Blogging has become a serious business. More and more bloggers are getting into the sphere and things look very healthy at surface.
But if we take a deep look inside the so-called blogosphere, there are numerous (yes, numerous) bloggers who are struggling to make a single dollar with their blogs.
Now, before you ask a question, let me make myself clear. Yes, I’ve titled this post to be about “blogging success“. You may ask, does blogging success merely relate to money? Of course not!
But when a blogger is struggling to make money and is indeed worried about the same, his/her blogging success is probably in question.
OK now let me get back to the first paragraph. There are numerous bloggers who struggle to gain recognition. They struggle to get blog readers. They struggle to get attention in social media and other places. Yes, they want others to share their blog posts, but that never happens.
Comments, blog posts going viral, clients, authority, products being sold like hot cakes, payments coming into bank account from affiliate commissions – all these happen in the sweetest dreams of many bloggers! But sadly, none of those happens in reality.
Here comes the most important bit, please pay attention.
Most bloggers approach me after they’re already blogging for a few months telling me that they don’t know what their interest is and they don’t know “how” to make money with their blog!
This clearly shows that they’ve simply started a blog with no vision and no clear goal. And then they keep worrying about their blogging success, when they’ve not yet defined “success”.
In this post I am going to address some of the very basic yet highly crucial things you need to set right so that you can actually achieve blogging success, faster.
Do You Have a Goal?
Many newbie bloggers email me asking me help with blogging. For most cases, I email them back with one question:
Do you know the purpose of blogging? Or Why do you blog?
You could be shocked at what I am going to tell you now. Most of them reply: I don’t know.
This is something serious. Even before you think about a name for your blog, even before you get a domain name and even before you start writing your first blog post, you should get a crystal clear view of why you want to do this, in the first place!
Otherwise, success will simply be a day dream. I’m not trying to scare you or discourage you; but that’s a fact.
Do You Have a Business Model?
Having a blog and writing blog posts is not a business. A blog won’t help you succeed unless it’s backed up by a good business model. You should only use your blog as a tool in the front end.
At the back end there should be a business model.
A business model is totally different from having a goal (my previous point).
A business model contains the bits and pieces that help you achieve the “goal” – of course, these “bits and pieces” need to be put in a strategic manner.
You may be interested in reading this : Make Money Blogging – Is This Really Possible?
Be Warned: Blogging Will Take Time and Smart Work
Most bloggers’ worries can be washed off right away just with a simple understanding (the understanding itself is simple, but I didn’t say it would be simple to accept it – anyway…).
You must accept the fact that blogging will take a decent amount of time and some kick-butt hard work up front before you can start seeing any kind of results.
It takes somewhere between 3 to 6 months of real hard work before you can see some sort of traction. Yes hard work.
Blogging is not a silver bullet.
There is no overnight success with blogging.
There is no magic push button.
Work smart
There’s always some sort of learning associated with anything. Blogging is no exception. When you start as a newbie blogger, you are prone to make a lot of mistakes. That’s fine.
But your smartness should come into play right from the beginning. You should start to learn from your mistakes; they’re lessons. Don’t ignore them!
If you found out that something didn’t work out today, try an alternate. If it works don’t just go back to the next thing.
Rather, take a moment to step back and analyze. Find out what went wrong and what actually fixed the problem. And take note of it so that when a similar situation happens in the future, you could use this analysis and cut down a lot of time and effort.
Learn on the go and improvise. In short, work smart. Don’t reinvent the wheel every time.
And keep a journal (private or public) of your most important findings and mistakes. I recently wrote a blog post out of my private journal >> 12 things I learned about blogging in 2012 – This is nothing but a compilation of the mistakes I did, things that worked out perfect for me and the lessons I learned!
Takeaway
As you can see, the four points I mentioned above are no-brainers. But they’re highly crucial for your blogging success.
If you ignore them, you will end up wasting hours of your blogging effort and will simply be worrying about success.
We all want success, right? So stop worrying about it, and get things going.
Go back to square one and get these little things straight.
Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Hey Jane,
Good to see you here.
Some so-called top bloggers are making this thing look like it’s easy. Maybe they just want to get subscribers on their lists or sell their stuff. But like you pointed out, it’s far from being easy. A lot of hard (smart) work and time are required to make it.
Thanks for sharing the 4 points
Exactly, that’s the key. Smart work, not hard work 🙂 Thanks for your comment Enstine!
I have no words to comment here, coz i felt that this post was written for me. Am a newbie blogger and always thinking about my blog’s success.
I am realizing that i found this post at appropriate time which helps me to think better now in blogging, other than success.
As per Jane words, I will stop worrying n gonna work smart with business model. Many thanks for Jane for writing this and special thanks to my inspiring blogger Erik sir for publishing this remarkable post!
You’re very welcome Nirmala, I’m so glad I could be of help to you!
Hi Jane,
I really enjoyed your well put together post. I agree with you on all points. There are so many bloggers that have blogs with topics jumping all over the place. It seems that they have no sense of direction and I suspect no goals.
I strongly agree with you that blogging is a part of the whole picture. For those who are just developing the online business, blogging may be the first step. It may seem insignificant but great blogs bring a lot of traffic to them and if one’s business is well structured the blog itself may bring a lot of visitors to the business as well.
Dita
Dita, ya. With no sense of direction, clarity and a clear goal point, most bloggers’ hard work go waste. They need to think about working smart, not hard!
Awesome article. Beautifully written! I think this is the best place to start with for an absolute beginner. Many other blogs who write about blogging are mainly focused on the blogs that are already well established and gains a decent amount of traffic per month. But if you are an absolute beginner, you need a different set of skills to make your newborn blog popular. And this website teaches the same very thing. Thanks for sharing such an informative article.
Yes Deepak, skills are a whole new story. As we progress and learn new things we also possess many skills. Those skills are very important and integral part of blogging and money making.
This is a great article. Blogging is certainly not easy, and unless you have a clear direction for the blog, it don’t surprise me at all that people would give up. I think you really have to be passionate about your niche to be successful in it. My blog has been running now for just over 6 months and it is only now that I am feeling that I kind of know what I am doing! It has been a steep learning curve and a LOT of work!
Yes Catherine 🙂 Finding the clear direction is the key. When there is clarity things become much easier!
While reading through this post I was glad to find out that I already thought of a plan and projected my goals before setting up my blog/website. Definitely got a model behind the scenes, but I’m far from reaching my goals.
However, posts like these remind me of not to give up, and that the mistakes I’ve made are just valuable lessons on the path to success. I always took mistakes as one of the best things in life. If you don’t make them you can’t learn, adapt, grow!
So thanks for the great tips, recommendations and “commandements” on blogging!
Yes, I agree with your post. It takes a lot of hard work, time and patience to achieve in blog success but unfortunately, most bloggers prefer living in their fantasies rather than facing REALITY.
I am considering blogging as another side online venture. But, seeing that there is a plethora of blogs, I seem to wonder if one can make some decent money with one or two, . . .! Blogging, just like any other venture on the internet, is time consuming, a big learning process, etc. So, it may not be that easy to “stop worrying” about your blogs success – if some rely heavily on the steady income from it! But, good article.
Well i am a beginner and wish some day my blog will actually seek that success. Your ways helped me grow my compassion towards my blog 🙂
Nice post! Just really enjoyed this post, Thanks for sharing:D
Yes, I agree with your post. It takes a lot of hard work, time and patience to achieve in blog success but unfortunately, most bloggers prefer living in their fantasies rather than facing REALITY…
Hey Jane, it’s good to see you here. 🙂
This are sure ways of really achieving blogging success and I have since learned that Working Smart is the key rather than working hard. Albeit, you’ve got to work hard to truly achieve lifelong success. Kinda ironical, right?
You have shared great tips here, ma’am. Thanks! 🙂
Sam