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.
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, Bizsugar, Flipboard, etc. Promoting quality content to reach the target audience is the key to successful blog.
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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.
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.
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:
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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.
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.
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.
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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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.
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.
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
Thanks for dropping by again.
I need to figure out this whole SEO thing, That is my weakness. I will check out some of your links. #thoughtfulthursday
I Really appreciate your feedback. Most welcomed.
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!
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.
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.
Yes, promoting your content is one of the important keys to success online. Thanks for reading.
Thank you for the great tips! It's good to have reminders of what I can try to do differently!
Hey Cherrly, always grateful for your visit.
Great tips! Really relatable and easily missed if not pointed out.
Hi Saffiya, thanks for reading.
Very helpful piece. SEO is still my biggest weakness and something that I'm always trying to figure out.
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.
Great advise - thank you. I've bookmarked to read the links later x
Welcome.
I completely changed my niche so I'm still trying to get the hang of the SEO. Great tips!
Hey Lynn, thanks for reading.