This post was guest blogged by Devon Lambert of Udder Talk, a copycat of John Cow, which is a copycat of John Chow.
Many bloggers struggle with the concept of blogging for money. They understand that you must set a goal, they know which companies serve as some of the best money makers out there, and they also understand the importance of consistency when blogging, but they leave off one key component. These bloggers have not found their voice when it comes to blogging, and without it, their messages just simply aren’t heard.
I think it is safe to say that blogging has surpassed traditional news media in terms of content available and size of industry. Technorati alone reports that they are tracking an approximate 112.8 million blogs and counting. That number does not include the blogs that are free-wandering nomads who do not report results to Technorati. This massive phenomenon dubbed only as “The Blogosphere†presents us with an overloaded or flooded market, for whatever it is you’re selling. Thanks to the prevalence of blogs all over the world covering topics from A – Z, you can rest assured that if you have something that you want to blog about, someone is already doing it. We have reached a level of blogging that advertisers generally refer to as cluttered. For your consumer, or end user, this means that the options are endless in terms of getting that daily fix. Getting to the point, if you want to convince a consumer to come over to the dark side, or to simply read your content, then you’re going to have to come at them with something worth while. This is where your voice can help your consumer cut right through the clutter.
The voice of a blog is simply the tone and character that is presented when a reader reads the blog. If I write a daily humor blog then you can bet your ass that I better have some witty satire in my posts or my readers won’t bite. If I write a technology blog then I better be prepared to back up my data with cold hard facts or readers will become disinterested very fast.
If you read this blog you will quickly realize that John has a strong voice. Whenever I read through his blog, I can clearly see that I am in fact reading John’s blog. His blog oozes confidence and knowledge gained from experience. For all intensive purposes, his blog is entertaining, as opposed to the words of a school book. John’s voice is clear and thus, so is his message.
Another example is the dilbert blog. What can I say? Scott Adams is a brilliant man. If you couldn’t gather this from his Dilbert series, then you are truly lost. Scott’s voice is truly clear in each and every post. He writes humor that the every day working individual can relate to. This my friends is his voice in it’s best form. He is able to relate to us through his writing.
Your blog’s voice sets you apart from the pack. It is what makes you special to your readers. Finding your voice will help you to increase readership, keep readership, and maintain your standing in your market.
So how one does find his voice?
- 1) Time – Anything worth anything takes time and patience. You will have to write, write, and write some more. Over time you will discover that you are in fact honing and perfecting your voice.
- 2) A wise man once said that you must know where you’ve been to know where you’re going – This one may seem tricky but in effect it just means that you should know what it is your blog is about, centrally, i.e. making money, technology, humor, etc… This should be easy as it is the central purpose that you created your blog for and should already be serving as the central topic for your posts.
- 3) Lastly, you have to be yourself. The first, last, and worst mistake any blogger can make is choosing to regurgitate information that they read elsewhere on the internet without first choosing to analyze it and interpret it in their own words. The unsuccessful blogger will choose to copy information from another blog (word for word), and then go that non – extra mile and choose not to cite the source. This will do worlds of harm and I assure you, you will not be getting any closer to finding your voice.
Trust in these words my friends, and believe me, your voice will find you.