Every day a large number of blogs are started worldwide by passionate bloggers and a majority of them fail within a year. On one hand, we have blogs like Huffington Post that earns $14 million every month and on the other, we have tens of thousands of blogs struggling to get a $100 paycheck- without a success. Is your blog also desperate to get its first paycheck? Then probably, you have come to the right place.
No, we won’t give you a paycheck but share some secrets and tips to help you earn a steady stream of paychecks. We have strategically created this blog to mention the challenges, tips, and a concrete corrective action plan & tools. So, be ready with your diary and pen and jot down the important points. You may not be able to follow all the tips but try to pick at least one that seems most convenient to you, and stick to it till you start observing the positive results.
Not identifying your target readers
Not identifying your target readers
Deep knowledge of your audience will help you find the most engaging topics and focus your research in the right direction. You would be able to highlight the aspects most relevant to them and use the conversational tone to match the readers’ profile. All these factors form the basis of a great content.
Start by studying the demographics, and needs of your targeted audiences. Understand their problems and major challenges. Identify the gaps in demand and supply where you can chip in and offer a precise solution. It is an even better idea to present multiple options to help your readers pick the one that they are most comfortable with.
Tools like Google Analytics make things easier for you but there is nothing like direct interaction with the audience. Think engaging ways to directly ask them about their needs and challenges, likes and dislike weakness and strengths, etc. This detailed information helps you in two ways- strengthening relations with the audience and concentrating on purpose-fulfilling content. A wide variety of free and premium tools will iron out the creative creases and help you build engaging polls, email newsletters, etc.
· https://www.poll-maker.com/: A powerful and free tool to create polls, surveys and quizzes to help you understand your readers better and offer most relevant content
· https://rating-widget.com/: A free yet powerful tool to rate your article to help you understand your writing quality and constantly improve the same.
· http://hashtagify.me/: Find deeper insights about different hashtags to discover latest trending topics, research relevant keywords and keep you updated about social media. It allows you to create posts on topics with maximum potential and makes it easier for you to attract and engage the readers for long.
Lacking a mission
Without a clear mission, you won’t be able to concentrate intently. Gradually the passion dissipates, you start losing your focus and eventually the quality suffers. It becomes increasingly tough to attract new visitors and even retaining a few that you might have acquired.
· Starting your blogging journey with clear and realistic objectives
· Lack of sustainable mutual connection between creative and commercial goals
· Lack of a well-thought plan to align your daily tasks (posting, content marketing, SEO, etc.) with the big picture/prime objective(s)
Examples
· Objective: To earn income (Too vague)
· To earn $3000 within a month (better defined but too big to be achieved within a month)
· To earn at least $50 in 30 days mainly through affiliate income and sponsored posts (well-defined and possibly achievable target with specific figures, time-frame, and income avenues)
Pro-tip:
· Don’t ignore what-ifs of a venture. Be flexible enough to review and reasonably fine-tune your efforts to maximize gains and minimize obstacles
· Dedicate a decent chunk of time, space, and infrastructure to your venture. It will eliminate distractions and help you remain focused and agile throughout the blogging process
· Don’t shy to ask, learn, and enhance your expertise. There are lots of bloggers around the globe who are ready to help you with their expertise. Reach out to them through digital groups, forums, and online communities
· Read as much as you can. A good reader subconsciously learn to write well
ProBlogger and Bloggersconnected.com/ are two ideal online sources to check for the niche-specific brands that are looking to connect with the bloggers. Here you just need to create your account, set your profile and specify communication preferences. You would get instant information about any new opportunities for bloggers.
Diverse topics
Widening your portfolio of topics seems a good idea on the surface as it would possibly attract a wider spectrum of readers across different demographics. However, you would need to write more in the same period of time. It compresses the time for research and writing. Switching your attention to different topics in a smaller time frame also creates stress. Before you know, you start losing the grip over the quality thus annoying and alienating your readers. Ironically, you would be putting more effort without knowing that each effort is actually annoying- instead of attracting your readers.
Concentrate on a single niche to keep the things manageable and gain better expertise. It will enable you to concentrate on value rather than struggling with the volume. You would be able to fine-tune every aspect of your content delivery- right from research to marketing. Result? Your readers would enjoy your blogs, get the value benefit, and would love to return. You may not get any immediate ranking benefits but eventually, it helps in building an authority that will help you gain more visibility in due course of time. It is just like a long term investment of efforts to gain higher returns. Each high quality, SEO, and Reader-friendly post write today increases the RoI of your future SEO strategy.
There are immediate or short term benefits as well. On the commercial front, it will help you acquire the targeted and sustainable readers with a steady growth rate which makes it easier to enhance the revenue potential of your blog. Sponsors have grown too wise to be lured with plain stats. They want to know every detail of your traffic- age, gender, income, etc. and see how these details match with their commercial targets. They are ready to invest a decent amount on niche blogs with the most relevant traffic. The same thing applies to affiliate marketing programs and ad sense or another ad-related avenue. Just like conventional marketing, showing your products (i.e., affiliate links/ads) to the relevant buyers multiply the sales/clicks probabilities and helps you earn commissions.
Lack of consistency
Consistency and patience are two other major elements of a successful blogging voyage. One of the secret traits of top bloggers is that gradually build habits into their readers’ routine by feeding them high-value content on a regular basis. Compare your blog posts to the regular mental meal for your readers. You don’t eat 20 pizzas a day and remain hungry for the next 10 days. Rather you eat a balanced quantity when you feel hungry- on a daily basis and most probably during (almost) the same times. In the same way, you need to offer a digestible quantity of high-quality content to your readers on a daily basis and at the same time. It will gradually form a reading habit into them and your blog will start experiencing a steady flow of daily traffic. Many bloggers post blogs as and when convenient while some may post 5-7 blogs daily and then become silent for the next 7 days. The readers who read several good posts today will get disappointed on visiting your blog the next day. You certainly can’t expect readers’ loyalty by switching their experience between instant gratification and total disappointment.
Create a well-defined publishing schedule and keep your focus on value rather than volume
Plan your routine strategically to dedicate a specific time window exclusively for blogging
Avoid rushing the things in a quest to catch up with the volume. For instance, don’t try to force a longer post or a complicated topic into the regular blogging hours. Rather enlarge the time window for such demanding posts.
Best tools for scheduling
Two of the reliable scheduling tools are HootSuite and Buffer. Hootsuites is suitable for those who are looking for comprehensive features while buffer is best for bloggers with relatively modest requirements. But if you need a unified ecosystem for post planning as well as scheduling then there is a better tool for you. Though available at price, the features it offers are truly awesome. We are talking about promorepublic:
https://promorepublic.com: If you are looking to blend scheduling with content research and presentation then you would like to go for Promo Republic. Along with general scheduling features it also offers you as many as one hundred thousand of blogging ideas and purpose-built tools for graphic editing. Additionally you would also get Analytics, reporting an Ai-powered smart posting.
Challenge #5: Lack of reasonable flexibility
Have flexibility and keep working on plan B’s to avoid stagnation. At the height of your success, you may even say No to high-value commercial options if it doesn’t align with your preferences. But as a beginner, you don’t have this privilege. So, if you started a blog to earn through Adsense but the things seem too difficult then don’t risk waiting too long without plan B. Immediately start looking for another income option- sponsored posts, affiliate programs, etc. Having a steady income stream, even with a small amount, will make you feel good and nourishes positivity. Collectively it will help you in enhancing the quality of your blog.
Lack of Business Approach
If you really wish to convert your blog into a sustainable commercial venture then incorporate business thinking into creativity. For instance, make sure that you invest only in high-potential goods (in blogging terms- topics that attract maximum readers). Keep on examining the market fluctuations, i.e., the fluctuations in search trends relevant to your niche. Understand your readers deeply and know about the most recent potentials. One of the easiest ways to do this is to check your competing blog and social listening on the related platforms where you can find the targeted readers and potential sponsors. For instance, if you run a technology blog then visiting tech forums, checking related tech pages on Facebook, and exploring twitter posts with relevant hashtags can be a great strategy. At the same time don’t forget to check the online gathering places of tech CEOs and decision-makers like Linkedin. It will help you align your blogging goals with readers’ preferences as well as the corporate strategy of related businesses.
Best tool for giving a business approach to your blog
Starting a business approach becomes easier if you have a friendly tool that is automatically updated with the time without requiring any intervention. One such tool is LivePlan where you can get all the basic and advanced features to plan your blogging business the best way. Of course, you don’t have to use the entire collection of those elements or criteria but you can easily scale up the plan when you need.
Here are a few features of LivePlan that offer it a distinguished position:
· Detailed instructions in quick-follow format
· Over 500 samples/examples for each step
· Key terms definitions
· High flexibility in outline
· Inbuilt financial formulas to carry out calculation
· Easy Export options (Word Processor, .PDF)
· Data Import options (QuickBooks and Xero)
· Industry based Comparison data
· Long-term prediction options
· Automated charts and graphs
· Secure online sharing
· Pitch infographic
· … and much more
Conclusion
In order to earn a decent income from your blog, you need to have clear goals and follow a specific strategy. Just like any other business, invest your ideas, efforts and time in blogging exercises if you really wish to turn it into a solid business venture. In this blog we have explained various possible reasons for the failure of blogs and how to revive them and turn them into a profitable enterprise. We also mentioned some of the reliable tools that can help you in the blog revival process.