Every second a new blog is created, and more than a few are launched with the intent to make a profit. Majority of the blogs won’t succeed, most will fail before 3 months, and many will lay stagnant. The number 1 reason for the death of a blog isn’t an over-saturated niche or bad blog design, but instead the failure of the owner. Most people don’t have what it takes to create success online, do you?
Personality Traits
Persistence
Most blogs won’t last past 3 months, and without the need and passion to update almost daily, neither will yours. If your niche doesn’t excite you, and you don’t feel like you can weather the ups and downs, then change the niche. You will have to work through no visitors, no money, and no commissions. If you don’t think you can work while building your site, maybe Internet Marketing isn’t for you.
Determination
You have to be determined to make money. Without the will to succeed, you won’t. You better be prepared to write everyday, network with people constantly, and fall in love with what you do so much, that you never want to stop. That’s the determination I’m talking about. When you realize that you’ve been working for 8 hours and haven’t eaten, that’s the determination needed to create success online.
Creativity
Blog everyday and you’ll start to run out of ideas, quickly. You need to be able to think of new ideas, and new ways to present what you’ve already written about. Want to leverage social media and explode your traffic from viral content? You need to be able to tap your creativity.
Thick Skinned
If you’re speaking your mind on the Internet you’re going to step on some toes and maybe even make a few enemies. Luckily, on the Internet people don’t make life long animosity, and people are civil to even those they really disagree with. You need to be thick skinned to realize that you might piss off some people and they might talk shit back, but you said what you wanted and that’s all you can do.
Scientific
You know what you like, but you’ll need to test what your readers like. If you don’t have a scientific mentality, you won’t be able to properly test what works and what doesn’t work. Systematically testing your site, ads, and posts, is such an important talent, and is definitely a requirement to creating a blog that works. You can’t just change everything and pray that it works, you need to change one aspect of the site and see if it worked or not. Keep track of the changes, and what occurred, and what worked.
Skills and Abilities
Proper Grammar
Some people might say that proper grammar isn’t necessary and I’ll agree with them. Although, sometimes it is the best way to get people to take you seriously. You need to feel out your readers, are they reading you because your blog is just something to do, or because they are looking for a professional blog? If it’s the latter make sure you’re writing is grammatically correct. Regardless, though, you need to be able to convey your thought without making your readers wonder what you just said. Proper communication skills are absolutely important.
The Internet Writing Style
Writing for the Internet is different than writing for business, you might as well throw out all the writing books you have. Online text is conversational and being able to have your readers trust you is an important skill you have to master. Once your readers trust you, and trust in what you say, they’ll come back and want to learn more from you. Writing quality articles that teach, inform, or entertain is the staple to creating a successful blog.
Basic HTML
I promise you that while working on your blog, even if it’s WordPress, you’ll have a situation where you need to make text larger, bold, or italics. You have to know basic HTML to create better articles that highlight the most important aspects of what you write. If you need to learn this skill, the best place is from w3schools.com.
Networking Skills
If you aren’t personable and willing to share a lot of information about yourself and your ideas, Internet Marketing probably isn’t the best field for you. Leveraging social networks and working with others is a huge part of my day to day responsibilities. Everyday I spend hours talking to my readers and learning from experts. You need to be able to make and keep friends, and be willing to dedicate time to maintaining the relationships you’ve created.
Without the skills I outlined, your ability to succeed will be hampered. You have to be prepared to work hard and if you don’t enjoy what you do, there’s no way to be great. If you don’t think you have all the skills and abilities to succeed, don’t worry, most can be learned just from keeping them in mind. Remember these traits and work hard to better yourself, and your work will follow.
On FriendFeed, this post was liked by 0 people and commented on 0 times 
{ 0 comments… add one now }