How To Become A Better Blogger
Last night I wandered along to the local Vue Cinema to watch the movie Julie & Julia and beleive it or not it gave me a few invaluable pointers on How To Become A Better Blogger. For those of you that haven’t heard of it, I’m sure there are a few of you. The film is a true story, which chronicles the trials and tribulations of famous American chef Julia Childs and Julie Powell, who was basically I suppose a frustrated writer, who just happened to be stuck in a rut as a call centre employee.
The long and short of the story is that Julie Powel a 30 year old New Yorker feels her life is going nowhere. Her life is stuck in a dark abyss, which I’m sure many of us can relate too. She was searching for something to give her life meaning, which as a result of, she started writing a cooking blog, called The Julie/Julia Project. The goal of her blog was to cook every single recipe in Julia Childs classic 1961 book, Mastering The Art Of French Cooking. She set herself a deadline of one year to cook all 524 recipes in the book.
Through her blog, Julie Powell, eventually found not only an outlet for her going nowwhere life, but she found fame as a blogger. She eventually landed a book deal, that went on to become the movie, which I watched last night. I would also hazard a guess and say that she has also made a few bob out of it all as well. Don’t you love a story with a happy ending.
It was a good movie, which I would recommend going to see, it was a hell of lot better than that over hyped moderately average movie I watched few weeks ago, Inglorious Bastards. If you like inspiring, feel good movies that are true stories, you will like Julie & Julia.
So you all may be wondering what the hell I’m going on about with the title of today’s post, How To Become A Better Blogger, how does that relate to the movie Julie & Julia. Well watching the movie brought home some interesting points for me relating to the world of blogging. My eyes were widely opened as to what makes a truly successful blog.
Take a look at Julies blog, The Julie/Julia Project and you will clearly see there is nothing fancy about it, her blog is very very plain and simple. I suppose that was the original purpose of blogs, they were so easy to set up that anybody could have one. You didn’t need the knowledge or software to build a complicated web site in order to become a blogger. If that was the case blogging wouldn’t be where it is today, with over 133 million blogs in cyberspace. There would probably only be a few thousand blogs written by totally boring nerds, which nowbody would read.
The simplicity of Julies blog made me realise that, it doesn’t matter how fancy your blog theme is, how many plug-ins you have or whether you are a member of every social bookmarking site in the world. At the end of the day, what counts the most in my mind is originality and having an engaging writing style. If you haven’t got these two factors you will never have a successful blog, no matter how much time, effort and energy you put into it.
Lets face the facts there are over 133 million live blogs on the internet that we are all competing against for readers. One thing that is very clear to me, is that at least 99% of blogs out there are pure crap, totally shit and offer nothing new.
I think that the biggest problem with many blogs and bloggers online today, is the fact that they were conceived to make money. The whole purpose of them is to earn a few bob for the owner, hopefully giving them a good second income. I have said it before and I will say it again, most people will make more and easier money if they go and flip burgers in McDonalds. They might just have a talent for that, because they are cluttering up the World Wide Web with blogs that are as bad as junk mail.
One thing that I cant understand is why there are so many people blogging on the subject of how to make money from a blog. What a fucking joke, 99.9% of those fuckers are making nothing, their blogs are getting read by 3 family members and 2 work mates who are easily pleased. It beats me why people would start a blog about something they haven’t got a clue about, what’s the point. Leave it to guys like Darren Rowse at Pro Blogger, who can actually walk the walk and talk the talk.
Why don’t they go and write a blog about something more original and exciting such as Building Sandcastles With My Bear Hands or My Life and Adventures With My Blow Up Rubber Doll, you never know they might even have a talent for such things and people might find their story interesting and engaging.
Lets get back to Julies blog and something that it is full of and that is passion, without it you might as well quit now. I dont think The Julie/Julia Project, would have worked and got to where it did without Julies undoubted passion for what she was doing. She never started her blog with the intention of it becoming successful, famous, landing a book deal or having her story turned into a movie and making lots of money. That doesn’t mean that you cannot start out with the purpose of achieving those things from your efforts. You can, if your blog has the right ingredients.
Watching the movie last night made me realise that my blog, London Is Cool, has a long way to go if I want take it onto another level. My medium term aim is to build up to 100,000 visitors a month, which is a fairly big challenge.
So I guess that in order to become a better blogger, I need to become more passionate, keep on focusing on being original, as well as having an engaging writing style. I think my blog has all three of those factors to a certian extent, but I probably need to improve a hell of lot more in all three departments to get to where I want too as a blogger.
I think for the meantime I will take few steps back in my blogging career and stop worrying about and wasting time looking for a new and better blog theme. I will stop searching for over rated plug-ins that will get a me a few more visitors and stop reading those blogs of the so called gurus that offer advice on how to build a successful blog. I need to get back to basics so that I can move forward, on my own terms and with my own vision.
I know there are plenty more elements to becoming a successful blogger such as marketing, networking, SEO, the list is endless. However I know that I must become a better blogger, before I concentrate on the more technical aspects of blogging.
Related posts:
- The Ups and Downs Of Being A Blogger
- London Blog | London Is Cool
- How To Boost Your Alexa Ranking The Proper Way
- The Blogging Journey – Life In London According To Me
- London Blogs You Must Visit
3 Responses to “How To Become A Better Blogger”
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Thank you so much for sharing this to us William, I will go back here to read more of your articles and visit Julie’s blog. I am so much interested how to become a better blogger.
When I started blogging, I am too much emotional because I am afraid to write. Simple things is a big thing to me as i am poor in terms of english grammar. But, my friend Lainy encourage me and she said WRite something that comes from your heart. And then that’s the time A Maiden’s Testimony was born. Thank you so much for you’re comment and I want to add you in my friend list, if you don’t mind for easy visit.
Thanks and God bless.
Recently, there has been a good deal of inquiries by the
American FTC against blogs and website promoters
for not stating their advertising income, or existing
connections with advertising networks.
What are your personal ideas concerning how this could potentially hurt
the blogging community?
It is up to each blogger to know the tax laws in their particular country. One thing that you cant avoid in life is tax and death. It is irresponsible not to pay your taxes and to think you will get away with avoiding it indefinitely.
There are very few bloggers out there making much money from blogging or other online activities, so it will only really hurt a select few. I guess it could put a few people off getting involved in blogging if they know they are going to have to pay taxes on there meagre earnings.