If you are new to blogging, you might be wondering a few important things before you dive into the unknown. Some of them might be:
How long until I have hundreds or thousands of readers on my blog?
Once I have all of these readers, can I just take a break or stop blogging?
What is it like to live in a glass house?
Sadly, I do not know what it is like to live in a glass house. But, I do know that it takes awhile to get those readers to your site. It takes months and possibly years of consistent marketing, posting, and SEO to get your blog noticed. Not only that, but it really takes a toll on your personal life, and can leave you wondering when can you take a break?
Blogging Problems
One of the biggest problems about blogging is that you really can not take an long or extended break.
For example, I had somewhere between 500 and 2,000 people visiting my two blogs a day after 9 months of working on them. Not to brag, but I was pretty happy with that. Unfortunately, I got lazy shortly after that and decided to take a month off.
Very quickly my blogging unique visits plummeted back down to between 100 to 300 people a day which really hurt my sites. You do not realize it yet, but every post you are making and publishing builds on top of each other. You need to continually blog if you are going to maximize the momentum you already have established after all of this time.
Therefore, I highly recommend that people do not take a sufficient break from their blogs. You really can not afford to if you are serious about it. Even something as small as a few weeks will effect your daily average views and take you time to build it back up.
Websites are temperamental, and building a popular one takes preparation, consistency, and talent. While I assume you are prepared and plenty talented, the consistency is usually what seperates successful blogs from normal ones.
For that reason, you should not take a break from blogging. Find a way to push through your road blocks, mental blocks, and spark that fire again if you get burned out.
Road Blocks
The biggest hindrance for some bloggers might be things that are nearly out of your control.
In early 2020, my blogs actually outgrew my hosting provider at the time. I was getting so many visits, that the provider shut down some of my sites due to their usage. Not to mention one of my blogs had become a target of a Ddos attack where people were constantly pinging my site to take it off-line.
While this was good in a way, it actually took my blogs off-line and disrupted not only my up-time but my daily visits and postings. It took me nearly a month to fully fix the problem, but afterward the damage was already done. I had lost over 80% of my daily visits, and I am sure Google penalized my sites for the lack of up-time.
Sad as it was, it taught me an important lesson. There are times when there is nothing you can do, but try and fix the problem as fast as you can. In these circumstances, I highly suggest to continue writing new posts on the side. Get extra content and start to expand your social media influence. While this won’t fully combat the loss of readers, it will help once your blog becomes active again.
Long story short, there are many road blocks that can hinder your progress. My advice is not to stop, but to find a work around. Make your own path if there are no paths.
Mental Blocks
Another constant struggle with writers is the challenge of continuously pushing out engaging content.
Building a blog and writing everyday is hard, but coming up with things to say or what to even write about can be a challenge in itself. While there is no magical way to do this or keep up the level of creativity it requires to build a sustainable blog, there are some tricks to consider.
I have a few personal tricks to combat this dilemma.
Mental Block Tricks
The first trick I use is to change up your scenery. Sometimes your writers block can merely be due to the area surrounding you. If you are constantly writing in the same spot, then it can feel repetitive or nuanced after awhile. Change your scenery by going to a coffee shop, sitting outside, or hell go blog on top of your car. What ever gets those creative juices flowing.
My second trick is to piecemeal a post together. This might not be fully clear, but when I start writing a post – I generally do not have the entire thing planned out. A lot of the time I just start with a generic topic and add header tags throughout the page. These tags are just points I might consider relevant. Over time, I have enough sections to start the post and it gives me a sort of road map to tie all of it together. This is more of a general writing tip, but it still helps me when I feel mentally blocked on creating engaging sentences or content on the micro level.
My third tip is a secret that you will almost never guess. Just kidding, the secret is a sort of stimulant. My poison of choice is undoubtedly coffee. Coffee is the magic which helps me work 12-16 hours a day and blog anywhere between 5,000 to 7,000 words a night. That might not sound like a lot, but… you would be wrong. That is a lot of work and writing to do as a hobby. Really though, find what stimulates you to perform. Preferably legal substances please.
Burned Out
The last part that I want to discuss is being burned out from blogging.
Really, this is not specific to blogging, because people can get burned out of anything in this life. Right? Sometimes you just have it up to here with your job, your boss, your family, maybe it’s the drive home, it could be your spouse, or maybe you just hate your cat. Be nice to fluffy.
The POINT IS, you get burned out of things. I get it. But, that is honestly no excuse. Hate me if you will, but it was your decision to build a blog. It was your decision to try and dedicate your free time to creating something you can be proud of and call your own.
Don’t give me excuses of why “you don’t feel like it.” That is sissy talk. Do you want to go back to wasting your time, or do you want to build the best damn blog anyone has ever come across and write to tens or thousands of readers every night?
The choice is obviously yours, but I suggest finding what makes you tick and gett’er done George.
Blog Your Socks Off
Thanks for reading over my tips one how to combat these blogging problems.
Really, it all comes down to your determination to be successful. Your blog is entirely dependent on how strong that is, and your willingness to keep up the work when your mind and body are telling you to take a break. Don’t do it! Keep blogging, keep writing, and eat that horse.
Thanks for reading my blog.
