Chances are you’re a ‘failed blogger’ if you’ve stopped by this post. I hope you haven’t given up though. See that’s where the hope lies. That and writing. I can’t tell you you’re going to be a success but I can tell you that you probably still kinda suck at blogging. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings; just being real here and don’t worry, there’s light at the end of this tunnel.
After all, you can deduce from the title of this blog post that it’s about how failure can actually be really good for you.
How?
Because no one’s an expert without a history of dismal failure. Really. You just don’t hear of highly successful entrepreneurs who’s stuff didn’t used to suck before they got really good at their gig. For example, you’ve got this guy who writes for medium.com and he talks about how he failed for 8 years as a blogger. Now? Now he’s a thriving success.
Look at the very first videos of big shot YouTubers. A lot of them started with their phone and others with a dated laptop with a really crappy mic. Point is, there’s no getting to where you want to be without all the in-between stuff. For bloggers and writers, that in-between stuff is trying and failing.
So many lessons are learned by failure
I must admit I still cringe when I look back at that first blog I did and which I was proud of at the time. But there was a problem. It wasn’t getting traffic. It had 90 posts. Less than 30 of them were indexed by Google. And we’re not even talking about ranking. Avarage position in the ranking was 60. That means the posts that were indexed were on average, at the bottom of page 6 of Google.
Best place to bury a body these days? Answer: page 2 of Google.
Yeah, never mind page 6. Even if you’re a serial killer, you don’t need to dig that deep to avoid detection – page 3 will do. Because nobody ever goes to page 3 of Google.
So I had to face the ugly fact: my website was crap.
So many things about it sucked.
But I didn’t wanna give up. Truth be told, the failure of that site gave me a gold mine of information on which I could build website number 2. Well, actually I have 3 sites but I’m on about the 2nd one in the same niche.
I did my research and spoke to my friends at the Wealthy Affiliate online community. Gradually, I learned why my site wasn’t doing well.
That super useful failure taught me invaluable lessons. Things like this:
- My post titles were awful
- Most of the content was too robotic
- I was overly focused on writing for SEO: my writing wasn’t natural enough
- I was writing with money in mind: that can’t be your 80%+ focus if you’re a blogger
- I was anxious and checking stats all the time
- My keyword research was woeful
- Worst of all, I just didn’t actually enjoy writing. It was a bummer to write blog posts
- I wasn’t connecting one on one with my readers
- I was writing for myself!
- I hadn’t developed my own blogging voice
- I wasn’t unique or appealing
- I was bland
- Several of my posts were dinky, unattractive little things
- I lacked general appeal and professionalism
- I wasn’t posting regularly
- It felt like too much of a chore
- I wasn’t happily losing myself in writing and enjoying the process
- My site didn’t have a good structure
- I wasn’t putting alt text on images
- I wasn’t doing featured images
- Bottom line is I was a newbie and didn’t really know what I was doing.
That’s quite a list right? But this post might drag on too long if I elaborate on each of these points so I’ll take a few and show you how failing in these points ended up being empowering because now I’ve identified my mistakes and won’t be repeating them again. Now I do what should be done instead.
Bad titles for blog posts
It’s a common mistake made by beginners. They’re told about keywords. A keyword is definitely supposed to go in your title but that doesn’t mean your WHOLE title has to be restricted to your keyword.
For example, one keyword I found using a keyword tool was ‘Where to Sell eBooks Online.’
It’s short, competitive and just not that appealing.
Later I made it longer: ‘Where to Sell eBooks Online: 10 Reliable Options.’ This is more engaging. People know they’ll be getting information on 10 places that are reliable for selling ebooks.
Another example is review posts. It’s never a good idea to simply give the name of the product followed by the word ‘review.’ That’s way too short and just not very clickable. It’s not engaging enough.
Example: ’12 Minute Affiliate Review.’
This should be drawn out and look more like this: ’12 Minute Affiliate Review: 5 Reasons I Don’t Recommend It.’ Or: ’12 Minute Affiliate Review: The Red Flags I Discovered.’
That was a very important lesson I learned. And if you change the the title, it is good practice to change the url to fit the title as well. Then, after any other changes you make to the body of the article, you can submit it to Google Search Console again but that’s getting a bit off topic.
Google is less likely to rank articles that have short, boring titles. However, many authority sites are able to rank for broad, competitive keywords and often have posts with short titles that rank on page 1.
Robotic content – the website killer
No one likes content that sounds like code for a computer program. Robotic content gets no love – neither from people nor Google. So don’t be robotic.
But how do you not come across as robotic?
It comes down to keeping it natural. The art of writing blog content that doesn’t suck is to be yourself when you write and to get a LOT of practice.
Look, it’s probably going to read like an English Essay at first but that’s not what people want.
They like a personal touch. They want to feel a bit of emotion. Only a HUMAN can deliver that. Oh, while we’re at it, No! I don’t condone AI software if you’re tempted to use it to write your blog posts for you.
It’s important to make the first paragraph of a blog post engaging. If it starts out bland and robotic, it’s an immediate turn off for your reader. The opening words of anything you write need to be a hook to keep your reader on the page with you.
I used to start posts out by saying ‘welcome to my article on….’ Or ‘welcome to my review of….’
Guys, that’s robotic!
Instead of being bland, factual and always telling people things, you want to be passionate in a way that can be sensed by the reader and wherever possible, you want to show rather than tell.
So, let’s say you’re reviewing a product called ‘1 Page Profits.’
Don’t open with ‘Welcome to my 1 Page Profits Review.’
Try something like this instead: ‘When I first learned about 1 Page Profits, I was a little skeptical but the sales video did get me wondering whether this really could be an opportunity worth pursuing. If you’re here for an unbiased review of this program, you’re in the right place. I’m not recommending this one and that’s for a number of reasons that I want to share with you in this post.’
Oh and another big MUST if you don’t want to come off as robotic is to avoid keyword stuffing. You know, that bad habit of wanting to squeeze the keyword you are targeting into your content at the cost of sounding weird and unnatural. Besides, keyword stuffing won’t get you any love from Google in case you still think it does. You used to be able to get away with that but since recent updates, you’d be much wiser to refrain.
If you look at blogs at the top of the search results, you’ll find that they tend to be human, personal, even a pleasure to read.
Basically, this is the secret: if your content is hassle to write, it will probably be a hassle to read.
If I write my blog posts the way I write homework that I don’t want to do, then that is how they’re going to sound to my readers.
You need to want the process, not just the result
Okay, this one sums up a LOT of problems that bloggers struggle with. Blogging just for the end result is a bit like chasing a rainbow. You’re never gonna get there.
Do you really want to write? If your answer is yes, fantastic! There’s loads of hope for you. You’re going to succeed.
Is your answer no? Oh dear. Then you probably won’t succeed at blogging. Those are the facts.
You need to detach yourself from progress, money, high stats, checking endless boxes etc. and just WRITE.
Keep writing.
If you want to be a champion swimmer, you need to get changed right now into your swimming gear and start SWIMMING. Yeah, right now!
If you want to do blogging, then you need to write!!! That’s what you should be doing if you’re not occupied with something that’s genuinely more important than blogging.
Guess what? If you just write, you get better at writing. Better writing means better SEO, better ranking, potential for more traffic.
But ultimately, it’s just getting down to it and being comfortable at your keyboard.
You want to lose yourself happily in writing on a regular, consistent basis.
People always say you need to be CONSISTENT. But chances are you WON’T be consistent if you don’t like writing.
I eventually realised that if got comfortable with writing, I could be a successful blogger because the writing was going to be the thing I loved. It would become what I enjoy. Then the work and anxiety and hassle would slip away. Then success would simply be a byproduct of my passion. Once writing became my passion, I just didn’t care that much about all the views and clicks I was getting. They were a HUGE bonus but they had shifted from being the sole focus to being a bonus. That thing I do, that thing I’m about – writing. That’s the secret to success and that consistency that only really comes with being married to what you do. That consistency is the final deathblow to failure.
Failure’s leverage is you neglecting your blog. You do a hundred things a day, but sitting down and writing is never high enough on the priority list – and that’s your cause of failure, right there.
Imagine though, if you thought of writing as your favorite hobby. Here’s a secret, even going to the gym can become a hobby if you do it long enough. It feels like hell at first if you’re unfit and lazy. But keep at it, and in the end you’ll probably love it and feel strange, maybe also a bit guilty if you miss it, even for a single day.
Failure points you in the right direction
Sorry, but if you’re getting something wrong, then it’s wrong. Full stop. Obviously, you’ll need to stop doing it. But what if you don’t think it’s wrong? Well, sooner or later, you’ll have to point the finger at that thing because there has to be some reason for your lack of progress, right?
See what I’m getting at? Sometimes, often in fact, only failure at something can point you in the right direction. Then you need to do a u-turn and get back on track.
We’re always learners when it come to complicated things like SEO and blogging. The search engine algorithm gets updated all the time which can in turn affect your blog posts and traffic. Plus, you need to make all kinds of decisions, such as whether to update or delete old content, some of which is worth salvaging after it has gone through its decay period, while other posts might be better off deleted. And so on.
Point is, you’re never done being a learner and so there are probably more failures in store for you in other aspects of a blogging career.
But again, failure isn’t really that negative when you consider the gems of wisdom it brings you. The only fatal failure is when you give up and abandon your blog, or blogging in general.
So don’t worry anymore about failure. It’s not gonna beat you. You will beat it by embracing what you are: a blogger. And what you do: blogging. Look back in a year or so and you’ll probably be selling a super engaging and successful book on your blog, made up of some of your best posts that you did way back in the past. The potential is practically limitless – all your future success will flow from what you’re doing today.
What are you doing today? Writing I hope.
Keep at it. Happy writing.