11 Ways to Know When You Are Failing As A Blogger
It is easy to decide today that you want to start a new blog, it’s easy to decide that you want to make a thousand bucks before month end, it’s easy to say you want 1000 visits on your blog in the next 2 hours, and it is definitely very easy to decide to write 5 blog posts today etcetera, etcetera. The point I am trying to hit home is that goals and targets are one of the easiest things to make – the problem lies in taking the required action to reach our goals. The problem lies in “walking our talk”.
I know I am especially guilty of this. I have a habit of spending hours in the thought room drawing up the next big plan for my blog – the latest post series I want to embark on, the next Top List I want to compile or the title I would love to give to my yet uncompleted eBook. The usual thing is that after the extended period of planning and daydreaming I’ve put into my next big project, I would neatly close my diary hoping to come back to start work on it. Most times I never do.
This cycle has hurt my online presence in recent times and usually when I come back (the last time, I didn’t blog or promote my blog for about a month or so), it’s usually like starting all over again. The cycle of planning and failing to implement is just one of the many problems you would have to face as a blogger.
Here in this post I would list 12 things that will tell you you’re failing as a blogger… I hope it helps
1- You Can’t Motivate Yourself Enough To Write A Blog Post
You chose to become a blogger. A blog is an online journal that needs to be kept up to date; as a blogger it’s your primary duty to write blog posts or at least find someone to do that for you. I know there is the place of writers’ block where you can’t seem to come up with something no matter how hard you try, in that case find someone to provide a guest post.
If you can however, you can get a freelancer to do your writing when you are “away”.
[box type=”note”]It’s not compulsory you do the writing every time, just make sure someone else is.[/box]
2- Younger Blogs Are Outperforming Yours
The day prior to writing this post I came across a blog that was created around March 2010, which is 8 months older than mine. Within that period, this guy’s blog has published more than 10 times the number of posts I have on my blog, seriously. His Pagerank is twice that of my blog; I didn’t need to check other stats like comments, backlinks and the likes. Even though I knew I had not been doing enough, I still had a reason to be sad.
When you see other bloggers zoom past you, it should serve as a wake-up call and you should be ready to go back to the drawing board. That means there’s something they’ve learnt that you also need to learn.
[box type=”note”]If you’re unconcerned about how well your blog is doing, then maybe you shouldn’t blog at all.[/box]
3- You Now Need More Time To Write The Same Post
When I say the same post, I’m referring to a post of the same length as you’ve always written in the past. If your posts are known to be 1000 words long and it takes you two hours to complete, then the day it takes you four hours to complete, you should check yourself. There are however times when the topic you have to write about is pretty new and you need to gather information from different sources, I’m not referring to these types of posts.
[box type=”note”]The more you know, the less time you need to come up with a good blog post.[/box]
4- There is A Dip In Traffic
When fewer people come visiting, there could be loads of factors that could cause it but the usual culprits include:
- You’ve stopped blogging regularly.
- Your posts have become less engaging.
- You’ve lost sight of what your primary goal is with your blog.
- You keep repeating the same thing (or different things in the same format)
- You are suffocating them with one offer after the other
The evident point here is that visitors leave when you lose focus.
[box type=”note”]When people stop visiting your blog, it simply means someone else has caught their attention.[/box]
5- You Have Fewer Comments
When you get people to visit your blog that’s when they can read your posts, and unless they read your posts and find it helpful they won’t leave comments on your blog. If you see your comment count dropping, you should look to improve the quality of your posts. Experiment with new post formats.
[box type=”note”]Get your Visitors engaged and you wouldn’t need to ask them before they drop their comments.[/box]
6- You Are Not Stepping On Anybody’s Toes
You can’t be everybody’s friend. If you say what everyone else has said, your voice wouldn’t be heard. There are so many blogs today that for you to get noticed, you need to swim against the tide. Almost every blog has a post dedicated to explaining what a blog is all about; try to go one better.
One of the ways to know if your blog is making waves is by the number of eyebrows you raise. You shouldn’t try to please everybody every time, people love originality.
[box type=”note”]Kick against the norm, but be sure you’re right otherwise…[/box]
7- There Is A Blip In Your Earnings
When you can’t get people to get out there credit cards and buy things from you, then that might mean they don’t trust you enough. Again the bottom line here is engagement – when you engage your readers you’re building up the trust they have for you. The Rule of 7 claims that, “for you to get someone to buy, the person needs to hear about the product 7 times”. If your earnings is falling, this might be what you need to do.
[box type=”note”]Going by the Rule of 7, if you tell your readers about a product six times and you leave them alone, someone else will get them to buy at the first time of asking.[/box]
8- You Have Started Depending Solely on Guest Posts
I hope Hesham wouldn’t mind that I’m including this, but even then he doesn’t depend solely on guest posts.
You need to have attained a certain level of authority before you do this – just as is the case at FamousBloggers, Problogger, or YoungPrePro. These guys have worked their socks off to attain that level of success and now they can at least rest.
But if all that has ever been published on your blog are guest posts (even if the blog is about guest posting), you would find it seriously difficult to get your feet on the ground.
[box type=”note”]Build a following first; you will have enough time to rest later.[/box]
9- When Everything Is Going As Planned
I know this is an extreme case but I feel it should still be included. If your blog is going according to the plan you laid down on Day 1 (that is, you give very little if any room for change), you might need to have a rethink.
Let’s assume that your blog started in 2005, before the social media boom where there was no room for Facebook advertising or Twitter marketing; imagine you were using the old website templates available then and imagine you didn’t have any provision for themes and plugins on your blog. Where do you think such a blog would be now? My guess is as good as yours.
[box type=”note”]The only constant in blogging (as with almost any other thing) is change. Ignore or resist it and you’ll be fighting a lost cause.[/box]
10- You Step On Too Many Toes
While it’s not the best idea to go with the tide, things wouldn’t get any better if you cause other boats to capsize just because you want to cause a stir. I would advise you have a clear cut policy as to what you allow or believe and what you don’t. There’s a thin line between being different and going nuts.
[box type=”note”]Stepping on toes is allowed in the game, just be careful because the toes you step on today might be connected to the bum you have to kiss tomorrow.[/box]
11- You Make Google Frown At You
Google is the biggest search engine and they will continue to lead search at least in the foreseeable future. If due to your zeal to make things work you take some voodoo-like measures (I mean black hat SEO), All I would say is, “You’ve definitely lost your way as a blogger”. Sometimes you need to come out clean. It’s for all our sakes.
[box type=”note”]If Google decides to take you on, you’re on your own because as you are all aware, I didn’t say anything. Lol[/box]
If you found this post helpful or maybe interesting, or it may be that you have a question, please feel free to drop a comment below.
Have a Lovely Day!
Image © Scott Hancock – Fotolia.com
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