If you are contemplating starting a professional blog, the idea of that blog failing is likely far from your mind.
However, contemplating failure can be useful.
The unfortunate reality is that blogs can and do fail, and while it may be tempting to ignore this possibility when starting your own blog, you may also be overlooking the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the blogs that have failed in the past.
Below, we have detailed three reasons professional blogs fail – and provided a few tips as to how you can avoid the same issues with your blog.
#1 – Lack of originality
It is thought that there may be nearly half a billion blogs online, and realistically, many of these blogs are almost exact carbon copies of one another.
For blogs that struggle for originality, there’s nothing to capture the audience; no unique attribute that ensures their readers will keep coming back, post after post, for years on end – so ultimately, the blog fails.
To avoid such a scenario with your blog, make originality a key consideration in everything you do.
Ask what your blog can offer to readers that they can’t get anywhere else; maybe it’s your writing style, your unique take on your subject matter, or your in-depth insider know-how – whatever it is, finding and maintaining your originality is key to ensuring your blog can find its place in an ever-more oversaturated blogosphere.
#2 – Lack of effective marketing
Let’s say a blogger builds the absolute best blog in the history of the internet.
The images are incredible; the writing is the perfect mix of witty and informative; the blog loads quickly – absolutely every element is exactly as it should be.
Unfortunately, if no one knows that perfect blog exists, it’s doomed to fail.
As we touched on above, there are literally millions of blogs online, all competing for the same readers, so the ability to market a blog effectively is now a key skill that all bloggers have to master.
To do this, it may be worth opting to enroll on an IMC program or similar course in order to deepen your knowledge of the foundations of good marketing practices and the tools – such as Google Adwords – that you can utilize to market your blog effectively.
#3 – The blogger does not see their blog as a business
The first ever blogs were predominantly lifestyle or hobby based; people sharing their lives, or discussing their favorite subjects, for the fun of it.
If people read them, great, but ultimately, blogs were primarily for the blogger.
While it’s possible to retain some of the relaxed, laid back vibe of the early blogs in your professional blog, it is nevertheless important to see your blog as a business rather than a hobby.
To an extent, this means you’ll need to think about what your readers want to read about and how you can appeal to them.
Furthermore, you also have to see your blog as a separate entity from your personal life; it needs its own bank account, it’s own budget, and so on.
It’s still your blog, and you can still write it for fun – that’s the benefit of blogging, after all – but your blog is also a business, and thus it should be treated as such.
In Conclusion
You should always have a positive outlook when starting a new blog; work hard and hope for the best.
However, it’s also worth taking the lessons of the blogs that have failed into account, so you can do things differently, and thus ensure that your blog is all the more likely to be a success.
