Most bloggers fail because they talk only about themselves. It’s a ego thing. They think that if they make themselves look super-successful and important, people will want to work with them. This is true, to an extent. There will always be insecure people who are attracted to confident personalities. Is this the market niche your are targeting? If so, keep it up. But be aware that such people tend to be indecisive and have less money to spend.

The opposite of this “me! me! me!” scenario can also be a problem. Some bloggers are so insecure about publishing their own thoughts for fear of rejection and ridicule, that they don’t put any of their personality into their site at all. We’ve all happened upon blogs with a handful of posts cut-and-pasted from some other news source. A good tell-tale of this sort of blog is 10-20 news-y postings with the last article posted 6 months ago. Clearly this person posted a bunch of “content,” saw no result after a few weeks, and gave up.

As a service-oriented professional, the reason to blog is to make people aware of you, and over time, encourage them to trust you. Bragging doesn’t encourage trust. Merely reposting other people’s ideas doesn’t encourage trust. In fact, both approaches could totally backfire and the reader may become aware of you in a negative way.

So, take inspiration from news you think your niche should be aware of and add your own slant on it. Have an opinion about whether it is good news or bad news for your readers and why they should care. Invite them to engage with you in the comments or better yet on the phone or in person. And for pete’ sake create a likable about page with contact info! If you are doing things correctly, your about page will be the most visited page on your blog. (“Who is this person?”) Once they trust you, your conversations are destined to be more enjoyable — and possibly more profitable.

So what are you building trust with your readers? Do you get business directly from your blog, or does it just warm leads for you? If a reader wants to talk with you more, can they easily figure out how to reach you?

Thanks to Derek Halpern at DIYThemes for the video and original concept.