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Kelli and I rented one dud during our current 3 and a half year long world tour.
Think 7 cockroaches scattering in a Hanoi bathroom at 2 AM in the morning. Graphic and macabre are words I’d use to describe the scene; do you think I watched too many episodes of American Horror Story on Amazon Prime recently?
Anyway, the blogging tips I’m here to share with you today will help you avoid similar horror stories on the blogging front.
We rent winners because we go with trusted winners. Out of some 40 plus homes and apartments we’ve rented, 39 plus were absolutely sensational. Prior renters told us so. The review section is absolutely gold for world traveling, renting folks because we trust what trusted people have trusted.
More than a few bloggers have asked me for blogging success tips. What makes me tick? What should you do to make money blogging? I write eBooks covering these topics in detail and some fairly in-depth blog posts too but more than anything, to succeed, people need to trust you. I could spew helpful tip after tip but unless you trust me, you ain’t listening. Or put more accurately, unless the sum total of all elements on my blog inspires you to trust me, you won’t keep reading my posts, nor will you hire me or buy my eBooks.
Blogging from Paradise: Trust Issues
I know why people don’t trust you. Here’s a little secret; come on, in closer.
“You don’t trust yourself.”
Life is but a reflection. If you’re not gaining readers, or gaining subscribers, or if you’re not generating sales through your blog, you don’t trust yourself. Inner clearing needs to be done through diligent personal development but action should be taken too, to create a trusted blog.
You can’t force people to trust you. You can inspire people to trust you, if you get all of your working blog cogs aligned, so they function to create a trustworthy blog. You can increase your blog traffic and increase your blog income by gaining your audience’s trust.
Again, you don’t trust yourself, if you are struggling to gain reader’s trust. I must laugh when Kelli reviews some prospective apartments on travel sites; after receiving negative feedback some homeowners actually argue with prior clients. The owners don’t trust themselves, so why would the angry client, or potential future clients, trust them? Naturally, business dries up because you rent from who you trust, and you can’t trust an owner who doesn’t trust themselves.
On the flip side of things, we see some apartments or homes which are booked years in advance. Most clients offer glowing reviews, but if one or 2 offers negative, critical feedback, the successful owner offers a positive response and a promise to improve their lodging. Clearly, the renter or homeowner trusts themselves, so we trust them, and in more cases than not if the timing’s right they’ll get our business.
First, trust yourself. Then, follow practical tips to bump up your trust factor.
I’m about helping you retire to a life of island hopping through smart blogging. Retiring to become a full time, pro blogger requires you to gain the trust of your target audience, because your blog becomes a lifestyle engineering vehicle if you generate sufficient income to both fund your travels and to pad your savings account.
Trust and RB
I’m a fairly trusted dude. Check out my endorsements. To your right. Go ahead, scroll up and down. Top bloggers and business minds trust me and my brand enough to give me a seal of approval. Once I got really clear on why I was blogging – to free me and you – and I blogged about one niche I became more trustworthy. I wasn’t blogging all over the place, trying to master multiple niches, but losing the trust of niche readers along the way (don’t do that), nor did I attempt to force people to trust me.
Trust flows in freely, and gently, like a light morning shower after a prolonged drought. Don’t expect a deluge of trust to knock on your blogging door; it rarely happens that way because most bloggers hide away.
Hiding Away Techniques
I’ve been giving away free copies of my eBooks – to trusted bloggers – and have been asking for reviews on Amazon and on my blog sales page (as I always do), and I was quite stunned by how many bloggers who were hiding away. I had no way to contact them quickly. No contact form, no email address on their about me page, or on their service page. It was like they couldn’t be bothered with me, or that they wanted me to jump through hoops just to get in touch with them.
I recall one blogger who stands out in my mind – who told me a while back how much they’re struggling to gain readers and generate blogging income despite publishing posts regularly on authority blogs – and just the other day I tried to reach him. Wow. No email address, anywhere, no contact form, and all social accounts he linked to were stagnant. Dead, dead, deadski, as my man Beetlejuice would say, because the last updates were from like April 2014.
He was not a millionaire, nor billionaire blogger, and I don’t feel he was making even, say, $50 a month, from his recount, yet he hid from me. He made it difficult to reach him. Why would I trust him if all he does is put barriers around himself? So, I gave up trying to reach a guy, who I’d most certainly help, after about 5 minutes of fumbling through his blog and multiple squeeze pages, and another one bites the dust, in terms of lacking trust.
Don’t make it difficult for people to reach you.
That’s tip #1.
Make it Easy for People to Reach/Contact You
OK, so I changed the rule a bit. Focus on the positive. Make it easy for people to reach you.
I have a contact page. My about me page and services page lead to my email address. Easy peasy way to reach me. I also posted social media icons – where I’m kind of active – to my sidebar recently. I make it easy for you to reach me, because putting up blogging barriers around me makes it tough for you to trust me.
I noted the example above. Way too many bloggers do this, and I suspect some subconscious fear exists, inspiring them to hide away. They trust not themselves, so they make silly mistakes that cause folks not to trust them. As you may imagine, until you make your millions or billions, or even, heck, hundreds of thousands, it’s a poor idea to make it difficult for people to reach you.
I want to know that you’re reachable, so I’ll reach out to you. If I find no way to reach out to you, or if I find the ways you share are inactive channels, you’re toast, on the trust front. Place a contact form somewhere on your blog or better yet, post your email address on multiple pages, like on your about page and on your services pages. Don’t worry, you’re likely not famous enough to generate hundreds of thousands of spam messages weekly. Put the darn email addy on your blog so I can reach you, and so I can ask you questions, or so I can connect with you, or complement you, and so I can trust you, and so we can build prospering bonds which lead to all types of exciting scenarios for both of us.
Create a Transparent, In-Depth About Page
Read my about page. Slowly scroll down the page. Even if you scan it you get the feel that I’ve built a Wikipedia style masterpiece. I have to hand it to Neil Patel. The guy influenced me to create/redo my about page because I was floored by his delivery. Before you trust advice check the source. Checking the source – blogging-wise – means reading the blogger’s about page.
Why?
Because you need to know who’s offering advice and what qualifies them to offer advice before you trust the advice. Or, you need to be aware of someone’s human-ness before you can trust them. We’re words on a screen, us bloggers, until we inject our personality into our blogs. Crafting a thorough about page is the vehicle through which you can add human-ness and personality to your blog.
If you scrolled up and down Blogging from Paradise you may say:
“Lucky Guy.”
But after reading my about page you may say:
“Damn, he is just like me. Had to get through some tough times to make it, so if he did it, I can do it too. Now that I know more about the guy – the story behind the blogger – I’m getting to like him more and more.”
The trust part transpires on a deeper level. The above words may be voiced to self but on a subconscious level you’re beginning to trust the blogger, and their advice. Like, if you read my about page and saw my non-entrepreneurial background, and humble beginnings, you’ll probably vibe with me on some level. Or, at least you’ll make a more intimate, human bond with me. I’m a human, a person, through my about page. No longer am I just words on a screen.
Craft a compelling about page. Create a Wikipedia page. Open up. Allow your readers to trust you.
Publish a Thorough As Seen On Page
Read my as seen on page. I stopped adding links a few months ago because I ran out of time. Or I just had to devote my energies to other endeavors. I was featured on about 60 blogs in a 4 month stretch. After that I lost count. Bloggers who are all over the place gain your trust because on a deeper level you realize that they’re a hot commodity.
I’ve been:
Endorsed twice by Chris Brogan
Invited to speak at NYU
Endorsed by Yaro Starak
Featured on a slew of authority blogs in a short time frame
One of my Blogging from Paradise eBooks has been used as a study guide for a marketing class at NYU. How many bloggers on earth can say that? That their eBook is being used as a study guide at one of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning on earth? Trust factor, elevated.
Think about a popular artist. Take Drake. Dude pops up everywhere. He does collaborations because success breeds success, meaning that if you’re associated with successful people, folks will see you in a successful light. Bloggers, associate with successful bloggers. Establish relationships with successful bloggers by commenting on their blogs and by promoting them. Practice writing daily. Networking from a high energy space and working on your writing skills will open doors for you.
Interview and guest post requests will steadily flow to you. Seize them. Work with successful bloggers. Bump up your trust factor. When I see a guy like Zac Johnson offering blogging tips on authority blogs I take notice. He has it together. He associates with trusted, successful bloggers. Naturally, I slowly but surely see Zac as a trusted, successful blogger too.
You are Zac Johnson. Really, you are. You just need to associate with winners by networking, by creating valued, thorough, trusted content and by building up your as seen on page. Do it. Gain your audience’s trust.
Offer Your Own Products
I trust somebody who bakes from scratch.
Case in point: Elke Biddulph. My mom baked and cooked virtually every sweet treat or meal the Biddulphs consumed from scratch. We’re talking:
Pancakes
Brownies
Chocolate chip cookies
Oatmeal cookies
Éclairs
Chocolate cake
Pumpkin pie
Coconut cream pie
Lemon meringue pie
….all on the baked goods front, and if I chatted meals we’d be here forever. Since I wish to see a bit more of Ubud, Bali today, we’ll cut things short. Suffice to say, the quality of her baked goods was, premium store quality. Amazingly tasty, friends and fam raved about her cooking and baking, imploring my mom to open a coffee shop or restaurant.
I trust someone who has the desire, the vision, the drive and the clarity to create something that they own. Look at Seth Godin. He became a brilliant, famous marketer by writing marketing books and by speaking about marketing. He didn’t sell affiliate books nor did somebody speak for him by proxy. We want someone who is the source, the origin, of their marketing, or blogging, know how.
If I scroll down a blog and see an astoundingly eye-popping affiliate product from another blogger I’ll immediately Google the blogger’s name. I cut out the middle man. I go right to the source. If however I see a blogger who’s created 1 – or 10 products, like me – I tend to trust them, because they’re doing the creating. They’re the expert, or the authority, because to create an eBook or some other product requires that you know your stuff.
I’ve published 10 kick ass, inspired Blogging from Paradise eBooks because I wanted to teach you how to live in a beach front home in Savusavu, Fiji for 4 months – like I did – through smart blogging. I wanted to sell a series of eBooks that would inspire you to retire from the 9-5 to live in Ubud, Bali for months. I wanted to share blogging tips that would inspire you to retire to a life of island hopping through smart blogging. I went with eBooks. Pros create their own products. Then, if they offer affiliate products, their readers are more likely to trust them.
Create your own product. Know why you want to create your own product. Tie the reason to some form of being free. Get cracking on your eBook today.
Offer Your Own Services
Ditto on services. I am a blog coach and freelance writer. I help you retire to paradise through smart blogging. I also write content for busy bloggers. Or for bloggers who aren’t keen on writing content. I offer my own services because trusted bloggers bake from scratch. The same reasons from creating your own product apply here. Think of Mama Biddulph. Think of Seth Godin. Anybody who offers *their* valued service to others.
How can you know a niche inside-out unless you offer services related to the niche? Some bloggers become successful selling affiliate products or generating ad revenue but the personal touch, the offering of a service, the interaction, the improving of blogs, or the writing of valuable content, all offered through a service, these ventures force you to learn your niche and craft on a daily basis.
I’ve become an infinitely better writer and blogger overall through offering my blog coaching services and my freelance writing services. Infinitely better bloggers gain trust. Offering a service helps to build your brand. Offering services also helps to make you a professional in the eyes of your audience.
As you may imagine, perceived professionals tend to gain trust quite quickly.
Offer a service. Start today. Match your skills with:
Blog coaching
Freelance writing
Web design
……or any service which complements your skill set. If you’re a newbie blogger, start learning how to offer a service. Check out my products and services page. Write, network and decide today to stand out from the crowd. Establish trust. Prosper.
Brag About Your Endorsements (And Publish an Endorsements Page)
I’ve already mentioned Chris Brogan’s endorsements, Yaro Starak’s endorsements and me being invited to speak at NYU. Not bad, eh? I am humbled by each endorsement and I also know that bragging about my endorsements boosts my trust factor.
Chris Brogan is:
A New York Times Best Selling Author
Business coach to: Richard Branson, Tony Robbins, Paulo Coelho, Microsoft, GM, Disney, Google
A world renowned public speaker
If Richard Branson and Tony Robbins go to someone for business advice, and that someone calls me a “smart guy”, and endorses 2 of my eBooks, you can be sure that my eBooks are good, and that I’m a smart guy. Do you trust Richard Branson in all things business? Then you can trust the other RB – Ryan Biddulph – because Richard Branson’s trusted business coach, trusts Ryan Biddulph. Do you see how it works? It’s like a 6 degrees of separation bit, but only, 2 degrees in this case. Richard Branson is THE business icon, of the world, and goes to someone for business advice because he trusts Chris Brogan, and the brilliant, trusted business mind known as Chris Brogan trusts Ryan Biddulph, and endorses him.
Do you think Ryan Biddulph just gained a bit of trust on the blogging and eBook side of things? Of course I did.
Virtually all successful bloggers became successes by receiving the backing of successful bloggers, through endorsements and testimonials. It goes back to the review thing I talked about up top. We only rent places which receive positive reviews from seasoned travelers because we trust the reviews. Many bloggers only trust bloggers who’ve received positive reviews/backing/endorsements from successful bloggers.
Gain endorsements by creating and connecting. Promote successful bloggers, publish thorough comments on their blogs and you too will find yourself gaining strong backing from trusted pros. This takes work folks, but if you’re willing to get clear on why you want to network with pros – i.e., if you’re willing to be their friend, by not connecting with them, with your hand out, looking for something in return – you too can gain endorsements from icons.
Think about it: how many bloggers on earth can say that they spoke to a class at NYU? That honor is reserved for political powers, and CEOs, and other power players. I received the invite and I talk about it quite a bit, because again, we’re returning to the 2 degrees of separation bit. Damn, Ryan Biddulph’s speaking at NYU? I know NYU = “prestigious”, and if a college professor thinks enough of me to build his teaching materials on one of my eBooks, that boosts my trust factor immensely.
Lift up your self image. Get endorsed by pros. Gain trust.
Build an Email or Post Updates List
I am not big on list building. I vibe with writing super in depth blog posts, and then, I send out posts via RSS or email feed. Whatever vibes with you. But understand that your email is likely your trusted best buddy, and if you want to gain your reader’s trust you’ll want to give them the option to receive your newsletter or blog posts via email.
Email is kinda like crack. Good crack. Most readers get their fix from newsletters or at least from emailed RSS updates. Setting up a form to make it easier for readers to receive updates in a timely fashion can boost your trust factor.
Like I said, I do the post updates deal because I’m clear on it. My readers know that they’re busy and they sure as heck know that I’m busy, island-hopping like a champion. If we’re not on Facebook or Google Plus at the same time, or if we’re not on Triberr at the same time, at least they can just pop in, check their email, and receive my latest posts in a convenient fashion. As my posts find themselves in a reader’s inbox, and as I share more value, my readers will grow to know me better and trust me more.
Promote Only What You Use and What’s Improved Your Life
I am stunned by how many bloggers promote crap. I’ve seen it. You’ve seen it. In order for your readers to trust you, your readers must know that whatever you promote, you:
Believe in
Use regularly
Are NOT promoting just to make a quick dime
Here’s my deal; after using Hootsuite Pro I saved myself 2-3 hours daily. I logged into and out of social networking sites and I manually shared stuff to multiple groups. This was a time-consuming, painstaking process which ate up my time. Since I’m on the road – or in the air – quite a bit I can’t afford to waste time. Nobody can afford to waste time and more so than that, every smart blogger needs to use the principle of leveraging to make their life easier.
Fiji to Bali
Take our flights from Fiji to Bali. We left Labasa on Monday night at 5:30 PM and landed in Denpesar, Bali on Thursday morning at 12:00 AM. In between were flights to Nadir, Fiji, and Sydney Australia. We had some offline time in each hotel but other than that, we were in the air or doing tourist type stuff in each spot or in the airport at each spot.
Hootsuite Pro sent out automated updates for me to multiple time zones while I did the travel bit. If you ever want to retire you need to learn how to delegate tasks, or how to move from the employee mindset to the entrepreneur mindset. Tools, and for me, that tool would be Hootsuite Pro, are one way to delegate tasks, and to also, leverage your presence online while away from the laptop or tablet.
See how much I’ve bought into Hootsuite Pro? That’s why I sell it. The app has changed my life dramatically and for a tiny fee each month I tap into a serious set of rich tools as well as a boatload of benefits. The product works for me and I know it could work well for you too, so I sell it. Or, I offer it, and let you make an informed, educated choice based on my experiences with it, and based on my reviews of the product.
Since I’m honest, authentic and transparent in explaining how the product works for me, and since I’m clear on why I use Hootsuite Pro, I’m far more likely to gain your blogging trust versus if I just sold any crap that flowed down the pike. If you sell to sell, you’ll lose your audience’s trust. If you sell to improve your reader’s lives, based on improving your own life through a product or service, you better believe that you’ll build trust in a heartbeat.
Give Away Valuable Free Stuff
Smart bloggers are trusted bloggers because smart bloggers give away really valuable stuff for free. Don’t follow the party line; a free giveaway need not be an eBook, or course, offered through an opt-in form. How long do you think it took me to write this blog post? How long do you think it took me to proofread this blog post? How long do you think it took me to add pictures to this blog post? How long do you think it took me to format this blog post? How long do you think it took me to share this blog post effectively on social networking sites? How long do you think it took me to set up links through this blog post?
THIS BLOG POST IS FREE. THIS BLOG POST IS VALUABLE STUFF.
Have you visited Glen Allsop’s blog? Go ahead. Do it. The man publishes posts that are 5,000 or 7,000 words or longer. That is valuable, in-depth, free content that is astoundingly researched. How much time do you feel it takes him to create that value? How valuable is it to you? You see, I don’t care if you wrote a 5,000 word blog post for me or if you gave me a free eBook; if it kicks ass, I’m yours.
I can immediately see you want to give me free information and you want nothing in return from me. Doesn’t it disgust you when some bloggers try to squeeze everything they can out of you, asking for endless favors in exchange for the free value they provide?
Everybody’s entitled to ask for an email address of course but you would just love to have a blogger create a 3,000 or 8,000 word free, in-depth, absolutely smashing post, and leave it at that, right? Help people for free, and do an absolutely smash up job of helping people for free, and you’ll gain their trust. Once you gain their trust, and once people don’t see you as a walking ATM machine, you’ll grow your blogging business steadily because people will believe, that, “Hey, this guy or gal genuinely wants to help me.”
The Dark Side of Bali
There is a dark side of Bali and I’m not just talking about the Black Magic practiced here. In touristed spots like Kuta, Seminyak and Ubud, many transport/taxi drivers see you as an ATM. I don’t take it personally. Many of the drivers are friendly, yet, they ask you endlessly if you want a ride. The folks in these town centers are usually super friendly, but more than a few touts at the airport are not friendly. Some dude tried to grab my luggage out of my hand – while I had a firm grip on it – to charge me a handling fee. It used to happen to us with the old luggage belt set up, but the folks put a stop to that, thank goodness, with the new airport.
The point is these few unhappy touts at the airport see people as potential green, and only want money from them. Naturally, these fools repel virtually all tourists and if they do generate some business from a tourist they’ll never see them again. People trust you if you want to genuinely provide them with some product or service, and as a blogger, sharing blogging tips, you best share some seriously valuable blogging tips for free if you want folks to know, like and trust you.
Some examples of valuable, free giveaways are:
Value packed eBooks
Super in-depth, thorough, targeted blog posts
Video courses
Other products
This is like priming the pump of trust. Do your best job, offer something of immense value and don’t charge a dime for it. Then, get to creating eBooks and also, building a services business. After people enjoy your free giveaways and see the immense value you’re willing to offer for free you better believe that they’ll freely pay you for your products or services, and they’ll trust your recommendations. You earned their trust. You primed the pump of trust by helping them for free, and they’ll become rabid fans – and you better believe they’ll promote you to their friends, too – all because you gave value away freely.
Most bloggers don’t put in the time so most bloggers aren’t trusted. Price tags are placed on everything. You haven’t earned your bones yet! James Patterson has sold over 300,000,000 books – yes, that’s 300 Million books – as of this writing. How? He worked on his craft of course but he also gave away countless numbers of his books for free to prime the trust pump. He earned his bones. He proved that he was a skilled author but he also gave away a ton of value for free to prime a trust pump that just about no author in history has as successfully primed. He gave freely, and now look at how much trust – and money – he’s earned.
Rhonda Byrne has a similar story. She’s the hyper successful author of The Secret.
When her home was in foreclosure she walked down the street handing out 50 dollar bills. Another type of value here but you better believe that she primed the trust pump because The Secret went on to become one of the highest selling personal development books of all time. She charges over $20 for the book while other personal development authors charge $10 or $13, and for good reason. People would buy the book if she charged $30 because she primed the trust pump so freely, giving away value in the form of money, even when things didn’t seem so ducky in her life.
Respond
I respond to my comments because I want my readers to know that I am listening? How could I solve their problems, or make their dreams come true, unless I was listening to their problems? Responding to blog comments, or responding to some requests/questions on social networks, is flat out the easiest way to gain the trust of your readers.
Nagigi Village, Vanua Levu, Fiji. From July 2014.
Unless this is a hobby for you, you’re blogging professionally. That means, even if you’re blogging to free yourself, and to free other bloggers, as I do, you have opened income streams and prosper through those income streams. If you don’t respond to reader comments and emails you have proven that you’ll likely do a poor job coaching clients, or writing for clients, because you haven’t listened to them, and you don’t know how to effectively solve their problems.
One Caveat
Once you do run a thriving freelance business, writing for blogging clients and coaching blogging clients, you’re free to not respond to comments. Why? So many paying clients have lined up to benefit from your services that you’ll give them priority over non-paying clients. This is why some super successful bloggers don’t respond to comments or closed comments outright; they’re simply responding to people who paid them to respond, through a variety of channels like email, like social media and through in person meetings.
Other than that caveat group, you don’t need to respond in minutes or even hours, but you do need to eventually respond to comments. The time frame is up to you. I work off of an hours, to 24 hour, blog comment response window in most cases but sometimes a few days expires before I respond due to being on a plane traveling halfway across the world. Blogging from Paradise can be a real b*tch sometimes, right?
Listen. Respond. Compassionately respond to the needs, the problems, and to the dreams shared by your audience and you’ll quickly bump up your trust factor. Readers will trust the blogger who acknowledges their presence, and who goes out of their way to make them feel special, by responding to them.
Make Your Blog Scream “You”
Look to your right. Check out my banner. As you’re reading this post, you know Ryan Biddulph wrote it. As you look through each of my pages and check out my eBooks you know 2 things:
This blog screams “Ryan Biddulph”
This blog is all about Blogging from Paradise
You’re more likely to trust me because I am being the true me. I am being authentic, and genuine, and that authenticity bleeds through my blog design. The authenticity bleeds through my eBooks, through my blog content and through virtually all elements of my blog. Since I’m not trying to be anybody else, you’ll tend to trust me, even if you don’t agree with me. It goes back to the idea that you can’t trust a phony, and you will trust someone who’s honest, and who’s being themselves, around you.
I’m pretty genuine. I’ll tell you, that when I’m clear on something, that I appreciate your feedback but that I probably won’t listen to it. I’ll tell it like I feel and I’ll simply be me. I’ll allow ME to bleed through the Blogging from Paradise blog, and brand, because it’s helped me gain the trust of my audience, and of some brilliant business minds, and I’ll keep being me, and doing me, because why would you want to be anybody else?
Many blogging tips bloggers mean well but wind up following the herd. I know of some dudes and dudettes who – through cultural, or other reasons – are implicitly taught NOT to stand out from the crowd when they’re little kids.
They’re taught to be a part of a community, and to blend in, and to NOT call attention to themselves. This is the blogging/trust kiss of death because few people trust a blogger who is just like most other bloggers. Few readers trust somebody who tries to be like everybody else, because trying to fit in demonstrates that you fear to be you, and that fear repels readers who want something different.
Be you by:
Buying a premium theme
Branding your blog
Posting images of you throughout your blog
Writing an in-depth About Me page
writing daily to hammer out your writing voice
Being you is not difficult. Just get clear on what you most want to do with your life, blogging-wise and life-wise, and move in that direction. Being you is freeing but uncomfortable at times because you’ll need to go out on a limb, as you become more comfortable in your own skin. Do it. The only critics who’ll try to nail you are cowards who lack the balls to be you. Let them criticize you, and then, let them crawl back into the sewers. You have bigger and better things to do. You’re blogging from paradise. Or you’re aligned with blogging from paradise. Carry on.
Post Pictures of Yourself All Over the Place
Ok I hit on this one a few times but I want to drill the point home. Right now, you’re words on the screen until you prove to people that you are human. If I was just words on a screen I couldn’t be blogging from paradise. I couldn’t be offering blogging tips from Bali nor could I be teaching folks how to make money blogging from Malaysia. Couldn’t happen. I needed folks to trust me, for me to prosper, and 1 vehicle through which I gained that trust was doing the picture bit.
You may know me through my selfies. That’s good. Most people love them. The only people who genuinely dislike my selfies are mentally frail, unconfident people who would be terrified to do the selfie bit themselves.
The booli goes to a Balinese wedding.
Life is a reflection, and whatever you dislike in others says everything about you and nothing about them.
Anyway, when most bloggers begin their journey, they make dangerous assumptions. One such assumption is that people will actually believe you’re a real, living, breathing human sitting behind the laptop, typing words and publishing posts.
The Blogging Disconnect Thing
A blogging disconnect exists. An online disconnect thing exists. People read blogs, and may feel inspired by bloggers, but until you’ve graphically prove that you’re human, by posting plenty of images, of you, and by posting more than a few videos of yourself as a talking head, too, you’re a stranger. You’re not *really* human, as your words don’t make you human. Selfies make you human. Videos of you, chatting, make you human. Don’t assume people trust you because you’re a skilled blogger. People trust you when you’re human, just like them, so they can make an intimate connection with you.
People trust you when you sit in a room with them, for a chat. If you can’t sit in a room with them, because you’re in Bali, and they’re in New York City, the next best thing to do is to plaster images of yourself all over your blog, and to publish videos of yourself talking, to make the human, intimate, bond you need to make to gain the trust of your target audience. Readers want to know you’re human, with feelings, just like them, before you can gain their trust. Make it easier for them. Go image crazy.
Hasn’t hurt me. I was formerly terrified to post travel images of myself, for fear that it may annoy people, but once I got over myself, and chose to gain the trust of my audience, I figured it was much easier for people to get to know, like and trust me if I could be smiling back at them from all tropical corners of the earth.
Your Turn
That’s how I gain trust. That’s how you can gain trust. Don’t be desperate my little kiddies. Don’t be like the first grader who raises their hand in the air, screaming for their teacher’s attention. Don’t beg for trust. Be the kid who places an apple on your teacher’s desk by following these blogging tips.
Are you building trust on your blog?
How?
Why?
Why do your readers trust you?
What tips can you add to this list?
Make sure to share this post on your social networks so we can help bloggers gain trust, OK?
Call to Action
If you’re struggling to gain trust I can help you. I’ve helped my clients boost their trust factor to create some pretty awesome results through my blog coaching services.
Learn more about my blog coaching services – and read the nice things my clients have to say about me.
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