My blogging friend LB and I had a brief discussion on Twitter regarding why some blogs last and others don’t. On a side note be sure to read his post on Hummus, see Benji, I am working on that Google page ranking. 😉
Anyhoo, he turned me onto this article from the New York Times called: Blogs Falling in an Empty Forest, or When The Thrill of Blogging is Gone. The question/topic of our tweeting was about why this happens and what it takes to survive. Before we get into that let’s take a look at an excerpt from the article.
“Like Mrs. Nichols, many people start blogs with lofty aspirations — to build an audience and leave their day job, to land a book deal, or simply to share their genius with the world. Getting started is easy, since all it takes to maintain a blog is a little time and inspiration. So why do blogs have a higher failure rate than restaurants?According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled.
Judging from conversations with retired bloggers, many of the orphans were cast aside by people who had assumed that once they started blogging, the world would beat a path to their digital door.” [Emphasis in bold is mine J.B.]
If you want to be a successful blogger and be around for the long haul than you need one of two things to happen. Blogging has to be profitable or a passion. If you are lucky than you receive both.
When people ask me for advice on how to start a blog I always begin the conversation with a question, “Why do you want to start blogging?” If their answer is that they want to become rich and famous and hope that blogging will provide a platform for that I wish them good luck and ask them if they have really thought it out.
Do they have a plan? What is the blog going to be about? What blogging platform do they intend to use, WordPress, Typepad etc? What is the name of their blog, have they secured the domain name etc?
These aren’t hard questions to come up with. They don’t require any real insight or expertise to develop. There are a million sites that ask and answer these questions. A million sites that tell you they can help you use the net to get rich.
Most bloggers won’t ever make much money. Chances are they won’t spend much time on any in developing a marketing plan. They won’t really expend much effort on making it work. They’ll dip their toes in and decide that it takes work and continue because they like it or just give up.
That is why I say that it takes passion. You have to enjoy this. You have to get something more out of it than just the hope that you might make a buck at it. Because it is like anything else, if you like doing it than chances are you’ll stick with it.
At least that is what I think. What about you?
I in no way feel that I have a “professional” blog to show for my efforts, but I feel that I am a unique voice that has a lot to offer. How the heck to do I go about even starting to self promote or find a niche? My job involves professional writing, but nothing like what I enjoy doing. I have talent (so does everyone else, I know) and I have a drive to actually share it with people while making some money. I’m tech stupid. I’m mentally sharp. Any tips would be greatly appreciated. I know it’s a long shot, but eventually I would like to be able to settle into my own.