Don’t Be a Greedy Blogger

This is another guest post from Robby G at Shite I Like.com where he gives expert dating advice for both men and women, amongst other advice.

I’ve only recently realized the benefits of good Karma. Greed and blogging doesn’t go well together at all. Right off the bat I wanted to say that if you’re thinking of starting a blog strictly for money and your heart isn’t in the blog topic, you will not only fail but you will lose all that time you’ll spend creating the blog and writing content that will be extremely difficult to produce just because it’s not something you believe in but just something you think has a high monetary rate of return. There are two ways to looking at blogging: 1. Every other blogger is your competition, or 2. Every other blog out there is an opportunity.

Though other blogs, particularly that write about a topic similar to yours, are your competition, they are also your ticket to success. Now allow me to explain.

Opportunity in the Blogosphere

Think about this, if you were the only person on earth with a blog and no one would have caught on to this wonderful innovation then your blog would quickly die because there wouldn’t be enough demand for blogs, blogging, or bloggers. Since there is a blogosphere and people are enjoying each others’ blogs, that means that there is room for you to grow and create a leading blog in your niche. But what if there are already tens or hundreds of blogs writing about the same topic as you are? Well, use that in your advantage. I’ve noticed over the years that mostbloggers are quite good people (nevertheless I have run into one or two a**holes) and they don’t mind to share their knowledge, their friendship, and most importantly their love for blogging. There is opportunity in your competition because if you are a good-hearted individual and aren’t greedy about attracting all the traffic to yourself, there is room for you to grow. Now what are the ways to attract Brownie Points with Karma? There is a list of ways that you may think do not help your blog, but in fact they eventually attract much more people to come to your blog overtime than you would have if you did not take part in them. Here’s the list:

• Provide useful comments on other blogs: By doing this I did not only get lots of traffic from people clicking on my link, but I also received emails from the authors of the posts asking me if I could broaden my comment into a full post and submit it to them as a guest article. This doesn’t happen for every comment, but there’s that chance people will really want you to share your knowledge as a guest post without you even asking for it.
• Link to other blogs in your posts:Linking to other blogs may seem like a sure way to lose readers because they will simply jump ship and start reading your competitor’s posts. But that’s a mistake many bloggers have in mind. By providing readers with relevant links, they see that you know what you’re talking about and you want to help your readers with the most informative links.
• Blogroll: I personally do not have a blogroll on my blog, but what I do have is a post with my favourite blogs that I follow daily. Since only recently I have been getting out there and making lots of friends in the blogging community, I have decided to create a full-blown blogroll linking to the blogs of my friends, which is in the works. I do not ask anything in return from the blogs I link to, because I leave it all to Karma, and more often than not the people I link to end up linking back to me.
• Attract guest posts: Guest posting attracts you links and new traffic, but when you allow other bloggers to guest post, you attract bloggers, sometimes a link from their blog, and again a wave of good Karma. When someone guest posts on your blog they right away feel a certain companionship with you and that can last for a very long time. From simply allowing and attracting guest posts, you open yourself to an opportunity of new friends and new openings for yourself to maybe one day create a certain campaign with that friend that will attract a much wider audience than your current one. If you think you have ideas for a guest post relevant to my blog topic, feel free to contact me.
• Get expert opinions: If you’re not too sure about something, go ahead and ask an expert. People love to be praised and a great way to do that is to ask an expert what they would do in a certain situation. For example, my blog is based on giving dating advice, so if I was to be stumped on a reader’s dating question, I would ask a fellow expert on their opinion and I would throw in some of my ideas to complete the most perfect advice I could possibly provide for my reader. This way I am showing my reader that I care about their issue and want to provide them with the most help I can, and it also allows me to get in touch with interesting people who may eventually want to conduct some sort of business later on, seeing that I cared enough to reach out to them for their expert advice.
• Interview and help promote others:Interviewing others gives your readers fresh new content. It also gives the person being interviewed exposure of their product or website. And what about you, the blogger? Well, it gives you the opportunity to grow. After interviewing an expert in my field, I did not only get to give my readers new content, but I also received an advertising offer from the person. It builds your credentials, authority, and broadens your circle of friends.
• Fill your ad-space. Once in a while when you don’t have advertisers waiting to fill up the empty space-ad you have on your blog, contact someone that may be interested and give it out for free for a month or so. This is an act of goodness, plus it gives more exposure to your advertising services, and maybe some day that person you gave away an ad-space for free to will help you out some way or even pay for some ad-space in the future.

These are just some of the ways you can use to help other bloggers and get good Karma. It all usually comes back to help you out somehow or someway. As long as you find ways to share the love and don’t feel the need to be greedy, good things will always come your way.

Do you have any ideas for ways to share the love and still reap the benefits? Leave your thoughts in the comment section. Cheers!