Ever wondered how to keep going with blogging? Successful bloggers have thousands of posts on their blogs. But how to they keep going for so long? Why do so many quit? To get a regular readership with blogging takes time. There’s also over 600 million blogs on the internet so there’s plenty of competition. To stand out you need to pick a topic you’re going to stick at for several months or years.
Picking a topic you don’t care about is the worst thing you can do. I tried this several years ago and found myself writing about mushroom harvesting! I didn’t know anything about it, nor did I care. My goal was to create a successful website which made money organically. By starting with this intention, I found myself in some hot water. After 6 months of writing about mushroom harvesting, types of mushrooms and growing mushrooms in general, I got stuck! I was burned out and had had enough of mushrooms! So I quit!
Looking back my intention was all wrong. I put money first and as a result the blog was a failure. That’s because my heart wasn’t in it. My mushroom website ranked at the top of Google for some time. However, it was a difficult topic to monetise and I eventually let it drop! Some other blogger took the top place in Google – someone who was passionate about their topic. As a result, they had created much more content – including videos of their own mushroom harvesting activities!
How To Keep Going With Blogging – Touchy Feely
This might sound rather “touchy feely” to some, but I’ve since learned to choose a topic which is heart aligned. Find a topic you’re passionate about and could blog about forever. That way, you’ll never tire of writing and you’ll outlast any competition.
Many bloggers quit when they lose their desire to blog. But if you choose a topic you’re genuinely inspired by, your blogging habit can become a joy, rather than a burden. When you remove the “end goal” of making money, and choose a topic which gives you intrinsic motivation to blog, you’ll do it regardless of the outcome.
That’s where you need to be. As a mentor of mine said in relation to building an online business:
“The man who enjoys walking goes further than the man who likes the destination”
How To Keep Going With Blogging – How To Find Your Niche
I’ve written some posts on finding your niche for blogging before. For me, it didn’t come straight away. Before I built this website “affiliate marketing mentors” I had already built several hundred websites, most of which failed miserably! One of my first ones was a website tedsheds.net, which has long since passed. I wrote about shed plans for a while and managed to rank the site on Google for a popular keyword. I managed to sell a Clickbank product from it but it was only a short lived success.
Many of my other websites didn’t rank at all for their keywords even though I spend hour upon hour building them and creating content on them. The main takeaway from it all was this:
My focus was only on selling some spammy affiliate product from my sites and to make money – I wasn’t providing any real value.
After getting some more training in affiliate marketing I was given the advice of putting the value first – help people with a problem. I like to use Martin Lewis’s website as an example of an affiliate marketing website which does this superbly: Moneysavingexpert.com
How To Keep Going With Blogging – Give First, Get Later!
With Martin Lewis’s site, MoneySavingExpert.com, he offers advice about saving, mortgages, credit cards and so on. The main goal of the website is to help people with their money/spending.
In my early days as an affiliate marketer, I was focused only on the getting, and for as little work as possible! Big mistake! My websites only got sandboxed by Google and disappeared into the vast abyss of the internet with all the other invisible sites which never amounted to anything.
My “energy” was in desperation, because I was broke – also not a good foundation for building an online business from! But because I was desperate, and didn’t have a clue, I made a lot of mistakes. I didn’t lay the groundwork for my websites which would have saved me a lot of problems.
Use Your Own Journey/Experience
If you use your own journey or experience of something, you can always be genuine. There’s a saying which is apt for building a blog:
Oscar Wilde — ‘Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.’
When I first started blogging, however, this was more difficult than it has become over time. I was convinced that I wasn’t good enough and that I didn’t know anything worth sharing. So I felt that I should “assume some authority which I didn’t have”.
If you’re just starting out with a blog, my advice is to just get going. Be genuine. Initially, you’re not going to get a huge following. So there’s room for growth as you learn the ropes. Don’t expect a massive amount of people to find your blog posts in the beginning. There’s comfort in this, especially if, like me, you’re a little shy or feel as though you have nothing worth sharing.
Using your own experience and finding something you genuinely want to blog about are your superpowers. When you find your niche, it’s fun writing and you could do it forever, regardless of the rewards.
When you only want the reward, your creativity is stunted by thinking of whether something “works” or not. Will this work, will that work. “Is it worth all the trouble or should I not bother?” This thinking will only lead to inaction. Even if you start, with the goal of a sale in mind, you’ll be too anxious looking for the result and this can easily put you into a state of indecision and procrastination. Instead, focus on the post that inspires you, and which you want to write regardless.
Trust And Doubt In Blogging
Not everyone is motivated my money. When I started out looking for a way to earn an income online, the money was all I could think of. I just didn’t know how to make it. The problem with being money focused with an online business is that it doesn’t come immediately. There’s a lot of work to do beforehand, especially if you’re going down the organic marketing route such as with blogging.
It can take months or years to get your blog bringing in a good income. I’ve had some great months and some lousy months through blogging. Sometimes you’re up and other times you’re down! As with any business, it’s inconsistent. The key is to become consistent yourself, in order to build the consistency with your business.
I’ve definitely found consistency to be one of my main problems when it comes to blogging. In the early days, I was unsure whether blogging would be a good use of my time. So I would write a few blog posts and then sit and wait for the “results”. Nothing would happen. So I’d quit! Then, maybe a month later a sale would drop in! “Damn”, I thought, “if only I had kept up the habit, I’d have several sales by now!” As my confidence in blogging grew (as a form of income), I trusted it more and became more consistent with it.
But the main way I found to keep going was to find an intrinsic motivator which helped me stay the course.
My Intrinsic Motivator
My initial intrinsic motivator was simply one of achievement. I wanted to create some content which would rank on Google. Whether I made money or not wouldn’t matter if I achieved a ranking of my website. I knew, of course that a ranking would mean more traffic and more sales of course. But my focus was only on the task of getting a ranking. To get a ranking, I would find long tail keywords with low SEO difficulty.
Once I found a good keyword match, I would create some awesome content for it, which was far superior to anything currently ranking on Google! My motivation became therefore about creating awesome content which ranked on Google; NOT MAKING THE MONEY! The money became a by-product of my creating awesome content!
I can’t say that I was always super motivated by rankings because some days I simply wasn’t! Even now, I’m a little sceptical of Google and its ranking algorithms! Many of my rankings have dropped off too, but some of them remain! The point isn’t rankings though, it is to find a motivation to do the work first outside of the end result which may be far away. A shorter term motivation has always helped me.
Give Yourself A Reward System
It’s not much work to write a single blog post. As you’re beginning as a blogger, remind yourself not to worry about how your posts are perceived, since it probably won’t get a lot of views! As bad as this sounds, it can help if you’re worried about this! Use a reward system when you’re done, such as a cup of coffee or a biscuit! Don’t allow yourself the “treat” until you’ve done your post for the day!
Using a reward system has got me over the procrastination “hump” many times. Some days you just aren’t inspired to write. Allow yourself the luxury of having a few “duvet” days where you let yourself off the hook. Some days you will just have a mental block, or are uninspired. Use those days instead for strategising about other areas of your online business perhaps, or just getting yourself into a better state of mind.
When you’re struggling, just start writing about how stuck you are! Craft a post which might help someone else in your exact circumstance! I’m sure many of my posts simply haven’t been seen! Some of them I didn’t even promote! Sometimes the blog post is just for you – to get the wheels turning and start the habit. Remind yourself of this when you’re stuck.
See also my post about getting unstuck in your affiliate marketing business.
When You’re Stuck, Work On “You”
A few years ago I was really frustrated with my blogging. I wanted a sale and couldn’t understand how nothing seemed to be happening no matter how hard I worked! Sometimes blogging is just like this! I was about to quit the community I had joined to help me with my affiliate marketing (click here for info), and I reached out for support.
I met up with two members of the community (Gill and Frank) who helped me immensely and I’ll never forget it! The thing was, I had worked myself into a bit of a “Frenzy” (as I’m prone to do occasionally). Instead of assuring me about my direction of blogging or anything like that I was given the advice to start a gratitude journal and read a book!
Well it turned out to be great advice because I was simply burned out. Plus, I had been looking so much for the “result” that I was pushing it away! I had forgotten to look after myself and my health was suffering. It was a wake up call! Just remember, no amount of success is worth losing your health over!
Summary
So here’s the main points I’ve covered in this post “How To Keep Going With Blogging”:
- Choose a topic which is “heartfelt” – close to your heart and that you’re passionate about or at least interested in. It’s far easier to keep going when you love your topic!
- Don’t put the money first, put your topic/passion first
- Give first – get later. Focus on a topic which actually helps your audience, rather than focusing on “what you will get from it”!
- Use your own journey/experience and be genuine – when you’re genuine it’s much more inspiring to read and there’s less competition for “you” when you’re being yourself – nobody can imitate you! “The key to success is sincerity. If you can fake that you’ve got it made.”― George Burns
- Trust the journey – if you find a journey with “heart” you’ll keep going long beyond those who quit.
- Find an intrinsic motivator (which is shorter term than the financial reward) – e.g. hits on your website, rankings, leads/subscribers etc.
- Give yourself a reward system – such as a cup of coffee/biscuit etc. For a longer term achievement you can find a larger reward.
- Sometimes the blog post is “just for you” – it doesn’t have to be perfect! Remove some of your mental objections (self judgement, perfectionism etc.) and write it just for you, and to get the wheels turning on the blog habit.
- If you get stuck write the post which you need to read to help you get unstuck! See how to get unstuck in your affiliate business.
- When you’re stuck work on you – take care of your mental and physical health and don’t forget that’s the real key to success – good health!
- Enjoy the journey and remember to have fun – don’t make it too serious!
