Blogging is, at the same time, all of these things:
- fun, work, profitable, tedious, engaging, addictive, rewarding, draining, exciting, and demanding
There are definitely more positives to blogging than negatives for the right people. Some people cannot hack it after awhile. Others totally thrive on it. Among the latter group, many make great money doing it.
No matter where you are with your blog right now, beginner or advanced, we all get tired, burnt out, and have need for inspiration from time to time. Sometimes the promise of more money, more traffic, and more success isn’t quite enough to get us through. During these times it’s nice to know a couple things:
- You are not alone. All bloggers go through periods of ups and downs, like any business owner does, online or off. It’s nice to know we all need pretty much the same things to keep us going.
- Power in numbers. We are part of an historic time in human history and technology. In fact, bloggers are smack in the middle of the whole thing. You aren’t just trying to provide yourself with a living or part-time income. While that may be what you think about most of the time, you are also part of something vast, exciting, and cutting-edge.
Here are some tips to keep you pumped about your blogging, marketing, and everything that you do to expand your presence on the web.
1. Remember why you started your blog in the first place.
What were your goals then? How many have you achieved thus far? How many to go? Update your goals for your blog and start pecking away at the fresh list. Might be time to re-think strategy in areas of marketing and content development to make sure you are a real threat to your competition and super relevant to your targeted readers.
2. Most bloggers fail. And that’s good!
That’s GOOD news! It means that if you are dedicated to your success as a blogger, you won’t be among the failures. And a high failure rate means less competition. It doesn’t mean you are destined to fail too. Revel in the fact that you are different and you are in, or on your way to becoming part of a prestigious group that makes their living wholly or partially from blogging.
3. When in doubt about blogging as a road to making money online, remember this:
Blogs are one of the most common type of sites on the web today. If blogging wasn’t a big deal, the stats would look a whole lot different! If you find yourself disbelieving the power of blogs, turn your eyes to the hundreds of thousands of other real bloggers on the web. Or ask yourself “If blogging wasn’t the way to go, why would so many people like Jack have a blog and not some other kind of site?”
4. If it’s not fun, you’ll never be successful with blogging!
If you aren’t having fun with blogging, you can’t force success. This doesn’t mean you should give up if you are wondering whether you’ll ever have fun doing this. It means you need to find ways to make blogging fun for you. If you’re tired of writing, start a podcast. Make a video once in awhile. Get a radio show. Start a social site an attach it to your blog. Do something to make what you do fun as well as lucrative. I’ve never met a successful blogger who hated what they do for a living!
5. Anything that is destined to make money month after month takes ongoing effort to achieve.
It seems obvious when you say it, but man are people overly impatient with their blogs! In no other scenario on Earth that I know of are people more demanding and in a hurry than new bloggers who want traffic yesterday and money in the bank last week. It doesn’t work that way. You aren’t missing anything. There are no secrets beyond what you already know: great content that your target market desperately wants, needs, loves, and comes back again and again for.
6. Everything gets easier…
As hard as you are working now is as hard as you will ever work in blogging. A little hard-won popularity now can be leveraged into exponentially more popularity later with far less effort. This blog takes a lot less care and feeding today than it did when I started. It’s the same for most bloggers. The more you do now, the less you have to do later to get A LOT more traffic, rankings and income from blogging.
7. Many people quit the very moment before their blog is about to take off…
…or they change tactics mid-stream out of impatience and screw up what was about to work for them. Either way, the core message about blogging for profits, popularity, and traffic is and always will be about sticking to it through the times you want to leave it behind the most.
8. Dream big…
Don’t just read your favorite bloggers. Picture your blog being counted among them someday on “top blogs to read” lists. Much of the formula for success is right in front of us when it comes to blogging. The bloggers we most admire show us every single day how to bring the goods to their markets and reap the rewards through their posts.
9. One day, you will have help…
Mashable.com started out as one dude and a blog. Now that dude, Pete Cashmore, has tons of people writing for his blog. While having other bloggers share the content load might not be part of your long-term business plan, certainly having help with marketing, customer service, and many other things should be. As you grow, things also get easier because you can and should hire help to give you more time to be the visionary and move your blog business forward.
10. Thriving by giving…
Don’t hold back. Give things and information away like candy. Learn to make a good living by looking as though all you do is give and give. It is a lucrative business model that is proven in many markets. Learn to monetize the free stuff, and you won’t feel like a charity non-profit whose mission is to grind out content with no reward.
Bonus Tip: Get buzzed often.
There’s nothing that gives you the energy (or high) to move forward and accomplish big things with blogging like blowing people’s minds and getting the feedback that ensues. When you do a good job, readers will let you, and the world, know. And that feedback becomes highly addictive. You want it more and more and it makes for a great blog because that’s the only way to get it!
