Speaking of which, there are two threads right now that are interesting. One is from someone moaning that Blogger.com has deleted all his blogs and the other from someone who is saying that WordPress.com have done the same.

Both services allow you to set up blogs for free, and they host them for you.

In effect, they own your blog. And as a result, if they decide they don’t like you, or what you’ve posted, they can instantly delete all your hard work.

And they often do because many people ignore the terms and conditions they agree to when they sign up and create blogs that break the rules.

Doh! Of course they delete stuff they don’t like.

The only surprise to me is why anyone would allow someone else that much power of their business?

Buying a domain is cheap. Buying hosting is cheap. And once you have those two things, setting up a real WordPress site on your own domain, under your own hosting costs nothing.

So why, oh why, would anyone not do that?

I know that the $20-$30 dollars needed to buy the domain and hosting is still money that some people don’t currently have, but unless you are prepared to invest that small amount you can never, ever, say you have a business. You will always be at a third party’s mercy. And ‘Woe is me, the blogs I’ve worked so hard to produce’ threads on the Warrior Forum will continue to be commonplace.

Blogging is an excellent strategy. It can get you very high Google rankings very quickly. And in the process, it can make you a lot of money.

But for goodness sake, stay in control of your own destiny and use your own domains and hosting from the very start.

Rob Benwell’s Blogging to the Bank 2010 ebook tells you how to get started in blogging the right way. Incidentally, I’ve been saying that this is the third edition of the book, but I’m mistaken – it is in fact the 4th.

http://urlnex.us/bttb2010

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My Twitter followers have reached 1997 – so close to the magic 2000 that I can smell it! I’m sure that particular barrier will be powered through in the next few hours.

Twittollower is certainly performing brilliantly and my website traffic is feeling the benefit very nicely.

The secret, if there IS such a thing as a secret, to Twitter seems to me to be the same *secret* that confuses people so much about Google. That is to be as informative and natural as you can be.

So many people think that they can get high Google rankings, or responsive follower lists in Twitter, by churning out impersonal, automated, pitch-fest junk. But thankfully, success doesn’t come via that particular route.

You’ll so often hear people bemoaning the fact that their latest strategies don’t work, when those strategies usually entail buying in garbage articles from barely literate ghost writers, throwing up content-less websites, posting unhelpful, automated blog posts and tweeting endless affiliate links.

Those are not strategies that work. Believe me – I’ve tried them all!

What works is to provide real, useful, naturally-written information.

What works is to put the reader first and your profits second.

What works is to use your common sense: would YOU want to read what you have blogged/posted on your website/tweeted? Because if you wouldn’t, what on Earth makes you think anyone else would?

I’d love for you to follow me – http://twitter.com/imkick

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I don’t mean ‘when you grow up’ – I mean what do you
want to be, right now?

Do you want to be a writer?
Do you want to be an entrepreneur?
Do you want to be successful?
Do you want to be popular?
Do you want to be an authority in your field?
What do YOU want to BE?

I’m sure that every single one of us has a list in our
heads of things that we want to be – and a much longer
list of excuses why we aren’t or can’t.

Well think on this for a second:

You are what you are.

You ARE what you ARE.

If you want TO BE a writer, for example, you will
remain wanting TO BE a writer for as long as your mind
keeps ‘writerdom’ in the future tense.

The day you stop saying I WANT TO BE and starting I AM
is the day that the future arrives in the present, and
the day that you become your dream.

When you say ‘I AM a writer’ you no longer have the
luxury of all those excuses. They stop mattering. The
only thing that matters now is how you will find the
time and inspiration to write. And if your mind accepts
the idea that a writer is what you now are, it will
also accept that it has to help out with all the
trimmings. opportunities will open up for you so that
you can sit down to write, ideas will start to flow,
inspirations will start to arrive from places you
didn’t even think possible.

Writing is a concrete example, but how does it work for
the more abstract concepts like success and popularity?

Just the same! Once your mental process has brought the
desire from the future (I want to be) to the present (I
am) your subconscious brain starts to shape your
behaviors so that they fit the concept that you are
manifesting.

That is not to say that you adopt a ‘fake it until you
make it’ approach, but that you start to see the world
through the eyes of one who is where you want to be.

A popular person sees the world differently to an
unpopular one and behaves accordingly. That behavior
reinforces the popularity and so the attribute gets
stronger.

The same with success. How often do we say that success
breeds success? It really does – successful people see
the world as a pool of opportunity and have no qualms
about wading in to take what is theirs. By adopting
that mindset, you can soon be wading with the best of
them!

So today, think about what you want to be. Then instead
of just wanting, start being.

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