Taking Negative comments Positively

Lets face it, when we are talking about something and people oppose us none of us really like the guy opposing us and we call him names like moron or something similar (sometimes worse) When someone disagrees with our line of thoughts and is quite open about it ( sometimes way to open and even outrageous ) we really dont take it in a good spirits always, do we ?

I once read somewhere something on the lines of - when someone opposes you consider it as positive sign that you are on the right track !!

Talking about blogs and comments they have been together since the beginning of this world and are kinda inseparable. You must have seen a lot of blogposts with negative comments and readers disapproving of what the author has written but there are a lot of blogger who simply delete such comments almost instantly like they were waiting for this very moment and learn from it.

So how does negative comments help us and how can we take it in a more positive way or lets say in good spirits is what we will be discussing today.

New and Different Point of View

When someone disagrees with your thoughts they are usually based on some observation and thinking and most readers are kind enough to present their side of the story and thoughts in the comments. So now you have a new point of view to ponder over. Maybe they are right and you are wrong or vice versa but both of you should take it in a healthy way. If you are wrong then accept it - you wont get hurt. And if you are right and then try to convince them further with more details - they wont bite you for opposing.

So it is really the beginning of a healthy relationship between you and your reader and helps you improve your writing skills as well. Remember that each and every visitor is equally important.

Increases Involvement

Thats so true. When someone disagrees with your line of thoughts that means he has gone through the trouble of reading your post carefully and and has done his homework - its a positive sign that atleast there is one reader that is following up on your posts. It also increases involvement of other readers who start taking interest in the conversation and try to evaluate both of you trying to understand who is perhaps more correct in his approach.

It also increases your traffic :twisted:

Controversies increases publicity but fruits are short lived

Though it may sound like a good idea to purposefully create such posts and write up stories that are controversial and questionable just reap the benefits of more attention of other bloggers in the related community but many us forget that such traffic and attention is often short lived. Soon readers realize the story behind the scenes and frown upon such bloggers thinking that all he can do write crabs and take names providing no value to the community. There are alot of examples of such infamous personalities in Hollywood who are not doing anything good but still make it to the front page when they attend some party where no one can stand on properly !!

Value and purpose is all that can alone lead you to the heights of success where there are very few competitors.

Remember that the ladder od success is always crowded at the bottom and there is plenty of space at the top.

What would Seth Godin Do ?

So i believe a lot of you came here wondering that this is something to do with Seth Godin… Well you can say upto a certain extent it is. So what is it that Seth Godin is going to do and about what ?

Actually this is a wordpress plugin which uses cookies to distinguish between your old and new visitors coming to your site and displays them a custom message that can be altered at will. So why is it names so ? Thats because it is the brainchild of none other than Seth Godin himself however the pluginhas been designed by Richard K. Miller who rightfully named it after him.

So what this plugin exactly do is show a new custom message each time a visitor visits your blog/site for the first time which gives you a great opportunity to tell them about what your blog/site is all about and how it is going to benefit them. The default message box shows the following message “If you are new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting”which can be altered to anything you like. i think it will be much better to use this opportunity to tell your visitors what your blog is all about and how is it going to benefit them, tell them something about yourself and try to connect with them in a more personal way. the message is displayed only times and you can easily change the location and time span both to suit your needs. i think 5 times is a bit more than necessary and hence you should reduce it to 3 times and choose a location that dosent irritates them. you know some visitors feel really angry with such dialogue boxes and hence it should be non-intrusive.

There is also a new version of the plugin which also allows you to show a message for returning visitors. the plugin works with cookies enabled and hence those who without this support will continuously see this message - new visitor - and it might piss them off !!

All in all this is a great plugin as it opens a new gate for communicating with your readers and gives you a chance to make them understand what exactly it is that you are trying to do or prove with your blog. It can also help in increasing your rss count giving you more exposure.

You can download and read more from the author and creator of the plugin here

Craving for Attention ? You are not Alone

Lets face it - everyone likes attention and it matters little how they get it. There are some like the famously infamous socialite Paris Hilton who seems to be making the headlines for doing nothing but what she does best !! Everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame and are willing to do just about anything to get what they want - ATTENTION.

So we as bloggers need it too. We want more webmasters to join rss feeds, more readers, more subscribers and more webmasters joining the affiliate programs that we promote !! So let us today ponder on some of the ways of how we can create the buzz and get what we want..

- If you are not in a hurry and like to follow the footsteps of the tortoise who won the race against the hare then all you have to do is to write quality content and submit to social bookmarking sites. If you are good enough then you will get noticed.

- If you are in a bit of a hurry and cant wait for success to come to you then you must go to it. The most popular way of getting attention is writing controversial articles igniting sparks in the minds of people and compelling them to talk about it. Sort of wild fire which spreads on its own with no help of anyone. All you need is a hot topic and even hotter content.

If you are nice guy and dont like getting into controversies then there a lot of others ways to like -

- the first and the most important part of your blog is the title / heading of your post. If that is not compelling enough then half of the readers will never visit the page in the first page, so work on it well and create a heading thats makes them ask questions like what is he talking about or what is that or something similar. you must raise their curiosity and then satisfy it with the content in your post. Trust me they will come back for more in future.

- using images in your post is another great way of keeping the interest of the reader intact. The moment they visit your page the first thing that they notice is a descriptive image that matches the theme of your post and further increases their hunger for reading. A lot of bloggers are using them successfully and I am myself thinking of starting on it.

- Its of no use if the readers visits the blog and leaves within minutes so you must make them to stay. Breaking your posts and articles into sub points always works because people really dont have enough time these days to go through the entire entry before realising that it does not contain what they were expecting. Small points will reduce their burden and they will continue to read.

- Another good way of raising the curiosity of your readers is asking questions in the heading like the one I have used in my heading and then answer it yourself. They love it when someone answer their queries. So if they dont have any queries then raise them and then answer them.

Old philosophy - something on the lines of ” In order to sell your product you must first create the demand for it and then sell it ”

Same rule applies here. So what are you waiting for.. Go find yourself some interesting topics and start writing.