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Use the feeling of boredom to do things

No matter what you do to avoid the feelings of boredom, you do it in order to avoid having the feelings of boredom. You should use the power of boredom to do things that need to be done, things that you usually avoid for various reasons. Random things like reading, house chores, business chores, interacting with others, and even blogging or taking care of different things related to your blog; all of these and more can be done when you are bored.

Boredom can be a powerful motivational tool

You may be spending a lot of time trying to find out the elements in your life that motivate you to do different things, both offline and online. What you may not be realizing is that you can also focus on the times when you are bored to find any motivation you can to do something useful. If you feel bored on a regular basis, instead of doing random things just to pass the boredom, do useful things that you would otherwise find boring. That way, you can convert the idea of boredom into something that motivates and prompts you to do useful things.

What do you think?

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What are niches and subniches?

A niche is simply another word for specialization, or a specific category for something. For example, the newspaper industry is a category, and newspapers focusing on traffic in your city have a very specific niche, or specialization, in the broader, more general newspaper industry. Chris Garrett wrote an article on the concept of niches on Performancing back in 2005, which you may find interesting. You may also read a post by Anthony Baggett in which he talked about his site Antbag focusing on not focusing on a niche.

I am not sure if other people use the same word, but a “subniche” is a word I just came up with, while talking with Valerie, to express how someone can specialize within something that has already been assumed to be specialized in by other people.

By a subniche, I am simply referring to a subcategory within a broader category, which can be a niche. Many people consider a niche to be a very specific and a very targeted category of something. In my view, however, as the blogging world starts to mature further, we need to start focusing on targets within targets, and subcategories within categories. Thus, in my view, a subniche is a specific niche within a niche.

Personal blogging niche is the most crowded, yet one of the most underdeveloped blogging niches on the internet

The personal blogging arena is one of the most under-developed blogging niches on the internet. The personal blogging market has without much doubt become very crowded, but personal bloggers are not yet specializing in specific personal blogging subcategories. Sure, we can read all sorts of personal posts ranging from cats attacking their owners to bloggers using their keyboards to play baseball. However, most of such personal blog posts are random. They move from one topic to another, trying their best to be the perfect examples of a personal blog:

Since a personal life has a lot of random things happening every minute, why can personal blogs not focus on everything at the same time, all the time?

That very question is the reason there are too many general personal blogs on the internet today, since many people think that personal bloggers do not have to follow any rules or guidelines, and can simply post whatever they wish, whenever they wish and however they wish. That same question is also the reason personal blogs have yet to mature into more specific and specialized forms.

Many, if not most, personal blogs are too random

Majority of the personal blogs today are too general in their writing. Personal blogging is thought by many to have no clear focus because of the misunderstanding that personal blogs must treat personal lives as being too big and general. Personal bloggers have yet to stake claims in different types of personal blogs. If you look deep enough, you will realize that the personal blogging niche can be broken down into dozens, of not hundreds, of sub-topics or subniches that different personal bloggers can choose from to focus on.

Bes Z’s 7 Types of Personal Blogging Subniches

To give you an example of what I mean by personal blogging subniches, I present to you the following 7 subcategories of the main personal blogging niche that need to be developed and specialized further in my view. I came up with the different subniche names to help you remember what each subniche is all about.

1. Personal Emotions Blogging

   Emotional blogging, or Emo blogging, usually revolves around emotions. Personal Emotional Bloggers talk about emotions they feel daily due to different things. This is a very specific niche where people talk about emotions they feel daily due to all sorts of random things. This can be divided further into smaller categories, where different emotions are categorized based on things that trigger such emotions.

2. Personal Criticism Blogging

   This is the kind of personal blog where a blogger critically analyzes different things and probably criticizes things. Personal Criticism Bloggers may even be critical of their own actions, feelings and emotions, and will explain such criticisms in their criticizing posts. People in such a subniche may focus simply on criticizing things they run into in their daily lives, including their own selves.

3. Personal Positive/Negative Blogging

   These kinds of personal blogs focus on the positive and negative things that are seen in daily lives. Personal Positive/Negative Bloggers do not need to criticize things, though they can talk specifically about things they like and things they do not like. Again, this is a very specific niche that needs to be specialized in.

4. Personal Relationships blogging

   This can be a big separate category on its own. Many personal bloggers talk about relationships in their lives. Such relationships range from dating relationships to relationships with parents, and even business relationships. This subcategory of life, relationships with others, can be specialized in very easily by many personal bloggers who already post a lot about their analysis of the relationships they observe and the relationships they themselves run into daily. A Personal Relationships Blogger may even devote their entire blog to one specific relationship, like relationship with their child, a parent, a sibling, a spouse, or even a friendly relationship with a specific neighbor.

5. Personal Moods blogging

   Many people go through mood swings every hour of the day, and my recent series on moody signs of moody people may have shed some more light on the topic for you. Personal Moods Bloggers can specialize on moody blogging, where they either blog about their mood swings, or they blog because of their mood swings. I think this can be one of the most random type of blogging types out there, as such bloggers can change the entire focus of their blogs based on their moods.

   While many personal blogs today talk about random things because of feeling the need to write such things on specific days, you should know that Personal Moods Blogs will be different than the usual types of blogs we see today, as Personal Mood Blogs depend solely on the mood swings and revolve around the mood swings and talk about mood swings as being influential, whereas today’s blogs simply post random stuff because of feeling different everyday. A Personal Moods Blogger specifically outlines the mood swings that cause different blog posts to be written.

6. Personal Feelings Blogging

   Feelings blogs can usually revolved around 2 specific feelings: happy feelings and unhappy feelings. Personal bloggers can also specialize in confused feelings if they wish. Personal Feelings Bloggers can talk either about the things that made them happy unhappy, or confused, or the things that happened because of the bloggers feeling happy or unhappy, or even confused. The same way Personal Moods Bloggers rely on moods to run and revolve their blogs around and explain the moods behind their posts, Personal Feelings Bloggers run and revolve their blogs around feelings, and actually cite those feelings so that readers can know which happy, unhappy or even confusing feelings caused which actions or blog posts to be written, and why.

7. General/Random Personal Blogging

   This is the type of personal blogs you see today. General or Random Personal Bloggers can blog about anything, as they try to cover the concept of personal blogs in general and in depth while at the same time covering everything in their lives that they can. Thus, many of the personal bloggers you see today could continue to blog about personal things, since that would become a specialty of its own.

Those are 7 of the many other Personal Blogging Subniches that can be developed further by personal bloggers. Since the very concept of a personal daily life is probably unique to almost every blogger, the possibilities are endless when it comes to creating a subniche within the main personal blogging category.

Life is full of different things. Personal blogs should also specialize in different personal things instead of not specializing in anything.

The fact that life itself is full of random things when analyzed with care makes many personal bloggers forget the fact that life is divided into smaller parts, and that personal blogs can also be divided into smaller parts with each part dealing with a specific part of life. There is a lot of potential for specialization and categorization within the main personal blogging niche.

The personal blogging niche is far from being crowded, because of the possibilities of having personal blogging subniches. In fact, I think the personal blogging niche has the highest growth potential than any other type of blogging niche, because it focuses on life. Life itself probably has no boundaries other than death, and many would argue that even death is not a sign of a limitation of life. Why, then, should personal blogs focus on life with only one perspective, the general perspective, when personal blogs can instead focus on life in depth by talking about specific and different things?

Wait! What about people who think personal blogging is not a niche at all?!

Of course, many people still say that personal blogs are not niches at all, that they are too general or boring to have any kind of a niche. For such people, the very concept of having subniches within the personal blogging niche may have sounded weird throughout this article. Many people take the fact that some prominent bloggers got their blogging ideas from their personal blogging, like Darren Rowse talking about getting an idea for a niche from his personal blog, to assume that personal blogs are not niches. Personal blogs are niches. Making money from niches is a completely different topic and issue to pursue, and should not be confused with the concept of what niches are, and how and why personal blogs are niches.

I am working on an article, to be published soon, that talks about the reasons why and how personal blogging is definitely a niche.

Thank you, and please let me know what you think!

Please let me know what you think of this article, and about the 7 different subniches I mentioned. Also, please let me know whether or not you agree that personal blogging is itself a niche. Thank you for reading.

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I have been blogging for more than 6 years in different forms, so there are a few things I enjoy about blogging. So far, the money factor is not one of the top 5 things I enjoy about blogging, so I am happy to actually write what I want instead of writing something I do not want in order to earn money.

5 things I enjoy about blogging

Following is a list of 5 things I enjoy about blogging:

1. I meet other people.

   This is one of the best things, if not the best, that I enjoy about blogging. I meet many other people through my site. I have realized that blogging is an amazing way to develop real friendships, as it is really not that hard to convert an online friendship into an offline friendship. All we need is the will to experiment with different things to see which elements will result in better friendship bonds, as Ronald recently explained in his post “Discover Your Readers Through Goodwill.” The same concept applies to business relationships.

2. I find out what my own thoughts really mean.

   Many times I will start writing a post, thinking I am going to write something specific, and as I write, I realize that there were many things on my mind that I never paid much attention to. As I write an article, those other things come to light, and sometimes I will write about things in great details, even when I wanted to write about something in general. This is good, as I learn more about my own thoughts as I lay them down for practical use.

3. I find out more about the validity of my reasoning through blogging.

   As I write and edit my own writing on topics I otherwise rarely think about, I change my own opinion on a lot of things. I find out where my logic and reasoning works perfectly, and where I need to find out alternative ideas in order to come up with the answer.

4. I learn through comments.

   My blog is a lecture and a discussion board heading in two directions: I am telling you something through my writing and discussing it with you by allowing comments on this site. At the same time, you are telling me something through your comments and discussing it with me by taking the time to actually let me know about your views on certain topics. The guest blogging initiative should help me give you more power on this site.

5. I learn about other people through their blogs and comments.

   The same way you can find out more about people through what they say, you can gradually find out more about people through what they write. This is a really important point in my view, as I can slowly find out what people really think and what they really are through their writing, even if they try to portray a character that is different than what they really are.

Those are 5 of the many other things I enjoy about blogging. Is there anything on the list that you also consider enjoyable? Do you have any comments or suggestions on anything in the list, or on this meme? Please let me know.

I would like to tag 6 people for the “Things I Enjoy About Blogging” meme

For this meme, I would like to tag the following 6 people, listed alphabetically:

1. Lara
2. Miriam
3. Ronald
4. Sidney (Bubs) - Her entry is titled “Squid Meme“
5. Stacee
6. Vivien

Lara, Miriam, Ronald, Sidney, Stacee and Vivien: if you have time, please participate in this meme and list a few things that you either like about blogging or something you do related to blogging, like if you work for a company that deals with blogs and you like a few things about blogs because of your work. I would really appreciate it. Please go ahead, if you would like to participate, by posting about your list and then either linking back to this post or Jonathan’s post, as he tagged me for it first.

Thank you Jonathan!

I would like to thank Jonathan for tagging me for this meme. Jonathan was kind enough to be patient while I took a long time to write this meme post. Thanks Jonathan!

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It is a good thing to tell people to donate. It is an even better thing to donate yourself. However, in my view, it is not a good thing to use the poor and homeless people, who need help, to get yourself more comments. Manipulating people’s emotions to get more clicks and comments on your site so that you can donate to charity means that you are not willing to help others without getting something back along the way. For many blogs, more comments mean more traffic, which results in more money through ads. Thus, you are simply going to give charity only if you can get more customers.

What happens if you do not get even a single comment? Are you going to change your rules and donate anyhow? Why not donate right away in the first place when people are dying because of hunger and other things every single hour, instead of playing marketing gimmicks on innocent people’s lives so that you can get more traffic and more comments on your blog?

Do not let innocent lives hang on a thread simply because you crave for more comments

If you want to tell people to donate, go ahead. But if you want to donate yourself, do it without any hesitation, and do it without being selfish or without looking for a return investment. The people who are in need have done nothing bad to you, so try to help them and not base your donations on the number of customers or comments you get. That is not respectful to the people in need, as their lives are worth more than the number of comments you will ever receive.

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How Reader Appreciation Project started

Ronald Huereca originally approached me earlier this year to see if such a project could be started. I was excited over such an opportunity, since I see so many people pretending to appreciate others but in reality they only use others. So the two of us, along with Shawn Blanc, decided to brainstorm together. I would like to present to you the RA Project, which is the result of the brainstorm, and a lot of chicken tenders from Burger King.

Some basic ways Reader Appreciation Project pays you for not doing anything more than what you already do

Please take a look around the site and let me know. This entire project depends on you. Not only that, Ronald has posted a nice post explaining how you can get many prizes from the RA Project. You can win prizes, get money, get coupons and get more things. The best thing about all of this is that you do not have to do anything, since the time you spend reading and commenting on the site already helps us!

You already come to the site and comment, and that is enough. I do not want you to go through extra steps so we can benefit a lot while we give you $10 for your efforts and call it a form of “appreciation.” I want to spread the mentality that the mere fact you read a blog or comment on it means that you have done that blog a huge favor. I want all of us to focus on how to repay that favor.

Thank you for supporting me so far!

You can not only participate by leaving comments on the RA Project site but you can also write posts for the site. Please contact me personally if you are interested.

Thanks for being a good reader of mine all this time. I hope the new project increases awareness that we have to appreciate people not only through words but through actions also.

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Copyright Laws are not supposed to be confusing

One thing I like about Daniel’s simple list is that it is a simple list. Copyright laws are usually written and explained in complicated ways. Such complication confuses people. One thing you may get a sense of, while reading the list, is that Copyright Laws have nothing to do with morality. When you deal with the law, your point of view or your ethical beliefs usually do not matter. That is why when you use someone else’s work or you see someone else using your work, you should not focus on your intentions or emotions. You should focus on what rights others have, and the legal steps you can take to ensure the legal protection of your content.

If you have good intentions and copy something, will you be held accountable?

I think we should think about one important dilemma: what if your intentions were good, but you still did something that the Copyright Law prohibits? What if you used someone’s pictures on your MySpace profile without knowing that you need permission? What if you tell someone via email that they “can quote an article” from your site, and in response that person quoted your entire article and added a simple line or two to make it a bit more unique. How can you defend yourself in such cases, even though your intentions may have been good?

I guess, because of such things, we have to take precautions and make sure on a regular basis that no one is stealing our work. Having good intentions is good, but actions are sometimes more powerful than thoughts. Legally, Copyright Laws are only powerful when you are willing to legally enforce them. You should sometimes treat your work as if you were writing essays at a University. You can show your work to others, but you also have to make sure that other people who are also writing essays do not copy something from you. You also want to make sure you do not copy from others without following proper quoting procedures, as the person reading your essay will also read all the other essays from where you copied something from.

What is your opinion on this?

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While not being able to drive fast, I found some space among slow drivers

As I said in February, driving up the 5 North reminded me of different situations in other parts of life. One of the things I noticed was that finding elements to reduce boredom due to blogging helps. I also noticed that whenever I drove up a steep hill on the freeway, my car would slow down because of the amount of power required to drive up at fast speeds. I had to slow down and drive in the slower lanes on the right hand side in order to let the faster traffic pass by. Even though I had slowed down, I was still headed in the same direction as the faster cars. There was no reason for me to compete and race with those cars. Competing with myself was better.

Your blog is like your car in a similar situation. Whatever goals you may have in mind, you can move towards them regardless of your speed. If you feel your plans or efforts are not working, you can continue aiming for your goals at a slower pace to make sure you keep doing something useful while you figure out the reasons behind the issues you face. If you feel that slowing down will hurt a deadline you may have, you should try to start early on future efforts, including any efforts and plans for observing and solving the issues you already may be facing.

When facing issues, first thing you should do is to slow down and observe

One way to find out why you may feel that you are facing issues is by slowing down and observing the things you consider important for your blog. If you think the number of comments or RSS feed subscribers is important, then not getting enough comments or subscribers may feel like a problem. Observing the things that affect commenting and RSS feed subscriptions can allow you to find out where the problems may be, even if the problems exist in other aspects of your blog. Stopping because of experiencing problems or disappointments is not a good idea. Slow down instead of stopping first, and then decide what to do after observing your goals and the problems.

Finding other blogs which are facing similar issues can be helpful. You can even ask other bloggers politely about the reasons why their blogs face those issues, while also telling them that the reason you ask is because you are facing similar issues. You can even look at sites getting a lot of comments and RSS subscribers to figure out why those sites are more successful at achieving the goals you are having problems with. If content is the sole reason why a site is getting more comments or subscribers, then you should see if content is the only main reason you are not getting enough comments or subscribers on your site.

Avoid competing with others when you face issues

If you face challenges in achieving your goals, you can try setting up new plans to achieve the same goals. You should slow down your blogging efforts instead of giving them up in order to figure out why you are facing problems. Try not to compare your blogs with others. Do not compete with others; compete only with your own expectations. You should not base your efforts on what others do, but on what you can and want to do. Otherwise, you are basing all your efforts on something that others control. You want to avoid that.

As for my car driving up on steep hills, it just kept on going and going, like an energized rabbit. I did notice a few trucks pass by me a few times. In those situations, I tried to get ahead of them. If you are bored going up a hill and do not have an automobile companion, you can setup short term goals for a few seconds to reduce boredom, like going faster than speeding trucks for a few moments.

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An example of an intrusive ad

I run into intrusive ads all the time. A good example of an intrusive ad is on Yahoo Games, where I sometimes play some games with Valerie. Whenever I go into any game room, I am taken to a full-page advertisement where I have to click a “Continue” link to proceed to the actual game page. That is an intrusive form of advertising, disrupting my normal browsing experience where I am forced to see an ad before I am allowed to play any game. Following is an example of what users usually see before they can get to any Yahoo game:

An intrusive ad takes time away from me without my consent, even when I am agreeing to play a free game. An intrusive ad also makes me go through extra steps before I am able to get to the things I want. Therefore, an intrusive ad is not good in my opinion.

An example of non-intrusive ads combined with an intrusive ads

Magazines sometimes contain more ads than actual content written by the magazine writers. However, people usually expect ads in the last few pages of a magazine, as those ads are usually classified ads. Classified ads are usually not intrusive like the full page ads that you run into while in the middle of reading interesting magazine articles. A full page ad in a magazine is an ad that you see while reading a magazine; such an ad can waste your time. By comparison, a non-intrusive ad at both an expected and an unexpected place usually does not waste any time for the observer, nor does it promote strong feelings of uneasiness.

For example, imagine you are reading an article on page 22 in a magazine and run into full-page ads on page 23 and 24. You have no choice but to keep flipping pages to get to page 25 to continue reading the article you were reading on page 22. The ads on page 23 and 24 are intrusive ads. Placing full page ads in between articles may get people to look at those ads, but they also ruin the reading experience because of causing unwanted interruptions. Placing ads at the end of the magazine where there is no content but only ads saves the readers time, as the readers will know where to find ads and where to find articles. Even placing small ads on pages with actual content is better than a full-page ad that disrupts the flow of an article.

However, placing a lot of small ads on actual content pages can have the same effect as a full-page ad, as having too many small non-intrusive ads promotes distraction. On the other hand, having full-page ads on the inside covers of a magazine works very well, as a user is usually not expecting content on the inside covers.

Examples of a non-intrusive ads

In the offline world, you see ads in buses, on car bumpers and even in many places and on many products in your own home. Even when you buy clothes, you are basically buying a piece of garment that comes with a brand name tag attached with it that reminds you repeatedly about the company that sold you that shirt. I have even seen ads in some public restrooms in spaces sold to advertisers by the property owners.

I saw an example of a non-intrusive ad while at the Bay Street Emeryville Shopping Center in the Bay Area last night. At the shopping center, you enter a parking structure to park your car and get a parking permission ticket that you have to pay for and then return to the staff before you leave the parking structure. To see the example of a non-intrusive ad, please take a look at the following snapshot of the parking permission ticket I got last night and think of anything strange or interesting you notice in it:

Did you notice anything interesting in the above snapshot, other than the fact that I paid for the ticket at exactly midnight, and that I got to keep the ticket even though I said earlier that people leaving the parking structure need to return such tickets? The important thing I noticed among other distracting things is the name of the parking structure gate from which I entered: “Ikea Entry 1.”

Interestingly enough, there is an Ikea store right next to the parking structure. Whether intentional or non-intentional, naming a parking structure entrance “Ikea Entry 1” is non-intrusive advertising. That name fulfills the need to have a name for the entrance, while acting as a non-intrusive ad for Ikea too. That small line of text does not waste my time, and I do not pay anything more than what I owe for parking.

How some forms of non-intrusive ads can upset people

Of course, abusing non-intrusive advertising can look weird to customers also. Take the Angels of Anaheim baseball team as an example, located in Anaheim, Orange County, California. In 2005, the Los Angeles county, located right next to Orange County, managed to get the team name changed to Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in order to market to people who knew Los Angeles more than Anaheim. This resulted in many people criticizing the new long name. The city of Anaheim sued the team because of a contract in which the team had agreed to market only Anaheim through their official team name.

Such a name change is an intrusive ad by Los Angeles, even though the original name acted as a non-intrusive ad by Anaheim. Why? Because the brand name people were looking for previously now had an element which stood against the very reason those people trusted the brand name in the first place: the name of the city which was in their own county of residence.

Non-intrusive ads can create more trust compared to intrusive ads

While advertising is getting more creative, it is also somehow getting more intrusive. Displaying creative advertising that is not intrusive in people’s lives helps build an innocent and reputable brand in the long run. Advertisements are going to be around for a while, so why not make them simple, easy and non-intrusive for the customer? If you do not push your product in ways that disrupts the lives or habits of customers, you are respecting your customer.

Put your ads in places where the only reaction a customer may have is “Hmmm, that is cool“, instead of a reaction that shows frustration of any sort. Treat your customers as human beings, the same way you are supposed to treat your blog readers. Respect others and find out what is important to them and what kind of actions could help and hurt them. People will respect you for that by listening to what you have to say.

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It can be hard to figure out how to repay commentors

People get paid everyday to write for both online and offline jobs. People leaving comments on your site are however doing it for free. You should realize that fact since people are writing for free for your site. You should respect your blog commentors in ways other than the usual acknowledgment consisting only of “Thank you!” I think of this almost everyday. “How should I repay this person?” I think if you and I cannot pay our commentors, we should try to appreciate them in other ways.

Leaving comments on your blog is the same as working for you for free

There is a typical stereotype that most bloggers consider to be true: leaving comments on blogs is usually free, so people should not expect something back from the blogger. People work in offices writing different things to make companies money, and in turn those people get paid by those companies. In contrast, your blog readers work for free and do you a favor by leaving you comments. You should return the favor somehow. Comments on your site add value and traffic to your blog. Your blog commentors spend time on your site writing comments that help bring more traffic to your blog and more money to you. Do you not think it is necessary to treat all your blog readers with respect?

Repay your commentors somehow

Your blog readers are volunteers on your site. Commenting is volunteering; otherwise, they can get paid for it in an office or other places. Treat your blog readers by giving them something back too. Writing more and more posts while begging politely for comments and doing nothing else not only makes you look like a person who asks for comments politely but also makes you a person who loves to use blog readers as free labor.

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You can try a very simple experiment to see how changes in your body can affect your mood about blogging. One day, try writing about a topic for an hour after having a full meal. Another day, try writing about the same topic for an hour while feeling extremely hungry, even if you feel like writing the things you had already written the day before. See if you can feel or notice any difference in either post.

Avoid blogging if you feel sick, the same way you may avoid other activities that require a lot of thinking while you are sick

If you do not feel like writing a post when you feel bad, do not force yourself to do so. In a business, you can have someone else do the required tasks if you are sick. If you are blogging just for fun, then relaxing because of being sick should be your main priority in order to get back to having fun as soon as possible.

As for me, I am ok. Today, I was somehow thinking more about what to blog instead of my health. Maybe it was because I had somehow managed to forget the interesting topic I was thinking of writing for today.

How about you? What do you think about this? Do you consider blogging a normal activity or an optional activity when you feel sick?

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Motivation in the offline world depends on real efforts to be useful

Self motivation is a good thing. Being motivated on your own can help you be more comfortable as you pursue different goals. However, motivation is usually reliant on emotion. Emotions change. If you depend solely on motivation to do things, you are depending on a dynamic part of your life that can constantly change. Motivation is nothing without real action that backs it up.

For example, you might feel interested in building a wooden table. Reading books on the topic can motivate you. If you wait a month before starting any real work, you might lose interest in building a table and may move on to other things. If you find motivation to do something, you can work on that motivation and start achieving the goals you have in mind. Sitting around and thinking that you have motivation to make a wooden table is probably not going to result in anything useful.

Motivation online needs actual efforts to make a difference

Online things like blogging, commenting and even socializing with other people require some kind of an interest on your behalf. Successful blogging requires an enjoyable passion, and enjoyable passion and motivation require active efforts in order to be useful. Having the motivation to do something is not an achievement. Acting and utilizing your motivation to do something is an achievement. It may be hard to find the motivation to do things online, but it is even harder to act upon such a motivation when you find it. Even if you feel motivated daily because of your emotions, you still have to act and do something in order to get results you seek.

For example, I was thinking for a few years to start a separate photolog site. I had the motivation as I was already taking a lot of pictures and posting them on my Flickr account. However, I only kept thinking that I was motivated. I did not start any photolog site until 2006, when I decided to act on my motivation which was slowly fading away and start Eyeography. Simply having the motivation did not result in anything useful, but when I acted on that motivation, I created the site. I accomplished something only when I acted on my motivation.

Look for motivation only when you are willing to act

Motivation is important for a lot of people. I think I have realized over the years that even when I am passionate about some things and feel motivated, nothing actually changes until I act a little bit, regardless of the level of motivation I feel. Motivation is a tool that you realize exists for your situation; the only important thing to do is to do something by using such a tool. While feelings and thoughts are beautiful things to pursue, your actions are also needed in order to achieve something. Planning something with great care and passion because of being motivated is worth nothing until and unless you start carrying out your plan.

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Change your blogging regularly to keep updated

We constantly learn new things in order to apply new knowledge to everyday activities. Content has usually been the focus of blogs, and presentation of that content has also been considered important for a while now. If you are still writing the exact same way as you did 10 years ago, chances are your writing may be considered boring by most people. In order to market your content, you have to keep trying new things and new ways to write and present your content. You basically have to constantly change the way you approach your blog writing and other content.

Trends change regularly. Can your blog change regularly too?

10 years ago submitting your site to a few major search engines was considered the only thing necessary to get a lot of new visitors. Today, submitting to even a 100 search engines may not get you enough traffic. People used to focus a lot on guestbooks before. These days, the focus is on comments. 3 years ago, comments were considered by many to be the most important elements on a site. Today, RSS feeds are considered by many to be the most important things on sites. If you wanted your site to be appealing all this time, one approach would have been to submit your site to search engines, have guestbooks, then replace guestbooks with comments, encourage a lot of comments and then start focusing on RSS feeds.

Things keep changing, and you also have to keep changing your blog and blogging techniques in order to keep your blog up to date with the current developments. You can still have great content, delivered in good ways to your blog audience, but the way you come up with content, the way you present your content and the way you aim for your blog readers should constantly change due to the different technologies and trends that keep emerging and affecting blogs and blog readers.

Keep trying new things to get new and improved results

If you keep doing the same thing you always have been doing, you will keep getting the same results that you have always been getting. Do different things to keep getting new and improved results. Yes, the usual advice to “try try again” sounds very cute, but trying the same thing repeatedly only means that you are not willing to try new ways to survive in the constantly changing world. Keep aiming for your goals in different ways while creating new goals and new ways to achieve them along the way. That is the only way to have a blog that can survive in the long run.

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Do you prioritize nature or presentation of content?

You have two options when you write something, assuming that the the quality of content is the same in both cases: prioritizing the nature of the content, or prioritizing the presentation of the content. The difference lies in whether you want to write something that people already find interesting, or if you want to write something that you find interesting and want people to find interesting also through your writing.

For example, you can write about Paris Hilton since many people like reading about her, or you can write about charity and include Paris Hilton as an example somehow since many people may find posts that talk about her interesting.

Write in a way that comforts you

As long as you are happy with what you write, you can try either approach write on your blog. You should be comfortable with the way you write, whether it is writing things that people like or writing things in ways that people like. You can try changing your writing styles from time to time to see how it feels to approach writing from different perspectives. Regardless of how you write, as long as you have great content and passion for your blog, you can achieve desirable results through your writing.

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