Building a successful blog can be a difficult task for a blogger, even though there's loads of information out there about blogging. But while there is much information about how to build a successful blog, there isn’t much information about some of the major causes of failure. This article is about some of the most common reasons for failure among bloggers and how to overcome them, read through and see which applies to you.
# 1. Fear
When you hear or read about these bloggers and their testimonies, panicking or entertaining fear is definitely not the next thing to do, these kinds of reports should gear you up and make you understand that you need to work harder to beat your competitors and if you can’t beat them, then you join them in sharing the traffic and profits in that niche.
If you want to make it has a blogger, you have to put away fear and be ready to battle head to head with your competitors, you need to show them what you‘ve got and make them buckle-up.
# 2. Misconceptions
There are lots and lots of misconceptions flying around on the internet. I have also been a victim of so many misconceptions and misleading facts about making money online. Some will say you don’t need to have a website to make money online while some are preaching you need it to make money online. The latest and booming one right now is the niche issue.
Though there may be some niches that are more lucrative than the others, but I still believe your niche doesn’t determine your success as a blogger. It is proper to do a critical niche investigation before you start out, but what if you have already started out in a niche you love and all you keep hearing is that the niche is crowded or its less profitable.
I will advise you to stick to what you love and with time you will surely reap the fruits of your labor. Always remember that what is not in demand today may be in demand tomorrow, so don’t let anyone mislead you.
# 3. Laziness
Laziness is a natural characteristic of a Natural Man. Every man is born with the tendency of becoming lazy, but you have to shake it off. I am also guilty of this point, because most times I just get lazy to do so many things (as a matter of fact, it took me over 3 weeks to finally type this post after I have written it in my notebook).
Laziness is one of the major factors that can lead to failure as a blogger; you need to find a way to kill laziness in your life if you really want to succeed with your blog. There are lots of ways by which you can effectively manage laziness, but I have found scheduling to be effective.
Create schedules and time-tables of how you want to want to live your daily life and try as much as possible to stick to them. This method works quite well for curbing laziness.
# 4. Misplaced Priority
Misplaced priority simply means putting the cart before the horse, and as simple as these words sound, they are very common amongst bloggers and it causes a lot of havoc as do most of the other factors listed in this post.
When you are misplacing your priorities, everything will tend to work in reverse order because you are probably doing the last thing first or you are doing the first thing last.
Most bloggers (including me) when they are just starting usually spend more time chasing traffic and more AdSense clicks than creating content for their blog. Over the months, I have learnt a lot from my blog, I have recorded some success, as well as some failures due to misplaced priorities and am currently trying my best to fix things and make them more as they should be.
Getting your priority right is quite easy, all you have to do is: Look through your blogging life, visit other blogs and check out their designs and layout, and ask questions of other bloggers. Read other blog archives and try to figure-out where you have been putting the cart before the horse and make corrections ASAP.
# 5. Extra-Curriculum Activities / Entertainment
Extra-curriculum activities can also have a very critical impact on your blogging business. Am also a victim of this because I love watching movies (I watched movies for 4 hours after writing this post) and surfing the internet a lot, when you are addicted to some of these extra-curriculum activities or entertainment, you tend to waste so much time on them; the time you could have used to improve your blog or write 3-4 articles, you may end up spending this time on movies or gaming.
The easiest method I think you can apply to overcome this challenge is to stay away from places that trigger you to do these things. For instance, I stay away from television and my laptop to avoid being tempted to watch movies. You too can do the same, if its gaming, then you should stay away from games and if its talking for hours, you'd better stay away from your talkative friends.
# 6. Ignorance and Complacency
Ignorance is also a very interesting factor that affects a blogger, I have seen some bloggers (mostly newbies) who don’t even know about Google+ yet; and most of us have not even created a Google+ page. If you must succeed as a blogger, you need to kill ignorance, you need to open your mind to learning new things and improve your knowledge day-by-day.
The easiest way to prevent ignorance is to read other peoples blog (whether small or big), subscribe to their feeds and the most effective one for me is adding them as friends on Facebook or better still liking the blog’s Facebook Fan page. This method has helped me to stay connected and updated on the blogosphere, try them and you will surely see a difference.
Final word to you my fellow blogger
Succeeding as a blogger takes time, patience and hard work. You need these three Ingredients to make it as a blogger.