Blog Success – Why your blog might be strugglingsideincomeblogging.com /blog-success/

Larry DeanePin It

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to look f or it - Henry David Thoreau

One of the more interesting phenomenon's I see in the "blogosphere" is that some blogs quickly become ahuge blog success, while other blogs struggle to grow at all.

I would be lying if I claimed I had any reasonable explanation f or this. I must also admit that I of ten wonder whySide Income Blogging hasn't been more successf ul. Actually, I've done f ar more than wonder, I've given thiswhole topic considerable amount of thought over the past month.

I've been blogging since 2006, and started a number of dif f erent blogs and websites. In most cases, I saw aprogressive growth in both traf f ic and earnings f rom month to month. Side Income Blogging is the f irst blogI've built that hasn't seen that same growth trend. In f act over the past f ew months, I've seen a very slowdownward trend in my traf f ic. Frustrating to say the least...

I started Side Income Blogging in 2010, a litt le over 3 years ago. The site still receives on average about 100 -150 unique visits a day. The personal f inance blog I started in 2006 was received well over 1500 visits per dayat the three year mark. Again, this "phenomenon" has caused me to really wonder. Have I failed? Does mycontent suck? What am I doing wrong?

I know many of you wonder the same things, as I receive emails f rom some of you with the same questions. Here are a f ew things that I've come to realize as I've thought through this over the past f ew months.

Here are a f ew things that I've come to realize as I've thought through this over the past f ew months.

Comparing your blog success to someone else's is waste of t ime

The number of f actors that play into a one blog's success and another blog's struggles are just too vast. As aresult, trying to f igure out the f ormula that site XYZ used to get 1000 visitors in a year vs. your f ormula f orgetting 100 visitors in 3 years in near impossible. There are of course a f ew "best practices" that you canf ollow. These best practices like: search engine optimization, promoting your blog, building an email list, etc.will certainly help, they won't guarantee a rapid rise to success.

You are unique and your blog is unique. Your path to success is also unique. Comparing yourself tosomebody else is really easy to do - I struggle with this every single day - but it really is a complete waste oftime. Spend that t ime f ocusing on more important things, that will help your blog grow.

Why you are blogging drives your blog's success, not the raw numbers.

Are you blogging because you are passionate about your topic? Are you blogging to earn money? Are youblogging to help others?

Who doesn't like to earn money right? I do. In f act earning income is one of the primary f ocuses of this blogas is teaching you how to earn money f rom blogging. The irony is, I don't earn much f rom this blog, at leastnot directly. The majority of my monthly earnings come f rom my services work. Not really how I had plannedf or things to work out, but it works. I get at least 2-3 new clients a month f rom this blog.

The f act is though, while I like to f ocus on earnings, the real reason I started this blog was to help you. Iremember telling my wif e when I brought Side Income Blogging online f or the f irst t ime, something very close to:

The "how to blog" niche is really saturated, and I doubt this blog is going to a be a big success like mypersonal finance blog was, but if I just help one person, it will be worth it.

THAT was the core reason I created Side Income Blogging. Would I like it to reach the level of Problogger? Absolutely, who wouldn't? But if I return to the core reason I created this blog, it was to help people. Basedon the mail and comments I get each week, Side Income Blogging is helping people each and every day. Thatalone makes this blog a success and keeps me motivated to keep writ ing.

So ask yourself : Why are you blogging? If you're blogging to earn money, and three years later you stillaren't...well, to be honest, it might be time to consider other options or at least take a hard look at what you'redoing and how you're doing it, because you should be earning a good amount in three years, especially ifearning money is your goal.

If you're blogging because you love the topic you're writ ing about or maybe you're interested in helping people,than if you have 1 reader, you've met your goal.

The right topic goes a long way to your blog's success

Your blog's topic can have a signif icant impact on your growth and success. Blogs about blogging, like thisone, are a dime a dozen, and getting your voice heard above the thousands of other voices all yelling to beheard is tough. Honestly, it 's much hard than I imagined.

Your blog's topic could be hurting your growth as well. Almost everyone has a blog these days. In 2006, when Istarted, blogs were new and starting a blog and growing it quickly wasn't hard. Fast f orward to 2013 though,blogs are everywhere and about almost any topic. As a result, blogging is hard and getting harder each andevery day.

I tell people almost everyday to blog on what they're passionate about. I still stand by that statement, but it 's alitt le more complex. To make success easier, you not only have to blog about a topic you're passionate about,but you have to also f ind a low competit ion niche. If you're new to blogging, and at the point of choosing yourniche, I would suggest paying a great deal of attention to competit ion. Spend time researching competit ion andsee who you're up against. I would strongly advise picking a niche with medium to high traf f ic, with very litt lecompetit ion.

If , like me, you're all ready well into your topic choice, you just have to accept the f act that your growth curvewill be longer, possibly signif icantly longer. I've accepted this, and honestly am ok with it. I'm too stubborn togive up, and I couldn't quit anyway. I love writ ing on this blog.

Blog success is often about pure luck

I know people won't like this one, but it 's true. Bloggers always want to attribute their success to hard workand skill.

The reality is that many blogs make their way to the top quickly due to blind luck. I saw an instance of this justthe other day. A reporter f or a major news outlet ran across a blog while doing some research f or a story. They liked the blog, and linked out to it in their article. BOOM, huge traf f ic rush, lots of visibility, and suddenlythis blog that's been struggling to grow gets a huge gush of wind in it 's sails. Instant success.

For most of us, that doesn't happen and I'm certainly not going to hold my breath waiting f or it.

Blog success if often about who you know

Indulge me f or a minute, but I want to share a personal story about my son with you ...

When we moved up to the North Carolina mountains in 2009, I honestly had no idea of the negative impact itwould have on my oldest son. He loves to play f ootball. He lived f or it and it was the one thing that he wastruly passionate about. He put his heart and soul into it. He went to every practice and every game, and playedhis heart out. He put everything he had into it, and as a result, expected big things f rom it. That's partially myf ault, as I constantly told him that hard work and dedication pays of f - while I still want to believe this is true,I'm beginning to think that maybe it 's not that simple.

Lif e is f ar more complicated, especially in today's world and social polit ics of ten play a big role in our lives. Of ten, being successf ul is more about who you know than what you know. My son learned this lesson thehardway, and it broke my heart watching him learn it. Fortunately he is an incredibly strong kid, otherwise I amaf raid it might have broke him. See, he seldom played, and when he did, it was only f or a short t ime, and of tenin the 4th quarter if his team was winning. He was devastated. He hoped an tolerated it f or more than 3 years,and f inally half way through his senior season, he quit af ter a game where he wasn't allowed to play at all.

Driving home f rom that game, I watched my hardworking, ever passionate kid, break down and cry in the backseat was probably one of the worst things I've had to deal with as a parent. When he was litt le, I could just pickhim up, hug him and make everything ok. But now...I f elt helpless, and there was nothing I could do.

Football here in the mountains goes back a long time, and we very quickly learned that the kids that activelyplay have f ather's that played, have inf luential parents, have parents that make substantial donations to thef ootball organization and have parents that all went to school together and are all originally f rom here.

My son was an outsider, and no matter how hard he worked, no matter how well he did, he was not going toget the same amount of playing time as others. I honestly to this day don't understand how those coachessleep at night. How could you not play a kid that worked so hard? I can count the number of t imes he misseda pass on my two hands. The boy can catch a f ootball.

While it disgusts me, this same lesson applies to blogging. There is a "clique" in your blog's niche, and if youaren't in it, it 's going to negatively inf luence the growth of your blog. Building relationships and using thoserelationships to your advantage is an age old tactic that applies to blogging as well.

Unf ortunately f or me, it 's not a game I am willing to play. I ref use to build relationships just to benef it myself . Ivalue two-way posit ive relationships with people I can rely on and trust. In f act, on Google+ I have un-circledmany "big players" because I don't like them, because I don't agree with the way they do things and becausethey aren't approachable and don't reply.

Unf ortunately, who you know can have signif icant impact on how quickly your blog grows. Be very aware ofthis and accept it.

Wrapping up

These of course are just a f ew of the big f actors that play into your blog's success. There are many manyothers as well. While we all like to think we have f ull control our blog and it 's growth, we don't. There are manyother f actors out of our control that can have signif icant inf luence.

Two important lessons I want to leave you with:

Focus on the reason you started your blog and don't get caught up in the numbers and earnings game.

Pay attention to the things that you can control, and ignore the things that you can't.

Me? As mentioned, I started this blog to help others about a topic I'm passionate about. I intend to continuedoing just that, regardless of the numbers.

Photo by: mckaysavage

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Larry Deane is the f ounder and editor of Side Income Blogging. He is a f ull- t ime ITprof essional and part- t ime entrepreneur, writer and sof tware developer. Larry loves teachingand helping others about how they can start and earn money by blogging. Most importantly,Larry loves spending time with his wif e and 6 kids. You can f ind Larry on Google+ andPinterest.

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