I wrote months ago about myself achieving success getting my car out of the snow. That was a lot of work and I was damned if I was going to give up. Well, I got it out, thank God!

I was reminded of this success story I wrote and shared with everyone and I feel it was the best blog post I’ve ever written, ever. I bring this up because I personally don’t think I’ve read a greater blog post about success than experience everlasting success.

I read it and it’s fantastic beyond words in my opinion.

Why do I share this with you today?

Recently

For a week or so now I’ve been extremely busy but not in the way you’re probably imagining. I’ve been taking on little things and putting off other things and now I see things a bit differently than before.

I recently started my mailing list after writing up my Killer Content Guide and just started sending out emails and messages to people about writing for this blog whenever they want to on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So far, you can read quite a few Pop Posts I’ve put up and the first one I asked about that I got a response back from was why consider persons with disabilities when making your blog by Tom from Even Grounds.com.

Great article if I do say so myself.

I also got Henri’s book passionate living (affiliate link) and took action by putting it on my blog to support his work which I fully believe in. If you’re new to his writing and you like what you’ve read here at all I feel you’ll love his blog.

Back To Business

I’ve felt lazy for last several weeks and as I said above I’ve been busy but not in the ways you would think. I DID get my first two big projects started which I’m going to be selling on here once completed. I’ll be releasing the first one (no name yet, sorry) in a few months after completion and if you’re on my mailing list you’ll be one of the first people to know about it being released.

After reading Keith’s back to the basics post it really got me thinking about coming up with some ideas for this blog and making it even more helpful to everyone.

I have so much more coming your way that I’m sure a lot of people will truly benefit from. If they don’t it’ll surprise me.

Thanks for the idea there Keith!

What success are you looking at for the future and what are you doing about getting there?

This is a Pop Post by Tom from EvenGrounds.com. He talks about how to reach more people using technologies that help our blogs be understood and approachable to more people throughout the world who are disabled in some way. Check out his blog as he has a lot of very interesting and useful information that can seriously help your blog long-term.

Helping others is what we all want to achieve through our blogs. And in the case of persons with disabilities, you can help them simply by considering their needs as you build your web site.

Let’s talk about the questions which bloggers have regarding this issue, as well as the specific reasons why we should consider this group while creating our blogs.

They Won’t Read my Blog, Will They?

You may think that no one in the disabled community would visit and read your blog. One possible reason for this is that you have a relatively narrow niche. But similar to non-disabled persons, people with disabilities have an incredibly diverse set of interests. You can be sure that there will always be someone in the disabled community who would be interested to reed your posts.

But Can They Actually Read It?

There are now a lot of technologies that enable persons with disabilities to access the Internet.

People who are blind obviously cannot read web pages by themselves. But they can use a software called a screen reader to read for them the text in your blog. Persons who are deaf can’t hear what you are saying in your video post. However, captioning services such as the one in YouTube can help them understand the audio in your video. Also, those who can’t use their hands can use voice recognition software to navigate through your blog’s content.

But although these products exist, people with disabilities still need your help in ensuring that these technologies can access your particular web site.

What’s In It For Me?

Your blog would be open to new improvements and opportunities when you create it with the disabled community in mind.

Web accessibility consists of a set of steps to make your blog accessible to persons with disabilities. When you practice web accessibility, you would make it easy for the disabled community to access all the parts of your blog. And by doing so, you would also make it much easier for your non-disabled readers to navigate through your content.

And we all know that these things lead to more visitors reading your content and getting your message, and more lives you can improve and change. This is, after all, the goal which all of us are aiming for.

I call my guest posts pop posts as you all know. You can check out what pop posts are on here so far and after asking everyone what advice they had for this site to improve, I’ve done some thinking and some planning and now am asking you all to help me with this.

I’d like to keep my schedule of 3 posts a week which are currently on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That being said, I’d really like to have the great bloggers out there who want to get more involved in BluePop13 write a pop post for me and I’ll post those up Tuesday and Thursday. This way there’s more content being published to the site and you have a chance to get involed and we can all help each other out even more.

I admit that I got this idea from a comment or so on here saying I should do a guest post once a week (great idea, of course) and because I’m a member of the T.I.P Team and guest post there every Saturday.

Please contact me if you’d like to get involved with this and write up a post for this site and send it to me. I need 2 posts a week for this site and this absolutely isn’t possible without you, my readers who make this site what it is.

Are you interested?

This is a Pop Post by Tom Walker, who wrote this guest post, is a blogger and designer based in the UK. He works with a supplier of HP 901 ink supplies as an editor and writer on their blog where he focusses mostly on his passion of advertising design.

Relationships are an important part of our daily lives and, although some may not realize it, building relationships with other bloggers can help you become a successful long-term blogger. In everyday life people build relationships through their interaction with each other and people get to know one another through a variety of ways. The nature of blogging, however, means that people only get to interact through writing, and thus developing relationships is quite different in the world of blogging. The following tips provide some guidelines on how you can build relationships with fellow bloggers.

Don’t Dive Straight in With a Comment

Take some time to learn a little more about the blog and the blogger. Find out a little about the blog and consider any previous comments made before leaving your own. This will add value to what you have to say and earn you some respect as a blogger.

Pass on Information

People come to blogs with the purpose of learning new information as well as sharing their knowledge. Be generous about sharing information you come across or the knowledge you have in a particular niche and you are sure to make an impression, but be careful not to be seen as a know all.

Check Things Out Before Leaving Links

Leaving a link is a good way to show others that you are willing to interact and share your knowledge, but before doing so be sure to check out whether this is acceptable. Never leave a link without a comment as it will not give a good impression.

Follow Up on Comments

When you receive a comment on a post you have made be sure to respond if necessary. This is particularly important if your comment argues a point or poses a question. If you neglect to follow up you will give the impression that you are not interested in what others have to say.

Always Remember Your Place

When you are commenting on another person’s blog be sure to remember that you are a visitor here. By all means share your knowledge and experiences, but make sure you don’t steal the lime light or criticize the blogger. If you notice an error or information that is not totally accurate then send a polite email instead of posting a comment about it.

Ask Questions

Asking questions creates a good impression on others as it shows them that you are interested. It also allows you to find out more about a person’s character, their ambitions, strengths, weaknesses and their purpose for blogging. This, after all, is what relationship building is all about.

Be Patient

All relationships take some time to grow and those built through blogging are no exception. Gradually build trust and mutual respect with fellow bloggers and you will find that the relationship will naturally develop. Don’t be offended if people don’t respond to you at first as this is normal before people warm to you. Do persist but don’t annoy.

Prove Yourself in Your Niche

Being the ‘new kid on the block’ means that it could take some time before you make an impression. People will be waiting to see if you have the staying power and that you are able to contribute something of substance.

Come With the Spirit of Generosity

One of the quickest ways to turn others off is if you are only there for what you can get out of it. Be generous with your knowledge and expertise in order to help someone achieve their goals. Be encouraging and supportive and always remember that you get what you give.

Write What You Mean

When we are communicating through writing it is often easy for our intentions to be misunderstood. Ensure that you read what you have written before posting it and think about how it may be interpreted. Also, be sure to use emoticon where necessary to help convey the right message.

Without the face to face contact with others blogging can, at time, be a lonely activity. Building relationships with other bloggers will not only ensure you more success, but will certainly make the whole process more enjoyable. Most things in life are more rewarding when you have someone to share it with.

This is a Pop Post by James Richmond from TheInfoPreneur.net. James is an incredible blogger who hasn’t been at it for very long (about 3 months) and is the ultimate example of how hard work will bring you amazing results. I’ve been with him since about the beginning of his blog and have seen what he can do.

I recommend everyone who reads this post visit his blog and discover someone who is more than willing to help you out with whatever you need and can push content out like there literally is no tomorrow. Enough said, though I could go on and if you want more please read inspiration, smart work, success | the infopreneur.

Over to you, James.

Let’s just get this out of the way first, I’m not a marketing expert or a web 2.0 guru, in fact I have no qualifications at all. So why read the rest of this post then? Well, despite my methods and mentality not working for everyone, it works for me, so read on and give it a shot.

Millions of new websites are created every week and within weeks most of then are already starting to fail. A website, your website is your megaphone, your worldwide banner that says ‘Come and listen to me’ but why do so many fail where the minority succeed?

I have never paid for a coaching programme, never paid for advertising and have made a stack of mistakes, but I firmly believe the main reason after 3 months my site is growing is because of these simple but vital parts;

• Drive

I’m driven you have to be, in my opinion it’s the only way to succeed. A website with no drive is going no where, it’s simple. Imagine a car, any car without an engine. It becomes a piece of scrap without any drive, you need to want to tell people about your thoughts and opinions.

Drive can come from anything around you or something that you yet to have around you. My family and my full time job drive me to over produce and keep moving forward, I want to spend more time with my family and leave my full time 60hr working week job, so I’m driven to achieving that as quick as I can.

• Passion

You need to be passionate about your topic, I don’t care if it’s an article about pin cushions or rocket engines, if there is passion behind it I will read it. You know what I’m talking about, you would and probably still come across, websites that just talk about the same old blurb everyone else talks about and it’s a boring read.

On the same thread, you can really tell if someone is passionate about that topic and whether you’re into it or not, that will inspire you and it’s this point you need to have in abundance. Passion for your subject matter will transform you into yet another site people will close straight away into a website with real fire and fuel to keep it burning for a long time.

• Accessible

How many times have you gone to contact a site owner and never been able to find out how to do it, or have had to go to site map and track their contact page or email down that way? It really gets to me when owners do this, the other thing that drives me mad is when the author of the content never interacts with their readers.

If people are taking the time to read, spread and reply to your content then the very least you should do is to thank them and talk to them in the comments section or the forum you have created. No matter what you need to be present for your visitors, customers or readers to actually reach out and shake your hand, no hand shake, no business.

• Readers

Every site needs visitors, fact. No traffic no website. Your readers are the very reason you write new content or produce latest products for them to buy. Without your readers you are nothing, absolutely nothing. I want you to really think about that, without your readers you wouldn’t even be thinking of how to take it to the next level, so make damn sure you look after them.

All these are the vital components of a successful website, SEO, links etc all important yes, but without these vital parts the site is on life support with only one outcome.

This is a Pop Post by Ben Lumley from 6Aliens.com. He’s a great writer and a very cool person to talk to. Check out his blog and get to know him, you won’t regret it. Over to you, Ben.

I’m Ben Lumley, a blogger from the UK who writes about self development at 6aliens.com. Why not connect with me on Twitter @benlumley6 or if you liked this article then why not subscribe to my RSS Feed?

We can all have our say now and reach a massive audience. 20 years ago, if you wanted to have your say and have everyone listen, you needed to be on radio, TV or on a massive billboard somewhere in the middle of town. Even then, you only had the potential to reach a particular geographic group of people, unless you moved on to better things.

Now if you write a blog post, it has the potential (without the need to take it to any other forum) to reach millions of people from all over the planet. That’s a massive thing if you think about it for a minute. Everything you write, or take pictures of, or video has to ability to hit a huge audience.

But there’s a funny thing about potential. It’s pretty useless unless you do anything about it. It’s like having a million dollars (something we can all relate to) and letting it sit in a box under the floorboards. It has the potential to change the lives of millions of people in either a positive or negative way but is useless unless you take some massive action with it.

Think of your blog as that million dollars.

Nurtured in the right way, it can positively affect the lives of people from all walks of life or it can lay dusty on the shelf.

How to make or break your blog.

Content

Make: With great content you can achieve anything. What was it the man said? “Give me a lever long enough and I can move the Earth.” You need to create stuff that you’re truly passionate about. It might be hard to come up with, it might take a while to put together, but by the end of it you should be so excited to publish it that you’re fit to burst.

Break: If you’re sitting down thinking, “I don’t want to write this” then don’t. You’ll end up creating something that makes people think “I don’t want to read this.” If you write in one continuous paragraph you’ll lose people’s attention. Focus on giving your readers a great article that they just can’t put down.

Comments

Make: Getting comments on your blog to start with is hard work. You can’t get your message heard if you’re standing on an island. Get out there and talk to other people. Commenting on other blogs has exploded my traffic. It’ll do the same for you.

Break: Make sure you always add value – just saying “great post, Dude” won’t get you anywhere. Just shouting your message on every comment page on every blog you find is just selfish and won’t make people want to come and visit your blog. Oh, and whatever you do, have the courtesy to reply to people who leave comments on your post. They’ve taken time out of their day to leave you a message, the least you can do is thank them (sorry rant over).

Promote

Make: Having a great post is one thing; telling people about it is another. Ever wonder how many people pay attention to cards you see up in shop windows saying that they have something to sell? Realistically, probably not many. What if your card was an advert but it was the one that came on TV just before your favourite programme, just after you sat down to watch it? You’d notice it then wouldn’t you? My friend James has this down. Write and promote, write and promote.

Break: The biggest things that will break your success with regards to promoting your posts are the fact you either don’t promote them (let’s just keep that box with a million dollars in it under the floorboards shall we) or that you promote it badly. Keep it simple. Don’t demand that people come to read your posts. Give people the choice and you’ll find that as your blog grows more people will choose to come and read or watch.

The making and breaking of your blog really comes down to one simple question… what are you going to do with your million dollars?

I’ve been successful in my first Guest Posts and would like to give out a huge thanks two both Sarge from BeginnerBlogger.com and James at TheInfoPreneur.net because they were kind enough to publish my work which means my articles were to their standards.

I want to give you the same opportunity I’ve had the last couple days. If you want to write an article for BluePop13.com just write your article and make sure it follows the guidelines below and send it to me.

What I’m looking for

• A quick and simple bio with links back to your site as well as your e-mail (make sure your e-mail is in HTML format).
  

• Please write an article relating to blogging, social media, computers, technology, entertainment, linux, money, life and self development, and helping people solve problems with how to’s.

• Any article on the above topics will do just fine as long as it’s well written and is fun to read and useful to other people in some way.

• To submit your article just send me your email address your article and your bio (if e-mailed remember to have it in HTML format if possible). Will have Pop Posts page up shortly.
  

• My post days as of right now are Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I will post your article on one of those days as soon as I review it and it has been approved.

• I will email you to let you know if I’ve approved it and what day it will be posted. As soon as it’s up I’ll send you a direct link to the article.
  

Remember just e-mail me your bio and article in HTML format. My Pop Posts page will be up shortly as stated above.