Writing content and promoting your blog several times a week, every week can take its toll, especially when success takes time and patience to achieve. Many bloggers begin to lose interest. As their enthusiasm wanes, they may be stricken with the dreaded blogger’s block, allowing their post frequency to decline. Before you know it, the blog has died of disinterest and neglect. It’s a story told around the blogosphere time and again.
Don’t let it be the story of your blog! Often, with a little effort, you can reignite the same passion you felt when you first hit that “Post” button.
- Recognize your blog’s growth. Stop and compare where your blog is now to where it was a month or a year ago. You might be amazed by just how much it’s grown. How many more posts have you written? How much more money are you making? How much has your traffic or readership grown? Whatever your metric of success, you can go back and see just how far you’ve come.
- Celebrate the little victories. Maybe one of your posts is showing up in Google or Digg. Maybe you’ve gotten a new link or trackback. Maybe you’ve got a good conversation going in your comments. Whatever it is, take a moment to appreciate your success, however small. Remember, big successes are built on little ones.
- Set a new goal. Whenever you’re inspired by a success, don’t become complacent. Look at it as a stepping stone by setting an even higher goal. Earned $100 this month? Put your effort into earning $120 next month. Are 500 readers subscribed to your feed? Try to boost that to 600. The only limits to your blog’s success are self-imposed.
- Re-read old posts. It helps to go back and refresh your memory of past content. Like flipping through a photo album, you can relive the entire history of your blog. Old posts may help inspire new ones, or you may simply come to appreciate the depth your blog has achieved.
- Reaffirm your commitment. When you started your blog, you promised yourself that you’d stick with it through the long haul. Go back and reaffirm that promise. Kind of like a second wedding, you can look at your blog with fresh eyes and renewed commitment. Remember, today is the first day of the rest of your blog’s existence.
- Reward yourself for a job well done. Whenever you achieve a significant benchmark, be sure to treat yourself to something you like. Have a favorite food, watch a movie, or otherwise indulge yourself, all the while focusing on your blogging success as the cause. It’s operant conditioning; by rewarding success, you’re more likely to repeat it in the future.
- Give your blog a make-over. If your design has started to feel stale, spruce it up with a new template, widget, or plugin. This “fresh coat of paint” approach can give the sense of freshness that you might’ve been missing. Sure, it’s the same old blog. If it looks shiny and new, though, you may start treating it with the same attention you’d give a new blog.
The common point here is to change the way you think about your blog. By framing it in a context of newness and success, you can reignite your passion and stick to your commitment.
About Gregory Ciotti
Hi, I'm Gregory Ciotti. I currently lead the content marketing team that manages Shopify's ecommerce and retail publications.
Thanks for the great post. Especially the suggestion of re-reading the old posts on my blog is a great idea.
wow… you make money at this? hmmmnnn… Maybe I’ll have to give it a go…
I like yourself rewarding idea. (point 2 & 6). I seldom do this to myself and often pinching my soul to do things like slave. This tips has enlightened me.
It’s really important to let ourself comfortable before anything.
I’m working on setting some specific short term (1 month’ish) type of goals. It really has been helping keep me focused on what I need to do when I sit down at the computer.
Going back to my previous posts? Damn…I find that the hardest thing to do. Somehow, I have an allergy towards old piece of news!! 😛
I always set goals for myself and see myself achieving them, even if they take longer than planned. Though I’ve been noticing that I reward myself way too often.
Maybe I need to get back to writing now 🙂
Sorry, I haven’t even read the post yet, I can’t stop staring at that picture 🙂
Everytime I’m uninspired with my blog I make a new layout, its why I’m on version 55!
I like the suggestion about re-reading old posts. I have found that doing this allows me to read the original post from a fresh perspective, which in turn, stimulates an onslaught of new ideas and topics. Also, it provides an opportunity to list a post that was important as a ‘Related Post’, thus allowing readers to re-visit some important information that otherwise would become lost forever in the archives.
Now My blog’s content is internet news and my thinking in China.welcome to my blog.
I don’t want to sound “cheesy” but I juust recently started getting your posts via email feed. and I am finding that many times- your posts is what gives me more “inspiration” or excitement. Maybe it is an idea, or a “homework” assignment I have given myself to improve my site… or maybe it is even seeing how well others are doing that encourages me to do more. Thanks. 🙂
And rather interestingly, Daniel, they’re the ones that get significant SE traffic, it seems.
All the points are relevant and useful. Nice post.
Omnibuses, that could be a good advice is used correctly indeed.
The best part is that you might find that this post that “you” wrote will appeal to your audience as well.
Occasionally, just occasionally, post something that *you* want to blog about rather than what your audience expects. Not recommended often, but it’s a good way of keeping your interest going when you’re flagging, and it sometimes gets appreciative comments and emails. Needs to be semi-relevant, of course.
Very nice article. Recently I actually tried to start writing on my personal blog, it’s really quite easy – just have to think of things to write about.
Haha! Interesting post. Re-reading my old posts is something I love to do.