Blog Republic

10 potential pitfalls to blogging success you should avoid

by Darren

Most bloggers like to look at the sunny side of the street only. But sometimes we have to take a serious look at the dark alleyways that are today’s internet. It’s not all smooth sailing, puppy dogs, and riches. A lot of what you hear may just be hype, so take a realistic look at what could go wrong before you set up shop and look to earn money blogging.

1) Your market may be saturated.

Let’s say your market has a lot of really good established blogs in it. That means you’ll need to be extra interesting to even hope to compete.

2) Your subject matter may lend itself to expert status and you just don’t have it.

If your chosen subject is complex, you can’t just “fake it” without looking like a hack.

3) You may not have the time or desire to see the job through to completion.

Chances are real good you won’t build much of a blog in six months. Will you still be working in month 7?

4) You might get tired of sitting on your ass waiting for “something” to happen.

Blogging is dead boring folks. It’s you sitting in a chair typing. Picture it

5) You might be a poor writer. Not all bloggers are good writers, but it helps. If you really suck, people will ignore you fast.

6) You will probably underestimate the amount of effort it takes to promote yourself.

Top bloggers work endlessly at promoting themselves. Much people do it to a lesser degree, and people who get nowhere don’t even know they have to do it.

7) You let other people influence you too much.

Don’t just follow. Especially when it comes to your opinions, use reason and don’t just rely on the words of people you admire. The more defined your viewpoint, the more likely you are to have disagreements, but so what?

You might just pick the wrong subject to blog about.

This is really true of money-making bloggers. A “digital camera blog” has a much better economic future than a blog about the “St Paul Minnesota Bulldog Admirer’s Society”. That’s just the way things are.

9) You might actually be dumb enough to have comments turned off in your blog?

Who are you supposed to be? If you write a blog post, and don’t allow anyone to comment, it’s almost like you “don’t care” what anyone has to say. Screw you, big shot. I can think of a number of A-Listers who succeed despite this, but I wonder for how long.

10) You give up too soon. Persistence is probably the single greatest key to blogging success. If you give up or are discouraged easily, you won’t succeed. That’s hardly unique to blogging, but is true of almost every profession.

What other pitfalls have you run into? How can they be avoided?