Why Most Blogs Are Failures

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Most blogs are “failures”, if not now, they will be… that’s just a fact. They end up stale, boring, inactive and neglected.

The two most common reasons for failure are 1) lack of action, and 2) lack of perseverance.

Lack of Action

What I mean by lack of action can be defined by degrees: too little action, too conservative of action, constant procrastination or no action at all.

So what is action? Writing. Creating content. Topics. Ideas. This is where 98% of bloggers will break down. They are afraid to act. They plan. They nibble. They fear a critical comment or two. They fear no one will read what they’ve written. There are countless reasons for lack of action but it all boils to down to either fear or lack of discipline.

Fear of embarrassment, fear of failure, fear of ridicule, fear of mistakes, fear of mediocrity, fear of using up their one great idea and then having nothing left. Fear is an action killer, not just in blogging, but in life.

Lack of action is often a lack of personal discipline. You just don’t put the effort into it. You want a good blog, but you’re not willing to do the work or pay the personal price. Well surprise, Chief… all those people that have good blogs, and get a lot of traffic, put EFFORT – consistent dedicated work – into creating content. If it was easy, or the lazy could do it, it would simply shift the definition of what “good” is. (you thought I was going to say “if it was easy everyone could do it”, but that’s not accurate. Many things are easy, and everyone does do it… what happens then is, it moves or raises the bar for what is considered good or successful. This reality is what can give you a distinct advantage in our society. Why? Because people willing to put out a lot of effort are increasingly scarce. This gives you an automatic advantage in today’s world. Put that in your pipe and smoke it for a while. )

You have to take action. You have to take lots of action. Sometimes you’ll hear it called “MASSIVE ACTION”. Write. Create some content. You can refine it, improve it and master it as you go. You can’t even get to the “improvement part” until you learn to consistently produce the “action part”. The “improvement” part comes naturally for those who have the discipline to take consistent action. The “action” part is the obstacle most people never scale.

It’s hard for me to OVER emphasize this point. It is the #1 reason 98% of all blogs end up with a post about once every six months that says something like “I know I haven’t posted in a long time, but I’m going too, promise. Be sure to check back”. Yeah… that’s a winning strategy.

Perseverance

Following close on the heals of lack of action, is a failure to persevere. I’m mean come on, I’ve been blogging for a WHOLE month, and I don’t have 50,000 visitors a day. What a waste of my time. I quit. I’m discouraged. It’s not fair.

Seriously, when blogging stardom isn’t realized after a few weeks, the “fun” wears off and the “work” just isn’t worth it for most folks.

Folks, there are MILLIONS of blogs, tens of millions. The days of instant success for 99.9999% of bloggers is long gone. If you do a little research on successful blogs, you’ll find they have been at it for an AVERAGE of about 3 years or longer. That number is probably too little but it gives you a good idea of the effort involved. Most of them didn’t see STEADY growth, the growth came in unexpected spurts due to events or circumstances they never foresaw.

Most people won’t last three months consistently posting creative, decent content. Out of the small group that does go that long, the majority of them will fizzle out in less than a year. That leaves a high percentage chance or success for those that last the 3 years simply because so FEW actually persevere that long.

It goes without saying that those who do last that long will most likely be creating decent content too. Why? Because it’s hard to churn out passionless garbage month after month. You’ll get no readers, no traffic and no encouragement… so it’s not likely that a terrible blogger is going to last three years anyway.

Action. Perseverance.

Sorry… that’s the down and dirty. Anyone trying to sell you the “Seven Secrets of Instant Blogging Success” is making their money by… well, you figure it out… how are they making their money?

Like all business success, it takes time, hard work and discipline unless you’re ripping people off with gimmicks and junk… but that’s a whole other topic.

Action. Perseverance.
Action. Perseverance.
Action. Perseverance.
Action. Perseverance.
Action. Perseverance.
Action. Perseverance.
Action. Perseverance.
Action. Perseverance.
Action. Perseverance.
Action. Perseverance.

No shortcuts, friends. If you find one, be sure to share it with me, but don’t call it “Seven Secrets to Instant Blogging Success” because I’m already aware of that scam.

[Note: I'm speaking specifically to bloggers who want to build traffic, sustain an audience and/or eventually monetize their writing efforts. While action and perseverance also apply to the blogger who simply wants to put up some personal content occasionally, you wouldn't consider that type of blog a "failure" for inconsistent posting or even uninteresting content. That's not the goal for those types of blogs. If the blog is satisfactory to the owner irregardless of traffic or public interest, the blog is a "success" by that measure.]

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