If you look at my hosting account over at Name Hero you will see a string of online “money making” websites plus a handful of blogs I’ve started through the years.

They all lay there like a skeleton in the desert, they all failed to make it to the water.

Do you know why blogs fail and more specifically why my blogs failed?

I was chasing mirages, I hopped for the  one shiny object after another abandoning my new ideas for the next “money making project”

I was stuck and super frustrated, blaming the ideas for not working and not producing quick results.

I fell into the greasy hands of scam artists, watching way too many of there “how to videos” and believing everything most of the guru’s say and the worst of all throwing money at them like they deserved it.

Sounds familiar? I bet it does. It’s enough to make you sick.

Another big problem that comes with your new skill as a web designer is that you can build anything you want and it doesn’t cost you a thing!

So, it is also easy to give up if you have not invested anything.  Commitment issues I would say?

The point is, if I did pay a company some millions to build a website, I would have taken my ideas and plans more seriously and not jump ship whenever my projects hit a tiny rock in the road.

Basically, I made it very easy for myself to give up on my website idea and move on to the next idea before the first one even reached 100 visitors a month!

Before I knew it, I have burned through cash, countless hours and a lot of wishful thinking.

All of these events had a huge negative impact on my life and most of all an impact on my entrepreneurial skills and thoughts about online business.

I have shut everything down and out of my mind, took a couple of steps back and tried to focus on why and what am I doing wrong.

I was determined to find out what my biggest problem areas were and why do blogs fail for the majority of people setting out to create one.

So, I have come up with the 7 biggest reasons why blogs fail and I promise you if you ever started a blog and it failed it will be because of one or more of these 7 reasons.

7 Reasons why blogs fail

1. (SOS) Shiny Object Syndrome

Oh, I had this one bad and when I realised it was actually a “thing” entrepreneurs were suffering from it hit me like a ton of hand grenades.

A lot of entrepreneurs can and will relate to this as most of us loves new things, new technology, new challenges and all things shiny. This is obviously very good characteristics to have but SOS does set in and down the rabbit hole you will go.

It’s like a little kid chasing after a shiny new toy and once they get it and see what it is they will soon lose interest and move on to the next new toy.

For most entrepreneurs, it’s jumping from one project to the other. As they start a project most are full of steam and extremely devoted to the project until they hit a little hurdle in the road and can’t stop themselves looking for a way out by starting the “next best thing”

You can have SOS with little things like giving up on an SEO strategy. It takes time to see the real effects from your SEO efforts. For most people it just takes to long, and then they give up. 

Whatever it is we all tend to lose focus sooner or later. 

4 Common characteristics associated with SOS.

Never complete what they start – Everyone in the world knows that guy, the guy who always brags about a new idea and how much money he is going to make and when you see him again he is busy with something entirely different. No commitment. (Guilty)

Not planning with a goal in mind – Planning is important for every business and when you don’t plan for the long run you are creating an exit strategy before you even reached your first business milestone. (Guilty)

Money and time Pit – Having or experiencing SOS has a serious negative impact on your wallet and your precious time. We all love technology and with all the new programs, plugins and websites it is easy to throw a couple of Rands to this plugin and to that program and before you know it you are a few 1000 in the red. A couple of months later you don’t even use half of what you purchased. Your money and time are gone. (Guilty)

Confusing for your friends, employees and family. – There is no doubt that you will be excited by a new idea and with that comes a lot of talking. We can’t help share our new ideas with people closest to us. You might tell your employees to start making plans for a big change in the business and the only thing that changes is your mind halfway in. It’s confusing for everyone and in the end, people are going to stop believing in you.

So, how do you beat this SOS thing?

Luckily for us is not a terminal disease or plague. We can overcome it by taking a few steps –

1. Acknowledgement – When you acknowledge that you are dealing with some or other form of Shiny Object Syndrome you can compensate and correct it as soon as you start feeling SOS kicking in. This method will help a lot with the spontaneous feelings and urges you are or going to deal with.

2. Cool down period – Give your new ideas a cool down period and see if you still feel the same about the idea in a month’s time. I bet you feel will very different about it.

3. Share and discuss – if you have a partner or a team, share the idea with them and let them tell you what they think about your idea. This usually helps because you hear their perspective, concerns and ideas plus your team will feel appreciated about making them part of the decision-making proses in the business.

4. Plan, Plan and Plan – You have to understand why this is important for you. It helps you set goals for the long-term and for the short. It creates a vision for your project and helps you to pick up the pace and slow down when necessary.

5. Jump ship only when necessary – So you have met your goals both long and short and your financial numbers are looking very worrying, I would say it’s time to abandon your project before it has a completely negative effect on your personal life.

No shame in doing so, your personal health comes first.

2. Giving Up

This is the number one killer of all blogs. Bloggers just plain give up after a while, it hardly seems worth it any more to spent hours and hours researching blog ideas and then spend a few more creating one article only to find out after 5 months that your mother is your biggest fan.

It sucks, don’t quit just yet. Try to take a break from content creation. Spend more time figuring out certain social media platforms or different marketing strategies to promote your content to get more visitors to your site.

More traffic to your site will be a huge confidence booster and I can almost guarantee that you will push on. 

DO NOT GIVE UP!

3. Passion

This is also considered as a blog killer by the 1000s. Believe me, if you don’t have a passion for blogging and I mean for blogging, not the niche you write about you can bet the sweet new laptop you bought for blogging good-bye.

Your blog will not see a year. You need to have a passion for blogging and when you do, you need a huge passion for the niche you are going to write for.

This is sometimes tricky as not a single person has the same passions, interest or knowledge about certain topics. You have to pick a niche that people are interested in and generate a lot of traffic.

If you have a passion for playing chess with your mouth then well………. I don’t know if your blog will be of any success. It is too small of a niche and you are going to run out things to write about. 

You are going to need a niche and passion to drive you through the tough times when you feel like quitting.

4. Spice up the creativity.

Boring, same old stuff you see and read every day. You can only write and spin an article that much until it lost its edge or juice.

Be creative with your blog and design of your site. Sit for a while and think things through before you churn out the same content as everyone else but with a lick of your own personality.

Don’t try to be like someone else, write and do things you want, dammit. It’s your blog, you put in all the hours make special and write and design a masterpiece!

You can also use simple websites like Canva, Piktochart and Tailorbrands to create stunning visual graphics for your blog. People respond to graphics a lot faster than with text. 

5. Mansions, Lambos and swimming pools in Bali.

Yeah right! Don’t start a blog for these material things only. You will be super disappointed. Forget about all those nonsense and fake gurus selling you courses that promise the world.

I can sell you a course on how to become a successful blogger for R1000 and it will have three words writing inside –

PASSION, PATIENCE, PERSISTENCE.

That is all you need to make your blog successful but most importantly, start a blog for the right reasons and everything will fall in to place.

6. Not enough engaging content.

This has mediocre written all over it. If you are going to set out to create a blog you better “bring it” You have to create awesome engaging content for your readers. Most people today will have no problem closing out your blog article if they don’t like the first paragraph.

It’s just one click to close your article and if you think about it, it’s the same amount of clicks it takes to hit a share button.

So, create in-depth, well written and helpful articles that your visitor would love to share with their followers and communities.

It is free traffic! Do it right from the beginning.

7. Not driving traffic.

Building your blog and creating content is the easy part but getting traffic to your blog is a whole new ball game. This is why a lot of bloggers fail, they don’t spend enough time driving traffic to their content and guess what happens –

No traffic = Discouragement.

The old saying that goes “if you build it, they will come” will only work if you give away free beer.

It does not work for us  bloggers that way. You have to become obsessed with building traffic to your blog.

The blogging world has exploded with an insane amount of blogs being published daily. 

According to WPVirtuoso a new blog is being published every half a second!

That is a lot of people you are competing against and that means you have to get your sh!t together when promoting your blog.

Wrapping it Up

If you come across a website that’s promoting “how to make easy millions with blogging” you really should think twice before you spend money buying any of their content or courses. 

Blogging is hard work and it takes time to get anywhere but if you think you would be able to handle it then always remember the 3 P’s Passion, Patience and Persistence.

Happy blogging.

If you have any questions regarding this article please leave a comment below. We would love to hear from you.

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