Blogging is full of many twists and turns. Some days, you will be extremely happy with how everything is going on your blog. But, there are other days where that feeling is just not there. And for whatever reason that may be, it really brings you down some. You could feel that the blog you thought was doing incredibly well isn’t doing as great as you thought. Your blog could just be in a slum for that day, and can of course go back to normal the next day. But it can be tough dealing with it.
There is a positive side to everything. Even in the blogosphere. Anything bad that happens will have happened for a certain reason. The reason for it could rely on the actions you take on your blog, or something totally out of your control.
In this post, I want to look over a few things that bloggers struggle with just about every day. These things I am going to talk about can really ruin a bloggers day. But like I said, it all happens for a reason, and there will always be a positive side to all of these occurrences.
8 big discouragements in the blogosphere
How many of these things have happened to you?
Counting down from number 8, I have prioritized what I believe are the biggest discouragements for bloggers to see on their blog. Do you agree with the order? What would you change, or how would you prioritize it?
8. Not getting your blog linked to by other bloggers
Ever been through those “link love” posts on other blogs? You see these other bloggers get linked to, but you may not get linked to. It’s great to be linked to for multiple reasons, but is a little aggravating to see your blog not up in that link love list. Maybe if not link love, but you just wrote a really good article that isn’t getting all of the recognition you think it deserves.
Why this is encouraging: You want to get listed in another bloggers post. So, you can try and become friends with that particular blogger. Don’t stop at that one blogger either. Go to every blog you follow, become friends with the blogger. Making friends is fun, and making friends through blogging has a lot of benefits (like getting linked to!). It is not guaranteed that the blogger will just link to you because you made a few comments on their blog.
7. Getting negative comments or reviews
It’s hard writing up an article and then getting negative comments on your post. You could get a completely hateful comment, or the dreaded “This has been said over and over”. Even a negative review on your blog can be tough to deal with. You put all that hard work into your blog, and then someone totally strikes you down.
Why this is encouraging: Getting a negative comment or review on your site or article is meant to help you. Not everyone will like your points and ideas, and not everyone will agree with them. It’s good to create discussion with differentiating opinions, and the more negative the better.
“Constructive criticism” can also be looked at as a negative comment. It will just have things that you need to work on, and since it’s coming from your users then you will be able to make your blog work best for them. The most important people on your website are your readers.
6. Losing RSS subscribers
Here at Blogussion, we know exactly how it is to lose subscribers. It happens all of the time; we gain a few, and lose a lot. It sucks, because the readership we thought we had turned out to be not as strong as it was. It happens to every blogger too. Significant drops in RSS readers (your dedicated readers) really says something about your community and quality of content posted to your blog.
Why this is encouraging: Obviously you are losing readership because your content just isn’t cutting it for those particular subscribers. If you realize that, then you can see this as an opportunity to really analyze the quality of your content being posted on your blog and make some changes. Do whatever you can to get their feedback on your site. You can find that you will be able to make some really needed improvements to your blog.
5. Getting your content stolen
This is something that happens every day, and it really hurts your blog. You could get in trouble for duplicate content (even thought YOUR content was stolen), you could lose credibility and even authority as a blogger because the content scrapers (people who stole your content) could be seen as the original author of your post.
Why this is encouraging: While you should do everything in your power to get your stolen content taken down, it can be seen as motivation to you. It looks like someone is a fan of your writing and wants to use it for themselves. It’s great and all they like your content, but they shouldn’t steal it. So keep up the good writing, because it’s quite obvious someone likes it so much they would steal it!
4. Not making money on your blog
You mess around with just about every monetization trick in the book, and you can’t make any money from your blog. Banner ads, AdSense, reviews, any form of monetization just doesn’t work for you. It’s in every bloggers best interest to make some money off their blog eventually, and it’s hard to see other bloggers roll in thousands when you can’t even earn enough to buy a cup of coffee.
Why this is encouraging: It shows that your community is not ready for advertising. It is in my belief that you should not offer any form of advertising on your blog from the start unless you have a bulletproof marketing plan. You should just look past the money, and look at the people who actually read what you write. As your community grows, so will the chances of you making money. So get out there, forget money right now and offer the absolute best you can.
3. Low traffic
You do everything you can to drive a lot of readers to your blog. No matter how hard the work is you do to advertise, you should know that getting someone to click the link to your blog is harder than it sounds. It sucks when hard work doesn’t pay off, and a big disappointment to you.
Why this is encouraging: Obviously your marketing strategies are not working since your traffic is so low. Analyze your traffic sources, and make the most out of your biggest source of traffic. Along the way, experiment with other ways to bring in more traffic. While doing all of that, read some internet marketing eBooks to pick up a few more tricks when it comes to promoting your blog.
2. Your competition is doing better than you
It’s not good to see a competing site in your niche doing better than you. While it is common in any niche to have someone doing better than you, the idea of that still hits you hard no matter how long it takes you to realize it.
Why this is encouraging: Competition is healthy for you. It allows you to keep the motivation to keep going and constantly look for a way to become better. You want to be the best in your niche don’t you? You have to know how they got to be better than you and use that information for the best of your blog. Don’t study too closely or start stealing things from them.
1. You don’t get many comments
The most common discouragement for a blogger is not getting comments on their posts. It can be very frustrating to write up a very nice post, and never get any feedback on it. I know it is, because it has happened to me. I thought I wrote up some really high quality content, and only have gotten a few comments, if any at all.
Why this is encouraging: You may not get comments on your posts for these two reasons:
1. If your community is not built up yet, then having a lot of comments shouldn’t be a thought in your head at first. So just keep writing those great articles, keeping in mind the response will not be great at first. If you build up your community, make friends and create conversation, then comments will come. Isn’t that all the encouragement you need to start building a reader base?
2. Your content just isn’t interesting. Are you writing just to write, or writing to teach? You can’t exactly teach information that has already been drilled into everyone’s head by other bloggers. You need to write unique content, because unique content is interesting. The only thing though, unique content can be hard to come up with. However, we do have a variety of writing tips on Blogussion you should check out if you need help writing unique content.
So take what I mentioned above, and think about it. Are you really doing the best job you can be doing? Do you at least get a couple comments per post? Is your content something that hasn’t already been talked about a lot by other blogs? If you truly want more comments on your blog, then take what has been covered here and use it to get those comments.
What do you think?
So do you think these bad things that happen to your blog are really meant to encourage you to become a better blogger? Everyone goes through hardships, even huge bloggers like Darren Rowse, Perez Hilton, etc. But I am sure they found ways to make the best out of the worst.
Let me know your thoughts on the article, and what discourages you the most in blogging!
The Discussion
Leave a Comment Read Again?These are some good points, Alex! I think #6 should be higher up on the list though. When readers unsubscribe to your blog, as you said, it means that the quality of the posts may get to be a little boring. For me, writing quality is a must, and if I started losing subscribers it would be my top priority to try and get them back by spicing up my posts. Again, everyone has their main priorities, mine is mainly to keep subscibers!
My favorite one has to be #4 and I completely agree with the points you made. You need to establish a community for your blog, and I think this should be a main goal for every blogger, and simply just not to make money. It’s not uncommon for bloggers to automatically assume they will rake in cash as soon as they create their blog, but the community comes first.
Keeping RSS subscribers is very important, and maybe it should have been ranked differently, I agree. RSS subscriptions has actually been a really high priority here lately because we keep gaining a few subscriptions each day, and we have been looking for ways to make the numbers rise even higher.
I used to think I could make money from the start if I just have a cool design, some decent content and ad spots. But it turned out that none of that stuff really matters when no one is around to look at it all! :p
Alex
I relate to all the points! I’ve been blogging for 6 months and several times I got discouraged. Ideas dried up, no-one clicking ads, few comments, subscribers going up and down and days when hardly any traffic.
You have a great list here … and I would add that just step back and look at progress over a period and not get discouraged by the daily ups and downs. When I step back and look at the overall picture for my own blog (rather than the day to day detail) then I get a much more encouraging picture. Traffic and subscribers slowly but steadily rising / regular visitors commenting (including several authors of successful blogs) / back links growing and ideas come like buses (wait for hours then a whole load come all at once). It may not have been as fast as I want or what I expected at the start. But that was more about my expectations being unrealistic. For 99% of bloggers it just takes time.
Ian Peatey’s last blog post..Top 8 taboo words
Thanks for the comment Ian.
Your blog looks like it’s doing really well. And props goes to you for sticking to your blog. 6 months is a long time in the blogosphere, don’t you think? :p
It’s really easy to get discouraged, especially if your community is really starting to build up. The fact that your audience is getting bigger can add a lot of stress to someone. Especially since with a bigger audience comes more demanding content.
Analyzing is a great way to get back in the “happy state”. I think you brought up a good point there. I find that if I read through the comments on my best posts, look at the traffic it brought me, and all the other little successes that came with it then I can stay motivated to do it again. I want my most successful post to be every single post here, so you just have to stop thinking of the downsides and look at the positives.
Great input Ian, you got me thinking a bit more!
Excellent tips Alex, and a fantastic attitude. All have happened to me at one time or another, some still do and some always will of course. There is indeed an upshot to almost everything, and as Ian pointed ouit, you must step back and look at the big picture, not just “what’s wrong today”.
Dennis Edell’s last blog post..February Link Review – Blog Review Winners – TC Contest March – Guest Posts Wanted – I’m Outa Here!
Good point Dennis. Everything up there will usually happen to any blogger, and it’s important that everyone realizes that whatever bad happens isn’t ALWAYS completely bad.
I have been quite lucky I guess as I have had a small band of readers who are my friends and family who have been reading me and will not leave me so anything more than that is a bonus in my eyes.
Dean Saliba’s last blog post..The Final Cut Returning …. Again!
Hey slipknot/pandemix/alex fraiser (not sure if you’re alex haha). Great post, for me the lack of comments are definitely number 1. I’ve given up on blogs simply because of the lack of comments, even though I was getting hundreds of visitors per day. You know that if your readers are willing to interact with you, they are interested in your content, and plus they are way more likely to buy an affiliate product you promote!
By the way this is hmtl from forumer (long ago!)
Scotty’s last blog post..My Current Money Makers
Hey Scott, long time no see! How did you find the link here?
It really does suck, and also makes you wonder how you get all of this traffic and barely any comments. Says a lot about your blogs bounce rate, don’t you think?
I finally got around reading this, school’s been really hectic with mini-exams
Those are some really well-made points Alex. Many bloggers give up on writing because of those 8 exact reasons. Even myself, given up on a couple of blogs because of reasons you’ve listed there too ~ only if you wrote this post before I gave up on them
I just see 10 comments on this post! Dang!
This post deserves a standing ovationm dude. Well I was kinda nervous coz of some everything from the list of 8 was happening on my blog. But I know now, back to blogger’s DIE HARD OPTIMISUM, Learing and Changing.
Thanks Alex!
.-= King Sidharth @ Meditation Rocks´s last blog ..How to Meditate in A Noisy Environment or At A Noisy Place =-.
This a great post on one of the most important points for new bloggers; never give up and use your failures to gain more strength. How do you do that? It’s easy.
When something is not going right or as expected, conduct some more research and through some commitment as well as trial and error, you can improve your blog in that particular area.
Hi…..
Was really a nice post.
Am too working on a similar post. Hope to better it with your IDEA… Not Copying OK hehehehe -)
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