Daily millions of blogs are built in blogosphere, but most of them fail soon. The reason behind failure of blogs are different but it shows, it’s not easy to maintain a blog.
There are always two sides of coin and it is applied to blogging also. Apart from many advantages of blogging, there are few hurdles in blogging career which might keep you away from success and making money online.
This article is not to demotivate you rather it is to share the true facts about blogging so that you can prepare yourself to face all the challenges which you might experience in the field of blogging.
Here are 5 reasons which show why blogging is not an easy task:
Competition:
People are attracted to blogging and thus competition is also increased. All the bloggers work hard to get good search engine rankings, generate huge traffic and make money online.
To compete with so many passionate bloggers requires a lot of hard work as well as smart work.
Patience:
Even if you are working hard to make your blog successful, there might be chances that you won’t get good results soon or you might face few ups and downs.
But that’s the part of blogging, you need to keep patience, analyze the problems and keep moving ahead . The day that you lose patience you won’t able to blog with same passion.
Update Yourself:
Blogging is all about sharing knowledge and experience. Thus it is important, that you must have lots of knowledge relevant to your blog niche. For getting knowledge, you need to keep updating yourself with all the latest news and information.
If readers don’t find updated and current information on your blog, they won’t visit back.
Negative feedback:
There are chances that you might get negative feedback about your blog from your readers. It is possible that your blog readers might not agree with the information you provide or they might give you negative feedback about the design. These negative comments might demotivate you.
Try to listen to negative feedback if it is genuine and don’t let your passion down. Use negative feedback as a way to improve your blogging style. It takes time but once you learn to handle criticism, you are on the way to become a better blogger.
Active Participation in Blogging Community:
Blogging is not only about writing quality content, you need to spread the word. You can always create a community around your blog by various means like adding Facebook fan page, chat box, and most important commenting on other blogs.
Replying to all comments on your post will give personal touch to your readers and gradually you will have tons of readers who will be religiously following your blog.
As there is a lot of competition in blogging, you need to be very active to show your presence to others. You need to be social, comment on other’s blog, make community and regularly update your blog. It is important to have good online persona that can drive traffic to your blog.
Blogging is easy to start but hard to maintain. To be become a successful blogger you need lots of patience and passion to work.
What do you think about blogging, is it an easy career option or not?
This is a guest post by Harsh Agrawal who blogs at Shoutmeloud and also offer blogspot to WordPress migration service. Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog? See more info here.
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“Blogging is easy to start but hard to maintain.” This why there is so many bloggers it’s also why most of them quit, my self included. I’ve recently got back into blogging because I found something that I enjoy writing about (now anyways).
Persistence is what separates the successful from the unsuccessful. This is no different then any other business, career or anything for that matter.
The good thing about blogging is that there is such a low barrier of entry and the bad thing is that there is such a low barrier of entry.
Nice point Nick.. Most important thing is one should always write about something he is passionate about.. Otherwise it will be more like riding on the wrong train where you can’t continue your journey for long..
My first blog is totally fail in 2007, but it give me confident to keep going. For me , blog is hard to begin and easy to maintain. when you have visitor, you will find some interesting things to write on.
A very concise post!
I have to agree with your point about patience. It’s easy to become demotivated early on when few people are reading, but persistence pays off as long as you keep producing high quality content. That’s why I think many fail; they become impatient and give up.
Cheers to this blog for staying alive and providing useful information to so many.
Thanks for your comment AL and yes persistence is the key..It’s with any work you do in day to day life…and that’s what Blogging is all about.. After some time if one is serious.. It’s become a part of one’s life..
Blogging is definitely a significant challenge and that’s partly what draws me to it. Love the challenge. Love the competition.
That should be the attitude Tick.. Happy blogging
thnx buddy……….i have to make my blog.
i visit this page at very first to know about tips.
gud job.
I totally agree with this. Some days it can be really hard to keep on driving to produce quality content and engage with your community.
Then, just when you need it, someone gives you some great feedback on your site, or a lovely comment or just makes your day by saying they value what you do and it inspires you to go on giving more.
Persistence is key and most of all enjoying what you do.
Natalie producing high quality article every day is somewhat not possible for long so her comes the Filler and Killer post in picture..
Feedback and comments are one of the important things which makes Blogging complete…
After all people blog for many reasons and one of them is Fame and appreciation and without quality comment that makes blogging meaningless… Thanks for adding meaningful comment
It’s not just about maintaining it, but you have to grow. Many of your readers of a long term blog will be the same as the ones that were around at the beginning, so you effectively have to replace readers.
Good post. It’s easy to begin, tough to master.
Thanks for adding comment Rhys. Here comes the experience in the picture… With experience you learn what your readers like and dislike and you become better each and every day..coz everyday you learn a new thing.. is int it??
I found this post very useful and relative to how I’m feeling at the moment. I’m new to the blogging world and this is a reminder not to through in the towl.
Very well put. After being quite late to the party, I have to say that I enjoy blogging immensely. So far as obscurity is concerned, I would add this helpful bit that keeps me going.
I *treasure* my relative obscurity right now, because it gives me time to refine my writing and feel my way through the process. I’m quite sure that any eventual attention that my blog gains will only lead to more and more ego-bruising comments. I’ve gathered through the grapevine that this sort of success can kill a blog if you aren’t thick skinned enough (your point on Negative Feedback is relevant here).
this post motivate me. thanks.
It’s not easy to maintain a competitive blog where a primary goal is making money. For that you need all the patience you can muster and a lot of ‘spreading the word’, offering something for almost nothing, etc. That’s why many people blog because they enjoy it and feel they contribute something if only to a special few.
I find that the community part is the most difficult lately. There are just too many blogs to keep up with (commenting, reviewing, referrring). I might add too many Good blogs even! The really bad ones fall out quickly.
So I’d say anything that negatively affects your passion will make blogging harder. Sometimes you have to focus on what works for you at the moment. I’ve stopped trying to keep up with hundreds of tweets because I prefer to put the time in developing content, learning and helping other bloggers.
after read this, post the question that I have read before about “will you keep blogging without being paid?” is completely true
Most important thing is to blog with passion and have patience..things will automatically come if done in the right way.
Patience, is always a key in success…that is the only thing im lagging now-a days….
Nice guest post by you…..
I agree with the author, patience is very important for each and every blogger
Yes, blogging is not easy and patient is a must. For me I have been blogging for almost 3 years, nothing much have really come to my life, but still I carry on with it, doing blogging everyday every time and even I sleep I still think about blogging.
Sometime, I got pull back of blogging because of some personal problems I have to handle but still I kept on with my patient and finally I would like to say to all who just start blogging to really be a never-say-die till you die.
Persistence is the key but I can understand how frustrating it must be to work so hard for months on end and not get “real” results.
I was looking at the stats of my blog for the past two and a half years I’ve been blogging. That first year, I averaged 182 page views a day. I felt like I’d never get anywhere!
I actually find blogging itself fairly easy to do, and I have 3 blogs. I find reading other blogs and commenting on them easy as well. What’s difficult is making money off blogs because it seems you have to either figure out ways to get very significant traffic or capture email addresses and pound people with offers via email, and the second is abhorrent to me so I refuse to do it.
Why do so many people fail at it then? I think two reasons. One, they lock themselves too finitely into a niche and then can’t think of what to say. Two, they don’t see success because they don’t remember one of your points above, that being blogging does end up being a community, and to get success you have to be willing to give some success to others.
To be honest, I got negative feedback especially my grammar. They have broken my heart. Finally, I am lazy to post blog because i am afraid to make another mistakes. To the people who give the negative feedback, I said congrats. You have made me upset.
Patience is huge. Most people realize they’re going to have to fight hard to get attention because of competition, but a lot less realize how much time it’s going to take. If you don’t have the patience to crank out great content and have nobody read it for a while, it’s hard to be a blogger.
And of course there are even more reasons why it isn’t easy than you listed!
Hemmmm.. so great!
Thank you for this post, I am feeling rejevunated already. It’s amazing how seeing the issues you face written down make them easier to deal with.
I guess you could call it the ‘Harsh’ Truth
Awesome.
During the last four years it was easy for me to blog. I blogged because it was fun and the blog should motivate me to keep up with a daily Ashtanga yoga practice. It is still fun to do Ashtanga yoga and to blog and the community of my readers increases (about 7000 every month).
My new challenge (since about 2 months) is to make also money with this blog.
It needs different skills: I learn how to get more traffic. I am already no 1 when you search google for yoga. Nevertheless this is not enough to make an income from a blog.
I improve my writing skills.
I get creative how to make my readers come back to my blog.
It all remains interesting. Every day is like a step into the darkness.
I wish myself that I can make enough money with my blogs. If not, I will go on blogging, as it is much fun for me. This is perhaps a good approach.
I wish all bloggers good luck and fun with writing.
Ursula
I wish everyone would read this post before they start blogging. So many think it is as easy as going to the bathrom.
For me, I think competition is a big one! Also, staying up with the latest widgets, design, etc. can be a challenge as well.
I was wondering how you got those “Share It” buttons at the top. Is it a plugin? If not, do you know of a good tutorial for the code to add those? I am a beginner at CSS (bt learning). Love your blog!! Thanks! – Julie
I see this all the time at the blog conferences I speak at and attend – new bloggers will hear the part where my online writing covers the mortgage payment and NOT hear the part about the fact that I’ve been doing this as a business since fall of 2006, or the fact that I made 26 cents my first month. Lol!
It takes time to build up. The thing that I appreciate about blogging and online writing though, is that you can build up a residual base where eventually the pay coming in is way more than the effort you are expending. As a busy mother of four with young children, I need to know that I won’t have to constantly be re-doing the work in order to maintain a level of pay which is why blogging and online web writing has been so great for me.
Good post!
I think Patience and Active Participation in Blogging Community are the most important. Blogging is easy when you work hard and not take it easy. You put your effort and dedication to it in the beginning and you can enjoy the results.
I think quality is better then quantity. Means: don’t write every day if you have nothing meaningful to say. Be an expert on things you write about – and I’m afraid it can’t be done without passion being envolved.. just like mentioned above. Nice post!
Hi All,
blogging is like real life, you always can get negative feedback, you competition everyday, you must be patient for some things… just life.
So bloggin isn’t that hard to learn…
Shacky
Awesome post…though blogging may sound easy for those who love to write, still, when you are already into it, it could be hard, hard to maintain as pointed by one of the commentators.
You’re spot on Harsh!
The two biggies in my book are competition and negative feedback. At the end of the day, the competition is for traffic. Even if you’re not blogging to make money (yet) you are still competing for the eyes of the people you want to read your posts. Figuring out how to drive traffic is one of the hardest parts of what we do!
As for negative feedback, rather than be worried by it, expect it and embrace it. I mean honestly, you’re not so vain that you think everyone agrees with your opinions, are you? So grow a thick skin and get on with it, because… controversy sells! If you can get a good “spirited debate” going on your site, its like moths to a flame!
Excellent post!
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