I am sure that you have contradicted yourself before but I am not sure whether you have done so on the Internet. Today’s Internet needs us to voice up our views through blogs, comments on news and articles, forum discussions and even the online expertise you teach during offline sessions.

What Is Contradiction?

Contradiction basically is a term to describe a situation where you have two statements but the two statements are “attacking” each other. The two statements will be something like “My sword can slash through anything” and “My amour can protect me from any slashing of sword”.

Why Are We Discussing Contradiction?
If you are a blogger, I am sure you have written a lot in terms of postings to your blog and comments on other blogs. With the Internet is changing so fast and for those for are like me (going through the maturity stage), we will see things differently from what we have seen and maybe told people earlier.

I will be worrying about the trust that you had placed on me if I am poked by someone who tells the whole world that I am contradicting myself. On one day, I could have said that Google Adsense is just nothing but maybe one year later, I could have said that Google Adsense is my best money maker.

It is the credibility that I may lose that makes me worry. If we, as a blogger don’t have credibility as thought by others, people that come to our blog, expecting the credibility to be fulfilled will leave.

For example, I visit a blog with the reason that the person is making thousands of dollars from affiliate marketing as I have known through the person’s earnings report which he published that shows his main income is from affiliate marketing. What if suddenly someone poked out with proof that the earnings pie charts and PayPal account screenshot is actually being MADE?

We might also be writing our article on our blog but when we bloghop and comment, we give another statement which is firing at our own words in our blog.

How to Get Around This?
Keeping yourself away from contradiction is the best but what if you are contradicting yourself long ago before even you are reading this?

• Admit. The proof is there and if you say no, you might be adding the word “dishonest” on you in the eyes of others.
• Explain. Why have you contradicted yourself? What makes the difference between your statement in a place and the other?
• Conclude. What your followers want right at the end will be what your final say is. Do you mean A is good or bad then? Tell them the using a firm word, good OR bad, not good AND bad.

The harm will definitely be made on your credibility right at the moment you contradict yourself but what we want now is at least get some of the confidence of our visitors back.

How to Not Contradict Myself?
I have been doing these for a while now since I find that it is sure for me to have contradicted myself in the past or if not, I may contradict myself in the future.

I now share the ways that I do to keep myself away from contradiction.

• Visit Your Archives
  It is important to visit your Archives frequently to update the information and check if the outgoing links have been broken. You can be doing this during your idle time but in terms of the holding your credibility high up, reviewing your Archives frequently can reaffirm a stand of yours to keep yourself away from contradiction.
• Think Twice Before Posting Anything
  Before you click on the ‘Publish’ button in your blog post editor or the ‘Say It’ button in other blogs’ comment section, reread your statement and think of it. Although you will need more time if you want to this, it will be worth it if you don’t get bashed up by your readers for contradicting yourself.

  As a commentator on other blogs, don’t contradict yourself with your comments even though you yourself may be blogging on another niche. This is important as I say in my 6 Arts Of Commenting On Articles that you will need to comment wisely to build yourself a reputation.

I have a personal blog. Do I need to maintain credibility?

If you have a blog, you are assumed to have a platform to transmit information. A comment on a restaurant, a movie review, a rant about a person might change from time to time and you might find yourself contradicting yourself sometimes. Although the slap you get might not be as hard as those who are niche blogging but you might have visitors that come because of your reputation and credibility. Remember, people read you because they trust you, even if it is just a personal blog.

Closing This Off
I wrote this because I just saw a commentator in my niche who is commenting on blogs and he is contradicting himself with some of his comments. He might not realize it and maybe this is some kind of marketing strategy that is not known by me but his actions spark me the idea of writing this.

In real life or online, did you contradict yourself before? What will you say or do in order to explain yourself? What will you do if people contradict themselves? Tell me about it and share with me your experiences on these.

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