Zig Ziglar
We are always fixated with wanting more; more money, more time, more followers and more traffic.
In fact, we focus so much on what we want we overlook doing the things that get us there.
Why?
Because not only do we want more but we want faster, cheaper and for longer.
Well it’s time to take a little look at some of the things that help us get where we want to be.
Learning to Give
The early part of my working life focussed on sales, I’ve sold everything from Timeshare to Life Insurance. As part of that background you are almost obliged to read and listen to the motivational speakers such as Covey, Carnegie and one of my favourites Zig Ziglar.
I loved the Ziglar cassette tape I had in the car. Anytime I doubted myself or my ability on would go the Ziglar tape. In fact I listened to it so much, I can almost recall as many of his sayings, as I can the lines from one of may all time favourite comedies Fawlty Towers.
One saying that is promonent and has stayed with me more than any other is:
“You can have everything in life that you want if you just give enough other people what they want.” — Zig Ziglar
I have yet to find anything that this cannot be applied to, and certainly web site traffic is one to which it can be applied.
Committed to Blogging
I have run blogs under various domains for many years, but at the end of 2009 I decided to really commit to my blogging, and get down to a proper schedule. I wasn’t looking to acheive anything amazing, just get into a rythym. Looking to publish about once a week.
I kept this up until the start of this year; in January and February I started falter. That was until I read Poke the Box by Seth Godin.
A sucker for inspirational talk a lightbulb suddenly went on. I had also read Linchpin, by Seth, a few months earlier, and combined these two books made me decide to “make a difference” and start “shipping”.
I was back on track, and blogging once a week, but I wasn’t seeing any traction. Then I read an post by Chris Brogan on blogging frequency:
“Look at how many people are subscribed to my blog via RSS (around 50K daily). That number grows the faster I post. It levels out on weeks when I slow down.” – Chris Brogan.
Daily posts? Go on Sean you can do it!
So from mid-May 2011 I have been blogging every work day without fail.
Am I tired? Hell, yes!
Is it difficult? You bet!
Am I seeing results? See the graph below…
SeanClark.com Blog Traffic by Month 2011 YTD (June, first 22 days only)
The growth has been astounding, and this costs me nothing, other than giving up the TV time or a bit of lunch break I might get at work.
Going back to Zig Ziglar, giving people what they want, gets you what you want. There is no getting away from it; if you want more traffic to your web site, then you need to give people more to read; you need to blog more.
Now let’s see how long I can keep it up for!
Have you seen similar results on your blog?