Paraphrasing Steve Pavlina

Yer right, I’ve succumbed to the temptation of being a blog whore by putting Google Adsense right where your eyes are supposed to read my posts. Sorry for the incovenience. It’s not only a desperate bid to offset my hosting and DSL fees, it’s also an experiment at how effective the ads really are for semi-obscure bloggers like me. I still harbor the idea that these ads are a load of crap and will gladly remove them after a few months if they don’t perform the function of what they’re supposed to do. After all, am blogging because I love to… not because I hope to get something out of it.

This reminds me of what software expert slash personal coach Steve Pavlina once wrote, that building a high-traffic website isn’t all about niches, search engine optimization, ads and the like. At the end of the day, it still boils down to being human and appealing to human emotions. A successful blogger, he says, does the following:

1. Create valuable content. No, we don’t like to hear about your recent date with your boyfriend or what your pet rabbit ate this morning. I only have rats in my house, not rabbits.

2. Create original content. Simply put, do not plagiarize. Practice tags, memes, psychology quizzes, email forwards and other what-nots with moderation.

3. Create timeless content. Imagine reading your same post five, ten years from now. Will you laugh, or still say “I thought so?” Will it be something your tech-savvy children will be proud of? This is the same reason why I’ve resisted the temptation to upload that pic of me and my my sexy undergarments in my blog. No, I cannot. Lolz.

4. Write for human beings first, computers second. Mainly because you cannot have “eyeballs” and “blog parties” with the computer. You cannot call the computer to have coffee when you are dropping by Tokyo or Barcelona. And I suspect that the computer is behind my spate of comment spam attacks in the past few months. Really now, the computer is just a means to an end whose functions might be obsolete years from now. So, **ck the computer.

5. Know why you want a high-traffic site. Is it because you want to be popular with the boys, aim for world domination or would simply like a validation of all the efforts you’ve put into blogging? Remember that some high-traffic sites are necessarily not the best of the lot. Hmmm, no further comment.

6. Let your audience see the real you. The net is full of pretenders, big-time liars and impostors. Beware.

7. Write what is true for you, and learn to live with the consequences. “Being honest is more important than being popular.” How true. And the probable reason why guys don’t ask me out is because they’ve seen everything there is about me in this blog – my butt, how I cuss, how I eat a lot and what I think of men in general. Heh. So be it.

8. Treat your visitors like real human beings. Think that all the writing will not be in vain because someone, somewhere out there will consider what you’ve said fascinating and inspirational. Believe me, it happens.

9. Keep money in its proper place. Frankly, all this talk about how much money you earned from Adsense last month turns me off. Top bloggers cannot be too cocky and haughty about their status because newer and better bloggers are born every day. It’s amazing.

10. If you forget the first nine suggestions, just focus on genuinely helping people, and the rest will take care of itself.

For Pavlina’s complete inspirational tome, read it here.