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5 reasons content creators must be persistent

Posted by / November 1, 2013

Perseverance Road Sign

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” is a cliche we’ve all heard from our earliest days, but if you’re in the business of content creation, it’s more important than ever to heed that advice.

Nick Whitmore of ContentWriting.org explains five ways persistence pays off working in the online world at Copyblogger, providing the perfect inspiration to keep on creating.

1. You can make more money

When I first started blogging for clients, I didn’t know how much my service was worth.

The first job I ever completed for a client was something like 50 product reviews at 700 words each for $150. It took me a good two weeks to complete the job. I’d massively underestimated the task.

I took a good hard look at myself and decided to set firm rates.

My rates were fair. They ensured that I was working for a sum I was happy with, which in turn meant that the work I completed would be of the highest standard.

Naturally, people tried to barter with me. At first I went along with it, until I realized there was no need to compromise.

Today I enforce my rates with persistence.

No longer do I bow to demands from clients for X, Y, or Z rate. I work to my own rates.

Sure, work was slow at first when I started to be persistent (and insistent) about my rates, but over time it has allowed me to make more money.

2. Because Rome wasn’t built in a day

About a year ago a friend asked me to set up a blog for him. He wanted to blog about cars and motorbikes. A week or so after handing over the reins to him I asked him how it was all going.

Amazingly, he’d given up.

“I’m not getting any traffic,” he explained. “I’ve got no followers on Facebook or Twitter, and no one is reading what I’ve written.”

Naturally, I said, “Woah! Hang on a minute … your site has been online for a week, your first post only went up five days ago, and you’re downhearted because you haven’t seen traffic in the space of just a few days?”

It turns out he’d read some “make a million dollars overnight with your own blog” ebook. When he didn’t get any traffic in the first week, he decided it was a bit too much like hard work and threw in the towel.

I’m confident that if he had persisted his blog would have been very successful.

On the flip side, I know bloggers who write for their own sites in niches like stock trading and sports betting. Their persistence has driven them to revenues of $10,000+ per month in affiliate sales. Sure, it might have taken time to see their first decent pay check, but their belief in what they were doing paid dividends — literally.

A lack of persistence will shave off 99 percent of your competition. Make sure you’re an exception. Make sure you’re in the 1 percent that does persist.

Full story at Copyblogger.

How to succeed as a freelancer.

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