The process of creating a website is simple. However, running and managing the website is complex and it needs all the attention possible for it to be successful. Several indicators can be used to measure blog failure. These indicators include but are not limited to; the website’s traffic, the bounce rate of visitors, conversion rates, the engagement of visitors with the website, etc. These indicators are not universal to all websites and thus they can not be used as a measure of success for all blogs.
Each blog is independent on the indicators of success that it checks out for. While one blog might measure success from the number of visitors it receives daily, another might not be concerned by the number of visitors but rather the percentage at which the visitors convert to potential customers. You will know that your blog is failing if it fails to achieve the desired goals. In this article, we will cover ten reasons that attribute to the failure of blogs.
Website failure due to Inconsistency
While running a blog, you need consistency in sharing content. I have broken down consistency into two categories; these are, the time consistency and content consistency. By time consistency, I refer to the day and time that you publish your new blog posts. Always ensure that you have a specific day and time that you publish your posts. This will enable your readers to associate a specific day with your blog posts.
Content consistency is ensuring that you don’t go outside your niche. As a blogger, you need to make sure that you are confined to your topic to avoid confusion among visitors on what your blog is all about.
Poor quality content resulting in blog failure
Content is vital in making a blog successful. In fact, more content increases your chances for success. However, this is not a recipe for feeding your visitor with garbage content. Poor content is a ticking time bomb that will greatly affect your rankings on search engines. Before you write your blog, do an intensive research on what your competitors are doing then try to make yours unique and more valuable to your blog visitors.
It is also very important to review and proofread your article before publishing it. Erroneous content will do more damage than good to your blog. Google will penalize your blog for grammatical errors. So be very careful and countercheck your work before publishing.
Unnatural backlinking
Backlinking is creating links from other blogs to your site. It is a very great way of getting traffic to your site and it can boost your website ranking if done correctly. Similarly, if done using dubious methods, backlinking can cause damage to your site’s ranking leading to blog failure. The shortcut is always the wrong cut. Avoid going for false promises from people who promise you 100 backlinks overnight.
Creating backlinks is a process and it takes time. If you have enough patience, over time, you will find that your backlinks are generating a reasonable amount of traffic. You can use tools such as SEMrush to check out if you have backlinks that are dragging your blog and drop such links.
Poor marketing
Marketing is the backbone of getting your blog out to your potential audience. It is a great way of ensuring success for your blog. Remember the internet is filled with lots of similar content that you are creating. In this case, for you to be at the top there, you will need aggressive marketing. Effective marketing requires that you know and understand your potential audience. By understanding your audience in terms of what they like and dislike, you will have an edge over your competitors on how to win a decent amount of the market share.
Using too many intrusive ads
Displaying advertisements is one of the methods that we often use to make money on bogs and websites. It is even more appealing if you feed your visitors with ads that are related to your content. However, if it is overdone, ads can become annoying to your audience. You might have come across a website that has too many ads that they shadow the main content of the blog. Most of the times, you will find yourself bouncing off such a site immediately.
Similarly, if you have too many pop-ups and pop-under advertisements on your website, they will have a negative impact on the number of visitors that you will receive. Personally, I have had the first-hand experience with this. I had placed ads whenever a visitor clicks on a link, they receive a pop-up before being directed to the intended link. Moneywise it was okay but my traffic slowly decreased and so did my earnings. Personally, if I have to monetize using pop-up or pop-under, I do only one pop-under advert per visitor.
Buying traffic casing Blog Failure
Buying traffic is a quick and cheap way of getting hits on your website. Many sites such as www.addmoretraffic.com offer this service where you can buy traffic. By buying traffic, you lie to yourself that your blog is a success yet in real sense you are just financing a fantasy. The best methods are those that are organic. If you are having trouble getting more traffic, you can read my article on Ten Blog Traffic Sources To Consider.
Buy deciding to buy blog traffic, you have signed a contract to let your blog fail because you are not willing to put in the effort. Avoid it by all means.
Demotivation and Impatience
People often feel demotivated when they fail to hit their targets. Sometimes you might set your bars too high that you fail to achieve and this demotivates you. The more you become demotivated, the more you loose interest and the more you become impatient. This my friend is a cocktail for failure. On the contrary, you should set achievable goals and also you should have a procedure for recouping from your failures and depression state.
Once you set your goals, be patient and enjoy the process of achieving the desired results.
Plagiarism
In simple terms, plagiarism is using directly copied content as your own. Plagiarism is a seed of a big downfall (blog failure). You might thrive for a week or two on plagiarized content but once search engines catch up with you, that will mark the end of your blogging journey because you will be penalized heavily for that offence. It takes little effort to come up with original content. All you need to do is to check what your competitors are doing and avoid doing the same.
My remedy for plagiarism is this. If you publish one post each week like I often do, then make it a habit to write at least one paragraph a day and you will be amazed at how easy it is to come up with a 2000 plus words article in a span of 4-6 days. Avoid laziness and be authentic.
Poor audience targeting
Audience targeting is a hard task to get over with especially if you are new to blogging. You might have tried to run ads on Facebook where you target 100,000 people but only 1% get to click on your link. In my view, a 1% conversion rate is a total blog failure. The easiest way to know your audience is by providing a subscription option, where those interested will subscribe to your mailing list. You can be sure that such people, who subscribe to your mailing list are interested in your content and so you can focus more on them. With time you will get to know who your real audience is by understanding your subscribers and you will be able to reach more of them with much ease.
Poor SEO
Search Engine Optimization is a lucrative way of acquiring visitors to your blog. If your site is optimized well for search engine where you rank among the top five in search results, more people will trust your site and you will get a reputation for that. For you to be able to generate content that is able to rank top in search results, you need to understand what search engines evaluate in a blog post to rank it higher. Evaluation criteria include; the keyword density, outbound and inbound links, number of backlinks to that content, etc.
Conclusion
These ten reasons might be the cause of your blog failure. My advice for you is that you should run your blog as you would run your business because blogging itself is a business. In fact, it is a lucrative business if done right. In the meantime, leave a comment if there are other reasons that I have left out and also remember to share this article with your friends too. In case you need to Contact me, you can reach me via my CONTACT PAGE.
