The majority of the NEW bloggers quit their blogs within the first 6 months. Do you know why? Here are some of the major reasons:
lack of traffic struggling to make money getting penalized by Google updates not creating enough content regularly
If no one reads your blog even after creating good content, it’s REALLY difficult to continue blogging. The good news? You’re NOT alone as everyone faces this difficult phase. If you’re a new blogger and looking for some motivation and goals to set to become a successful blogger, this post is exclusively for you. In this post, you’ll discover why the first 6 months of blogging are the hardest and what you should do avoid quitting blogging. Let’s jump into the details without much ado.
Why First 6 Months Of Blogging Is The Hardest: 4 Big Reasons
Reason 1: No One Knows You
A new blog is like a haunted house. No one visits it. If you build it, they’ll come is just a myth when it comes to blogging. You need to promote, create REALLY good content, and engage with other bloggers to get traction with your new blog. It’s all about networking. Most bloggers don’t spend any time connecting with other bloggers. If you don’t spend quality time connecting with other bloggers, there’s no way you can get a wider reach for your blog. Spend time on blog commenting, guest blogging, and networking with others on social media sites. Never leave one or two-liner blog comments, always read their posts thoroughly and make meaningful comments. That’s how you will be able to get their attention to read your blogs. If you have a brand new blog, spend time on guest posting as is the best way to bring more traffic and build links. Spend time analyzing your targeted blog topics and write suitable posts for them. If you often share their posts on social media sites and leave good comments, the chances of getting your guest post accepted will be more.
Reason 2: Your New Blog Doesn’t Generate Any Money
It’s extremely difficult to make money if you are a beginner in the first 6 months of blogging. Why? Just like any other business, blogging takes time to generate revenue. If you treat it like a business, you’ll spend more time and invest in design, SEO, etc to grow it. Moreover, your new blog doesn’t generate enough traffic to earn through different display ad programs like Google AdSense, Chitika, etc. Similarly, people may not be interested in buying your affiliate products because they are not aware of what you sell or simply don’t trust you. So it’s hard to make money in the first six months of your blogging career. You have to be persistent and never give up on your dreams. Always remember, that there are no shortcuts to making money online. You have to learn from your mistakes and be consistent in your efforts. The blog you’re currently reading took several years to generate a decent income. Now, we’re earning a full-time income from it. Have a look at one of the earning reports; See that? We generated over $411,000 from one affiliate product which is Semrush affiliate program. So don’t worry if your new blog doesn’t generate money in the initial months. It takes time! If you want to quickly make money from your blog, try to use Fiverr to monetize your skills. You can use their services like logo design, writing posts, creating ebooks, etc as this is one of the fantastic ways to make money online even if you are new to blogging. Later you can use these skills to sell your stuff using your own blogs.
Reason 3: Your Blog Barely Gets Quality Traffic
Without traffic, you can’t make money from blogging. Traffic is the lifeblood of any successful blog. Most bloggers quit before six months of their blogging journey because they don’t see any traffic. In the first 6 months, without having any online connections, you won’t get much traffic. Even Google takes time to index your new posts and rank your site as there are thousands of new blogs that go live every single day. Unfortunately, there are no quick fixes to get huge traffic to your blog posts in this Google era. Google is coming with new updates like Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird, etc. They are making it hard to survive as a blogger and it is becoming hard to get more traffic to blogs from Google. Mostly your blogging stats will look like this (in the first few months); If your blog is brand new focusing on increasing your blog traffic from search engines is a waste of time because organic traffic takes time (sometimes it may take years to get traffic from specific keywords). Here’s our traffic report for 2021; As you can see above, we generated nearly 1.7 million page views and over 959,000 people visited our site in the last year. Did you know how much traffic we generated when we launched the blog? Just around 3000 visitors. What can you learn from it? Most blogs don’t get traffic. You need to create great content consistently to achieve better results. Focus on getting traffic from social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. These 3 sites can give you a lot of traffic whenever you publish a new post. But you should build a brand for yourself on these sites to get others’ attention. Here are a few tips on how to do that.
Find a Facebook group to engage with other bloggers. You can join our BloggersPassion Facebook group. Use Facebook groups to your advantage, there are a lot of groups where you can promote your posts. If you have great headlines, there will be many people interested in reading and promoting your stuff. So write powerful headlines. Start sharing their content from your profiles. This can help them to recognize you. Sooner or later, if your stuff is good, they will also start promoting your posts. Try to get more followers on Twitter. Try to be active on it and share quality links on your Twitter timeline. Following others can also help you get more Twitter followers.
Read: Websites That Pays: List of 21 Get Paid To Blog Websites for Indian & Rest of Bloggers
Reason 4: You Don’t Know How to Create Good Content
Writing is hard especially if you are new to the blogging world. It takes a lot of time to get good at writing and you need to convince both your readers and search engines to build a profitable blog. Writing for both readers and search engine bots is not rocket science. Here are a few things to keep in mind to satisfy both.
Write for readers first. Then optimize for search engines. Always write detailed posts instead of short posts (500-600 words don’t rank high in a competitive niche) Linking is the key to getting more traffic (whenever you write a post, relevantly link to old posts and external linking also helps) Use proper subheads, and alt tags on images and headlines to get more traffic from search engines. Never copy others’ content, it definitely lowers your SERP rankings Whenever you use others’ quotes, images, or references, give them credit by linking to their sites from your blog posts.
Read: Top 7 SEO Content Writing Techniques to Rank High In Google Search If you do the above tasks every time you write a post, you will soon notice a traffic hike irrespective of Google’s latest algorithms. Just focus on producing quality stuff all the time.
Do’s and Don’ts of Blogging
In the first 6 months of blogging, most people make a lot of terrible blogging mistakes that can decide the fate of their blog. Here are some of the do’s and don’ts of blogging to build a better blog in the long run. Do’s: Don’ts:
5 Goals to achieve in the first 6 months of blogging
As a new blogger, it’s important to set blogging goals. You can’t earn $1000 a month within six months if you’ve zero experience, but you can break down your goals into small and achievable goals to succeed in blogging. That being said, here are the top 5 goals every blogger should aim to achieve in the first 6 months to take their blog to the next level in 2023 and beyond.
- Build a list of 500 email subscribers No matter what niche you’re in, start building an email list from day one. According to Litmus, the average ROI through email marketing is $36 for every $1 spent. An email list helps you create awareness about the products and services you offer. Just make sure to focus on sending regular email newsletters to your subscribers that add immense value instead of pitching sales emails. Getting your first 500 email subscribers in the first 6 months should be your ideal goal which is easier to achieve if you can break down the goal into;
Getting your first 100 subscribers in the first 2 months Reaching 250 subscribers in 4 months and Finally getting your first 500 subscribers in 6 months
Here are some of the best ways to build and grow your email list;
Use giveaways and contests if you have a budget Use freebies such as eBooks or video tutorials to collect more emails quickly Write guest posts and link back to the landing pages where you can show email opt-in forms Use content upgrades
- Build at least one income stream If you’re new to blogging, you should know one thing: it takes time to make a decent income from blogging. We launched our blog BloggersPassion in 2010 and it took us several years to generate thousands of dollars a month. Now, it’s generating over $13,000 every single month. If you want to achieve similar kinds of results, be consistent and build a passive income source. Whether you know it or not, 9 out of 10 bloggers never make even $100 from their blogs. It’s the harsh truth, so avoid such a situation of making no money, you must find at least one income source that you can cash in on. That being said, focus on those income streams that help you earn money even while you sleep instead of finding ways to earn money only when you work (such as freelancing). Here are a few passive income sources you can try;
Affiliate marketing Creating and selling your own products Automating your blog’s cash flow (that means, investing $100 in content creation and SEO if you’re generating $200 and repeating the process until your blog generates HUGE income)
- Create 5 pillar blog posts Content is king. You can’t become a successful blogger with mediocre content. Create pillar blog posts (epic content). Pillar blog posts contain a ton of information. The best example is we recently wrote a massive article on the best affiliate programs which is around 16,000 words. That’s called a pillar article because you’ll find almost every affiliate program under the sun on a wide range of topics. Pillar blog posts are helpful for;
Increasing your search traffic Increasing your social shares and comments Attracting quality links from other sites Increasing your readership Helping you establish as an expert in your industry and so on
- Increase your traffic numbers to 100 to 200 visits a day When you have a new blog, it’s extremely difficult to get visitors from search engines. And… traffic is the lifeblood of any blog or website. That’s the reason why you should take baby steps and focus on achieving tiny goals. Instead of aiming at attracting thousands of visitors to your site from search engines, attract 100 visitors a day within 6 months and you’ll be on your way to success. Most blogs die within 6 months due to lack of traffic. So find ways to increase your blog’s traffic. Don’t rely upon one traffic source when you have a new blog. Try to use platforms like Quora to write answers, use blogging forums, blog commenting, and write guest posts to bring more visitors to your new blog.
- Earn at least $100 within the first 6 months off your blog Earning your first $100 gives you enough momentum and courage to take your blog to the next level. So plan on how you can make your first $100 through your blog. Fortunately, it’s NOT rocket science. You can try offering blog services such as freelancing, writing, design, etc to start making money. Just make sure to put an affordable entry price tag so you can easily make your first $100 within the first 6 months of blogging. You can also try selling affiliate programs by creating informative product reviews, comparisons, or tutorials to generate your first few sales. Here are a few important questions you might want to know if you want to succeed in the first 6 months after starting a blog.
45 Best Blogging Tools for 2023 25 Best Blogging Tips and Tricks for Beginners 10 Common Blogging Mistakes Beginners Need to Avoid Benefits of Blogging: Top Advantages of Having a Blog in 2023 What is Guest Blogging? 35 Blogging Statistics for 2023 What Is Blogging and How Does a Blog Work?
Browse more Blogging Resources: → Your content is generic→ You’re writing on a broad topic→ You’re not creating anything unique, useful and problem-solving→ You’re not spending time and money on promotion, SEO, and so on That being said, if you’re getting at least 100 visitors a day in the first 6 months of blogging, you’re doing a great job (if you’re in a competitive niche).
Top Blogging Tips And Tricks That Work Like A Charm Blog Commenting: Top Tips to Get Lots of Comments in 2023 How to Create An Event Blog & Make Money from It Simple Steps to Get 30,000+ Visitors/Month Using Long Tail Keywords How to Increase Your Website Search Traffic in 2023 The Future of Blogging: Is Blogging Dead in 2023?
Final Thoughts on the First 6 Months of Blogging
Yes, the first six months to 1 year of blogging is really the hardest but you should be aware of one simple thing it takes time and consistency to build a money-making blog. Just don’t look for shortcuts and get carried away if you don’t see results in terms of traffic and sales in the beginning, then you’ll be fine. Do you’ve any questions related to making money from blogging? What do you think are the reasons people quit within their first 6 months of blogging? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
