What to Do if Blogging Doesn’t Excite You (And When to Ignore the “Rules”)

Posted: 10 Feb 2014 05:17 AM PST

In our survey last year, one reader wrote: "I just can’t seem to get excited about blogging. I understand that videos are a must."

This raises two key questions:

How do you get fired up to blog (or how do you recapture that enthusiasm if you've lost it)?

Do you have to follow the rules – the "musts" of blogging?

It seems to me that trying to follow all the rules is an easy recipe for losing your enthusiasm (and as I'll explain in a moment, the good news is that you don't have to take every piece of advice going).

Getting Excited About Blogging

While you may well be blogging for a purpose like making money or building an online platform, you want to enjoy the process, not just the end result.

A blog takes up a lot of your time and energy, over months or years. If you feel "meh" about blogging, then either you won't get far, or you'll have to keep on forcing yourself forward – which isn't much fun.

While there are plenty of practical ways to recover your blogging motivation, if you never feel excited about blogging, you might need to sit back and take a look at what's going wrong.

If you feel completely unenthusiastic about your blog, ask yourself:

1. Have You Chosen the Wrong Niche?

Perhaps you picked something that seemed like a good money-making opportunity, but you're really not interested in it. Or maybe your niche was so narrow that you've run out of things to say.

2. Do You Interact with Other Bloggers?

I don't just mean leaving comments or retweeting their posts. Do you go to conferences or meetups of bloggers? Do you get together on Skype, or exchange emails? Other people who "get" what we do can help us get excited about it.

3. Do You Need to Take a Break?

If you've been blogging for months and months, and it's wearing you down, perhaps you need to take a few weeks off. (This can also be a good opportunity to assess what you might want to change about your blog.)

Not Every "Rule" is Right for You

Personally, I'd find it pretty hard to get excited if I tried to follow every single blogging rule I'd ever heard. Like:

You should post every day if you want traffic.
You need to leave loads of comments on every blog.
You should email five new people every day.
You must create videos.
You have to build a really big audience before you think about monetizing.

… and so on.

Some of these "rules" are useful advice in some circumstances. (Number 5 is just plain wrong, but some new bloggers think it's true.) But there's no single rule that's going to make your blog succeed or fail.

If you're struggling with a particular rule, like "you must create videos", then ask yourself:

1. Is This Rule Out of Date?

Sometimes, advice changes, either as the blogging world itself shifts or as bloggers learn more about what does and doesn't work. When I first got interested in blogging, blog carnivals were a big deal; today, you hardly ever hear about them.

2. Is This Rule Ignored By Other Blogs?

How many big blogs can you think of that don't post anywhere near daily? Jon Morrow's Boost Blog Traffic and Glen Allsop's ViperChill both come to mind – both highly successful blogs.

While we do post daily (Monday – Friday) on DailyBlogTips, we don't advise all bloggers to do the same. If you enjoy posting frequently and your audience are engaged, by all means stick with it – but you might want to ask your readers what they want.

3. Is This Rule Making You Want to Quit?

If the thought of producing videos makes you shudder, then it's probably not right for you. While it's a good idea to take a step outside your comfort zone, don't let the rules force you away from blogging (or put you off even getting started).

There's no single "right" path to success as a blogger, whatever some gurus might have you think. If the rule is getting you down, then it's time to ditch it.

How excited are you about blogging? And what's the worst "rule" you've come across (and perhaps even tried to follow) during your time as a blogger? Let us know in the comments.

Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!

[Mistakes #10] Five Common WordPress Security Mistakes … and How to Fix Them - DailyBlogTips

[Mistakes #10] Five Common WordPress Security Mistakes … and How to Fix Them

Posted: 07 Feb 2014 09:00 AM PST

This is the tenth post in our Mistakes series, a guest piece from freelance writer and blogger Raspal Seni. (You'll find his bio at the bottom of the post.)

You just created a new WordPress blog, and are excited to publish posts. Or, you’ve had a WordPress blog for a while, but don’t know how to secure it.

Below, I talk about 5 common security mistakes bloggers make when installing and using WordPress. Check to see whether you make any of these mistakes, and fix them if you do.

Mistake #1: Not Using Strong Passwords

Creating strong passwords is the first step to make any program secure, and WordPress is no exception. If you use easily guessable passwords or the same password for everything (e-mail, forums, bank accounts, online registrations and even WordPress), your WordPress installation will be vulnerable to attack.

Fix it: Starting with version 3.7, WordPress has a smarter password strength meter. Use it to make a stronger password. You can’t remember many passwords, so use a password program like LastPass to remember them for you. It’s free, and I’ve used it for many years.

Mistake #2: Not Updating WordPress, Themes and Plugins

Do you update your WordPress installation, themes and plugins regularly? If you have old versions of these, you risk your blog getting hacked. These programs are updated regularly to fix any security holes (in addition to adding new features and fixing other issues they may have). If you don’t already update your WordPress, themes and plugins, you should do it regularly, preferably once a week.

Fix it: Login to your WordPress Dashboard as an administrative user and update your WordPress installation if you see a message telling you to do so. On the same updates page, you can also see if your theme and plugins have updates available. If they do, update them too. It just takes a few clicks.

You can also enable WordPress to auto-update itself by editing WordPress installation details in Softaculous, or by editing your wp-config.php. More information here.

**Mistake #3: Having the ‘admin’ User and Publishing Posts by This User**

By default, WordPress creates a user named admin (with the default password set to ‘pass’), if you don’t specify another username. Many lazy people don’t change this username and password, when installing WordPress. So, If someone can login as admin, they can do anything to your blog/website.

Create a username which people can’t easily guess. If I use a username such as raspal, anyone can easily guess it after a quick look at my blog.

A bigger mistake is to tell the world that you have a user with administrative privileges, named admin. How do you tell this? By publishing posts by this user. Instead, create another user to publish posts on your blog. Login with the administrative user only when needed (for example, to install updates).

Fix it: If you have the user named admin, login to your WordPress Dashboard with this user account. Then, create another administrative user, with a username which others can’t easily guess. Also provide a strong password for this new administrative user.

Next, logout from the Dashboard and log back in with this new administrative user. Now, create another user, but this time with editor privileges. This is the user you should use to publish posts.

Finally, remove the old administrative user named admin. When you remove this account, WordPress will give you an option to assign any posts published by this user to another user. Assign it to the user with the editor privileges, you just created.

Mistake #4: Not Removing the Default META Widget From Your Blog’s Sidebar

By default, WordPress installs a few widgets into your blog’s sidebar. The META widget is one of them. It contains links to log into and logout from your WordPress Dashboard. But, it also makes a hacker’s task easy by providing the login link.

Fix it: Login to your WordPress Dashboard with an administrative account. Click Appearance -> Widgets and delete the META widget from the primary sidebar.

Mistake #5: Not (Regularly) Backing up WordPress and Database

When was the last time you backed up your WordPress and database? Are you struggling to remember? You might think this doesn’t have much to do with WordPress security … but backing up regularly is included as one of the 4 best security practices in WordPress Security 101 at iThemes (owns the WordPress plugins named Better WP Security and BackupBuddy).

You should also automate the backup process. If you backup manually, you will certainly forget doing it.

Fix it: Use one of the following tools to backup your WordPress installation. Two good, free tools to automate WordPress backups are Softaculous and BackWPup plugin.

Have you seen any other common WordPress security mistakes? Let us know in the comments…

Raspal is a Freelance Writer and Blogger at RaspalWrites, where he has just published a follow-up post to this, 5 Additional Comment-Related Mistakes to Avoid. He enjoys helping people, is interested in technical content writing and blogging and available for hire. You can follow Raspal's personal and business ramblings at @raspalwrites.

Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!

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