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Home » The Famous Blog » 3 Secrets of Successful Blogging that the Big Players are Not telling You

3 Secrets of Successful Blogging that the Big Players are Not telling You

July 22, 2011 - Last Modified: August 26, 2011 by Marya 1,964

Successful Blogging

There was a time when I used to get highly inspired as I came across yet another highly successful blog, with an astronomical number of subscribers – always in thousands – proudly displayed at a point where your eye is sure to go first.

They’ve got a great design, I’ll admit.

They have a compelling about me page that I can relate to. I can do that, I’ll reassure myself.

They have fantastic content that I can’t do without. Hmm – let’s see. I have been a writer for a number of years. Heck I was a marketer and lawyer in my past life. With these set of skills I am sure to produce some content worth reading and should persuade a few readers to subscribe.

So why is it that I am a few months in, and most ‘successful’  blogs are proving to be anything but inspirational. I look at them and it’s downright depressing.

Feeling crappy is not a good feeling, let me tell you. And I only feel that because I feel cheated.

I feel like I have been led on. I have been lied to and I do not like being made to feel like a loser who has 7 subscribers. In total.

Why is that most successful bloggers act like blogging is a piece of cake – that you can go from zero to hero with minimal effort, in a short amount of time.

If not, something is wrong with you. You are not good enough and your content is certainly not worth getting excited about.

What a load of crap.

Most successful bloggers are LYING – when they say that blogging is easy – or suggest this. And in the process, they are making me want to crawl under my covers and never come out.

If you have been made to feel like that, don’t sweat. You are not alone and know that you can do it – eventually – with tons of hard work.

Blogging Is Hard – With A Capital H

“It took me a few months to go from 4 subscribers to 4329.” This is the general message that most successful blogs are proudly saying, in your face.

“Learn how I got blah blah blah number of subscribers in under 12 months”. Insert an insanely high number here.  Many seem to be shouting at us.

And poor newbies – like I was not too long ago – begin to question our sanity. What made me get into this?- we are scratching our heads. I must be doing something wrong. We think. Seems like I am the only one who can’t get more than 5 people to subscribe – mum, dad, my two children and the cat.

Blogging Success Takes Time

Have you a heard a story where a blogger launched a blog and got thousands of subscribers within a month?

What you don’t know is, before launching their blog, he began networking with other bloggers. He started commenting on their blogs, sent offers of help, and started building  online connections even before he even touched a ‘publish’ button. People knew him well and ‘helped him out’ . When he finally did launch his blog – it had been well over a year or so, and he was ready to go with all his networks firmly in place.

Great strategy yes – but don’t insult us by pretending that you had all the success within a month of publishing a few posts.

To me this is starting your blog, and then taking one year to reach the same stage. It amounts to exactly the same thing.

To say that it took you a month to become highly successful is just plain wrong. You are misleading new bloggers who give up within a year because they did not understand that the first year of blogging is – a killer.

It takes bucket loads of hard work and education to produce good content, make it look good, and then make sure other people know about it. Having a thick skin doesn’t hurt either.

You Can’t Do It Alone

You cannot have a successful blog on content alone. Doesn’t matter if Shakespeare personally descended from the heavens to give you his blessing.

You need some marketing and lots of SEO.

You need people to be on your side.

If you have been led to believe that you just need to produce ‘killer’ content, and other people will link to … well …

Give me a second to finish my hysterical laugher as I try to stop rolling and screaming on the floor.

Now, where were we? Yes, marketing. You need to ‘somehow’ let people know that you have indeed awesome content on your blog.

Imagine your blog is a party and you are the new kid in town. You need to go to other parties first before people will come to yours.

You also need to befriend other popular people throwing successful parties who will spread the word about your cool party.

If you don’t wanna join in, you might as well sit alone at your party and sing along to …

[box type=”yellow”]It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to, cry if I want you …. You will cry too if this happened to you.[/box]

Care to dance to the tune? 🙂

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Filed Under: Blogging, How To Blog

About Marya

Follow @WritingH

Marya is an online copywriter and freelance blogger. She offers quirky insights into personal development for bloggers. Catch more of her posts at Writing Happiness. For practical tips and inspiration, read Give Your Blog a Complete Makeover - 18 Action Steps to the Path of Blogging Success. Follow her @WritingH.

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{ 43 Responses }

  1. Cynthia says:
    I love love this article. Just stumbled on it out of fraustration. Someone told me he would give me secrets of how he started making over 1200 dollars monthly from his blog after just 6months. I have been running mine for 6months and get an average of 1,000 viewers daily but i felt frustrated when i read the guy's success story in just 6months. Asked him for the tips but he wants me to pay. Then i went on google and found this. You dont know how releived i am with this article. Now i will read more acticles and keep exploring. Thank you!
  2. Jane says:
    Nice post. Sure, content is not the only thing. Marketing & Tie-ups play a key role too.
  3. Samuel says:
    Blogging is very hard. I am going to spill out there. It takes time too. I love this article. This article spills out the truth like a pro! Congrats!
  4. Trung Nguyen says:
    I total agree with you at the points that blogging is hard and takes time to succeed. If we treat blogging as business (it do - because we can get profit from it), I think we all know that it's not easy to maintain our business, and we can't succeed at the beginning, business needs time to get result, blogging needs it too. That's why blogging is not for everyone.
  5. Steve Hughes says:
    It is far from easy, and we really knew before we started that it was difficult. Yet we were still a bit surprised how hard it is when reality hit. It is a grind. It isn't sexy. It can be frustrating than so rewarding, but it's a grind. Enter with caution into the world they call blogging...
  6. Olamide says:
    People must be reasonable enough to know that great things don't come quite easily. It requires long long time, quality content, and commitment to embrace success in blogging. I hv bn blogging for a while now and d only 3 subscribers i hv attracted so far are me, me, me. Gr8 post!
  7. Mia says:
    Hi Marya, Thank you for that wonderful post.It really mean so much to me cause i am one of a frustrated blogger.:) Thanks, Mia
  8. AstroGremlin says:
    Marya, I have my doubts about us regular bloggers competing with "the big players" as you call them. My post below talks about automated techniques to driving traffic and asks whether a manual approach can compete. I would be interested in your opinion.
  9. MsKatrina says:
    Sometimes the difficult part is convincing friends and family that your blog is a "real" business and not just a hobby or, worse, a waste of time and money.
    • Marya says:
      I think given time you can silence all the skeptics. Plod on ...
  10. Hemen says:
    very true Marya, successful blogging is really a hard nut to crack. i can say this because of my two month's experience in blogging :)
    • Marya says:
      I would say that the first year alone is the hardest. Good luck.
  11. Jym says:
    Marya - Love this point and there's been moments in the past year where I wish I'd had someone tell me this. Increasingly, I'm finding top bloggers who are fairly transparent about this though - Darren Rowse is one mentioned in an earlier comment, and there's others too. More than once though, I've run across claims like those you've mentioned here. Yet upon further digging - the blogger in question is on blog number three after 5 years hard slog blogging and $20k+ on copywriting, media and SEO course. Oops. Small omission there Mr/Ms top blogger! Well done and thanks for speaking up about this. Hope it falls upon the ears who need it most.
    • Marya says:
      Hey Jym. You are right when you say there are many who are quite open about how hard it actually is to make it as a successful professional blogger and then there are some who are just talking about how their blogs skyrocketed/exploded blah bah - all the time. Usually these people are ones who are desperate to be top bloggers but are not there as yet. Glad to know that I am not the only one who gets sucked into their talk. Thanks for your thoughts. :)
  12. Felicia Biggins says:
    Thank you!! I started my blog in earnest in July and I'm reading everything I can about SEO (and implementing suggestions) but still have inconsistent traffic. Now I know to take a deep breath, keep plugging away and eventually I'll turn a corner.
    • Marya says:
      Yes, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Cheers
  13. Anoop Sudhakaran says:
    This is the hilarious line I read on this blog! "Seems like I am the only one who can’t get more than 5 people to subscribe – mum, dad, my two children and the cat." LOL! btw its an eye opener post! :)
    • Marya says:
      Thank you. I am happy to report that now I have more than 5. :)
  14. Mitch Devine says:
    So true. Another way to build your network (in addition to leaving comments, etc.) is through writing guest posts for other blogs. Props to Jon Morrow for enlightening me to this strategy and turning it into a whole course (Guestblogging). Cheers!
  15. Amani says:
    This is a great post for motivation. The bottom line is, blogging is hard and a lot of efforts need to contributed especially time to make it successful.
    • Marya says:
      Yes, it is bloody hard. I should know, I have given up so many times. :)
  16. Gautam Doddamani says:
    wow marya. great article...i loved all your points...u write so good. shakespeare descendance was a gud point and also blogging starts with a H. a 5 star for this article! thanx i a m also new in blogging town...wel an average one! :) :D
    • Marya says:
      Thank you Gautam. You should have a look at my blog if you haven't do so already. Plenty of things to keep you inspired. :)
  17. satrap says:
    I think the biggest secret is that blogging is hard. Unfortunately with all the hypes and lies about making money as blogger and how easy it is, lots of people will fail because they dont realize that it actually takes a lot of work and not just sitting around.
    • Marya says:
      I agree totally. Too much hype on the net, one needs to be very careful. It is a jungle out there. :)
  18. Steve says:
    I like the SEO discussion. Seems like you need to network in addition to writing great content or your content will not be linked to as often as it needs to be for rankings.
    • Marya says:
      Thanks Steve. Networking is extremely important. I do not worry about links, as it is out of my control anyway, I just like to make friends to have people on my side. It gets very lonely otherwise. I do guest posting in the way of approaching people, this benefits everybody.
  19. Jamie Northrup says:
    Interesting article Marya, I really think you're right, that you need other people to be successful, networking in my opinion is the single most important aspect of being successful online, specially as a blogger, you need friends to help market you, whether it be through social media, word of mouth, by email, or guest posting, you need to enlarge your circle, and not just in Google + lol As for the lying part, I'm sure some do and some don't, it's up to you to decide who you trust if anyone.
    • Marya says:
      Hi Jamie, in the beginning, bloggers should be spending more time networking with other bloggers, the ratio should be something like this, blogging 30% networking 70% (connecting on social media, leaving comments on posts, doing guest posts etc etc). In time though, this won't require too much effort as the ball starts rolling. Then you can switch the numbers around. Or so I have been told. :) Thanks for your comment.
      • Jamie Northrup says:
        Yeah I've heard the same thing too, hope the numbers can switch down the road, although I like both blogging and networking ;)
  20. Rodney C. Davis says:
    I do believe this post is on target. I've just finished reading Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett's "Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income," and they say more or less the same thing up front. I was actually skeptical about blogging for money until I read this. Rowse makes no bones about the fact that he actually never went viral. It took him close to 8 years to get to the higher echelons. Sure he's got big numbers, but his point is that compared to the sweat equity he put in, his numbers are not surprising at all. I'm rolling up my sleeves, picking my way as fast as I can up the learning curve, and made up my mind to be in this for the long haul. Thanks for the post.
    • Marya says:
      Rodney, thanks for confirming it for me (and others) that setting up a blogging business is indeed hard work - just like any brick n mortar business. It's interesting to know that Darren Rowse took such a long time as well, and then admitted it publicaly. What a refreshing idea - to actually let people know that you can't get success overnight. Who would have thought ... :)
  21. amit sharma says:
    First of all big player`s secrets are revealed here, thanks a ton for that :), very inspiring article for a newbie like me..And the second point "Blogging Success takes time" is worth reading..I`ve been blogging since an year and that made me understand this point in a much better way..thanks for the nice share :)
    • Marya says:
      Thank you Amit. I am new-ish as well and that'e even more the reason to write about things such as this, while the feeling is still fresh. Cheers for your feedback. ")
  22. Brian L says:
    Well said Ms. Maya! I thought I was the only one who thought blog writing is hard. I am following another avid social media blogger, Pam Lawhorne, who blogs DAILY! I find it challenging to blog weekly. Though I am running two totally different types of blogs. One is for my IT business and the other is related to a website I author, criminalthinking.net. Your catchy headline made me read more. Keep up the good work. :)
    • Marya says:
      Thanks Brian. I think all talented writers find writing very hard. The mediocre ones think its a breeze ... Won't say any more for the fear of getting into a lot of trouble ... heheh
  23. Ryan Biddulph says:
    Hi Marya, #3 resonates with me. Reaching out and networking makes our job much easier. Give before you try taking. Sow before you reap. Share other blogger's content, leave value packed comments and many do the same for you. Just be sure to give with no strings attached, freely. Thanks for sharing your insight. Ryan
    • Marya says:
      Thanks Ryan. Your comment is much appreciated. :)
  24. El Edwards says:
    Do you really believe the big players don't be honest about this stuff? Don't get me wrong, it's a compelling headline and so I totally understand why you went with it but in my experience, many of the 'big players' *are* telling this stuff. Or maybe I've just been really fortunate in the bloggers I've come into contact with?
    • Marya says:
      Hi there. No I do mean what I say. As a new blogger, the general impression one gets is that blogging is easy or at least if one is good, we can go places. People forget to tell that we need a whole lot of people cheering for us to have any chance of success at all. What I have learnt is not to believe people when they suggest that it took them a few months to get a few thousand subscribers. Unless they are not including the time they spent forming connecions PRIOR to that. Thanks for your feedback :)
  25. Marya says:
    Thanks Dave. :)
  26. Dave Lucas says:
    How do you know Shakespeare made it to heaven? LOL! You are absolutely correct. Blogging is all about camaraderie and community! Blog On!

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