One of the key themes in my books is that if you want to be successful online, you need to knuckle down and put in the work required. This is something that I have stressed to people many times over the years, though it never fails to surprise me that this advice always falls on deaf ears.
I frequently get emails from people asking for help or advice. I charge $200 for blog consultation, though I normally try and point people in the right direction when I can. Unfortunately, many people do not listen to the advice that is given to them. I found this out many times through the support forums I used to own for blogging and WordPress. I would take the time to explain what they had to do and they would not do it. Instead, they would continue to ask the same questions over and over and wonder why they were not getting results.
It is impossible to help someone like that. I still try and help people when I have time though it is something that I am consciously trying to stop as the people who are emailing me rarely take my advice. Here’s an example. The other day someone messaged me on Google Chat with some basic blogging questions about why his blog was not making money. I asked for his blog URL and visited the blog. The reason he was not making any money was painfully obvious. He was publishing one or two short unoriginal articles every month and the website was covered in intrusive advertisements.
After explaining to him that he had to focus on good content on a more frequent basis…it started to dawn on me…I had been here before. I remembered that about a month before I had the same discussion with him on Google Chat. The exact same advice was given at that time: Focus on writing quality content that drives more subscribers. A month had passed and nothing had changed. He had not worked on the blog at all and he was puzzled why it was not making money. Admittedly, I was very annoyed with him.
You Cannot Help People Who Are Not Willing to Help Themselves
I like helping fellow bloggers who need some help though I am tired of people wasting my time. You simply cannot help people who are not willing to help themselves. All they are doing is draining your time. Time that could be spent working on your own projects.
There are so many people who believe that all you need to do to make money with a blog is install WordPress and add a few articles. They are wrong. The act of blogging is easy, however it takes a lot of time and a lot of hard work to get to the point where your blog makes money consistently every month. It could take hundreds of articles before you start to develop good traffic and a loyal readership. Do you have the determination to do what is takes? If not, you would be better off doing something else as you are simply wasting your time.
As I have said many times before, if you want make money from a blog, treat it like a business and give it the time and respect it deserves. Two hours of working on your blog every week simply is not going to cut it.
Don’t let this put you off ever emailing me with a quick question. I do still enjoy meeting other bloggers and helping them where I can, I am just not going to spend any time helping people that won’t help themselves :)
Good luck,
Kevin