Instant gratification
We are all being conditioned to get instant gratification and if we don’t, we bounce.
How to succeed at blogging is simple really. You have to let go of INSTANT GRATIFICATION!
Patience – this is the number 1 most important factor to success for blogging.
Shopping, Social Media
From shopping online we have allowed ourselves to want the fastest shipping possible without paying more for it. How many times have you gone to a major retailers site and it says 5-7 business days for shipping or longer?
So what do you do? Go to Amazon, of course.
Find the same item there and get it in 2 days. Or 1 day, and if you live in certain areas you can get it within hours.
Instant gratification on a slower scale, but you choose to do the fastest shipping instead of waiting the typical 5-7 business days of 10 years ago.
What about social media?
You take a picture, upload it and wait for the “likes” and “comments”. You are not happy if it does not happen instantly. This is the biggest area where we have learned to be rewarded and feel good about ourselves ~ instantly.
Blogging And Succeeding
If you are thinking about creating your first blog or already have one, know this: Google is slooooooooooow.
- You have to create your post from day one geared toward SEO (search engine optimization), so you even have a chance at ranking in Google.
- Create social media accounts and share each and every post to these accounts.
- Create an account at Google Analytics and Google Search Console – both are free.
Then nothing happens. Next day, nothing. And on and on.
Google will see you and you will have data, but you will not be getting traffic from them. Mostly traffic will come from your social media shares.
Time And Patience
The biggest thing to remember is that it will take TIME and you need to have PATIENCE.
The blog needs time to gain domain authority.
A new domain name that you just bought has no authority. Google rewards older domains that have been around for awhile.
Mostly, because people start blogs, don’t get that instant following, and lose interest and just stop.
Why should Google give you any juice if you are here today, gone tomorrow.
So what can you do?
Keep writing. Keep posting. Slowly gain readers.
Over time which can be anywhere from 6 months to a year or longer Google will start to recognize you as a keeper.
And with all the posts you have written while you were patient, and the backlinks that you have accumulated over that time you will slowly gain momentum.
How To Succeed At Blogging Strategies
While you continue to write in this time and share to social media there are others options to help you succeed.
~~ Connecting with people and groups in social media. Be helpful in the groups and contribute quality information. No spamming!
After participating for a while contribute a link to one of your posts if it is relevant to a subject. This will help you connect with others outside of your normal social circle.
Who knows, you may even end up going viral. Rare, but it can happen.
~~Connect with other bloggers in your niche. You are reading their blogs anyway, add comments to their articles.
They will get to know you and so will their readers. Then you can drop a link after awhile if it is relevant to the subject and it won’t be spammy.
Just a reader helping other readers. (This will also provide you a backlink, which Google loves.)
~~Join Forums related to your niche.
And same rule applies.
No spammy comments. Be helpful, engaging with the forum members so when it is right you add a link.
(another backlink created)
~~Blogger Outreach – Guess Posting
This one is tricky. To get a quality backlink to your site you can reach out to a blogger that you have been engaging with through comments to see if you can do a guest post.
You may get a lot of “no’s” before you get a “yes”, but don’t give up. The “yesses” are out there.
~~Blogging Directories
I have tried this and you can see good results but for the best information on this I suggest you head over to ShoutMeLoud’s website “131+ MANUALLY VERIFIED FREE BLOG DIRECTORIES TO SUBMIT YOUR BLOG”
They have in depth articles related to directories. Very important to get on quality ones and not spammy ones.
Conclusion
Blogging is a long- game. You have to be in it and keep focused.
Not a get-rich quick scheme. But over time you will have readers and those readers may click on your affiliate links or ads so you can earn money.
If you create your own content to sell, books, online courses, consulting you will get buyers as time goes on.
You will also get better at writing and promotion as you learn the best way to do things that fit you and what your blog is about.
Some people focus on one or two social media accounts, instead of all of them, and once you master one move onto another.
Stick with it and don’t give up!
Hey Kat, I like your article. I am a little fuzzy on the whole backlink thing. Does it come down to adding a link on a comment of articles from other bloggers or sites? Is there a place I could go to learn more detail about backlinks? Thanks
Hi James, Backlinks can come from commenting on other peoples sites. Also from social media but mostly I see it from Pinterest for some reason and not the others. It helps Google to understand that your content is relevant to rank you higher in Google search.
Hi Katie, I really appreciate you advice. I’m aware of the fact that Google is sloooow, but once it sees that your blog is in for a long run, it starts to treat you as a serious person, which is reasonable actually. Why give rankings just like that to sites that are in to just for fun or to get rich quick. It has a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing a link to ShoutMeLoud’s site! I appreciate it a lot!
Hi Ivan. Yes I can see the point that Google wants to make sure you are not fly-by-night or a get rich quick scheme. The biggest problem I see is that people lose hope and give up. I know I have done it. I am not focusing on that anymore. Just learning all kinds of stuff and writing about things to help others and sharing things I have tried and had success with. Shout Me Loud ~ Great site!
I’ve been blogging for a year now. Finding topics is not difficult for me it’s the distribution of my new content out to blog distribution sites. There are hundreds of them and there’s no way to hit them all. I already use a social media distribution system that saves me loads of time. Do you know of a similar system such as Buffer that I can use to schedule out and share my content to blog distribution sites?
Yes, I don’t know if you are familiar with the old site co-promote or not but there is a new one in town called Triberr. You share your content to your tribes that you join — they share your content and you share theirs. If you have 10 people share to their twitter accounts you can get 1,000’s of new people clicking on to your site. I am new to Triberr but so far it is pretty great.