Let’s all be honest here. Building a blog is hard work. You want to be heard. You want your words to touch the hearts of others, educate them, and make them laugh, or even inspire them to do something that they would never have done if not for your blog post.
However, just when you think that you’ve finally gotten everything into perspective and you’re ready to lay down the rain and hit the publish button, you discover that the font size isn’t to your liking, or that your theme would look better if it were red instead of blue.
So you put it off and refuse to publish until you get those little annoying tidbits in order.
In other words, nothing gets done until you take care of the menial tasks that really aren’t that important.
Sound familiar?
Could it be, perhaps, that the very idea of actually owning a blog has become so daunting that you’re finding yourself scrambling over eggshells trying to get everything perfect?
Or maybe you’re unintentionally putting a lot of work into the wrong things because you’re afraid of actually succeeding?
Whatever your reason is, if you haven’t reached the level of success that you had planned for your blog, chances are you’re doing at least one of the five things outlined below.
So what are these 5 monstrosities that are causing so many people to fail?
Lack of Clarity
I’m pretty sure the idea of stumbling around for months on end not having a clue about what it is that you want out of your blog is downright insane right?
Strangely enough this is the state of most bloggers online.
Perhaps this could even be you right now.
Maybe your blog’s intention is a little blurry right now and that’s ok.
To fix your feelings of confusion and frustration, just take out a pen and paper, and write down your goals for your blog.
Who do you want to write for? Be as specific as you can because every niche has its own little sub-groups that you can appeal most to. Remember that you can’t please everyone, so pick a topic that you’re so passionate about that the sheer level of excitement you elude when it’s brought up freaks people out.
Oh and that’s not exaggerated by the way. You need to be giddy about your topic or you’re either going to bore yourself to death down the line, quit, or make your writing suffer.
Why are you blogging? Do you want to earn commissions for affiliate products? Or do you want to become the next social media sensation and create your own little community?
What are your goals? Be as specific as you can and set yourself a deadline. I’m not sure about you, but unless I set myself a deadline and the goal has a specific figure, I’m pretty much going to be a horrendous procrastinator the whole way through.
Trying to Copy Someone Else
I’m sure you have a few blogs that you visit on a regular basis because you aspire to be like them, their content just rocks your socks off, or you find yourself unable to click away because their headlines are doing a hell of a job seducing you to stay for eternity.
It’s all good and normal to learn from the best of the best. We all do that.
However, it’s something else to want to become their creepy doppelganger.
I can see why the idea would be so tempting. Copy what’s working right now and you will have their level of success too right?
That’s only true to a certain extent.
The heart and soul of a blog is the content itself, which is created through the unique voice of the writer. You can copy the marketing strategies that the big guys are using, but you can never pull off trying to sound like them.
So why waste your energy trying to be someone you’re not? Wouldn’t you rather your audience fall in love with your voice instead?
Spending too Much Time on the Little Things
It’s easy to get carried away with the overall design of a blog.
I can’t even begin to tell you how many hours I wasted on picking a theme for my blog and playing around with the widgets functions. However, I was spending so much time focusing on the little things that I neglected writing and producing altogether.
It doesn’t matter how crappy your website looks at the moment, or what ads you have placed on it. The most important thing you need to worry about is the quality of the content.
That’s it.
Don’t overwhelm yourself with all the other stuff for now. It will all fall into place later on.
People like David Wood, and Rob Fore have made life changing incomes from their less than impressive looking blogs when they started.
Why? They focused on creating the best content that they could have and didn’t let the small things get in the way.
Being Selfish
Too many bloggers out there are just plain self centered when it comes to creating their content.
Fair game that some of the posts that you will be writing will have personal stories about you to prove a point, or provoke an emotional response out of your readers, but remember that you’re creating content to primarily help your readers.
Writing a post complaining about why WordPress is confusing, or why you don’t have any subscribers yet isn’t helping anybody, let alone yourself.
For every piece of content that you create, you must always put your reader’s interests and problems above your own.
Giving Up Too Early
It’s very easy to throw in the towel when the going gets tough.
In fact that’s what the majority of people do. And you don’t want to put yourself in that category now do you?
Every successful blogger that you have heard about started off just like you. Overwhelmed and frustrated yet there was always that spark of intense desire to make it work no matter what.
Success isn’t owed to you.
It’s a rite of passage.
It’s something that is rewarded to those who outlasted all the others who gave up because they couldn’t handle the heat.
So no matter how many technical difficulties pop up, or how it may seem like you aren’t having any impact yet in the blogosphere, it’s only a matter of time and how much effort you put into it that determines your outcome.
Building a blog is hard work , but so long as you remain focused and have that burning desire for success, you’re going to get there one day.
Do you think that there are mistakes other bloggers are making that I haven’t mentioned here yet? Or have you made any of these mistakes yourself?