Blogs that fail are more than blogs that succeed. How do I know this? Because I have had many failed blogs than successful ones.
I am lucky to have had a few successful blogs. Majority of bloggers never create even one successful blog.
There are different factors that cause blogs to fail. I will be going over five of the most common reasons why blogs fail.
But before I get to the reasons why blogs fail, let me elaborate what it means for a blog to fail.
What is a Failed Blog?
Blogging is a project. The aim of most blogs is either to make money or pass a message to a certain audience.
With this type of goals, a blog is considered to have failed when the blogger gives up working on it before making money from it or reaching his target audience.
The final nail on the coffin for blogs is when they are not renewed after a year. Blogs are hosted on servers which bloggers have to pay per year to keep them live.
In most cases, when a blogger gives up on a blog, he does not pay to renew it.
From my little observation, a huge percentage of blogs never survive for more than a year. Of all blogs I have ever started, so far, only two have managed to survive for more than a year. This is one of them.
Blogs are hard to run.
Reasons why Blogs Fail
1. Giving up too Early
There is no other reason that causes blogs to fail more than giving up too early. Blogging is hard. Writing articles almost on a daily basis for months is not easy.
The worst part is that the articles you write may never bring a single reader to your blog. When you put in effort for months to write articles and see no readers, you get discouraged.
Unless you know what you are doing, chances are that you will give up. It is difficult to keep writing blog posts when many of the blog posts you have written are going nowhere.
In the blogging community, it is advised for bloggers to keep writing blog posts for at least a year before they start contemplating giving up.
Most blogs that fail only run for a month or two. Unless a blogger understands that the first year of blogging is work without pay, his chances of ending up with a failed blog are high.
2. Too Little Content
Some bloggers push through the first year without giving up. But then they don’t become successful with their blogs because they have too little content.
In blogging, the constant is the quality and quantity of content. Everything else comes second.
If a blogger writes quality articles over the first year but the articles are few, the blog will fail. It is rare to find a blog that succeeded with few articles. There are those who do but they are the exception not the rule.
For an average blogger, success will only come when the blog has few hundred blog posts.
Having too little content on your blog is a sure way to fail at blogging.
3. No Clear Goal for the Blog
Blogs that fail often don’t have a clear goal. Coming up with a goal for your blog is not easy. Many times you may want to change the goal.
It is only blogs that have a clear goal and stick to it that eventually succeed.
A blogger may start a blog aiming to cover gardening. But after three articles, he changes to start writing on making money. A week later he changes to write about pets.
If that is the trend of a blog, be assured it will fail spectacularly.
Blogs only succeed if you keep them on one trajectory. On many days you will feel like giving up the trajectory and going for something else but the day you change, that is the day your blog will fail.
Too many changes too often will make a blog fail.
4. Poor Niche Selection for the Blog
You may do everything right on your blog but then you choose to write about a topic that gives your blog little chance for success.
There is no niche that is bad for a blogger to venture into. It is just that some niches require a specific type of person. If you are not that type of person, your blog fails.
Take an example of a news blogger. If you want to run a news blog, you must be a person who is up to date with current affairs. A news blog also means that you have to update your blog as soon as you get news.
If you are not the proactive kind of person, going into the news blog will be a sure ticket for failure.
Some niches require a blogger to market her blog actively on social media; mostly entertainment blogs. If you are not a social media person and you get into such a niche, your chances of success are slim.
5. Indecision
After reading reasons why blogs fail, you are likely to become indecisive about many aspects of your blog. Because you read that picking a wrong topic for your blog is a guaranteed ticket to failure, you become indecisive about the topic to blog about.
I have encountered many blogs that failed because the owner was paralyzed with analyzing topics to blog about.
Analysis that has no end is a major reason that causes blogs to fail. Some bloggers waste a lot of time analyzing topics to blog about. Others have topics to blog about but they spend too much time analyzing what their competitors are doing.
Another bunch of bloggers spend a lot of time reading motivational articles looking for inspiration to write.
A blogger who spends days on YouTube listening to gurus talk about blogging instead of writing articles for his blog will fail.
With a lot of information, comes indecision. The longer a blogger lingers in indecision, the greater the chances his blog will fail.
Why Blogs Fail Conclusion
There are a million ways to screw up your blog. These are only the five common ways through which people cause their blogs to fail.
Following a blogging guide helps you avoid these pitfalls. If you are starting your blogging journey, make sure you follow a proven strategy.
All the best!