6 Lessons About How Not To FAIL in Blogging.
When I first started blogging, I read a number of tips and advice from the successful blogger. Most of these posts gave a similar advice- Use catchy headlines, write in-depth articles, focus on SEO, build your email list etc.
However, these were just the technicalities, which can be learned or copied.
Most of the times, bloggers ‘not’ fail because they didn’t know how to write an in-depth article or catchy headlines. They fail because there are some unspoken rules, which most successful bloggers forget to share.
In this post, I’m going to discuss 6 sneaky lessons on how now to fail in blogging, which will distinctively help you to become successful in your blogging career.
6 Sneaky Lessons on how not to FAIL in blogging
1. Be transparent
Your readers would love to know more about you. If you want to build a trust among your readers, you need to be transparent with them. Your blog should clearly mention who are you, your visions, how your readers can contact you etc.
Most of the people are not-so-open to trust ‘strangers’. And why should they? If you do not want to ‘fail’ in blogging, then become a friend, mentor, advisor, influencer or a ‘go-to’ person for your readers.
2. Research before you post
It’s okay to share your knowledge with your readers. However, you should also give ‘correct’ and complete information to them.
If your blog solves only ‘half’ of their problem and afterward they need to refer other blogs, then it’s very much likely that your readers will soon forget the half-help that you provided.
On the other hand, if you solve their problem completely, they might feel obliged to visit your blog again if they are looking for the answers for a similar problem in future.
3. Understand your audience
Let’s say the majority of your audience is ‘middle-aged’ people (40-60 years of age). Then the contents that you should be writing should focus more on the people of that age. You do not want to teach ‘how to propose a girl?’ to a middle-aged person, right?
Similarly, your way of writing content should also change according to the type of readers that you are getting. Use ‘mature’ writing over ‘cool’ words for your audience of middle-aged people.
Overall, understand your audience, their needs, difficulties and try to write contents focused on them, rather than anything ‘random’ that you like.
4. Add ‘value’ or entertain
Readers are looking only for two kinds of contents- either ‘value’ or ‘entertainment’.
You can add value to your blog by solving some problems or answering few questions that the readers might be looking for. On the other hand, you can retain your audience if you can entertain them.
The best scenario is when you can add value to your readers along with entertaining them.
For example, let’s say you are a technology blogger and write about latest gadget. Your audience might visit your blog to find updates about the latest gadgets.
Here- you can write amazing contents on new gadgets to add value and retain your audience. However, if your posts are also entertaining/funny at the same time, then your readers might also want to share that post with their friends.
Quick fact: ‘Entertaining’ posts are shared more than ‘value-adding’ posts on social media like Facebook, twitter etc.
5. Consistency is the key
The only thing people notice is ‘Consistency’.
Most of the actors are popular because they are continuously making new movies and the audience is ‘consistently’ watching their faces. Similarly, most of the footballers become famous not because of just one epic goal. They become popular only when they ‘consistently’ score goals.
Nobody remembers someone who did something just once or twice and then disappeared.
You need to be consistent to become successful in your blogging career. Consistently write 2-3 blog posts per week. Your audience should become ‘used-to’ visit your blog weekly to check the new contents.
If you ignore ‘consistency’ and you’re much likely to fail in your blogging career.
Also read: 9 Tested Ways to Monetize Your Blog- #6 is My Favourite
6. Ignore negative criticism
Do not expect everyone to ‘agree’ with your viewpoint.
If even your siblings have a different opinion, how can you expect that all your readers will like/agree with what you’re saying?
Many of them will hate your contents and leave a negative comment on your blog posts.
But that’s okay. Every blogger receives criticism.
When I first started writing about investing & finance, I received a number of hate comments on my blogs. As I was just a 22-year-old kid (back then), most people commented that I was not mature/experienced enough to give them investing tips and write on those topics (although I had an experience of investing in stocks for over 3 years even then).
Those comments/criticism did hurt a lot in the beginning. However, soon I understood that there will be haters everywhere. And you got to do what you got to do.
If the negative comment makes sense, then take is as a feedback and improve. If it doesn’t make any sense to you or you do not agree then just ‘IGNORE’.
Summary:
Let’s quickly summarize the 6 sneaky lessons on how not to FAIL in blogging that we discussed in this post-
- Be transparent
- Research before you post
- Understand your audience
- Add value or entertain
- Consistency is the key
- Ignore negative criticism
Also read: How to start your blog within 20 min? The Ultimate Guide
That’s all. There are my 6 lessons on how not to fail in blogging.
I hope that you have found it helpful. Leave a comment below if you have any additional ‘lesson’ that you want to share with our readers.
#HappyBlogging