It was a bad week for sure and totally unproductive. With the beginning of summer and all the craziness that goes along with it, as well as the holiday weekend, I had a difficult time organizing my time, more specifically my "work time." However, today I made myself a little informal work schedule which I hope will prove helpful. An added challenge is we're down to only one computer in my home at the moment, and with five people competing for one computer it has been pretty funny to say the least.
Things I did accomplish were signing up at two skin care forums and one beauty forum. So far I've introduced myself and read some threads, but haven't put a link in my signature yet. On my site, I added pictures to existing posts as well as a video on one of my pages. There was also something from Lesson 42 which I hadn't gotten around to last week but did this past week. It was watching a short video Laura suggested and gave the link to. It was link-building software that reduces the time you'd spend on finding and commenting on blogs by automating the process for you. Reading posts and writing your comments is still something you have to do, but it does streamline the process for you. It was appealing to me so I went ahead and signed up for the free software and played around with it a bit.
I also searched out other blogs related to my niche to hopefully comment on and/or guest post on, but I have to say it was very overwhelming. Blogs directly related to my niche I visited were complete garbage in my opinion and some were just the same type of articles/posts that I could tell must've been some type of PLR that weren't rewritten or switched up a little. However, there were a few sites that had really well written posts and information, and were, in my opinion, well-put-together sites. There were also some which had good info but way-too-long posts, or difficult to understand, which made me end up "zoning out" and moving on.
You know, on second thought, as I'm writing this post I'm seeing that this week wasn't totally unproductive!
I do wish I hadn't (yet anyway) viewed other [good] sites that were in my niche. Unfortunately I began to compare "my stuff" with "their stuff." Obviously my site is still in its infancy, and I am happy with what I've produced so far; it is my backlog of posts that I have in Word that are still drafts which I haven't put into my admin panel of my site that is making me nervous. Some things I have written I thought sounded halfway "original" really aren't. Some phrases or sentences I've used were exactly like other people's and I was like - but I didn't "copy" anyone else, this came straight from my head. I also couldn't finish up any posts because I couldn't even string two sentences together without second guessing myself or feel like what I was writing was coming from the blogs in my niche I've recently visited.
I definitely need some suggestions from Laura to get me out of this so-called rut I'm in so I can move forward to actually publishing my posts which will allow me to start the process of signing up with some affiliate programs, because as Laura states in Lesson 46 - "it is very important to bring your site to a reasonable level of completion before you implement the steps in this lesson."
Until next time...
Kelli
Laura's comments:
I think Kelli's week was fairly productive in spite of other stuff going on, don't you? Summer is a tough time to get things done indoors, especially on the computer, but that's to be expected. No sense putting life on hold for the sake of something that's far less important than family.
To clarify just a little about the software she mentions in the second paragraph: It's Comment Kahuna, which helps you in your backlinking efforts. I don't want there to be any misunderstanding by anyone regarding the word "automation." It's not for putting automated spam comments on other blogs. It simply helps you find related blogs to participate in.
It doesn't come as a surprise that there are a ton of garbage blogs and sites out there on any given subject; Kelli's subject in particular seems to lend itself to spammers and scrapers. The good news is that it should make it easier for her to stand out in her niche.
It can be discouraging to find that what you thought was original has already been stated by someone else, sometimes even in the exact same way. I've experienced that same sinking feeling—"people are going to think I copied that!" But keep in mind that there are millions and millions of blogs out there, and billions of web pages in general. It's impossible to be 100% original 100% of the time. We write from our personal experience and viewpoint, so we will have original material there, but if you're discussing a product or specific issue, there will be others somewhere who have said it the same way or better.
Just keep in mind that probably no one will notice the similarities. I'm not advocating stealing anyone else's content with the idea that "I'll never get caught"; I'm just saying that if you write using your own brain, it won't matter if on occasion you state something the same way someone else did. It's impossible to avoid sometimes. There are only so many words that will convey a certain idea accurately.
And there's nothing wrong with using other sites as inspiration. You should read a variety of blogs on your topic. It will give you ideas which you can then execute in your own style. One thing I like to do is keep a running list of ideas I get from other sites. Then, if I'm afraid my writing will simply parrot exactly what I read, I let it sit for a few weeks. Later I go back in for a topic idea from that running list, and by that time, I've forgotten what the other site said, but I haven't forgotten the "seed" of the idea. Most likely in the intervening weeks I've learned more about the subject that will help me write something that is completely my own.
I hope that helps Kelli in pushing past her fears and also motivates others who are reading this to not second-guess themselves right out of the picture! You are unique and your writing can be too, even though we're all using the same set of words!
I LOVE my “job.” Affiliate marketing takes work, but it doesn’t feel like work.
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