I often see bloggers ask a litany of questions.
For some reason, most if not all questions seem to focus on the blogger’s blog.
Maybe they want to know how to do onsite SEO properly. Or perhaps they want to know how to lay out their blog, for increased traffic and a better user experience.
Some bloggers wish to find out where and how Adsense ads should be placed to make money through the blogging income stream.
Each of these bloggers almost always falls prey to a sinister blogging predator. A pressing blogging problem.
I call it:
Onsite-i-tis
Onsite-i-tis is a common blogging malady afflicting new and struggling bloggers alike.
Hell; even some seasoned pros fall victim to this prominent error.
This blogging boo boo consists of trying to fix only the onsite elements of your blog. Literally, you focus 100% of your attention and energy onsite, on your blog, testing and tweaking and fine-tuning everything on your end. All well and good. But unfortunately, most of these bloggers could create a dazzling blog, chock full of helpful content, after fixing their onsite stuff, and they will struggle horribly for years, if not for a decade or longer.
Why?
If you focus only on onsite blogging stuff you will almost always have a terrible time driving blog traffic, boosting blogging profits, nabbing more comments and growing a thriving blogging business.
This is because…..all of your traffic flows to you from an offsite source!
Sounds funny when I write the words, eh? But you would be stunned at how few bloggers embrace this idea, and spend far more time onsite, then offsite.
Why have I written soon to be 500 guest posts on Blogging Tips? All Blogging From Paradise traffic flows from offsite sources.
Duh, right?
In the past, offsite sources like Google and social media could be effectively hacked with clever, black hat, onsite tactics. No more though. Now Google and social media sites demand engagement and ample offsite activities to prove that your site is worthy.
Of course, this is how it should be. Successful blogging should be a fair chunk of what you do on your blog and a huge chunk of what you do offsite, like:
- prolific guest posting
- effective blog commenting
- effective forum marketing
What causes Onsite-i-tis?
The Cause
Fear.
For me, for many years, the joint fears of being criticized and wasting my time fueled my delusional line of thought, that I could build a highly successful blog totally onsite, without any guest posting or blog commenting or forum marketing, or any offsite work.
After failing terribly for years I woke up, got offsite, shared my talents with the world and saw how bringing the cyber world together by generously helping people offsite is the most fun, freeing and profitable way to do blogging.
Get offsite guys. Most of the fun and success waits for you, when you get your rump offsite.
The Prescription
Here’s the Rx:
- guest post on top blogs from your niche persistently
- comment genuinely on top blogs from your niche, persistently
- generously help people on niche specific forums
- patiently think through other offsite spots where you can share value, help folks and make friends
You need to dive into your fear of “but what about my blog?!?!?” regularly guys, if you want to be rid of this blogging sickness forever.
By all means, create rocking content for your blog. Streamline your blog design. Do some work onsite. But do most of your blogging work offsite, because in so doing you will have the most fun, see the greatest success, and bring the world together, all through the brilliant concept known as leveraging.