The First Months of Blogging May Break or Make You
As I wrote in A Successful Blog Launch and the First Few Days Blogging is starting a new blog an exciting venture that however also has its disenchanting moments. The time following the launch have even more pitfalls and even more serious ones at that since you now have more to lose. The perhaps most serious one is that you lose the orientation. To begin with is everything so exciting and your sense of purpose seems so clear. The more other aspects that come into play and the more you work on carving out your niche the easier is it however to loose sight of it. Therefore should you consider what you are doing once in a while to make sure that you indeed are looking in the right direction and doing the right things.
There will be plenty of set backs so make sure you celebrate your successes. Things like how many posts you wrote, comments you got or something third. Sticking at it is an achievement in itself, but not one that pays great dividend on its own. Hence do you have to develop a distinct and authoritative voice that facilitates your goals. You will be well advised to forget everything apart from improving your blog, adding quality content and building a readership at this point. Everything else will have to wait. Although you can do what you can to establish yourself more quickly it will take time to get where you ultimately want to go.
You should also try to learn both from your own and from others mistakes. While the lessons you learn from your own mistakes may be the most valuable they are also the most costly. Hence should you always be looking to learn from someone else as well. If all goes well you may not have to make that many mistakes yourself. Reading the following articles should also in that regard give you a head start as you enter this critical phase.
Are You Looking in the Right Direction?
“Bloggers, who know which direction to look, ask questions more like these: What do you like to read about? What interests you? What ways do you read my blog? How can I make it easier for you? They know that looking in the right direction isn’t up or down. It isn’t right or left. The right direction isn’t with our heads down. Bloggers looking in the right direction are looking right at you.”
Launch a New Blog The Easy Way
“The key is to stick at it. You might not know when you are near your blog tipping point. It could be a milestone like the 1000 post mark, it could be the 6 months mark. It usually takes a good few weeks to just get into Googles index properly, sometimes longer to rank depending on your niche.”
Five Steps to a Truly Unique Blog That Attracts Readers and Revenue
“Now that you’ve completed the important task of figuring out who it is you want to reach with your blog, it’s time to figure out how to stand apart from the competition and deliver unique value. What’s the angle that will capture attention and attract regular readers who eventually become loyal customers or clients?”
Making a New Blog Seem More Established
“Every blog starts somewhere. Unfortunately because blogs appear and then often disappear it helps to look early on like you’re here for the long haul. There are some easy cosmetic changes that any blogger can make to help give a new blog a more established feel. Remember you aren’t trying to deceive your readers, you simply don’t want to draw their attention to the fact that the blog is brand new.”
‘What’s Wrong With My Blog?’
“Creating a blog is easy - but alas, building a readership is somewhat more difficult. So where do nascent bloggers most commonly go wrong?”
Four Reasons to Write Extraordinary Articles when You’re Starting a New Blog
“The weeks or months after the successful launch of a new blog is fairly important. While it isn’t exactly a make-or-break situation, you do stand a better chance of getting more readers or feed subscribers if you create outstanding content and market it effectively.”
18 Stupid Mistakes Bloggers Make in their First Year
“My blog is one year old today. I’m no longer a blogling. I have matured. Pretty soon my blog will need Botox. Or Viagra. Or both. I’ve learned more this year about websites, blogs and the internet than I ever thought I’d want to learn. Lots of what I’ve learned, I’ve learned through my mistakes. Some of what I’ve learned, I’ve learned from other people’s mistakes.”
Being ‘Discovered’ vs ‘Slow and Steady’ Blog Growth
“While I’m someone who is always on the look out for a way to ‘get discovered’ in a new space I’ve found that it’s the day to day posts that you write that really matter most. While your linkbait might bring in 20,000 new readers from Digg today, what will you write tomorrow and what have you got in your archives that you wrote last week to keep them hanging around?”
While the time just after launch does contain enough moments of frustration and anxiety to fill a lifetime there are plenty of bloggers who make it past this point. You have to be able to learn from your mistakes, turn the other cheek and have a strong sense of purpose though. Unless of course you are among the very lucky few that get discovered and thus catch the easier ride. It is not all about luck though. You have to prepare the ground for luck to strike just as you have to embrace it and run with it if it does.
Being discovered may just as well mean being exposed if you are unprepared. Regardless how you plan to grow your blog and how favorably everything pans out should you thus take great care in what you do, how you do it and not least why you do it. You may see luck strike the most undeserving sometimes, but mostly is luck not as much a matter of coincidence as we believe. Hence, do what you do and do it as well as you can and who knows where it will lead.
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5 Responses to “The First Months of Blogging May Break or Make You”
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Fantastic links. I love how you’ve picked out some quotes to describe them. Much better than just a list of links.
Thanks Michael
I do believe in qualifying what I link to in the hope that it will make it easier to pick what interest you the most.
Some may check every link out, but most will surely prefer being able to find the most relevant in the shortest amount of time.
I also find that a good introduction makes a better read as you know what to expect and will be tuned in when you start reading.
Thanks for the great information. I was drawn to your blog by the title of this entry on ProBlogger. I am in that range you are writing about. I have been blogging since Feb and have 184 posts. I love doing this blog.
I feel great about my consistancy and determination to provide quality as much as I can. I write about purpose, peace, passion and consciousness and frankly feel sometime like the blog writes itself through me. I really appreciate how my writing has grown with practice. I feel on purpose and on a mission to inspire the best in my readers.
I appreciate what you have to offer and will be back for more insight.
Joseph
www.ExploreLifeBlog.com
I have always enjoyed writing. There are many times I really have a need to express and share my opinions or my experiences. I would like to start a blog. I confess that I am completely unfamilar with blogging. While my initial intention is self satisfaction, (I’m not sure I would necessarily be a “popular blog”) I would like to start the blog appropriately to create an audience. To me that is the idea of a blog. If I just wanted to write my ideas, I would keep a diary instead. Again, while my purpose is self serving, I would like to keep open the future possibility of professional blogging or possibly selling a blog if that becomes an option. Can I get some specifics on where to start?
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