Making money through blogging means little if you lose your reputation.
I recall a well known blogger making an honest, helpful but reputation-destroying admission when I first began blogging a long time ago.
He admitted that he was not the 6 figure blogger he claimed to be.
I give him credit for admitting that he was lying. In the same breath, he lost his reputation and vanished from the online world for a while, adding years to his learning curve.
Follow these tips to profit through blogging while keeping your good reputation.
Video
Watch this video with my friend Alonzo Pichardo as we discuss how to make money online the right way.
1: Learn from Reputable Bloggers
Learn from reputable, authentic, genuine bloggers who blog with integrity.
Be who those folks are being to build a thriving blog with integrity.
By learning from those folks who are honest and helpful you naturally take on these qualities yourself.
Even more importantly; you will avoid the lying, deceiving ways and shadiness taught and spread by unscrupulous bloggers.
Water under the bridge stuff here, but when I started out online I noted a few mentors who seemed to evade me. I had no clue in hell what I was doing so I blindly followed what little advice said mentors served me.
For the heck of it I Googled one of these individuals the other day. Turns out, a few years after I was introduced to the individual, he was being sued by Facebook.
No judgments. We all make mistakes. But of course the guy was on that trajectory for the practices he was engaging in, including being very dodgy and shady with new online entrepreneurs who needed his help.
Follow successful, prospering, reputable, heart-centered, kind mentors to become a reputable, prospering blogger.
2: Make Your Buzzword: Service
Give all of your energy to giving.
The getting becomes so much easier.
Traffic and money will flow your way with ease.
Even better? You will avoid all the shady, reputation-killing practices that arise when your fears goad you to focus too much on getting.
Free givers prosper.
I am so busy having fun and showing love with giving that I have little time to think of getting. Naturally, opportunities and ideas and money and traffic and friendships flow my way with increasing ease.
Being in this service vibe inspires me to do things with love.
Doing things with love makes it impossible for you to lose your reputation. You never lie, deceive or cheat anybody when you treat them with love and kindness because the only way you lie is due to acting from fear, scarcity and desperation.
Serve. Love.
Spend your whole blogging day looking out for others. Spend your whole blogging day loving, and helping, and nurturing and serving.
Make your blogging day about service. Money will flow your way over the long haul. As it flows in, you will keep your good rep intact.
3: Do Not Lie
This is perhaps the easiest way to keep your blogging integrity while earning a sweet online income.
Do not lie.
Never, ever, ever lie. Do not make false income claims. Do not promise some claim you have no attained personally.
Some bloggers post advertisements on their sidebar promising how to teach you to earn $1000 a day. Many of these bloggers have never earned that amount personally so this is lying. No way around that.
If you lie, you are screwed. Eventually you will be outed. Your rep will suffer. Even if nobody finds out about your lying, you will feel crappy about not being 100% clear and truthful, which will leak into your blogging campaign.
Always tell the truth.
Maintain a positive, loving blogging reputation.
Your Turn
How do you blog with integrity?
How do you boost your blogging reputation?
What tips can you add to this list?