Why Your Blog Will Fail - Part III
March 26th, 2008Why Your Blog Will Fail
Part III
Low Interest
(Third of the five part Why You Blog Will Fail series. Click here for the previous part).
The term “low interest” is great when referring to mortgages, car loans, and credit cards. However, when the term is applied to blogging, it’s one of the blogger’s worst enemies. But, it might not be what you’re thinking.
A blog with well-written content could appear on the surface to be of low interest to readers – by the way of very few visitors for example. That is unlikely to be the case, however, if it does indeed have good content. The more likely case is that the readers who would have interest in the topics covered in that specific blog just haven’t found it. After some work with SEO (search engine optimization) and spreading the word on various websites, directories, and blogs, the readers will eventually show up.
The bigger threat of “low interest” is actually on the part of the blogger. Is the blogger really interested in the topic about which they’re writing?
I have seen many people visiting various public message forums with questions such as “I want to make money from writing a blog – what topic should I write about?”
That question is wrong in so many ways that it’s hard to even decide where to begin with an answer.
While it is true that a blog can be profitable, you need to first create a great blog, and then consider monetizing it. With enough research, someone might be able to create a blog that could earn money right from the start, but how long will it take them to become bored writing about a topic which they have no interest in? Sooner than you might think.
With boredom comes lack of quality content and fewer posts. This will surely lead to the failure of the blog.
Money is great. If you have enough visitors – think several thousand per day – then you can make some decent spare change from a blog. But, letting money become your motivating factor is not the path to success.
Write about something you’re interested in from the beginning, even if you know little about it. You don’t need to already be an expert on the topic in order to write about it. Share what you already know, then continue to learn about the topic on your own. As you learn, share your new knowledge with the readers.
There will always be the possibility that the blogger truly loses interest in a certain topic. For example, maybe they are learning to play guitar and are initially very much into it, so they create a new niche blog about guitars, or certain playing styles. Then, some amount of time passes and they discover that guitar playing just isn’t their thing. As the guitar fades from their life, so will their interest in writing about it. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee against something like this happening. The best way to keep the odds in your favor though, would be to focus on that topic of initial interest.
Remember, the topic, or theme, of a blog does not need to be exciting to the world. It only needs to be interesting to the blogger. With the right marketing, like-minded people will come along, and the blog community will grow.
Up Next: Why Your Blog Will Fail, Part IV - Control Your Destiny
Why Your Blog Will Fail - Part II
March 25th, 2008Why Your Blog Will Fail
Part II
Under Pressure
(Second of the five part Why You Blog Will Fail series. Click here for the previous part).
It’s safe to assume that one of the defining attributes of success in the blogging world is a large number of readers. This definition carries over from the traditional publishing world. One of the great features of online blogging is instant publishing, and instant feedback.
As you might expect, this is also the problem with the technology.
So, you’ve written a masterpiece of a post. You’ve spent a significant amount of time drafting and editing it, and now it’s perfect. You post it for the world, and they love it. Awesome!
You write several more posts, maybe dozens, while you’re enjoying this hot-streak. They’re all great. Maybe post them over a series of weeks to extend the captivity of your audience. You absolutely rock!
Now the problem begins. This run of great posts has brought about a high level of expectation from the blog readers. This problem is also a good thing, because it forces the blogger to continue to push for excellence. Each post must be equal to, if not exceptionally better, than the prior.
In an effort to make each blog post as stimulating as what the reader has come to expect, the frequency of posts usually begin to wane. The blogger who originally posted fascinating content on a daily basis, soon begins posting every other day, then weekly, then even less often.
As the rate of posts become fewer and fewer, the blogger will usually return at some point with an excuse-filled apology:
“I know, I haven’t posted in a while, but I’ve been real busy and just haven’t had the time. I’m going to start posting more regularly, blah, blah, blah…”
It doesn’t matter. The few remaining visitors to the blog will unlikely continue to return. At this point, it’s almost better to call it a day and start over. The original audience is gone, and the blogger will need to rebuild the interest in the blog anyhow. It’s probably time to just start with a clean slate.
It’s not hard to see what happened here.
Maintaining and continuing to post quality content on a blog is difficult, and will put any writer under a huge amount of pressure.
With few exceptions, the best authors of traditional books are able to enjoy a bit of relaxation once their bestselling novel has hit the shelves. They might not want to, but the opportunity is usually there if they should choose to take advantage of it.
The blogger with a “bestseller”, or more appropriately a “hit” blog on their hands, isn’t afforded this luxury. While the fans of the novelist will wait a year, or longer, and still stand in line to purchase the next book, the blog visitor expects regular and frequent content. If the blogger fails to present this, the visitor will simply lose interest, and replace the loyalty developed for your blog with that of another.
Understand up front that you will have writer’s block, just like everyone else. It happens. In Part IV of this series we’ll discuss some methods to relieve some of this pressure. There are no quick and easy solutions to eliminate the pressure that any good blogger will eventually experience. But, with the knowledge that this will happen to even the most prolific writers, you can better prepare for the pressure, and not let it become the reason for your blog’s failure.
Up Next: Why Your Blog Will Fail, Part III - Low Interest
Why Your Blog Will Fail – Part I
March 24th, 2008Why Your Blog Will Fail
Part I
Predetermined Fate?
A few days ago I clicked over to one of my favorite blogs – a very successful blog by most definitions, with thousands of visitors and hundreds of comments per day – only to find that it has just recently been shut down.
I was a bit surprised that this specific blog had ceased to exist after so many years of popular existence and many loyal readers.
While there are many reasons why a blog might shut down, most of those reasons can be prevented if you are aware of them ahead of time, or at least know what the common causes are.
First up…
Predetermined Fate?
The type of blog that you decide to write may very well have its fate predetermined before the first post is published.
No matter the topic, a new blog will generally fall within one of three categories: general-interest, niche, or personal. Each of these might be further subcategorized, but would still fall within one of those primary categories.
Each of the three blog types have their own pros and cons, which will eventually help or hinder the blogger. As a note of record, this blogger has some number of each of these types, so I am speaking from experience.
The general-interest blogs, such as Blog About Nothing, by their very nature cover many, many, topics. Covering a wide-range of topics allows the blogger more natural freedom to change the mood of the posts as the seriousness, or silliness, of the topics change.
The good thing about a general-interest blog is that there will eventually be a post that will be of interest to the reader. That’s also the downside – just because the reader is interested in the topic covered today, does not mean they will be interested in the topic discussed tomorrow. As-such, they may or may not return. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some bloggers attempt to focus on a specific niche topic. Unlike the general-interest blog, these will cover a very specific topic – such as a certain hobby, musical instrument, or poetry.
This might seem easier at first, because once a visitor reads a well-written post about that specific niche, they will likely return again since the topic already interests them. On the other hand, this drastically limits the topics which the blogger can cover. While it might initially appear very easy to write content about bulldog puppies, for example, he or she will at some point in time have written practically everything there is to write about those puppies, their history, future, breeding, feeding, and training. Then what?
Lastly is the personal blog. This type of blog might talk in great detail about the blogger’s family, children, or their own adventurous life. This is also the most common type to find around the Internet, just sitting there with two or three posts, all dated sometime around three years ago.
These bloggers usually learn sooner rather than later that most people just aren’t as interested in their children as they are. And, to be honest, the blogger should be a bit uncomfortable if they are. But, if the purpose is really to share this with close family and friends, and never really grow a larger audience, then this type of blog has its place.
However, this type of blogger also usually realizes that the task of writing and maintaining that blog is taking quite a bit of time away from the very subjects they’re writing about – either their children or themselves.
Don’t get me wrong, there are a few bloggers that have actually done the personal blog quite well, and have captivated us as, even though we don’t know them personally. These are the master writers and storytellers.
A good writer can make a successful blog of any one of these types. But, no matter how easy it seems in the beginning, it’s going to get more difficult. That level of difficulty was determined long before it became apparent.
Conversely, a bad writer will eventually fail at any of the types described here. There’s far more to writing a successful blog than just pasting a bunch of words onto a page. Anyone can string a bunch of words together, but does it mean anything?
Up Next: Why Your Blog Will Fail Part II – Under Pressure
