Blogging

Dead End Blogging: Blog Charlatans vs Blogging Truths

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Introducing the new occasional series called “DEAD END Blogging”… What is DEAD END Blogging? When you’re driving you occasionally will see this street sign …

It clearly indicates that the road ahead ends soon, and that you will have to turn back and take another route to your destination. This series of short posts encourages bloggers (myself included) to avoid the many dead ends on the way to blogging success.

The Blog Charlatans: Do you always buy those claims?

So you bought that the latest PDF book on how to blog, you signed up for the latest traffic/hit generator, or you subscribed to the latest email/twitter course in the hope that they will make you a better blogger, bring you oodles of traffic and fame/wealth/success, or whatever. You eagerly open your browser to read the information, and as you do, you read the words… sign up for my next course/pdf/website to gain further insights into how to blog successfully. Hey, dude, wait a minute! I didn’t even find out anything in this PDF file, and you’re already exhorting me to buy the next course!

Congratulations, you have just found the upsell… in other words, this is a likely BLOG CHARLATAN! In fact, if you browse many of the extensive E-Book repositories or numerous website offering such products, you’ve probably already become blind to the first signs of a blog charlatan – the hype, the promises, and the evocative images on the front. These are carefully chosen to help you make an emotional decision, not an intellectual one!

Keeps you younger looking EVERY DAY!

These sites are basically dishonest (legally not, though) but they play upon the same instincts that you see in TV advertising. Let’s give you an example from TV: a beautiful young lady swears that her moisturizer KS-200 helps her stay young and beautiful much longer. The TV cuts to close ups of the young lady’s skin, enhanced by digital imaging (read: photoshop, premiere), all to convince you that the product is worth the claims made by the manufacturer, and all despite the fact that the young lady has been using the products for only one or two days (the shooting of the commercial!). Her skin looks young because she is young: it’s that simple. It’s manufactured coincidence that the product also makes the same claim to youthfulness.

So here are some claims that you might find suspect:

  1. “Get Targeted Traffic And High Pr Backlinks Automatically“
  2. “How did a social worker earn $2000 per month?”
  3. “Need more traffic to your BLOG? Join ***.com the internet’s largest BLOG traffic generator!”
  4. “Affiliates Makes $19,859 In One Month”
  5. “The Ultimate Guide To Blogging Riches”

While each of them may contain an element of truth, there is very little reason to believe that following the plans will necessarily help you fulfill those claims.

I’m not claiming that I have achieved any of these steps or goals, but I now understand more clearly than ever that they are more important than any of the blogging charlatans out there. If you follow the charlatans, you will end up driving up numerous dead end streets and lanes. Each time you will have to back up, turn your car around, and reorient yourself as seek a new route. I guess this is what this post is doing for me.

For more reading, check out the principles of finding your own voice.

Do you want to be financially and physically fit?

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I really liked reading advice about being financially and physically fit together on a recent online excursion. It seems that the two things can go hand in hand. So I decided to experiment with part of the article

Joining a Gym, or Leaving?

It seems really obvious that joining a gym and then not going every day isn’t really a financially sound practice, but I got so used to belonging to the gym that I basically stopped thinking about physical activity anywhere else.

It’s sort of like the dishwasher breaking and panicking that there are no clean dishes without remembering that you can hand wash dishes by hand. I just stopped thinking about physical exercise outside of the gym.

This article definitely broke it down into actual money I can save. So before terminating my gym membership which is actually cheaper than the $125 fee mentioned in the article, it costs $80 a month so it’s actually less than three dollars a day, I figured I’d try exercising outside of the gym, just to make sure.

Walking: The first thing that’s weird about walking rather than going to the gym is that there’s no machine telling me how fast I’m going or how long I’ve been at it or whether my heart rate has reached some optimal level. All that stuff is easy to readjust to for a few days just by committing to an amount of time you’re going to walk.

The second thing that took some adjustment was creating a walking route. For some reason it’s easier for me if I have a planned route. So I started with the whole around the block thing which didn’t take up the 45 minutes I know I should be spending walking. The simple solution for me was walking to some nature trails that are about three blocks away from my home.

The third thing I discovered is that I’d come to rely on the TV at the gym. Suddenly I was looking at my surroundings instead of watching TV. Trying to pick up some speed is a sure cure for the TV withdrawal. Paying attention to the ground also takes more focus than moving on a gym machine so I’m missing the TV less.

But I’m not an all-weather walker yet. If it’s raining, I’m not out there. Maybe I will at some point, but it hasn’t happened yet. When I start getting annoyed with myself on days I don’t go outside because of the weather, I think about the days I didn’t go to the gym either! Those were not a few, I can tell you!

Doing some exercises inside can fill the gap but I haven’t incorporated a great routine into my bad weather workouts yet. Also I found out my gym needs thirty days notice for me to terminate so if you’re thinking of doing this, you might want to find out the kind of notice your gym requires. And watch for any penalties that you may get, those contract clauses can come back to bite you!

Lunch Time

As far as the eating smart and saving money advice in the article, I liked the idea of purchasing gourmet meals from the grocery store. Still, I have to admit I like going out for dinner sometimes. There are some pretty reasonable places to eat in my area so instead of going to the most expensive places I can go to one of the less expensive places.

But if food variety is the issue for you, those gourmet meals in the food store sound like a great alternative to try. I do like the portion control (and calorie control) of pre-made meals which kind of force you to stop over-consuming, just make sure you don’t buy the double packs, or extra large servings. So I’m sure I’ll be trying them at some point.

Get a Life Cycle/Bicycle?

And you’ll notice I didn’t talk about the life cycle or bicycle. I’ll be damned if I actually know what a life cycle is! I did ride a couple of ‘special’ bikes at the gym, but I couldn’t remember if that was what they were called. And for bicycling, I’ve never been good at that, … I always get a sore ‘behind’ much quicker than my patience running out. So I’m not sure I’ll be trying either of those out any time soon!

Make Sensible Decisions

Sounds obvious, but there are times where we are spending money and we may actually be impairing our health. So look at your spending, check out the AceCashExpress Blog for some helpful financial advice.

Did you like this blog review? Are you financially and physically in shape in 2012? Or have you already broken your 2012 Resolutions? Share!

Zemanta LiveWriter Plugin Great little plugin for Live Writer

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Thought you bloggers out there would appreciate this little tool. A plugin for Windows LiveWriter that adds extra functionality right inside your blogging platform, with access to videos, images, stories and other stuff that you can search for and blog about if you are looking for writer’s inspiration.

Zemanta LiveWriter Plugin | Zemanta Ltd.

I’ve used their Zemanta Blogging tool, but as a plugin to the popular LiveWriter, it could be pretty helpful to bloggers.