ProBlogger: How to Make Your Blogging Dreams Come True [Part 2]

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How to Make Your Blogging Dreams Come True [Part 2] Posted: 16 Jul 2013 07:48 AM PDT Choose one small thing to start with that will move you toward your dream and do it to the best of your ability (tweet this). I issued that challenge in a post How to Make Your Blogging Dreams Come True just over a month ago. Since publishing that post, I’ve had literally hundreds of readers email me to let me know that they’ve been using the mantra to move them toward their blogging (and non blogging) dreams. As a result, I thought I’d circle back to it today to check in with how people are going as well as suggesting another strategy for helping you to move toward your dreams. Last week, I spoke at the World Domination Summit about ‘getting dreams out of your head’. I finished my talk by suggesting those in the audience take a moment to tell the person next to them a dream they wanted to chase. What I’ve discovered, over the years, is that when I share my dreams the chances of them happening increases. I think this is for three reasons: Sharing Dreams Creates Accountability Firstly, it creates a little accountability. When I share a dream I have (whether it be a big dream or a small one) I find it opens a conversation that becomes ongoing. The other person then has permission to followup and ask how the dream chasing is going and even if they don’t ask, I know they know… so I am motivated to pursue it! Sharing Dreams Helps You Recruit Dream Collaborators Secondly, I find that by sharing a dream with another person you often find collaborators who can help you make it happen. Just last week I told a friend a dream of mine and two days later I received an email telling me that they’d been thinking about what I’d told them and that they: knew someone that I should talk to that had experience in that area had just read an article that I should read that touched on my dream wanted to offer to help with one aspect of making the dream a reality Sharing your dream might just unearth the keys to make that dream happen. Sharing Dreams Makes Them More Robust Lastly, I find that verbalising a dream helps the dream to find shape. My dreams usually start off just living in my mind. But once I share it, verbally, I begin to hear the strengths and weaknesses of what I’m saying. By putting words to your dream, you begin to test it and shape it. When others ask you questions about it you’re forced to look at it in a more realistic way – something that helps to make it a more robust idea! Who to Share Your Dream With? So at WDS last week I asked people in the audience to share a dream with the person next to them. This took a few people out of their comfort zone but in the days that have followed, I’ve had emails from a number of people who took the challenge who have already seen their dreams becoming a reality. And it all started when they shared a sentence or two about their dreams. Sharing your dreams with random people is certainly something that can have a big impact but you might want to be a little more selective than that, particularly if your dream is more personal or in its very early stages. Sometimes you want to be a little careful about who you want to share a dream with because some people will bring their critical thought processes to the dream before it is ready to be critiqued. There’s certainly nothing wrong with having a dream ‘tested’ by such people but I tend to do this once a dream has been developed and becomes a little emote robust! I have a small group of friends and team members who I know are great for listening to my dreams and ambitions. They are people who care for me, who I trust and who I know will encourage and give energy towards making dreams come true. They are also people who can tell me if an idea isn’t so great when required – without crushing my spirt :-) Challenge: Share a Dream So here’s my challenge to you. Share a dream! Do you have a dream that you’ve been struggling to get out of your head? It may or may not relate to blogging – either way, I encourage you to share it with someone. You may choose to do this by sharing it with a trusted friend as suggested above. Or if your dream isn’t so personal or you’re ready to put it out there more publicly you might choose to do it in comments below or you might even write a blog post about that dream. But don’t keep it to yourself! Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger How to Make Your Blogging Dreams Come True [Part 2]

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Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills

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Why are you wasting your time on the George Lackeys of the SEO world? Posted: 16 Jul 2013 07:55 AM PDT Eric Enge, a well known search marketer on the conference circuit from Stone Temple, did an interview with everybody's favorite Googler, Matt Cutts.  While I'm not going to get into the commentary of he said he said, Eric brings up something that has been bothering me for a while. And what is that?  The fact that so many people are wasting their time on the George Lackeys of the world, when they should be paying attention to the Susie Powers instead. While Eric is talking specifically on interview targets, and why it is important you put your energy into landing the really important interviewees rather than the lesser-known ones, this analogy applies in so many ways to the world of SEO. So who are the George Lackeys?  Well, you can probably think of them right off the top your head. They are the ones who try to ride on everyone's coattails, to try and engage the well-known SEOs on forums, on Twitter, on Google+, on Facebook. They try to write guest articles and blog posts for every well-known SEO related site out there, but more often than not they are simply a regurgitation of something that has already been posted on Search Engine Journal or some place similar. They also try to make everyone think they are the God of SEO – and that they are actually doing you a favor by talking to you rather than vice versa. But the biggest giveaway?  If you really look into them, you see that not only are they only mimicking what other better-known people say, they usually never add anything new to a discussion and they don't have any significant experience under their belt to show off that they are even worth listening to, other than their hustling skills of course. Shoemoney has often said fake it till you make it. But what Shoe really meant is that yeah, sure, they can pretend you know everything but in the meantime you should be working your fucking ass off until you get that experience and knowledge behind you.  It is not unusual to hear tales of people who work a full-time day job, but spend all their free time learning and experimenting with SEO, and that includes sleeping only a few hours a night, skipping Friday nights at the bar, so that they can make it in the SEO world.  Those are the people everyone loves to see succeed, the ones who pour their blood, sweat and tears into making themselves a better SEO. The George Lackeys?  They are doing absolutely little as possible.  Sure, they will read blog posts, will follow the tweets of certain industry celebrities, read forums.   But when it comes to doing the actual work?  Therein lies the problem, there are far too many Georges out there who expect to be handed their celebrity status on a silver platter simply because they convince a well-known blog to post something of theirs and they troll the conference circuit implying they are hot shit.  But do they have any successful websites that rank well and make money?  Do they have a list of coveted clients they are working with?  If you asked them a detailed SEO question and could they even answer it without parroting something they've heard or read somewhere else that doesn't really exactly answer what you're asking anyway?  Chances are good that they can't because they haven't actually done the work themselves, they only read about it. Now, I'm not saying that anyone who starts off as Joe Nobody in this industry can't become a celebrity themselves. Actually, it's the complete opposite.  But in order for people to really pay attention to you, do the fucking work yourself don't be the George Lackey riding coattails.  Be the person that other George Lackeys want to parrot, instead of doing the parroting yourself.  Experiment with SEO and write about it with concrete examples.  Plunk down some cash for a PPC budget to test whatever the latest Google AdWords speculation is.  Be one of the 3 guys on Pinterest and write about how easy or hard it is to get predominately guy themed product areas noticed and shared.  But do something. That is the kind of stuff that can get you noticed, not just regurgitating something that Rand or Barry has said. Always strive to work with and become the Susie Powers of the SEO world, unless you are just content to be the George Lackey that everyone knows you probably are. Trying to increase your Google rank that is like no other?

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