People who aren’t familiar with the world of online publishing and blogging often tend to think it’s easy. They think that people are just sitting in coffee shops and typing nonsense about their days, or that they don’t do any real work. I’m here to tell you that’s just not how it is. Blogging can be downright difficult and highly competitive. For this article I’m going to give 7 reasons why most bloggers fail.
7 reasons why most bloggers fail
Some of these reasons are due to misconceptions about what blogging and online business is, others are related to the type of person that’s making the attempt. Here are 7 off the top of my head, let’s have a look at them.
1. They think blogging is easy
If you don’t know any better, when you hear the term “blogger” you think of a stay at home mom that writes about her day for fun. When in reality that’s called journaling. Blogging is publishing content to a website with the goal of monetizing it and creating an income.
As a full-time blogger I’m here to tell you that for a beginner breaking onto the scene, it’s anything but easy. It can take a long time before you make a dime and that’s why most people burn out and quit long before those first earnings are ever a reality.
2. It takes dedication
Let’s say you go into starting a niche website with the right mentality, that it’s a long game and there will be no income for a long time. That’s great, but even then you need to remain dedicated and make time every day to work on your site. A half-assed blog at the end of a year with just 30 articles probably won’t be doing much for you.
Considering most people start blogs on the side apart from their full-time gig, it can be a hard pill to swallow when you realize how much work you put in and got pretty much nothing back in return. You have to go all in and give it 100%, or just skip it and find a side hustle that you’re better suited for.
3. It takes skill
There are ton of new skills that you’ll have to learn in order to become a successful blogger, such as:
- SEO
- Keyword research
- Content writing
- Image editing
- WordPress
This is just to name a few. These skills take time to learn, and like anything else, a lot of practice. Some people just aren’t good writers, no matter what they do they aren’t well-spoken and they don’t communicate as well as others. I think that’s just something that you either are good at or you aren’t.
Luckily many of these things can be outsourced and you can still be a successful publisher. However at the very least you have to be able to judge quality from your writers and contractors.
4. It takes time
As I’ve mentioned, it can take a really long time. You may be working on a single website for a year before you start reaching any of your goals you initially set out for yourself. Having said that, there is a hump that you can get over. If you make it over that hump, stayed dedicated, and learned the right skills then it all becomes worth it… and then some.
5. There’s a delayed ROI
Luckily for new bloggers the cost to entry is very low. Literally under $50 for the entire first year. If you already have a web hosting account then all you need is a domain so in that case it would be more like $10.
The rest of the investment is sweat equity, because you’re going to be writing like a maniac for the first several month at least. At some point it’s ok to hire writers to help you grow your site.
Just remember, don’t outsource if you can’t do the job yourself. If you have no idea what a good SEO article is, then how can you know when a writer turns garbage in to you?
So let’s say you’ve invested several hundred hours into the site over the course of a year’s time. You may start to finally see some money trickle in around 6 months old, but if things went your way and you made mostly good choices then you could be making $500-$1k/month by the 1 year mark.
That’s pretty amazing, considering that’s now a steady source of income that you can depend on. You built a passive income stream. You can now choose to grow it further with more work and investment, or you can sit back and collect on it for as long as you can.
6. There are no guarantees
I gave an example of what you might expect if things went according to plan, but nothing is guaranteed. If you are a terrible writer, or screwed up your keyword research beyond fixing, you may not see a single dollar. I’ve seen it before.
You have to know going in that this whole thing may not even work. I’m of the opinion though that if you’re an intelligent person and follow the right path, anyone can do this.
7. Some people just aren’t cut out for it
Some people are just hardwired for active income, and that’s fine. You work at a job for 40 hours and you get paid for 40 hours of work. Then you do it again, and again…
You know that you’re getting paid a certain amount this way. You can get awesome benefits from corporate jobs, there’s no denying that. But you have to deal with a supervisor, and that co-worker you don’t like. You may have to commute to work.
Many people prefer that though, and like I said, that’s ok.
Or maybe you hate writing, or you’re terrible with computers. There are million reasons why blogging may just not be for you. For me though, I feel like it’s perfect.
I rather enjoy writing (in moderation), I like managing a team, using WordPress is second nature to me, and I just understand the business. I know how to make money this way and I know that I can scale it.
The best part is that I don’t see a ceiling anywhere.
Summary
These were just a few reasons I could think of why most bloggers fail. I think first and foremost people just give up too early for one of the reasons above. Blogging, or digital publishing, is a great business and I’m looking forward to what the future looks like.