Seven Reasons Why Blogs Fail
Why do blogs fail? I’ve been blogging for, well, honestly I can’t remember how long its been. Ten or twelve years? More? I’m not sure. And I’ve been reading blogs for a long time too. Sometimes blogs begin with great fanfare and flourish and then, a year or so later, sometimes sooner, they simply stop. I’ve started a few myself, only to find myself losing interest in posting to them. Why?
Why do some blogs keep going and others fail? Here are seven reasons why I think blogs fail:
(1) They offer little more than constant axe-grinding and carping on a particular subject. This is one of the more spectacular ways blogs qualify for “epic fails.” I’ve seen it over and over again. If a blog site is nothing but a litany of rants, whines and complaints, particularly about one given topic, they generally dwindle away after the temper-tantrum is over and the emotional zeal wears thin. Now, this is not to say a blog devoted to a broad social concern is not going to work, and it may often be offering critiques. What I have in mind here are blogs that come off as whining. I’ve not seen many of these blogs stay around for long.
(2) They lack focus and purpose. Blogs that do not pick up and run with a main theme or interest tend to die a slow death. An initial enthusiasm for blogging, with frequent posts, slowly fades as the person struggles to know what to say. A sure symptom of impending demise are the posts that begin, “Well, I have not posted anything for a while…” or “Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted something.” If a blog does not have a unifying “meta narrative” or does not understand what its niche is, it will fizzle.
(3) They indulge too much in playing to the crowd. When a blog site does little other than post things that are obvious efforts to pander to a particular type of reader, I notice often they run out of steam. This is not to say a blog shouldn’t provide posts that are aimed at readers that may share the blogger’s particular set of interests or have an affinity for the same things the blogger does, but when a blogger writes posts that are obviously not really from his heart, but more to create buzz, these blogs don’t last long, or, frankly bore me so quickly, that I soon stop reading.
(4) They do not serve the niche they are trying to reach. This may sound like a contradiction of point three, so let me explain. Pandering to your intended audience is one thing, but the other side of the coin is blogging in such a manner that you do not appeal to the readers who will most likely find your blog interesting and worth reading. And, a blogger who does not know what he wants his blog to be about, and generally aims the posts on his blog in this direction, will himself become bored and disinterested in blogging and give it up.
(5) They are not comfortable in “their own skin.” Bloggers who post things that they think they are supposed to say, or write, or make a point about, reveal that they are not self-assured and certain about what they want to be posting. This is an awkward and uncomfortable situation. You know it when you see it. A person is posting things because it is trendy to be posting things about the subject. When this is the constant “diet” a blogger puts himself on, he will run out of steam. Finally, you have to have a deep sustaining interest, no, make that passion, about what you are saying and have just enough self-confidence to be comfortable posting about what you find interesting.
(6) They are insincere or desperate cries for attention. I find that insincerity or desperate “notice me please!” blogs tend to fade away, or are blogs that I ignore. Blog readers can see through faux-emotion. A blogger who is constantly playing to the emotion of the reader, or indulging in on-line narcissism, in my view, doesn’t have a blog worth reading. I’m convinced one reason people choose Twitter rather than more substantial writing and posting to their blogs is because Twitter is the perfect platform for the “notice me!” personality.
(7) They don’t have a plan for regular posting. And this is probably the most important reason why blogs fail: they simply have no plan for regular posting Posts appear sporadically or not at all, for weeks at a time, or months. If you don’t have a regular posting schedule, then you probably won’t get around to posting. I have a blog site that I have the best of intentions for, but because I do not force myself to post to it regularly, not much is happening on it. With this, my main blog, I try to schedule posts two weeks out, or more, at a time. I create a post to go up on an every-other-day schedule. Don’t think you have to post something every single day to have a successful blog. It doesn’t hurt though. I schedule every-other day posts, and then, if something comes up I can drop it in on the unscheduled days. Consider doing the bulk of your writing at a certain time. For me, it is the weekend, early in the morning, when I do most of my blog writing, then I just use the scheduling features of WordPress to drop them in place. In other words, if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.
What have you noticed about blogs that fail or lose your interest?
Pastor Paul,
I check in on your site daily because it is the best and most interesting Lutheran site on the web. You always have articulate, informative, and thoughtful posts. There may be other equally intelligent and articulate Lutherans writing on the web but none who are so prolific. Keep those posts coming!
JMark, your check is in the mail. Seriously, thanks for your kind remarks. I don’t think my blog is the best Lutheran blog out there, but I do what I can with it. The Lutheran blogs I enjoy the most are those by parish pastors doing their pastor thing: Weedon, Cwirla, and Peters. Three of the best. And saying that, I would say there are many other fine pastor blog sites. The reason I seem “prolific” is simply because I grab a lot of links to share, and post on a schedule and try to do it regularly.
Thank you for some good thoughts here. It give me a little more focus and rationale for my blogging effots.
Thank you Michael. God bless!
Great thoughts, Paul.
I would add one more to this list. Some blogs fail because the writer tries to emulate another more popular blog.
Tim Challies might be able to write an essay-long post every day and have thousands of readers, but most bloggers are not as prolific as Tim Challies. Justin Taylor excels at being the “evangelical Drudge” and pointing us to terrific content, but not everyone can be Justin.
At the end of the day, if a blog is trying to be a carbon copy of another blog, it becomes redundant and people wonder what the point is. The blogs I most enjoy are from people with something unique and substantive to say, who learn from the strengths and weaknesses of other blogs without becoming a clone of someone else.
Hi Trevin, a big “amen” to your comments. Again, best advice is just be yourself and blog about what you care about. I can assure the guys putting up thousands of words at a time are spending a whole LOT of time doing that, or they are simply blogging what they have written for another purpose or use. That’s great and fine. Whatever works, works.
Thanks for this. We’ve experienced all of these to some degree on our blog. I post regularly, and follow a plan to do so. But I don’t know if I’ve found my voice. I have such varied interests, but I’m not really an expert in anything, so I write about lots of stuff. Or the problem is that I am passionate about something, but so are a lot of other bloggers, and they say it better than I can. One of the reasons I blog is for me, so that I force myself to put my thoughts down in an orderly and logical manner. This helps me to see what I really think about a topic, and it helps me to learn more about the topic simply by writing about it.
Hi Michael, the best advice I can give, is, be yourself and write about what interests you.
This may fit into your niche idea, but a rule I’ve always heard about blogging is, “Don’t blog the cat.” Your life isn’t all that thrilling, write something that will help others.
Thanks, Jeff. No idea what “don’t blog the cat” means, but it sounds cool.
Thanks for your remarks. I’m not completely sure I am following what you mean by “red letter.” If you would care to elaborate, I would find that instructive.
Thanks for this post. I started blogging about 2.5 months ago at the request of my publisher, and I’ve already struggled and thought through a lot of the items you mentioned above. It’s good to see this list in one place from a guy who’s been doing it awhile.
When I write, I try to keep in mind something John Piper wrote once. When asked what should be told to a roomful of Christian bloggers, he said, “Tell them that it takes relentless intentionality to keep a Christ-exalting blog from becoming a clever blog. The temptation to entertain is almost irresistible.”
I know the temptation, and I’m fighting against it. If you have the time and the inclination, I’d be interested in an “assessment” from your perspective, using your criteria, of the Crave Something More blog. Again, I’m seeing it’s helpful to follow after folks who have walked down this path and used it to bear fruit for the Kingdom.
Thanks for writing this article.
Hi Chris, oh, yes, indeed. Publishers love authors that blog. It’s very important and helpful to the successful launch and marketing of a book. Thanks for your comment.
Paul, thought provoking and challenging. More than once I had the odd “ouch, did he read the rubbish on my blog before writing this” moment! I have to agree with jmark, if there’s a better Lutheran blog than this, I’ve still to find it.
Paul, almost thou persuadest me to become a Lutheran.
Nick, thanks for your post. I should probably do a follow up post: “Blog Wins” as the flip side to the Blog Fails post. Thanks for your kind remarks, and thanks for reading. God bless!
Very helpful post.
I plan to put it to use.
Thanks for your remark John. All the best, in Christ.
Blogging is like radio broadcasting, there are people out there listening/reading but they are not letting you know about it. I think item #1 is the best blog killer. Eventually people get to know you have an axe to grind and even those that share your belief on the issue eventually find you boring. It also depends on the purpose of blogging. I do not expect to blog for a long time myself. I hope also to open up my blog to a few who would like to continue it when the right time comes. I think I may stop blogging one day, but I am quite sure I will not stop reading. My purpose for blogging was to articulate what I have been discovering as good teaching coming from the Lutheran faith. I started it as I was fighting my way out of depression.
I frequently read articles about making your blog a success but I found your article on factors in blog failures to be especially helpful. I’ve been blogging for a year and am still refining my purpose. Your tips will be a great help in completing that objective. Thanks for sharing!
Ken, thanks for your comments. I know what you mean about those “how to make your blog work” articles. I see dozens of them every month, and they all have some helpful advice. Glad you found my thoughts helpful. God bless, and enjoy your blogging.
Interesting thoughts. I don’t know how someone could lack ideas to write about. I have so many more ideas than posts. I think time is an issue. I find it quite time consuming to write a post, especially when you feel a need to read more thoroughly as you write to be certain of you facts. And between all the other things that are required in one’s day! The scheduling feature is good. If I write a few posts in a short time I stagger posting them.
Thanks for your comments. Another little thing I do is dash out an idea title and a very brief description and then post that as a draft on my blog and that way I can come back to my drafts later. It’s kind of a “to do list” for posting, and it is easily accessible on my WordPress dashboard for fleshing out later.
My process of blogging is similar to yours but I use MS OneNote to keep all my blogging info in one place. As you, I have frequent ideas for posts throughout the day. If I am close to my computer they go into the “Post Seed” folder. OneNote is full of Bible verses, snapshots of web pages, news articles and much other mishmash. As far as reasons blogs fail I think the number one thing is that the person really doesn’t have a passion for what he/she is blogging about. A close second is that the person drones on and on about something. Once a post gets past 500 words it quickly loses my attention. If I have a “deep” subject to cover it is spread out over several posts instead of one very long one. Number three would be that the person really doesn’t know what he is blogging about. He hasn’t done the work to stay informed about the topic. This becomes very obvious to most readers of blogs after a few posts.
Informative and insightful. A friend and I just launched a blog recently, and I’ve been blogging for four years personally (not that long in the blog world, but long enough). Between those two and starting to look at how many people actually read, it’s provoked a lot of thought and discussion. I think the most difficult, and most helpful, thing that bloggers can focus on is your fifth point. As in any writing, having your own voice and going with it is huge. Planning is certainly essential, but I find that I’m still subscribed to blogs who only post once a month at most because they write so uniquely and so interestingly when they do write.
I’d definitely look forward to a Blog Wins post.