There are tens of thousands of blogs on today’s Internet. So, doesn’t that mean it’s REALLY easy to start a blog and make it successful? In short: nope, far from it.
Starting a blog requires a lot of time, dedication, and hard work. Most blogs fail simply because of a lack of dedication by the founder/blogger.
Staying the course – why consistency is the key to gaining visibility and bringing traffic
Most blogs fail because the owner becomes discouraged. Discouragement is usually the result of stagnant – or sometimes non-existent – website traffic. As many business owners know, website traffic does not appear magically. It is built up over time, often through hard work and perseverance. Over time, good website management practices and effective marketing ensure that a particular website is found and receives regular traffic.
The same principles of hard work and perseverance apply to blogs. A blog that is under six to eight months old will likely not see much traffic without a substantive marketing effort. And because blogs are not very profitable in their infancy, bloggers do not usually dedicate a lot of time to blogging. This is a recipe for disaster, as blogs become visible and well-known as bloggers consistently keep their blog active and fresh.
The bottom-line: don’t give up. Stay the course. KEEP POSTING REGULARLY! If you don’t see lots of traffic (“results”) immediately, that doesn’t necessarily prove you’re doing something wrong. Give it time, be patient, and evaluate your progress monthly. Don’t stop posting regularly – at least two blog posts a week.
Timing is everything – the number of blog posts made matters big-time
Look, it’s tempting to be lazy and make one blog post a week. “Well, at least my blog is not dead like some blogs!” the saying goes. Guess what? To many visitors, it is dead. People want several blog posts a week, and anything less annoys them. I conducted a survey of a random sample of “plugged-in” New Yorkers last month, and found that 78% of them will ignore blogs that appear abandoned. That’s a lot of people – and it should be a wake-up call to webmasters and bloggers alike. MAKE MORE POSTS.
We all feel lazy at one point or another, but we must get up and aggressively overcome our laziness. Failure to do so may mean we are writing off a large portion of potential website visitors who are discouraged by the lack of blog posts made. Do yourself – and your visitors – a favor by blogging at least twice a week.
Blogging 101 is a series of blog posts that highlights the best practices for bloggers, webmasters, and marketers alike when starting or managing a blog.