8 Reasons why bloggers fail in their first year

Though there are various reasons why people blog, the main ones are: Passion of writing i.e. to share with the world what you know and to make money on your blog. Successful blogging needs dedication and patience on the part of the blogger.  In this article we look at some of the reasons why bloggers fail in their first year.  

Failing to promote the blog posts

Writing quality content without promoting it to the desired audience is one of the biggest mistake that any blogger can ever make. Getting people to read your content should be your main goal after hitting that publishing button. You should have plans and strategies on how to drive traffic to your blog way before you even publish your content. This will ensure that your content reach the right audience. Promotion may involve sharing it on Social media (Facebook, G+, Twitter, Pinterest),  submitting your articles to news feeds on popular websites. You can also submit your articles to Bookmarking sites like Pearltrees Reddit, Digg, BizsugarFlipboard, etc. Promoting quality content to reach the target audience is the key to successful blog.

Choosing not to write on your core niche

Passion is what keeps a person going even when things don’t seem not to be working. When you pick a niche that you are not passionate about, you will notice that, with time your drive towards it slowly deteriorates, this may include number of your posts you write over a given period of time reducing, or the quality going down. This will translates to reduction of the number of visitors to your site, and in some cases, your readers may stop completely from visiting your site. Therefore it is paramount you pick on a niche that you are passionate about to ensure that you don’t get run out of content or drive to keep writing quality content.

Blogging only for money

Reasons why bloggers fail

Making money on your blog shouldn’t be the main reason why you started your blog. When you are starting out on your blogging journey, your main focus should be growing your blog through writing of quality content then promoting it to the right audience. With a good blog, that has enough quality content and traffic then you can think of monetizing it. Successful blogging requires discipline and perseverance.

Not learning basic SEO

SEO is one important part of successful blogging. Optimizing your site for search engines is one aspect that is looked down by most new bloggers simply because most of them believe that is a difficult area that only tech savvy people can handle. SEO is something that anyone can easily learn and start implementing it immediately on his/her blog. I would recommend you read the following articles on SEO:

Running many blogs

Running plenty of blogs can be a challenging and daunting task. Blogging involves so many tasks like: Coming up with articles to write on through say research, writing, publishing and promoting the content. All these tasks are time-consuming, and can be very challenging if you have many blogs that you are running at the same time. It is better you focus on one blog but if you must have more than one, then ensure that it doesn’t affect the quality of content that you publish and promote.

Writing just for the search engines

Though search engines play an important role in driving free traffic to your blog, it is not advisable to write your content just for the search engines. Your readers should be the main focus. Try to find a balance between writing articles that your readers can open & read and at the same time rank high in search engines.

Not putting enough focus on quality

Try as much as possible to write original content, that you have done enough research on and you can back it up with relevant sources.  Quality content is what keeps your visitors coming to your site since they know they will learn something new from your posts.

Not keeping up with the latest developments

When you stop learning new things, then you would not be at par with the current trends and latest developments in your industry or niche. What you know may become outdated. When your visitors recognizes this, then they may stop visiting your site. Therefore keep learning, especially on the niche you are writing about.

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Comments

132 responses to “8 Reasons why bloggers fail in their first year”

  1. Such a great list! Being consistent with posting is definitely one I am working on.

    1. Hi Tracy, yes consistent in content writing is key to blogging success.

  2. Blogging only for money disrupts campaigns because bloggers who do this skip all the work – impatiently – required to actually earn income. Most become stuck in employee thinking that demands money for each action or for work completed, time-wise. Excellent blog post John.

    Ryan

    1. Hi Ryan, I concur with you, it seems every other blogger want to cash in very fast without putting in the work and dedication needed. It takes time, consistency and hard work to succeed as a blogger. Thanks for the insightful feedback.

  3. jimmy clare Avatar
    jimmy clare

    I agree with these mistakes

    1. Hi Jimmy, well noted. Welcome.

    2. I was encouraged by this post and will do my best not to make any of these mistakes. And you’re right! As soon as I made more effort & spent more time building quality posts, my clicks simultaneously increased!

  4. Awesome article. I like how you said writing quality content without promoting it to the desired audience is one of the biggest mistake that any blogger can ever make. Getting people to read your content should be your main goal after hitting that publishing button.

    I agree that one should have plans and strategues on how to drive traffic to your blog way before you even publish your content.

    Angela Giles | http://www.angelagiles.com

    1. Hi Angela, Yes that is where most bloggers get it wrong, you need to promote more than you write!

  5. Very informative post – thank you for sharing. 🙂

    – Nyxie

    https://www.nyxiesnook.com/how-to-practice-self-care-on-a-bad-day/

  6. Very important points for new bloggers . Content is the king and everything will be in track. Thanks for such informative article .

  7. thetinkerbug Avatar
    thetinkerbug

    Fantastic article with extremely useful information! A highly suggested read for all new bloggers!

    1. Thanks for the feedback.

  8. Definitely agree about quality writing! #GlobalBlogging

  9. Some good points here.
    I truly think that bloggers can’t ‘fail’ unless they lose sight of why they started in the first place. If you just write for you then failing is not an option. #globalblogging

    1. Yes Sophie, it all starts with having a passion, and writing around it. This should be the main driving force.

  10. Thank you for the tips. I really must up my SEO game so I’ve bookmarked your posts for later! Thank you! #GlobalBlogging

  11. HI John
    Thank you for sharing this insightful article. I agree with all the point you raised, they all contribute to the failure. In addition to what you already mentioned, I will say losing focus, lack of commitment, spreading your self all over the place as well as stop learning could also hinder the progress to success for the blogger. You need to follow once course until successful and do whatever it takes to get the results you after, whilst tweaking, reviewing and improving the tactics you are applying in your business. It is a continuous learning process.
    Keep up the good work.

    1. Hi Rabia, thank you so much for such an insightful feedback. Totally agree with you, it all boils down to focus and continuous improvement. You are most welcomed.

  12. […] 8 Reasons why Bloggers Fail from Business and Life Tips […]

  13. I have personally fallen into at least one of these traps! Great to have you link up at Booknificent Thursday on Mommynificent.com this week!
    Tina

    1. Thanks for dropping by again.

  14. I need to figure out this whole SEO thing, That is my weakness. I will check out some of your links. #thoughtfulthursday

    1. I Really appreciate your feedback. Most welcomed.

  15. I’m a firm believer in the value of organic traffic. I think that the quality of the traffic you drive to your blog is way more important than the quantity, so I aim to target an audience that is engaged and truly interested in our content. I agree that a good SEO strategy for a blog is paramount. I also agree that the main focus should always be the user experience and finding the perfect balance to write articles that would please both search engines and the readers should be the goal. Great post, John!

    1. Hi Lucrezia, am very grateful for your insightful comments on this post. Yes organic traffic is the best for any site, though it is the most challenging one to get since there are so many things you need to do make it happen, ranging from on-site SEO to off-site SEO. Also it takes time to build organic traffic but with good strategies in place and patience, I believe every blogger can benefit from free traffic from search engines otherwise, social media networks offers another good source of free traffic too but you need to be active and engage your followers to get and you have to write high quality articles that your desired audience can have interest in. So in a nutshell it requires a strategy with dedication to succeed.

  16. Joy in the Commonplace Avatar
    Joy in the Commonplace

    Very useful information!! I’m learning how important it is to promote my blog posts and keep up with the latest trends. I have a party ideas blog and the trends are always changing for sure.

    1. Yes, promoting your content is one of the important keys to success online. Thanks for reading.

  17. Thank you for the great tips! It’s good to have reminders of what I can try to do differently!

    1. Hey Cherrly, always grateful for your visit.

  18. Great tips! Really relatable and easily missed if not pointed out.

    1. Hi Saffiya, thanks for reading.

  19. Very helpful piece. SEO is still my biggest weakness and something that I’m always trying to figure out.

    1. Hi John, I too when I was starting out, had hard time figuring out what SEO was, but with constant reading of blogs, and research, I started learning slowly, then found the Yoast plugin, that makes it easy to optimize content on your blog. Am still learning it, so don’t worry but keep searching for information on the same or take a training.

  20. Great advise – thank you. I’ve bookmarked to read the links later x

  21. Lynn White Avatar
    Lynn White

    I completely changed my niche so I’m still trying to get the hang of the SEO. Great tips!

    1. Hey Lynn, thanks for reading.

  22. I think the only real failure is to quit…
    But other than that, the biggest one is not writing quality content and not promoting it.
    Then, of course you need SEO.
    The main problem is that new bloggers have no clue how to do this.
    They have no comparison, and they give up, maybe just before they became successful…
    One of my blogs, where I didn’t use any social media, started to get organic traffic after 5 months. Google is starting to love it.
    So don’t give up, keep going.
    After your figure out, it is so easy!

    1. Hi Peter, yes, patience is a virtue that many people tend not to have, I think even if after doing everything right, you can’t get the results overnight, it takes time to build a reliable traffic to any site.

  23. Great tips! I have noticed some of my Facebook group aren’t promoting as well as they use to. I need to look into other ways to promote.

    1. Hi, am glad you found this helpful. Thanks.

  24. I’m still in my first year of blogging. Thank you so much for sharing this. It helps new bloggers like me to work harder on my blog.

    1. Hi Priya, am more than happy to learn that this is helping more and more bloggers like you. Most welcomed.

  25. This is a very good summary that really nicely sums up everything a newbie needs to know.

    1. Hi, I appreciate your visit. Welcome.

  26. A lot of these are true for me! I am about to start my 5th year blogging so I never actually gave up, I just didn’t take it seriously, until now. I finally found my niche and am starting to connect with my readers and am becoming more excited to keep writing. Now I need to work on sharing my posts more and learn more about SEO. Thanks for sharing!

    1. Hi Rebecca, am very grateful for taking time to comment on the post. Yes, building a reliable audience base for your blog is one of the keys to successful blogging.

  27. justlovedella Avatar
    justlovedella

    Thank you so much for sharing this. Thankfully I made it through my first year but still learning something new every day.

  28. I’ve only been blogging around 11 months now, and I always love reading these sorts of posts because the information is invaluable and helps the new people like me strive to do better at meeting goals. Thanks for sharing! Good stuff here!

  29. Very interesting read!

  30. You are always on point. Giving nice tips that helps develop the blogging business

    1. Grateful for your visit.

  31. Great information I think this will help me with my blog!

  32. Goid info we all can use and remember. Thx!

  33. Great read for a new blogger like me. Thanks for sharing

    1. Hi Lacy, appreciated.

  34. As a new blogger, I found your post very helpful. Thanks for the great tips.

    1. Hi Christine, thanks for dropping by.

  35. Love these tips! Very helpful to those of us that blog.

    1. Hi Melinda, am grateful for your visit. Most welcomed.

  36. Great tips. It’s amazing how many people think that blogging is an easy thing to do and they want to make money quickly without investing the time and money into the process itself. I’m afraid it’s not all fun and game working on the laptop by the beach 🙂

    1. Hi Herlina, thanks for those insightful comments. Yes, many people get wrong only to discover later that it is not easy as they thought in the first place. You need to work hard and at the same time have patience to see really results.

  37. Great article – I am very new to blogging so found this very useful – thanks 🙂

  38. according to your article I have a good chance to survive my first year 😀 Great tips of things one should not do. The main thing for me is a lack of time to write more articles to give my readers fresh content on a more consistent basis. This is definitely a thing which needs to be improved. I hope I can find a way to post more regularly.

    1. Hi Pia, thanks for taking time to comment on this post. Consistent blogging keeps readers coming back over and over again.

  39. This is a really helpful post, I am focusing mostly on content as I want to help people rather than make a business out of it, it is just so hard getting your content out to people.

    1. Hi, yes content is the king but promoting the same enables it to reach the desired audience.

  40. Thanks for the great tips, I am currently making th ontent my main focus as I am blogging in order to help others rather than monetise. It is hard getting your message out there.

    1. Welcome. Keep working.

  41. Insightful. I’ll make sure I abide by these guidelines. Thanks for sharing 🙂

  42. Very good reminder. Many jump into blogging without thinking and quickly get burned out.

    1. Hi Vladimir, am grateful for dropping by again. Yes, blogging requires patience and dedication.

  43. Very helpful tips for me as I am very new to this blogging world. Submitting sites to digg, flipboard and other which I was not knowing is truly a friendly advice. I am submitting now only.

    1. Hi Yukti, it is good to share content with as many social media networks as possible but try to find out the best networks that are bringing in most results, then focus on those.

  44. Great tips. I’m still in my first year of blogging so I’ll take your advice into account.

  45. Thank you for sharing this! I’m struggling to improve the traffic in my blog and your linked articles where invaluable.

  46. Thanks for the useful reminders!!

  47. These are great tips! I know I need to step up my SEO game, so it’s great to have a few links to check out to get me started! Thanks!

    1. Hi Rob, am grateful for your comments.

  48. All true! I’d add inconsistency. Great post.

    1. Hi Mariella, thanks for the positive feedback.

  49. Some excellent tips. And I agree – you must be diverse and understand your personal brand to succeed with blogging. Great topic choice!

  50. I have not even made it through my first months and I am already struggling with some of these issues. Yes I am blogging for money because this is a way that I can create income. My wife is disabled and I am her caregiver. I know that this is going to take some time. But I want to be able to create enough income where we are not struggling all the time. Thanks for the info.

    1. Yes, you can make an income from a blog, but all you need to know before hand is that, it may take time to realise some reasonable income from it. Some bloggers make it faster others take time but this should not discourage. Keep working, and money will find you on the way.

  51. Great tips! Being in my first year of blogging for my new website (www.emulatingemily.com), these are all really helpful in keeping my attention focused on mistakes I may be making. 🙂

    1. Hi Emily, I appreciate your visit, am too on a learning curve. This is my first year of blogging. The more you blog, the better you become at it.

  52. I think Sharebloc is for sale.

  53. Hi John,
    Tweeted, following you, and I am off to read your SEO post you linked to. I am waiting for my tech guy to speed up my site. In the meantime, my SEO efforts seem to be pretty futile.
    Janice

    1. I think SEO is not a predictable way of getting traffic, but I understand it takes time to rank, In the meantime you can leverage on social media for traffic, though it requires so much time of promotion.

      1. We’re my comments in your spam folder?

        1. I use Akismet plugin, so all comments coming to my posts go to the spam folder first. I have to mark them as, “not spam”, to be seen.

          1. I use that plugin too but all my comments don’t go straight to spam. Thanks for taking it out.

  54. Thanks for sharing this post. I am learning but I must say, I have learnt a great deal today. Promoting my blog is what I’ve failed to do since I started but now I’m catching up. I would love to monetise my blog but at the moment I feel there is a lot to learn and I am not in a rush. Again, thanks for the insightful post.

    1. Hi, its good you are taking time to grow your blog. That should be the main focus when you are starting out. Money will come with time, since it all depends on the traffic otherwise thanks for your comments.

  55. Some good pointers here! very useful

  56. Great writing,very informational

  57. melanation00 Avatar
    melanation00

    Great tips. Promoting your blog is very important and content have to be high quality.

    1. Hi, thanks for dropping by again and for your comments on the post. Welcome.

  58. Great post, with great tips and links to extremely helpful resources! Learned a lot!

    1. Hi, your comments are appreciated.

  59. Great advice. New blogger here. It’s important to keep all of these in mind!

    1. Hi, thanks for your visit. Welcome.

  60. Great tips you are having here. I think failure to promote a blog is the major thing. Which is why I offer a free 7 days training on how to promote a blog.

    A great article you are having here.

    1. Hi Patrick, am grateful for your comments. Welcome.

  61. I am only just getting SEO focuses because I thought it was only for the tech savvy! Great post

  62. Great post! I used to make 7th mistake – not focusing on content quality. Later on I realized that my blog is basically filled with trash content and deleted all of the content. But I started it when I was like 14 years old and didn’t take blogging seriously at all. 🙂

    1. Hi, content is the king, if you get it right with the content, the only remaining hurdle is having it reach the desired audience. That is why quality content with right promotion translate to a successful blog otherwise thanks for dropping by.

  63. themindfulmomblographer Avatar
    themindfulmomblographer

    Really great tips and advice. I appreciate the additional links added for even more information!

    1. Hi, thanks for dropping by & your comments on the post.

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