Love your blog like you love your wife and you may not end up with a blog divorce

Posted on July 26, 2007 at 8:59 pm

For most people, I feel at least, a blog is just one of those cool “IN” things to do where you can post pictures of yourself drunk or talk about how much you hate school or why you like dogs more than cats. Now that’s fine for the casual blogger, but if you’re into blogging for the long run for whatever reason, to make money or to become an authority, then you have to treat your blog differently: You have to treat you blog like you would treat someone you love.

It sounds weird, but while I was talking to my wife last night she said “It seems to me sometimes like you love your blog more than you love me!” Now, of course, that is not true, but it got me thinking about how I actually feel about my blog and if that makes any difference in my eventual success or my demise as a blogger. Blogging is a not just work, it’s a relationship that you form with yourself that needs self-discipline, care, time, energy, focus, uniqueness, fun, will, compromise, patience, forgiveness, and real love.

To me that sounded just like my relationship with my wife! We talk about these things all the time to make sure that we stay focused on each other and that both people are happy and content with the way our lives and the relationship is heading. Even a few weeks of discontent by either party leads to tension, fights, stress, and overall unhappiness. If that trend continues for too long, people end up drifting apart and getting a divorce! I certainly do not want that to happen with my blog and that’s why I treat it in a similar fashion as I treat my wife (at least for now). Here are some rules I came up with to think about in your relationship:

Rule 1: Do you really love your wife? - Hmmm, if you don’t really love your wife or GF, then you probably are not going to last for very long! Of course, people make mistakes and marry the wrong people, so it might just be a mistake to try blogging, but that’s one way to learn. Or you can make sure that you blog about something that you truly enjoy and can do for long periods of time. Don’t try to blog about what is “hot” or what people think will make the most money, you just won’t be able to last. Have a real passion about a topic, not just the drive for money.

Rule 2: Don’t be sweet before marriage and then an ass afterwards! - What I’m trying to say here is that you should be consistent or at least try to be as consistent as possible! When people mention relationships that have gone sour, there is always something in there about “Well, he/she just changed and I never knew the real XXX until…” Same thing for blogging! You don’t want to be pumping out 10 posts a day, burn yourself out, and then post nothing for 1 month while you re-coop. Everyone has a certain writing ability inherently, so try to figure that out and stick to it. I started in March and was posting about 7 to 8 posts a day because I was excited, but could not keep it up and have now settled to around 2 posts a day.

Rule 3: If you spend 24 hours a day with your wife, you’ll go mad - I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to spend ALL the time together, I don’t care how much they love each other; there needs to be time to be alone or time with friends (together with your wife is fine). For blogging purposes, this means don’t spend all your time on YOUR blog; visit other blogs, post comments, email blog authors, connect to people through FaceBook, MyBlogLog, etc. If you focus constantly on your blog, you might have great content, but you won’t get readers (debatable, but there definitely is more to blogging than just content)

Rule 4: Hopefully, your wife fell in love with you because you were different than everyone else - I’ve learned that the reason my wife and I enjoy spending time with each other is because we find each other interesting. We find that the way we express ourselves makes the other laugh or have fun in ways that we would not otherwise have with someone else. If you’re writing a blog, don’t just regurgitate what others have written. Even if you are writing about something someone else has already written about, you can make your content unique by adding your own opinion or view to it. Otherwise, people will find that your blog is not that special and won’t mention it, link back to it, etc.

Rule 5: Snapping at your wife will usually lead to unpleasantness - Being patient is probably one of the best things that I like about myself and boy is it needed in a relationship! If you’re one to snap quickly or want to rush things, you’ll be in trouble when it comes to blogging. Rising in the ranks of good blogs takes a lot of time and effort. You need to optimize your blog, wait weeks or months for Google to index it, wait for it to get out of the “sandbox”, wait for people to start reading your blog, etc, etc. There is a lot of waiting and watching involved and results won’t come in a snap!

Rule 6: A real love relationship is really hard work - Once you get into a serious relationship with someone, it takes work to keep things fun and fresh, it just doesn’t just happen by itself. Maybe it does with some people, but in my experience, even if you really love someone, you still have to do special things for that person, sit and talk, compromise on certain issues, etc. When you blog, someone might steal your content or you might install a plugin that deletes your entire blog! You have to be ready to deal with it and put in the effort to make sure things go smoothly. In love, it’s not just going to your wife and saying I love you, just like in blogging it’s not just about writing posts.

Rule 7: A strong relationship means that you learn from each other - If you think you know the best way to handle every situation, remember it’s just YOUR opinion and you might be able to learn something from your wife. I know that in the 4 months that I’ve been blogging, I really know close to zero of what it takes to become a true professional blogger, so I make it a point to try to read their blogs as much as possible and to ask them a few questions here and there through email. A lot of top bloggers actually respond and are very willing to help.

These are just a few things that popped into my head, but I hope it helps someone figure out what is necessary to become a great blogger. I’m going to try and follow these rules myself and hopefully I can save my blog marriage.

Have any more ideas similar to this that I missed, post a comment!