OK – now that I’ve got that out of the way – I was recently asked in an interview a question by a blogger who did ask me for advice on working in a niche that was full of jerks (although their language was slightly more colourful than that).

The niche that they were referring to was the ‘make money online’ niche which they perceived as being inhabited and dominated by people who took advantage of others, didn’t mind engaging in unethical tactics, engaged in all kinds of obnoxious marketing tactics.

I’m going to leave the debate as to whether that niche is ‘full of jerks’ to others – but wanted to share part of how I responded because while not every niche is ‘full of jerks’ – we can all probably benefit by presenting ourselves in a way where we are not seen in that light.

You see – whether we like it or not – some people see the internet as being filled with people and sites that can’t be trusted. That may be changing as people use and trust the web more but the if your media is anything like what we see from some parts of the media here in Australia – there’s still plenty of mistrust and examples of shoddy internet use being highlighted every day in mainstream media.

So how does a blogger develop trust, build authority and be seen as authentic?

Following are a few thoughts on the topic, none of them by themselves will flip a switch and make everyone trust you – but I think combined they help:

1. Persist

One of the first things I’ll say about ‘jerks’ is that most of them don’t last the distance. They tend to get found out, exposed or seen for what they are eventually (and perhaps increasingly as the web develops and becomes more social).

Work hard at consistently producing something worthwhile and and in many cases you’ll outlast the jerks or at least will find that people begin to realize that you approach things differently to others and perhaps are someone worth taking a 2nd look at.

PS: one thing I’ll add here is that it’s not just about longevity but also consistency. People get suspicious when your message changes too much. Your ideas will naturally change and evolve over time but if you’re chopping and changing your approach and perspective too much people can find that a little odd.

One example of this that I saw recently was a blogger whose readership pushed back hard at them after he’d been doing too many affiliate promotions of products that didn’t match up with the values that he was ‘preaching’ in posts. He was recommending products that were not consistent with the advice he gave in his teaching.

2. Be Personal

There are times in almost every bloggers career where they will be accused by someone else as being something that they are not. People will form perceptions of you as you blog and some of those perceptions will be far from reality. This has happened to be numerous times over the last 8 years of blogging but in most cases things have turned around (to some extent) with some personal contact.

In some cases its simply about leaving a comment on a blog post to show you’re willing to interact, in other cases its about engaging in a conversation via email, sometimes it is about jumping on the phone or Skype for a voice chat and once for me it even involved a face to face interaction.

There’s something very powerful about personal contact. I’m not just talking about fixing false perceptions – I also mean being personal in the way you go about your normal blogging. Sharing a little personal information or giving a little insight into who you are outside of your blog can have a profound impact on how people perceive you.

PS: one of the things I’ve noticed is that when you put yourself out there in different mediums (whether it be video, audio or in person) you will connect with different people. The occasional video post or podcast will make your ‘more real’ to some people.

3. Be Relatable

Building on this idea of ‘being personal’ is that of being relatable.

We like people who are like us – people who we share something in common with. This might be something personal (like being a parent, or reading similar books) or it could be something a little more on topic to our blogs (like having a similar question, experience or challenge).

Show people that you’re normal – that you have similar problems, passions, challenges, breakthroughs and experiences – and you’ll find people are a lot more willing to trust what you say.

4. Be Accessible

One of the most ‘perception changing’ things that I’ve ever done is to visit industry events/conferences. This is no easy thing for me as I’m ‘locationally challenged’ and live 24 hours travel from most events in my niche – but it’s certainly been worthwhile.

Meeting people in person is perhaps the best way to show someone what you’re like – it’s the ultimate in ‘accessibility’ (unless you surround yourself in people you know and book yourself solid with meetings).

Of course traveling to events does not suit everyone’s budget or life situation – however there are other ways to increase your accessibility. One that I’d like to do more of is livestreaming video events. I try to do these every month or two on Ustream and every time that I do I get feedback that indicates that people both enjoy it and find it to be something that changes perceptions of me.

Adding contact forms, doing interviews, answering reader questions, interacting on other blogs – all of these things can help a lot.

5. Be Useful

Sometimes the only thing that really matters to people is whether you’re useful or not. If you solve a problem for someone or make their lives better in some way… you’ll create a lasting impression. They still might not ‘like’ you but it can’t help but improve your reputation on some level in their mind.

Be useful over the long haul (persist) and you will grow that reputation and hopefully in time garner some respect also.

6. Be Transparent

Even trustworthy, authentic and honest people stuff up every now and again. Mistakes are made – tempers are lost – bad days are had – temptation to ‘do evil’ can get the better of most people.

No one is a complete angle and on those occasions where things get the better of you the best way forward is to be transparent about one’s failures and own up to our short comings. In fact in my experience – it’s sometimes when you own your mistakes and failings that you become all the more authentic and trustworthy to many.

7. Be Trustworthy

Ultimately it comes down to actually being the type of person that you want to be treated as (sounds like something most Mums probably drum into their kids). If you want to be seen as trustworthy – be trustworthy. If you want to be seen as authentic – be authentic. If you want to be treated with respect – treat others with respect and act in a way that will be respected.

Being true to yourself and a trustworthy person doesn’t guarantee that others will perceive you in that way – whether it be a personality clash or someone else having had previous bad experiences, some people just don’t trust easily – but ultimately the best way to be seen as ‘not a jerk’ is to avoid being one.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Stand Out in a Niche full of Jerks

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This is a question that has been on my mind lately – I thought it was time to find out what the answer is.

So far 800 1000+ bloggers have agreed to join me in finding out – will you join us too? We’re offering it as a special introductory price of $1.95 a month for access to the forum (once you’re in at that rate you’re locked in at it and it won’t rise).

I’ve been asked to add a forum area to ProBlogger for almost as long as this site has been live (5 years last week). It’s something I’ve been open to but never quite got around to doing – but lately a number of things have changed my mind including:

1. The success of the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Forum – this temporary forum/community rocked and led to quite a few bloggers going into partnerships and collaborations with other bloggers.

2. More and more reports of bloggers forming alliances or collaborative relationships – bloggers have joined together in networks and groups for years now – but lately I’ve been hearing a lot more stories of bloggers forming alliances and collaborating.

3. The realization that while here on ProBlogger people do collaborate in comments – that a blog is really not the medium for it to go to its potential.

Out of all this – I’ve decided to finally launch ProBlogger.com in collaboration with the team at b5media who are looking after the back end of the site.

So far I’ve invited those on my email list to join and 800 1000+ have signed up. Today I’m launching it to the wider community.

Note: You can get much of the information below in a video at the bottom of this post if you prefer that format.

What is ProBlogger.com

• ProBlogger.com is all about community, collaboration and learning together.
• It is a paid forum ($1.95 USD per month subscription – more on why it’s paid below)
• It is a private and moderated forum – walled from the general public, search engines and spammers
• It’s currently in version 1.0 – a forum but we plan to add features as it grows.

Why is it a Paid Community?

I’m aware that the idea of paying to join a forum is not going to suit everyone and I don’t pretend that it will appeal to all – but there are a number of reasons I’ve taken the decision to put a $1.95 monthly subscription fee on it.

1. I want to staff the forum – there’s nothing wrong with volunteer moderation (and we’ll add this as we go) but I wanted this community to be administrated by a paid and dedicated staff member (Lara Kulpa who many of you are familiar with) to ensure that the forum is as useful as possible. We’re dedicating 100% of the income of the first 1000 or so members purely to cover this (and then a % of all further membership). My goal is to have Lara full time on this task.

Having a paid community manager is important to me because I know it’ll be run well, well moderated, more useful and that members will be looked after by someone accountable and focused on the task.

2. It’s valuable and I want it to be seen as such – my experience of forums in the past is that they tend to attract a lot of lurkers who join but rarely turn up and contribute. While having a cost on the forum may keep some away I believe it gives those who do join a little more reason to participate. If something costs you’re hopefully more likely to use it and a forum that is actually used is more valuable for everyone.

3. Discourage Spammers – while I fully expect members will successfully promote their blogs in this community – that’s not what it’s really about and I hope that putting a fee on it will keep spammers and self promoters a little more at bay. Feel free to tell us about your blog – but do it appropriately and as a good citizen of the forum. Spammers are not welcome.

The Details on Price and Introductory Offers

The introductory price of ProBlogger.com is $1.95 USD per month. Payment is via PayPal (sorry to those who are not able to use PayPal but at this point it’s the system that is easiest for us to use and is the most widely used option).

This introductory price of $1.95 is a limited time offer. I’m yet to decide on the price that we’ll put it up to but if you join at this rate you’ll only ever be charged this much per month for access to the forum. Those who join later will be charged at the higher rate.

I’m also offering 50% off the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook to anyone who joins the forum in the first month. This is purely an optional thing and not something that I expect everyone will want or need. You’ll be given a discount code once you register and pay for your first month on the inside of the forum for this.

To join simply follow this process:

1. head to the registration page of the forum here – add your details and join the forum.
2. go to the forum and hit the ‘complete the registration process by clicking here‘ link
3. hit the ‘$1.95′ option in the ‘cost’ drop down menu and click ‘order’
4. this will take you through a process where you can pay with PayPal and set up the subscription – once you have you can head back to the forum and start posting.

Will You Join Us?

At this point we’ve had 800 1000+ members join as paid up members and we’d love to have you join us. You can unsubscribe at any point if you find that it doesn’t fit your needs and stop future payments. While I know it won’t fit with everyone’s situation I do hope that you check it out and join the community as an active member – this will be as good as we make it so get involved!

Here a video (also on the front page of ProBlogger.com) where I go through a lot of the above information for those who prefer to watch and listen over reading!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

ProBlogger.com is Live!

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Running a blog isn’t simple. Besides the obvious challenges of regularly writing great content and making sure plenty of people get to read it, there are so many elements of a blog that need regular attention. You could ignore things like spam comments, out of date posts and broken links and just about get by, but if you really want to keep your blog healthy and running smoothly you need a maintenance routine.

Many people I know don’t have a regular or organized routine, they just deal with situations as and when they feel like it. The problem with this approach is it quickly becomes a big time-consuming chore. They might get fed up of all the spam comments one day and decide to do a massive deletion session which takes several hours. Alternatively they might decide to shake up their categories in one go which again takes lots of time.

What I personally do is break down my maintance sessions into small chunks and focus on it every week. It’s much easier to take little steps regularly than large strides occassionally. Rather than editing dozens of comments in one session, for instance, you can do just ten comments in each weekly setting. Similarly with links, rather than trying to get on top of them all in one go, you might set a target of fixing twenty links each week. This approach allows me to keep on top of maintaining my blog without it becoming a time-consuming chore.

With that in mind, below are the things I focus on during my weekly routine.

• Comments
  If you do only one thing in this category clean up your spam comments. You should have Akismet or some similar anti-spam plugin in place which will capture most of it, but a little involvement on your part may be required. You may also want to edit and clean up some comments, particularly older ones. I personally check over all new comments from the week, plus a page of older comments.
• Old posts
  There are a couple of things you can do here. If you’re like me, you’re writing skills and blogging knowledge will have improved over the years and many of your older posts will be lacking. It’s never too late to freshen them up – improve the grammar, expand it, add extra links, etc. If you think that’s a waste of time, see if it’s worth just updating the post title/permalink to make it more SEO friendly (remember to redirect properly). I’m slowly working through each post each week, right from the beginning of my archive.
• Wordpress/plugin updates
  What better time to get the latest release of Wordpress downloaded or get all those plugins finally up to date than during your maintainance routine?
• Categories and tags
  This is perhaps a minor area to maintain but if you have a lot of categories or you’re quite liberal with your tagging, it may be worth giving this some attention. If you have dozens of categories or have a mish-mash of unorganized tags they’re no use to anybody. Delete or consolidate!
• Broken links
  Linking to dead content is bad for obvious reasons but it’s inevitable that over time link rot will occur. That’s why it’s useful to keep them all up to date, especially if you’re changing categories, titles, etc. Download the broken link checker for this. You may be surprised at just how many dead links you have. Don’t forget to check old pingbacks and author URL’s too (while editing your comments). I update or delete ten broken links each week.
• Backup
  The last and most obvious step. After all your hard work providing great content and maintaining it all, it would be a shame if you lost it all due to some mishap, hack or general disaster. Make sure you backup regularly!

James is a blogger and aspiring author from the UK. He writes regularly about how to work smart and play smart in the 21st century at his blog, Organize IT, and on Twitter.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Creating A Blogging Maintenance Routine That Isn’t A Chore

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