This is a true story of a flop blogger.
It is horrifying because you will be shocked to know what happened to him.
He shared it with me on condition of not to be named.
So I am committed to him and will tell you the whole story without showing his name, country or anything related to him which may hint at him.
You must be thinking I am going to write here a few common blogging mistakes which he might have done and now facing failure.
Or I will simply write here his no interest in blogging as the main cause of failure.
No, your guess is wrong.
I won’t give judgment on why he failed in blogging. I simply tell you what he told me.
Very simple and honest way of story-telling is to just pass on what you have listened with necessary trimming of unnecessary details.
At the end I would give you a few tips which he and I discussed with each other to become a successful blogger from the day one.
Yes you heard correct, if you adopt a right track from the day one you can succeed otherwise you keep searching the proper way leading to your success.
So before reading why he failed in blogging I insist you first read what qualities he has to be a professional blogger. After reading them you can understand what is most essentially required to be a successful blogger.
So don’t jump at the ending section of this post and keep reading from the start to end. You will get more from this post if you follow my advice.
Top 6 typical qualities to become a successful blogger
Despite being a flop blogger he has following six awesome typical qualities which I think every struggling blogger dream to achieve and take them as benchmark to be a great blogger.
1. He is an awesome web developer
He did his diploma in web developing with distinction. He is still working as freelance web developer. Almost all the web languages he knows and applies them in his projects. Making a strong technical foundation of a blog is not a big task for him.
2. He is a mind-blowing designer
His skills in designing are perfect. He has the true sense of coloring and knows very well where to apply which color. His many designs are on the top of Google search because of their high demand.
3. He is a great writer
Writing is a fun for him. He can write a great post on any topic of his niche without much research. His writing style is so simple and fully optimized for search engines. He writes points in clear terms and never confuses the readers. He focuses solutions for readers instead of features of a product. In short he is a great writer.
4. He is a perfect planner
This is also his quality. He can plan well. He doesn’t be idealistic in his plans. Nor he gets so enthusiastic on deciding what he needs to do next. He nicely evaluates his weaknesses and strengths and then puts his plan into practice.
5. He knows how to set goals
He can set goals for his blog so well. He can keep them in mind while doing every blogging chore. He is not ambitious in goal-setting nor so defensive. He has realistic approach to pick the best course of action to achieve his targets.
6. He doesn’t do haste in money making
He knows money can be earned sooner or later but first quality matters a lot. He keeps vigil eye on his goals and keeps working hard to achieve them. Even if he doesn’t get money he continues his work if he really enjoys it.
So why did he fail
It sounds so strange how a person can fail in blogging despite having all the above six wonderful qualities.
So I end here your curiosity and tell you why he failed. Here are the four simple reasons of his failure. At the end of each reason I also gave a solution for you to remove this reason from your blogging journey.
1. He takes right decision but….
This is his first problem. He knows the art of decision-making. He can explore several solutions of a problem to pick the best one. He can pick the perfect decision to take for his venture.
But he takes the right decision at wrong time. He wastes a lot of time in thinking. If he gets an idea to write a post he simply keeps thinking about it. He writes a post on that idea when so many bloggers already covered it on their blogs. So he remains behind others.
Solution: Taking right decision at wrong time means taking a wrong decision. Always set a deadline to take a decision. Do look here and there but at those who you think are worth following. Deadline is must to take a decision and get its full benefits.
2. He solves problems but…
This is the second shortcoming in his personality. He knows how to solve a problem but he himself has a problem. He first tries to avoid that problem as much as he can. When he tries to solve it the problem worsens a lot and makes him suffer a lot of losses. After suffering huge losses he solves the problem but then it does not benefit him.
Solution: Delaying to solve a problem means further complicating it. So whenever you face a problem so instead of ignoring it first make a resolve to solve it within a specified time. Put in the list of your top priority and urgent chores. Review regularly have you solved it and if not just check out why you could not have solved it. Then find out reasons of not solving a problem. Remove the reasons and again do your best to solve it. Soon problem will be no more and you will solve it.
3. He takes risk but…
If he has to apply a new way of doing anything on his blog he makes up his mind to take risk and apply that new thing. But before taking final step he keeps watching here and there to see what happens to others who are taking the same step. When he goes to final step it gets too late and he cannot have that much benefit of the step which others have already taken.
Solution: Without taking risk you can earn peanuts but not money to make a decent living. That is why those who can’t take risk do a job instead of doing business. So first decide if you can take risk or not then opt for either doing a job or a business.
4. IN SHORT HE IS NOT AN ENTREPRENEUR
This is the main reason of his blogging failure. He knows all blogging chores so well but can’t manage them with best decisions taken at right time with appropriate risk-taking to get maximum benefits with problem-solving approach.
So he can be a good freelance blogger, he can be good off-location contributors for other blogs and even can join a big business to look after its website and blog. But he cannot become a successful blogger if he does not have entrepreneurship.
Solution: You must keep in mind blogging is not a set of several techie chores. Had it been so, so many highly qualified and skilled professionals would not be working in a company of a person who does not have much skills and expertise.
So entrepreneurship equally matters a lot in blogging like in any other business. It means you own what you do, face its negative impact and enjoy its positive results. Need not to look at others to make you an entrepreneur. Those who define their own course of action by themselves are real entrepreneurs.
Four more tips to avoid becoming a flop blogger
So to become a successful blogger you should also change your way of doing following things.
1. Lead, don’t manage
Manage means doing things just to do them as a duty. Lead means to do a task in an impressive way. Yes I know you do all your blogging tasks yourself. So you can do all of them like a leader.
Write a content that not only solves a problem of your readers or benefit them but also puts long-lasting impact on them. Did you get my point? Your readers can get a solution or benefit from several other places but the impact you put on them will be matchless. It will bring them back to your blog to find more value. So you need to do every task of blogging with huge impact on your readers.
Just take another example. Do you know how to do on-page SEO of a blog post? You can get thousands of post to know this but why you read a specific post. Because you like it. You like it because it put an impact on you. Did you get my point?
2. Do marketing not selling
After publishing a few posts and attracting organic traffic to your blog what you do next. You get crazy to monetize it. Everyone asks you to monetize it otherwise you will miss to earn from all the visitors who come at your blog.
So you start selling whatever product you find. If a hosting company is offering 75% discount you just write a review and publish it. After that you get so many hits on it. You also get applause at social media. You do receive comments on your review. But no one buy your offer. Why? Because you do not market that hosting offer. You simply try to sell it.
There is big difference between selling and marketing. A street hawker is a seller. He simply sells the small items roaming in streets of a town.
Marketing is quite different from selling. It comprises of:
- Product: Pick the best product to sell
- Pricing: Select a product with the most competitive price
- Promotion: Tell your audience benefits of the product
- Physical distribution: Ensure smooth and prompt delivery to those who pay you.
But you directly promote a product and expect people will buy it. You need to first pick the best product for your readers. Then consider its price either your readers can afford it and also can you earn a handsome commission with it. Then promote it.
In online marketing physical distribution is not your job. You can transfer a digital product simply on confirmation of an order. If a physical product is of an affiliate’s then your affiliate will deliver the product to your buyer.
So to become a successful blogger become a marketer and do your complete planning before selling a product.
3. Create, don’t perform
In a stiff competition those who perform cannot succeed because their every competitor is already performing there.
So you need to create. You need to create a unique thing. You need to create more value. Then you can stand out in the crowd to get business.
Your just another post will not bring your desired results. If you put value in your post, make a unique post with quite new information everyone will read it and follow your blog.
4. Do business not activity
If you take blogging as an activity or job or simply a source of earning money you can never become a successful blogger.
Always take it as business. What you do in a business.
- First you decide what you need to sell – your own product or others (affiliate products) or both
- Then you decide who to sell your given products – it means selecting your niche market
- After that you pick the tool to bring customers to sell your product – content writing, SEO, SMO
- Then finally you sell your own products, affiliate products and earn money – monetization of your blog.
So do you have this clear concept of your blogging? If not make it clear and re-start your blogging journey from today to become a successful blogger.
Now your turn
What is the biggest advantage you have as a blogger and are you fully exploiting it. Also do you have any hurdle to become a successful blogger? How you are trying to remove that hurdle? Or how did you achieve a lot so far in your blogging journey. Do share with me and readers of this blog to make us learn further from your experiences also.
PS: Don’t be sad. The story of flop blogger did not end with his flop blog. Now he is working as freelance blogger for many clients and fully enjoying his life.
