Just say it, even if to yourself alone. You want to be a super traffic-pulling blogger or writer. You want your posts and articles to go viral always. You want advertisers milling around you like bees swarming around a honeycomb. You long for the cheques. You love to be on every lip.
You want to be like popular bloggers that attract huge traffic. You have laboured for months – even years – uploading stories on your blog and posting the intro on different Facebook forums with a link to your blog. You heard that sex stories draw traffic. You have added many sex stories and pictures. You heard that Nigerians love blood and gory scenes. So you’ve shown pictures of mangled limbs; you’ve paraded ritualists holding the head of their victim in their hands.
Yet every time you sign in, hoping to see a miracle on your blog, but no show! You see one or two comments. Or even none at all. Views are as meagre as the food of an orphan.
What else should you do to draw traffic? What else should you do to make readers look your way? Should you undress and post your nude pictures on your blog for them? Haba! You wonder: Why are you so unlucky? Maybe it is an uncle at home working against your success!
But then your story may be slightly different. You may be a content-focused blogger. You’ve heard many experts say: “Feed them with information, and they will come. Nothing sells like good content!” So you labour to research and research. Then you write, feeding your audience with information. Then you recline and wait. “I got ya now,” you think. You wait for them to come trooping in to lap up your content. But no real change.
The more you slave, the more you see little or no result. Be patient, some tell you. The patient dog eats the fattest bone, others say. Rome was not built in a day, they add. Bla bla bla! Soon days become weeks. Weeks turn to months. Months slide into years. Nothing happens. It’s still you and your poor little blog. Phew! What luck!
Do you want some naked truth; some honesty that those around you will never tell you? Okay. Here is it. You are wasting your time! Phew! Did I just tell you that? Yes, I did. Pardon my bad manners! Please slap me, if that will make you happy. But you need some truth to jerk you out of that daydream. Your poor little blog will never become the bomb that you desire! But why should it?
Look around you. Count how many blogs you see posting the news of the day copied from The PUNCH, Vanguard, Sahara Reporters, etc. Have you seen up to 100? For every 100 you see, there are another 1,000. Who wants to read copied news when the original is just a click away?
Okay, you are a content freak. Why should someone spend 20 minutes of their precious life reading your intelligent but taxing post? They aren’t studying for an exam, you know. There are hundreds of sites to read from. Yours is only a speck in that mass. It is worse that your name rings no bell like Chinua Achebe’s.
Even when the reader sees a headline that looks promising and graciously clicks on it, don’t assume they will start reading the whole piece. No. Readers have become smarter. They first of all want to confirm that the write-up will be worth their while. How do they confirm that? By scanning.
Between 10 and 20 seconds they scan through your article. A maximum of 20 seconds! That’s all the chance you’ve got. And you better appeal to them within that period. If not, click! And they are off your blog. You’ve lost them. Since they’ve not read your article, they will not comment on it. They will not share it. They will not click on the like button. They will not tell any of their friends about it. They will not come back. They will not sign on to receive your newsletter. You won’t be able to sell anything to them. Have you seen why your blog is stagnant? Have you seen all you’ve lost?
So why does Linda Ikeji continue to get high traffic even though she is doing the same thing you are doing? It’s simple. The first-mover advantage. Coca-Cola is not the best-tasting cola drink in the market, neither is Guinness Foreign Extra Stout the best stout in town. If Linda Ikeji were to start a new blog today with a new name, doing the same thing she is doing in her current blog, she would be so unnoticed she would be depressed. No jokes.
So should bloggers of today stop wasting their time because the blogging positions are all taken? No. The truth is that despite the glut in the blogosphere, there are still opportunities for remarkable bloggers.
You have probably watched many so-called experts on TV or listened to them on radio with the feeling that you know better than these guys. Your problem is just that you have not been exposed. You don’t have a name that rings a bell, a name that opens door. No problem.
You can create such a name by concentrating on one aspect of life, reading about it deeply and writing exciting pieces that wow your readers. But mind you, nobody wants to do you the favour of making you a star. It’s your call. Yours alone.
Most of those who know you don’t want to get that feeling that you want to be a star. How can you be a star? Is it not Gideon with the rabbit’s ears? Gideon who picked his nose in school and just passed his exams by the whiskers? Is it not Agatha with the fat cheeks? Fashionless Agatha that no guy wanted to date? Star ko, Gulder ni!
So you want to have a blog and, like Caesar, bestride the narrow world like a Colossus for petty men to walk under your huge legs and peep and search for their miserable graves? What cheek! Your pals simply want to be friends with you on social media: they don’t want to “follow” you. Are you Jesus? Abegi!
As the owner of a blog or page, every subscriber or “like” you get must be earned. It’s no favour.
However, readers will care if you do the right thing, just as you care to read this “so long a letter”! You only need to learn the art of seduction. And do it like a Delilah! Entice them; flirt with them. And once they look in, bingo: ensnare them! Cuddle them. Caress them. Massage them. Take them on a journey filled with hills and valleys. Make them glide sometimes; make them gallop other times. And then bring them to a screeching halt, gasping for breath. Aaah!
They will love the experience. They will remember it for long. They will hanker for more and ask for more. They will stay with you. And they will tell their family and friends how sweet you are.
Even celebrities who would have turned you down before would gladly share your posts on their blogs or walls. Some would even ask you to be a guest contributor to their blogs, even though they could have rejected you and denied you the same request some months back.
How can you do this: not once, not twice, but always, every time, all the time? You can do this by acquiring the skills of magnetic writing. Magnetic writing is compelling writing. It pulls you like a magnet. Once you read the headline or first line, you are hooked and can’t stop until you have read the last line. Even after that, you want some more.
There is nothing as satisfying as writing and being read far and wide. There is nothing as gratifying as writing and touching lives. And who says that writers cannot earn good money through writing?
X: @BrandAzuka
Azuka Onwuka