No, I am not aggravated by all the finance blog post on the internet. I personally love them and honestly, I have benefited by many blog post. However, today I am talking about the bloggers who still haven’t understood the significance of personal finance blogging and how to write them.

Cluttered Blogs

While writing personal finance blogs, bloggers need to understand that readers seek a precise piece of information, an unambiguous direction, or a personal viewpoint on the subject. Many articles today are cluttered with junk information or repetition. Recently I read an article about managing finance during retirement and I found that every paragraph had the same message. It’s quite exasperating. Why don’t they write a shorter one rather that repeating the same message over and over again? Bloggers should remember that the people reading their post are the ones facing financial crises or searching ways to make optimum utilization of the available funds. They are already facing problems.

No responses to comments

If someone has taken up the responsibility to start a blog, he/she should be courteous enough to reply to the comments received to the posts.

Recently I came across a very though provoking personal finance blog post that dememded appreciation and a discussion. It was I of the few I sincerely like. So, with much dedication and concentration, I posted a long response and subscribed to the comments RSS feed to make sure I don’t miss the blogger’s response. Predictably, the response never came. Why do they do this? Such an irresponsible behavior makes the reader feel ignored. I, as a reader, promised never to comment on any posts because it’s quite infuriating not to receive a response.

The vagueness

Again, people reading personal finance blog posts are not seeking entertainment. They need guidance, accurate information and updates, acknowledgement, and some sincerity. Sometimes (actually many times), I start reading the post because the title is quite attractive. However, there are two things that I generally and sadly find under such titles. First, a long introduction before coming to the point which is not at all needed. Second, there is no information in the article. Some bloggers just talk around the topic and conclude.

Reading Complexity

Some bloggers find it quite exciting to decorate their posts with bright background and brighter font. What is it, some weird web designing contest? Readers are attracted to posts that provide quality information or at least a pleasurable read and not by attractive colors. It isn’t an advertisement banner, it is a blog post.

I understand it’s important to use financial terminologies while writing a personal finance blog post. However, it seems that some posts are written by a highly educated finance professor especially for his few students in a financially-coded language that should not be understood by other. Please try to keep it simple. Internet is a platform that avails the ease to share the information globally. You cannot know, by any means, who will be reading your posts. Avoid jargons and use simple English. Is it that difficult to manage?

Self-centeredness

Most of the bloggers today do not understand that a blog post is not a one-way propagation tool. It’s is okay to provide personal touches and personal experience occasionally. Some blogs a found were full of me, my, myself, and I. This will frustrate the reader. An effective way of blogging is addressing the reader. They wouldn’t be interest in reading a story that mentions how you spent a boring night in a local restaurant, unless you are a celebrity.

To avoid such irksome mistakes while writing a personal finance blog post or on any other topic, please read it twice or thrice before posting it.

If only people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all. – Michelangelo

Truly, if only people knew. But how can they, with so many blog posts, books and tutorials promising to teach them mastering a skill in just 7 days, 2 days, and some even few hours? When I was in my teens, it used to be a ‘couple of months’. The number of days to master a skill seems to be dwindling every year.

The truth, sorry to say, is not so miraculous.

There is one approach to master a skill and virtually the only one:

• Learn:

  About it. Watch, read, listen, and ask about anything and everything that’s related to it. Learning and knowledge is the first step to achieve it.

• Do it:

  Do it again, and again, and again. Here, you start understanding it. Forget about the quality or the level of mastery, because at this stage, you are miserable. But remember, you are learning.

• Keep doing it:

  and after about a year or two you will be good at it. I said good, not a master. To achieve mastery, you need to…

• Do some more:

  By the time you reach this stage, you have made most of the common mistakes and more importantly, learned from it. You aren’t anxious about committing mistakes because of two reasons. First, you are used to it and secondly, you make very few now. This is the time ascend from ‘goodness’ to ‘greatness’.

Swallow the fact that it takes about 5 to 10 years to master a skill, purely depending on how much time you spend doing it. According to few experts, it takes about 10,000 hours to achieve mastery, but I seriously don’t believe it. It vastly varies from person to person, their skills, and many other aspects.

For instance, I have been trying to master the art of blogging. I wrote my first article about 5 years ago, but I am still

learning and I know I have much more to learn. You have to try it, commit mistakes, learn, do some more, learn some more. That’s when you understand it. Gradually, you become good and then comes a time, if you are still doing it, when you are great at it.

Ask any master, any professional about his journey of mastering his skill and he will gladly disclose the fact; the fact that it takes many years of hard work, consistency, passion and learning to become a master. It demands passion, it demands aspiration, it demands doing and more doing.

So the bottom-line is: do it and do it with fun. Don’t get disheartened, you are just a beginner. Enjoy it like we all did. Do it, learn it, like it, love it, and live it. That’s they only way to achieve mastery and I declare this openly, to the world.

Get the passion and start doing it without wasting time. And do not, I repeat, do not buy the book or subscribe the post that promises to teach you a skill in a day, or even a month. They are hoaxers with a hand in your wallet.

Keep doing it without thinking of giving up. You will succeed. Brain Tracy once said “Never consider the possibility of failure; as long as you persist, you will be successful.”

This is one of the most common questions I have come across from publishers, yes, this is possible – technically a new browser can be opened for in text ads but I had suggest NOT TO FOLLOW IT. Avoid opening the ads in new window unless you really want to, lets discuss few of the related points which might change your decision for positive. A new window is a window that opens by clicking on a hyperlink, when you put an in text ads, you have 2 options either to open the ad in the same window thereby replacing the current page or by opening it in a new window. You have to configure your options while programming the in text ads, even if you design to open up the ad in a new window think logically, whether are your audience going to stay there forever?

Most of you might say, NO – they will search over your site and if not satisfactory are going to switch to another site. Prepare yourself mentally to expect the unfortunate, they might have several reasons not to stay logged on to your site and give them a break, they are at least the visitors not a paid members to stay tuned to your site 24×7. They are going to leave your site anyway so why not give your visitor a pleasant real experience for exit, there is no point in letting your visitors stay in your site by technical compulsions, open up and let them do what they wish!

Understand that it’s a business world and you got to be practical, as much as you love your site, the people on your site love other sites too so let them leave without any compulsions rather let them enjoy their exit period from the site by making them click on a relevant ad that may fetch you some cents. Each click fetches you some money that is the major reason why advertisers pay you on each click, there is much deeper planning which goes inside the advertisers mind when he planned for landing pages or ads or the advertising budget, you have to understand the fact that everybody needs profit so stay calm. The website publisher would want to open an ad in a new window with the sole reason of not loosing the visitor on the site and that is what the advertiser wants, you make it easier for them by making the visitor leave the ad landing page and go back to your page, your advertiser might get hurt and as a result they would not like to work with you for a longer period of time.

When you let the in text ad open in the same window you are allowing the user to enjoy the natural web surfing experience and sometimes the user might get annoyed of landing them in an altogether different page, and with this experience would never want to come back to your site again. If the ad is opened up in the same window there is not confusion of switching to different ads or tabs, the visitor will see the advertisement and if he is not interested in the ad he might well come back to the previous page he was working on by clicking the most favorite “BACK button”. Give your visitors a pleasant experience when they are on your site and make them love it the natural way rather than putting any technical compulsions of getting transferred to different pages for you own selfish motives. In text ads are gaining great popularity as it doesn’t interfere with the working processes of your audience, only when they hover their mouse on in text ads with double underline word, they get to see a bubble with initial ads and if he gets interested he can click on the bubble that will land him on advertisers page – its always a good practice to give a sober look to your website by avoiding glittering, animated textual messages or banners.

You just got to have one aim and motive, that your visitor should not leave your site out of frustration, let them leave your site in a happy mood so that they can refer back the site to relatives or friends or for personal reference. The back button is one of the most powerful tools in your web browser that can undo the do, so relax and let people enjoy the site and ads on the same page.

Blogging success doesn’t come immediately, it requires as much time as it requires a plant to grow, the way you nurture your plants by planting it, watering it, putting fertilizer, the same way a blog requires fresh content each day along with added fertilizer meaning meaty content so that you get good fruits and flowers at later stage of its growth. Well, let me further continue to some of the tips I was already sharing with you from my earlier blog articles of Blogging tips for blog success – Part I and Part II :

1. Don’t miss out on opportunities, as we know the famous saying that “opportunity doesn’t knock twice”, similar is the case with blogs. The first hand opportunity should be accepted with grace and complete definition. In a world where opportunities are unlimited, there is something in store for each one of us we should be able to strike a perfect balance to choose it. It may sometimes so happens that nothing works out in your favor but that is not the end of the world, you have to keep trying new things and experiment whatever comes in your way, who knows, that might just be the perfect thing which will change your life. My ultimate goal by saying this here is that you should never stop even if you have achieved your targets, plan for more and execute more. You have to innovate and get going with new things to place your blog in the reader’s mind.
2. Blogging success is all about how well versed you are in writing and how much of fresh content you can put in each day. The content you write should be pleasing to read and readers should be attracted towards reading it, there must be some useful piece of information in your blog that will let them coming back to you. We well know, all of us have some limitations like we cannot run business all by ourselves, we need workers to work for us, for a company they need highly qualified professionals and so on. In business we hire people to do specialized tasks, it can also take place through barter exchange system, there are some things that you can do it and proceed on your own but there comes a point in everyone’s life when we need someone or somebody or something to support us, protect us that is where a relationship comes in to picture so my advise to young bloggers is to build relationship with other networking groups, don’t stay aloof from other and don’t count them as your competitors but friends.
3. Staying focused is the main criteria in a blogging world where limit is not the word, if you are focused, you stay in touch with what you want to achieve and that would mean that you are well aware of your targets and goals that you want to achieve as a blogger. When you start blogging, it is important to have some vision set in your minds that will inspire you every time to work harder and reach to the point where you want to be. Focusing your mind on something doesn’t require a professional degree or some sort of a formal strategic plan, you ought to know what you want, what you want to achieve and what you are willing to put in. you can filter the stuff that you need in your professional life, washing off the unwanted waste from your mind.
4. Work hard and party harder, as they say, proves true as far your blogging success is concerned, in all the above mentioned points I have always stressed on working hard, success is not going to come in one day, it is a slow gradual process which requires time to publicize it and make it popular among readers. You have to have a dedicated time for writing blogs in which you can concentrate hard and make maximum use of your brain to write creativity as its best. The famous and successful blogger’s daily routine includes writing on fresh content daily along with few dedicated hours for creative writing where there are no distractions. Spend a lot of time writing blogs unless it becomes your next hobby, you ought to like your work to become passionate about it, isn’t it?
5. Luck is the major factor which can bring great success to your business, although I personally feel that hard work pays in the end but along with it there is some amount of luck you need that will do the trick. I have seen a number of successful blogging networks which were number one at its peak but now due to uninformed and unknown reasons they are crashed to nil, just a little luck would have saved them from this disaster but as they say all is written in destiny. You can write your own destiny as far as working goes, luck will follow it soon. If you are feeling lucky that everything in life is just going fine then try to extend that luck in other major portions of blogging networks where is requires more nurturing and little luck, make the maximum advantage of your luck for it is not going to come again.

Concentrate hard on what you write for your blogs and make sure you come out with creative content every time you sit for blog writing.