting

Ruthless

Sick and Tired

Smug

Sniveling

Snob

Snooty

Snotty

Stuck up

Underhanded

Stomp on Their Greed Glands

The legendary copywriter Gary Halbert once said, “If you want people to buy something, stomp on their greed glands until they bleed.” Graphic, yes, but also true.
Skim through good sales copy, and you’ll find a lot of these power words. Many of them are so overused they’ve become cliché, but that doesn’t stop them from working.
The truth is, nearly every human being on the planet is interested in either making or saving money. Use these words to tap into those desires:

Bargain

Best

Billion

Bonanza

Cash

Cheap

Discount

Dollar

Double

Explode

Extra

Feast

Fortune

Free

Freebie

Frenzy

Frugal

Gift

Greatest

Inexpensive

Jackpot

Luxurious

Marked down

Massive

Money

Nest egg

Pay zero

Prize

Profit

Quadruple

Reduced

Rich

Savings

Six-figure

Skyrocket

Soaring

Surge

Treasure

Triple

Whopping

Make Them Feel Safe

Greed isn’t the only emotion you want buyers to feel. You also want to make them feel safe.
They need to trust both you and your product or service. They need to have confidence you’ll deliver. They need to believe they’ll get results.
Of course, building that kind of trust starts with having a quality brand and reputation, but the words you use to describe yourself and your product or service also matter. To help your customers feel safe, try to use as many of these power words as possible:

Anonymous

Authentic

Backed

Best-selling

Cancel Anytime

Certified

Endorsed

Guaranteed

Ironclad

Lifetime

Moneyback

No Obligation

No Questions Asked

No Risk

No Strings Attached

Official

Privacy

Protected

Proven

Recession-proof

Refund

Research

Results

Secure

Tested

Try before You Buy

Verify

Unconditional

Offer Them a Forbidden Fruit

Remember when you were a kid, and someone told you NOT to do something? From that point on, you could think about little else, right?
The truth is, we’re all fascinated by the mysterious and forbidden. It’s like it’s programmed into our very nature.
So why not tap into that programming?
Whenever you need to create curiosity, sprinkle these power words throughout your writing, and readers won’t be able to help being intrigued:

Backdoor

Banned

Behind the Scenes

Black Market

Blacklisted

Bootleg

Censored

Concealed

Confessions

Confidential

Controversial

Covert

Cover-up

Forbidden

Forgotten

Hidden

Illegal

Insider

Lost

Off-limits

Outlawed

Private

Secrets

Smuggled

Strange

Unauthorized

Withheld

Go Ahead and Tell Me. What Words Did I Miss?

Yes, this is an enormous list, but so many power words are available, nobody can possibly catch them all on the first pass. What are some other words that seem to have that extra little spark of emotion inside them?
Leave your answer in the comments, and as time goes by, I’ll come back periodically and update the list. Eventually, I hope to have over 1,000 words here, separated and organized by category, making this the definitive resource for power words on the web.
Thanks in advance for commenting and sharing the post with your friends!

How to write a Irresistible sub heading

You know you’re in a war, right?

Ok, so no actual guns or tanks are involved, but you are indeed in a bloody battle for the eyes and minds of your readers.
The blogosphere is a huge, congested, noisy space where everyone is jockeying for position and fighting to get noticed.
So to overcome this fact, you’ve done what you’ve been taught to do:

• You’ve come up with great ideas that readers will find useful
• You’ve created killer headlines that jump off the screen and demand attention
• You’ve spent hours writing and rewriting stellar content that delivers and reads beautifully

And yet readers still come to visit your blog and… (click) bounce just as quickly as they came.

Why It Doesn’t Matter How Great Your Content Is

Look, I know you work hard on your writing – and if you study and apply all the great writing advice that’s available out there, it’s a safe bet that you’re writing some powerful stuff. Granted.
And when you know you’re creating legitimately excellent work, you can easily fall into the rainbows-and-unicorns blogging fantasy. You know the one. It goes like this:

• Your readers see a killer headline you wrote on their social media streams and click through to the article.
• When they click through, they read every carefully crafted word from start to finish – devouring the intellectual feast you’ve laid out for them.
• Having fallen head over heels in love with your work, they subscribe, read everything you’ve ever written, and become evangelists for your brand – spreading the word of your excellence far and wide.

Oh, what a wonderful world it would be, right?
But the harsh reality of the situation is this:
They often don’t even finish reading the article that brought them to your blog in the first place.

The Reason Your Readers Don’t Stick Around

Readers have adapted to their environment. You know as well as I do that it’s not exactly uncommon to be lured in by a compelling headline, click through to the article and find weak content.
Because of that, readers have become expert scanners.
We’ve all learned to scan content and determine if it piques our interest in mere seconds. If it doesn’t grab us, we bounce – plain and simple.
According to The Nielsen Norman Group, the vast majority of your visitors will make a judgment within 10 to 20 seconds of opening your content whether they should stick around – or whether they should bounce.
That’s it. Just 10 to 20 seconds. There’s no waiting around for the grand finale in blogging, friends.
Think about it: In 10 to 20 seconds, a good post and a great post look fairly similar. It’s just not long enough to win hearts and minds and create that endless stream of traffic you’ve been dreaming of.

The Recommended Cure For Scanning (and Why It Doesn’t Work)

The best tool you have in your arsenal is something that far too many bloggers overlook.
The subhead.
That’s right – the often overlooked subhead is really a stealthy and lethal ninja writing weapon just sitting there quietly waiting to be put to good use.
Unfortunately, most writers don’t know how to use them properly.
Let’s do a quick refresher and deconstruct the word.
The name sub (under) head (headline) literally means a headline under the main headline.
And what do headlines do?
They hook, they entertain, they shock, and, above all, they create curiosity. They pull readers further into your epic content so they stay with you long enough to realize that it is, in fact, stellar writing.
What the headline does for the post, the subhead does for each individual subsection of copy.

3 Subhead Blunders That Make Readers Bounce

Too many writers just throw away their subheads. Let’s take a look at the three most common blunders that cause subheads to fall flat.
1. The Plain Label Subhead
A lot of bloggers use subheads merely as a label. Labels are used to identify, not to pique interest.
Plain Label Subheads are boring and they don’t stop readers from scanning. They make them yawn. Not exactly the response you’re looking for.
If, for example, you’re writing a subhead above text that’s about why headlines are important and your subhead is Why Headlines Are Important, you’re using it as a label. It’s lifeless, boring, and does nothing to keep your readers engaged with your writing.
Instead, something like The Simple Secret to Hooking Your Readers would be more on track. Then let the text that follows explain the importance of great headlines.
2. The Spoiler Subhead
Spoiler Subheads tell readers exactly what’s coming in the text that follows the subhead. Talk about playing right into the scanners’ hands! If you want to keep readers on your posts longer, don’t give them a free pass to skip paragraphs. Tease them with the subhead.
Keeping with our example of headlines, if you’ve written a block of text in which your point is that the number-one priority of a headline is to create curiosity, don’t precede it with a subhead that reads Use Headlines to Create Curiosity.
That’s a big old spoiler that gives away your upcoming point. And if they know the point you’re about to make, why should they read it?
A subhead that reads The One Thing Every Great Headline Has in Common would be a much better place to start. Then use the text below it to explain how curiosity is that one thing.
3. The Cryptic Subhead.
The other side of the subhead blunder coin is trying so hard to be creative and grab attention that you create something that is more confusing than compelling. These cryptic subheads can be a turnoff and lead to a bounce just as easily as the other two mistakes.
Your subhead should be a phrase that is crystal clear, but makes readers say, “I have to keep reading to see what this writer’s getting at.” If instead, it makes them say, “What the hell does that phrase mean?” – you’re flirting with being too cryptic.
Again, consider our example topic of headlines. If you’re making the point that a headline acts as a lure, enticing readers into the body of the post, you might make an analogy with fishing and using bait to hook your readers. But out of context, a subhead which reads Don’t Forget the Worm! won’t make a whole lot of sense.
Therefore, it confuses rather than compels and misses the mark completely. Readers don’t want to solve puzzles. They want to learn.
If, instead you used one that reads The Most Powerful Way to Get More Clicks, you’re in the ballpark. You’re making the same point, but the phrasing pulls readers further into your post instead of frustrating them to the point of clicking away.
You need to treat your subheads as another opportunity to stand out, to grab your readers’ attention, and keep them on your site long enough to transform them into fans.

Steal These Moves From The Subhead Honor Roll

Naming names and showing you examples of people who did it the wrong way would just be mean. Entertaining, perhaps, but mean.
So instead, I’m going to share with you three excellent examples of the right way to keep your readers on your blog longer by writing great subheads – and tell you what they did right.
Jon Morrow
Since we’re all here, we might as well pay homage. Jon is one of the all-time masters of headline writing. He has a unique talent for crafting headlines that make you say, “What? What the hell could that possibly be about?” His subheads are just as powerful.
Here’s a doozie:

Wow! That got your attention, right? For a split second when I first read that, I thought, “What could Jon Morrow possibly have against my mother?”
That subhead is kind of surprising, and it shows a unique personality too. It creates curiosity. After reading that, you’re compelled to keep reading to find out what he’s talking about – which turns out to be a great exercise to improve your writing.
If Jon had used his subhead as a label – merely to describe the content below it – it wouldn’t have pulled you in.
A subhead that reads Write A Letter to Your Mom Then Tear It Up falls flat.
If he had told readers what was coming with a subhead like Try This Writing Exercise, they probably wouldn’t bother to read the paragraphs that followed. They’d just keep scanning – or even worse… bounce.
Tommy Walker
In a guest post here on Boost Blog Traffic, Tommy shows us that subheads don’t have to be shocking or funny to grab your attention:

That’s a subhead that makes you feel an emotion with just a few words. It’s sobering and makes readers curious to learn the details about the conversation he’s referencing. It pulls you in.
If Tommy had gone with a label subhead like Building an Email List Is Important, it wouldn’t have worked. It’s not interesting and it doesn’t do anything to compel readers to keep going.
What if he had used one like A Friend Told Me To Build My Email List that gave away the content that follows the subhead? Would that have been any better? Nope. That would just be granting readers license to skip that excellent story about his conversation with Derek.
Danny Iny
In a post about his Business Ignition Bootcamp, Danny Iny of Firepole Marketing wrote this stunner that caught my eye:

I don’t know about you, but I was instantly pulled in by that subhead because I, like most people, have asked myself that same question many times. I could relate to it. I could even feel it.
The subhead is full of emotion. It makes you curious about what Danny’s talking about and you have to keep reading.
If Danny would have gone the lazy route and used his subhead as a label, it might have read It’s Important For Me to Help Others. A nice sentiment, but boring and devoid of emotion.
He could also have written something like I’m Launching A Program to Help Entrepreneurs. Outside of entrepreneurs who were looking for help, not many readers would have been pulled in by that either.

The Four Ingredients Of Killer Subheads

If you haven’t bounced and you’ve come this far, I figure I’ve hooked you, so I’m going to press my luck.
Did you see what I did in those three examples of stellar subheads? You may want to go back and look. Under each example, I’ve bolded several words. They’re the four key ingredients of compelling subheads.
If you don’t feel like going back up there, here they are:

• Curiosity
• Surprise
• Personality
• Emotion

Every good subhead should, at the very least, create curiosity for readers and compel them to continue reading. The truly great subheads usually have at least one or more of those other qualities too.

How Do Your Subheads Measure Up?

Go take a look at your most recent posts. Take some time to evaluate the subheads and honestly ask yourself if they would make a scanner stop and take notice.
Do you use subheads to break up long blocks of text? Are you creating curiosity and coaxing readers along by injecting surprise, personality, or emotion?
Or are many of your subheads just labels? Are they spoilers that give away what’s coming next? Even worse – are they so cryptic that they befuddle and confuse your readers?
Make sure you treat your subheads with as much TLC as you’ve become accustomed to giving your headlines and you’ll be on the right track.

5 Simple Steps to Supercharged Subheads

When you’re writing your next post, follow these five simple steps to craft subheads that hook your readers and keep their eyes on your post:

1. Write the post as you normally do. Don’t worry about changing anything up just yet.
2. When your draft is done, go back and look at your subheads in a different light. In your mind, isolate each subhead and the text that follows it. Think of that block of text as a short, all-inclusive post.
3. Ask yourself what the purpose of that singular block of text is. What point are you trying to get across?
4.  If that portion of text were a blog post unto itself, ask yourself what would its headline be?
5.  Make sure your subhead creates curiosity – and then try to work in surprise, personality, and emotion whenever possible.

Grab These Bonus Resources From My Subhead Stash

Since subheads are basically mini headlines, you can find great subhead resources hidden within the headline arena.
The following are my three favorite headline eBooks. I recommend that you download and read them all:

• Jon Morrow’s Headline Hacks
• Peter Sandeen’s 101 Headline Formulas
• Psychotactics.com’s Why Headlines Fail

While all of these eBooks were written about headlines, you can apply the principles to writing more compelling subheads as well.
Download these guides, save them to your computer, and use them as you would a resource book. I refer to them all the time.

Are You Ready To Declare War On The Scanners?

If you owned a Lamborghini, would you take that bad-boy out for a spin – or leave it in the garage under a tarp?
Then you can’t very well leave this ridiculously powerful tool under some old dusty tarp, can you?
Whatever your blogging endgame is, its success hinges on your content being found (and loved) by throngs of new readers.
You know all too well the work that goes into getting a new visitor to your blog. Think about all the time and all the effort you’ve devoted to writing great content. Think about all the time and effort necessary to promote your work and get readers to give it a chance.
Then ask yourself if that was really time well spent if the people who do give your content a chance only scan your content for 10 to 20 seconds before they bounce.
Now you can make them stick!
Now you have a simple but powerful solution in your arsenal. Killer subheads will hook those scanners again and again – keeping them on the page long enough to discover once and for all that you are a writer worth paying attention to.
Go revisit your most recent content. Take a hard look at your subheads and be brutally honest with yourself.
If you’ve been throwing them away, stop it.
This post has given you all the information you need to write compelling subheads that magnetically pull readers from section to section of your posts.
Put it to use and watch your bounce rate plummet.

Put your remarkable mark in a world of bloggger

Can I be painfully honest with you for a moment?

Not thank-God-he-told-me honesty, where somebody points out you have spinach on your teeth. No, I’m talking about the sucker-punch-straight-to-the-face brand of honesty.
It’s brutal. It’s ugly. It’s unexpected.
And I can almost guarantee you will NOT enjoy it.
In fact, I’ve been holding off telling you for years now, hoping somebody would do the dirty work for me. But no one has. So, out of respect to you, I want to tell you the truth.
So here it is.
You know how you’ve been struggling to get traffic? Tried everything, and it’s just not working right?
Well, it’s not because you haven’t found the right traffic strategy. It’s not because you need to change your domain name. It’s not because the Google gods have turned against you and cursed you to wallow in anonymity forever.
It’s because you’re dumb.
And if you ever want a chance in hell of anyone listening to you, you’d better smarten up.

Did I really just call you “dumb?”

Yes, I did. Sorry.
Granted, you might be part of the minority who’s getting a lot of traffic and making a ton of money and is really and truly brilliant. If that’s the case, consider yourself excused from this “Come to Jesus” meeting.
The rest of you though?
This is not a ruse where DUMB turns out to be a clever acronym for something far less offensive. The truth is, I’m calling you out, and I’m doing it out of love.
Because you see, everyone has been lying to you. Including me.
We teach you traffic strategies. We dole out writing tips. We give you a pep talk and make you believe maybe you can really become the next blogging superstar.
But honestly?
There’s one really big thing we’ve been leaving out. Here it is:

Popular bloggers are smarter than you are

And no, I’m not talking about IQ.
What I’m referring to is having a conversation with somebody and walking away thinking, “Holy crap, they’re amazing!” Maybe not a super genius, no, but captivating nonetheless.
Every popular blogger I’ve ever talked to for more than 15 minutes has had that effect on me. I always come away from the conversation with a perspective I didn’t have before.
You might say, “Well, they’re not necessarily smart. They’re just articulate,” but I don’t think that’s all it is. I think it’s a piece of a much larger set of characteristics.
Just a few examples:

• They know damn near everything about their topic. And if they don’t know it, it’s in their reading pile.
• They can take enormously complex ideas and compress them into simple language anyone can understand.
• At least some of what they say is truly original. You’ve never heard it anywhere before. Ever.
• Even if you have no interest whatsoever in their topic, they find a way to captivate you and make you interested. It’s spooky.
• You find yourself thinking about something they wrote or said weeks or even years into the future.

Yes, they are publishing great content, building relationships with the right people, and employing the right traffic strategies, but at the bottom of it all, you have a wicked smart person who deserves all the attention they’re getting. They are truly special people.
On the flipside, there’s everyone else who is some combination of ignorant, obtuse, unoriginal, boring, or forgettable. You read their work, and you come away thinking they’re kind of dumb.
So, it’s time to ask yourself the question…
Which group do you belong to?
Or even more importantly, which group do you want to belong to?

The truth about building a popular blog

It’s not only about what you publish. It’s also about who you are.
If you’re smart, it’s relatively easy. You publish an idea that’s both brilliant and useful, it blows people’s minds, everyone starts talking about it, and a bazillion people link to your blog. Influencers also line up to become your friend and help you out because… well… you’re cool.
But if you’re not smart?
It’s nearly impossible. You can do everything all the blogging authorities tell you to do, and you can do it absolutely correctly, and you’ll still fail. I guarantee it.
So, does that mean you’re doomed?
Not necessarily. Here’s why:
This isn’t about genetics. This isn’t about inborn talent. This isn’t about fate.
It’s about deciding who you want to be and then making yourself into that person.

How to make yourself smarter

I was not what you would call a “bright” kid.
I goofed off in class. I failed tests. I skated through with mediocre grades.
But sometime around the age of 13 or so, I got fed up with myself and decided to change things. There wasn’t any pivotal moment that I recall. I just started caring less about what my friends thought and started thinking about who I wanted to become.
And that person was smart.
So instead of spending 30 minutes on homework, I spent five hours. If the teacher assigned a 500 word essay, I wrote a 1,000 word essay. On the weekends, I stopped going to the arcade and hung out at the library, reading books totally of my own choosing for 8-10 hours straight.
Nobody told me to do it. I just did it. Because that’s who I wanted to be.
Within a year, I was getting straight A’s. By the time I was 16, I graduated high school with college credit, a full two years early. In college, professors regularly called me a prodigy.
But you know the funny thing?
I failed every intelligence test the schools gave me. Every single one. I don’t remember for sure what they said my IQ was, but it was something like 106.
Could they have been wrong? Maybe, but I prefer to think something different:
Each and every one of us decides who we are. No, you may not be ready to be a popular blogger now, but you can become ready.
You just have to decide you want it, and then take the necessary steps. For example:

1) Replace your friends

I told you this would be painful, right?
Well, here’s some more brutal honesty:
If you want to grow, you almost always have to replace your friends. No, you don’t have to insult them or drive them away, but simply stop spending as much time with them as you used to.
Why?
As Jim Rohn famously said, “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” There’s no scientific evidence I know of to support him, but pretty much any successful person will tell you it’s true.
When I first heard that as a teenager, I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted to think I could help my friends and take them with me.
But I couldn’t. Not because I had to “take care of myself” or anything narcissistic like that, but because they simply didn’t want to come. They were happy with who they were, and they didn’t have any desire to grow.
So I left them behind. I’d be lying to you if I said it was easy, but I’ve never regretted it. If you want to grow, you have to become someone new, changing the way you think, how you talk, and yes, the people you hang out with.
Want to become a better writer?
Well, find a few writers a little better than you are, online, in real life, wherever, and become friends with them. Exchange work, give each other feedback, and also find ways to hang out and do absolutely nothing related to writing.
If you know them in real life, go to a movie, bowling, a coffee shop, whatever. Talk to them. If they’re online, IM them every day or two, share a YouTube video, rant about stupid politicians, or just ask about their day.
At first, talking to them might be painful. You’ll feel like an idiot. Eventually though, you’ll get smarter, just by hanging around with them. You won’t be able to help it.
That’s what good friends do: they help us grow.

2) Become a know-it-all

Ever seen the movie The Edge?
Anthony Hopkins plays a billionaire who seems to know… well… everything. No one can ask him a question he doesn’t know the answer to.
Well, popular bloggers are kind of like that.
No, they don’t know everything, but a quick conversation could easily go from the latest trends in social media to political intrigue in medieval England to how to replace the carburetor in your car. All in a few minutes.
And they’re not bullshitting. They really know a lot about all of those subjects (and many more).
Here’s why:
They’re learning. Constantly.
To use myself as an example…

• I listen to an interview with a brilliant person every morning during breakfast
• During lunch, I read part of a nonfiction book
• I watch 42 minutes of the smartest TV I can find during dinner (often on Netflix)
• After dinner, I read the day’s news and interesting blog posts
• Before going to bed, I read fiction for at least an hour
• While I’m in the car, I listen to books on tape, even if I’m going to the local pharmacy
• I spend a portion of every weekend watching recordings of conferences I couldn’t attend

And the crazy thing?
Amongst popular bloggers, I’m not abnormal. Yes, everyone has different routines, but each and every popular blogger I know spends at least three or four hours a day consuming new information.
It’s not just an idiosyncrasy. It’s required.
In today’s world, going to school, learning a few things, and then coasting through your life without reading another book is a death wish. You’ll be obsolete in a few years. Hell, if you’re a blogger, you’ll be obsolete in a few weeks.
The opposite is also true. If you spend more time learning than anyone else, before you know it, everyone thinks you’re a genius. Not only can you recite the work of other important people, but you connect the dots between totally unrelated subjects, creating new ideas nobody has even considered before.
It’s not because you were born with a high IQ. It’s because you know so damn much.
The point?
Spend at least three hours a day learning something new. I don’t care how or when you do it. Just make sure you do.

3) Do less

Here’s another powerful question:
How many hours per day do you spend thinking?
And no, I don’t necessarily mean sitting in a chair, lost in thought. You can include time when your body is on autopilot too, like when you’re driving to work, doing the dishes, taking a shower, etc.
For most people, it’s maybe two or three hours per day. Now, here’s the follow-up question that really brings things into perspective:
Of those hours, how many are spent thinking about your writing?
Uh oh. Now you’re in trouble, right?
Most people think about their family, their job, their upcoming vacation, but they don’t think about what they’re going to write until they open the word processor. Big mistake.
Recently, I found a slide deck from Brendan Schwartz, the CTO of Wistia, talking about how to build a great product, and in it, he gives some surprising advice:
For every hour you spend working, you need to spend 10 hours thinking. Or put more simply, 10x thinking, 1x doing.
And it applies to more than just building a product.
If I add up all the time I spend writing blog posts, it’s probably a similar ratio. If I spend five hours writing a post, which I often do, I wouldn’t be surprised if I spent 50 hours thinking about it before I start writing and in between drafts.
When readers see the finished product, they think, “Oh my God, you’re a genius,” but the truth is, the vast majority of the stuff I think is either worthless or downright stupid. You never hear any of that. All you hear is the 10% I decide to share with you.
Whether they realize it or not, most popular bloggers do the same thing with their best content. They might think about a post for months or even years before they feel ready to write it. Usually, those are also the posts that go viral and make them famous.
Now, you might be thinking, “Well, I’m not doing this full time. I have a job, kids, a social life. I’m just too busy.” And you’re right. You are too busy. That’s the problem.
If you want to become a popular blogger, you need time to think. Not just for a few minutes here and there, but for hours and hours on end.
That means doing less. As painful as it may be, you’re going to have to cut some things out of your life to give yourself time to do this right.
Maybe it’s reducing your time in front of the television. Maybe it’s scaling back your hours at work. Maybe it’s spending less time with your friends.
Regardless, you have to cut something. Otherwise, you’ll never have time to think, and you’ll be just another fool regurgitating what everyone else says.

The bottom line

Blogging isn’t only about SEO or social networking or the quality of your subheads.
It’s also about you.
More than likely, the person you are right now is not capable of being a popular blogger. Your environment, your habits, and your schedule are sucking all the promise right out of you.
If you want to succeed, you have to change. Surround yourself with smart people, bury yourself in books, and cut all the crap out of your life that’s distracting you.
You may not feel it happen, but it will change you. Drastically. You’ll still be you, but you’ll be a better version of you.
And you’ll see the results.
Where your posts used to get a halfhearted response from readers, you’ll start getting dozens of adoring comments. Where popular bloggers used to ignore you, you’ll find them linking to your posts without even asking. Where you used to only see small, incremental traffic gains, your traffic will explode, going from 100 visitors a day to 500 to 1,000, all within a matter of months.
Not because you’re using some new traffic technique. Not because you got to know some powerful influencer. Not because you got lucky.
It’ll happen because you’re worthy. Slowly and painfully, you’ll have transformed into someone worth listening to.
Are you ready to be that person?
Or are you going to be just another dumbass with a blog?
The choice is yours.