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Warning: Watching This Video May Lead to Work! [But It’ll Also Improve Your Blog]

Posted By Darren Rowse 19th of November 2009 Video Posts 0 Comments


What’s your blogging Vice?

Most bloggers that I know have at least one – whether it be compulsively checking blog stats, constantly tweaking template designs, obsessing over plugins and widgets, spending hour after hour ‘networking’ on Twitter, becoming preoccupied with SEO and… even allowing ourselves to become consumed by learning about blogging…. and not doing much of it.

The reality is that as bloggers there are many tasks that compete for our attention. Many of them are important and can bring a lot of life to our blogs but most of them can also become distractions and counter productive to our blogging if we allow them.

This video asks you ‘what is your blogging vice?’ and challenges us all (and I need to hear it) to focus upon one of the most important aspects of blogging – creating content.

Don’t get me wrong – the tasks mentioned above can all be important and as bloggers we need to approach our blogging in a holistic kind of way – but this week while looking at 50 blogs while judging a blogging competition it struck me how much most of them could be improved with more spent on the creation of quality content.

My challenge to us all today is to refocus our energies upon creating compelling and useful content.

If that means no more reading about how to blog here at ProBlogger for a bit while you go and DO IT – so be it. After all, it’s what it all boils down to if you’re looking to improve your blog.

Get the full sized video at Youtube.

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. Ohhh damn, you are becomming my teacher :D

  2. Great post! As a blogger I like checking the stats of my blog and changing the template. It’s fun to have a blog.

  3. My vice: statistics and talking to my readers/community claiming I’m working on my traffic. :)

    My husband’s vice: addicted to getting new domain names to try a different idea. He’s had problems with promoting his existing stuff. But he’s narrowing down, and doing much better now. I’m quite proud of him.

  4. I so agree. Blog content is what keeps me returning to a blog again and again. Similar to a fine restaurant. Fast food style blogs just don’t whet my appetite.

  5. Dave McLeod says: 11/25/2009 at 12:18 pm

    Darren that is a wickedly humorous video, and so absolutely true!
    I am lucky at the moment, and have been spending hours a day with my webdesign on my project, and working on my pillar articles to launch my blog. So despite the optimization, and artistic eye i am still putting through 2-3 posts a night to expand the categories of my blog.
    I have actually spent alot more than the average human being researching how to market, and succeed with my blog so i can definately see how it would affect ones writing. For me it was a required although time consuming step…you see i had all the and technical skills, but were lacking the full understanding of blogging. That was until coming across You and Yaro’s information.
    Despite learning WordPress inside and out within 3 hours it has absolutely no use without being able to implement a traffic flow. I had failed projects i know that is why they failed….
    Thank you for all your help! Anyways back to my new project!

  6. My vice; constantly checking my stats weather it be how many visitors to my blog, how many feeds or spiders, I’m constantly checking them out.

  7. Adding a good and useful content is the key to success of your blog
    Thanks to the author for the article read with pleasure.

  8. Work is good, well most of the time haha, nic evideo, RT this post. I got an iphone blog and not doing that well on it to be honest… THanks for this tho!

    – peter

  9. After reading your article, I realized that I was neglecting my blog(s) and I think that it was because of twitter. ;). All my good ideas were heading in that direction, and too little of them were reaching the “new post”. Even so, i had to organize all my ideas, so that only the best of them to be written. I know how important is content on a blog, that’s why when i started taking care of mine, i knew that my readers will come back only, and only for what i write.

  10. ok, is it just me?? That video was just Hypnotizing and kind of spooky.. :)

    anyway, My obsessions is Buying stuff for my blog.. lols. PLUS++

    reading problogger, johnchow, and carlocab’s blog..

    PLUS++

    checking my stats.. :)

  11. my blogging vice is making the homepage on my friends computers my blog url

    hahhahhaha evil blogger.

  12. Great post Darren and a very good point. I’ve actually made a rule to help myself with this. I can’t read any blogs until I have written my blog post for the day.

    This has been a great motivator for me and in many cases encourages me to write a second post at some point later at night before I go to sleep!

  13. wow lol i think you hit the nail right on the head and it stings. I know i waste to much time seeing how other people make money blogging, and my biggest problem is youtube. I will stay on youtube for hours and hours watching video after video about SEO, affiliate marketing, umm blogging, and google adsense.

    This video and blog post really made me wake up and come to the realization that im spending too much time watching other peoples success stories when i haven’t even started mine yet.

    Thanks Darren for a great post

    Todd

  14. I did all of those things when I first started. That lasted a few weeks. Now what bothers me is I’ll be working outside, think “wow, I’ve got to write a blog about that” and two hours later when I come in… I’ve FORGOTTEN what I wanted to write about.

    http://www.sharonmcleod.ca/blog

  15. I haven’t even started a Blog page yet, and your video (sent by a friend) got me to write one blog post and make notes for 3 more! Thank-you.

    Krista

  16. The video has certainly made me make plans for changes to my site.

    Roger

  17. Mine is stats. Rather than working on content creation, networking, or other important aspects I worry and check stats. This actually takes about an hour daily which really ads up. Anyway thank you for giving something for me to think about and hopefully I will be able to cut down on stat checking and spend more time creating content.

  18. I will surely take this to heart

  19. This video and blog post really made me wake up and come to the realization that im spending too much time watching other peoples success stories when i haven’t even started mine yet.

    Thanks Darren for a great post

    Leasebam

  20. The blogging competition is growing day after day, I need to improve my blog each day to stay up.

  21. Mine’s constantly tweaking the layout and trying to compress posts. But then again, I’ve always been a bit complusive about writing in general and using the smallest amount of words to get the point across -.-

  22. Hey, I love your tips, already doubled traffic on my website where you can watch full movies online

    http://www.fullonlinemovies.net

    Thank you very much!

  23. Jamie Mounce says: 11/30/2009 at 10:44 am

    Right now I am wasting my time replying to how I waste my time. But usually, I waste my time going in forums, searching for the perfect Blogger template, tweaking the “perfect” Blogger template to make it even more perfect.

    I also like to spy on other people to see where they have posted back links so that one day when I actually stop wasting time, I can do the same thing.

    I am glad you posted this video. I just realized I have been wasting about 2 years of my internet marketing life looking at what other people are doing. I think I know enough now that I can apply it to my own blog.

  24. This video and blog post really made me wake up and come to the realization that im spending too much time watching other peoples success stories when i haven’t even started mine yet.

  25. Thanks for posting this blog to remind us to go back to the real intention of our blogging, that’s to give a valuable content to our readers.

    It’s indeed addicting to get driven by all the other activities involved in this blogging thing, but we shouldn’t neglect the most important.

  26. Great video and post. Actually this is my first time visit your blog, and I find your blog posts are awesome and inspiring.

  27. Where are you from? Love the accent. Well, I didn’t do what you said, lol, and read the comments, then commented before going to write the blog post. I thought the best part was the video ending with the heartbeat and the words “just…go…write.” It’s hard to not get distracted at times, and harder still to write or vlog with what you called “compelling content” (especially since some of us don’t have that intriguing accent like yours). Where do you get your creative ideas for blogs from, primarily? What do you do when you get stuck for ideas sometimes? Thanks for the encouragement to refocus and to just write!

  28. Very good concept, I like how you convey the message.

  29. Great site been reading and will add your site to mine.

  30. Thanks for posting this blog to remind us to go back to the real intention of our blogging, that’s to give a valuable content to our readers.
    hahaha

  31. I noticed your web site when I was searching for something else, but this post came up as a top result, your website must be amazingly popular! Continue the awesome job!

  32. Ya i need to work more. I think even if your not a blogger darren can give you good advice on how to work hard.
    If i need to get inspired i just take a look at shoemoneys picture of him and his 100k check lol.

  33. OK then I’m going now but not before saying that I don’t know what to blog about except about how hard I find it to blog !!

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