relate Blogger, Can Your Visitors Relate To You?I have been thinking over this past weekend about some of the bigger blog that I visit and what makes me enjoy visiting them each new post. What draws me into each of their post? You see I can visit a blog and it may have amazing content. The blog design may be the best I have ever seen. In fact, they may even have 50,000 feed readers and say they are making $2 million dollars a year, but I will still chose not to visit the blog – unless it has one characteristic.

I Want To Be Able To Relate With You

Who wants to visit a blog that where the blogger seems to be perfect? I know I don’t, because what can I learn from them. I will never be perfect so the tips I learn will never help me.

I know a lot of my readers are in the ‘make money online’ niche. Would you visit a blog where the owner seems to have the perfect run, everything they have done has turned out to be 10 times better than expected. They never choose the wrong ad keywords. They have never had a loss on a project. I don’t know about you, but I can’t relate to that.

I make mistakes – a lot of them. Some of my ‘great ideas’ are my biggest flops – but I learn from them. I have forgotten to do things that I say. I have even given up on projects that could have been a success – because I was too lazy. How am I supposed to relate with the perfect blogger?

In fact it kind of starts to annoy you a bit doesn’t it?

It’s like those people that are just good at anything.

You spend hours and hours each day to learn a new football (soccer) move (which I did heaps of as a kid) and ‘Mr. Perfect’ would come along and do it first go.

Or what about this one:

The parent that has the perfect child. While yours is eating dirt, running rampant, not doing what he/she is told – just being a kid, their child is already reading (probably the dictionary for fun), can do simple maths (like trigonometry) and can hold a civilized conversation with adults – all at the age of 6.

Ok. Maybe that last one was a bit of an exaggeration, but I am just trying to make the point that most people don’t like people who show off. People who try to put up a facade and make people believe that they are perfect – because usually they are not.

As a blogger, I encourage you to be someone that your visitors can relate too. Here are a few tips to help you:

Talk About Your Mistakes:
mistakes Blogger, Can Your Visitors Relate To You?This is a hard one because everyone couples mistakes with failure. Mistakes should be seen as learning curves, learning curves that you can share with your visitors – so they don’t make the same mistakes.

Jonathan Volk did something I really admire. He is a PPC affiliate that his goals say he is doing $170,000 a month in affiliate sales. You would think if anyone didn’t make mistakes it would be him. But you would be wrong. Jonathan recently made a post where he told us that he lost $3,500 by accidentally paying up to $45 per click.

Don’t Alienate Your Visitors
alien Blogger, Can Your Visitors Relate To You? No one wants to think that they are dumb. Sure you may be making 100 times what I am but talk about things that I can do to get to where you are. Make sure your posts are easily understood and implimented by everyone interested in your niche.

Another small tip is to make your post titles personal, by use phrases like:

  • How YOU can make an extra $10 a week
  • 5 different ways YOU can increase traffic easily
  • 3 reasons ANYONE can be successful blogging

Don’t alienate your visitors based on their level of knowledge. Let it be know they they can do it. They are able to achieve the same level of success that you have.

Be Approachable
approachable Blogger, Can Your Visitors Relate To You? One of the best ways of relating with people is just being able to be contact. I know a lot of pro bloggers would get a heap of emails each day, but isn’t it just common courtesy to at least give a small reply to an email? I don’t care if it takes them a week to reply, I would just like one.

When I don’t receive a reply, it makes me think that I am below them. That they consider themselves much better than I am. And this is not something that you want thought about yourself as a blogger – you want to be relatable.

I remember when I wrote an ebook that I was planning on selling for $10. I email a heap of the top bloggers offering them a free copy of my ebook – no strings attached – hoping for a free review, but not expecting one.

You Know What?

Out of about 10 or 15 of the top bloggers in the ‘make money online’ niche I think I got 2 replies. One from:

JohnCow – where he thanked me for the ebook and offered to do a review of it on his blog (which is what I was hoping for and did get me a few sales) and:

Carl Ocab – who let me know of a few mistakes and offered to provide a great testimonial for my sales page.

None of the other bloggers even took the time to thank me for the ebook, or let me know that they even received it. To be honest this lowered my respect for a lot of them – because it made me feel small.

One of the things I have done to try and make myself as approachable as possible is make myself available for any of my visitors to contact me with questions and thoughts that they may have about my blog, their blog or blogging in general. And they WILL get a reply – and maybe even a link in one my posts if I choose to feature the question or thought.

The Key Is Just To Be Someone That People Can Relate Too

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