You already know that most small businesses fail. It\’s a warning that\’s been given out to every entrepreneur with an idea, drive and the imagination to succeed for as long as people have been saying, \”I should be working for me.\”
Well, here\’s something you probably don\’t want to hear.
Most blogs die too.
People start them with the best of intentions. They tell themselves that they\’ll write every day, they\’ll pick up masses of readers, become the leading authority on the topic, and buy a small island in the Caribbean with the proceeds of their ad revenues.
Then one day, they feel unwell or they have to pick up their kid from school unexpectedly or they have to travel across the country, so they skip a post. And they find the world didn\’t end. The views didn\’t drop very much, revenues were more or less the same. The site still lived.
So a few days later, when they\’re scratching their head wondering what to write, they decide to leave it for the day. No one will notice, they think, and they\’ll be able to put up better content the next day.
Soon, of course, there\’s no content at all. The publisher has got bored with the blog, users have got bored with old content and what might have been a good idea is left half-finished on the Web, never to be completed.
There are solutions that can prevent your blog from dying a premature death. One option is to hire content writers, but you can\’t do that until you\’re sure you have the ad revenues to cover the costs.
A routine can help. Writing at the same time every day can make it easier to post daily than to find something else to do with that time.
And you can expand the topics you discuss.
That might not sound like a very good idea. Your readers are going to be looking for very specific kinds of content, and they\’ll be most likely to click ads related to that content. That suggests you should keep your entries tightly focused rather than move around to discuss different topics.
But no one is ever interested in just one thing and your users are likely to be keen on articles on related subjects. A car enthusiast who reads your blog about sports cars, for example, might also be interested in occasional posts about finding good restaurants while out driving or keeping mobile phones connected on desert roads. There\’s also a good chance that they\’ll click ads on those pages to learn more, giving you a chance to check out the value of other markets.
If you\’re stuck for a topic, don\’t be afraid to stray a little beyond the usual confines of your blog. It will keep you interested, give your users a new topic to read, and it can keep your site alive too.
Understanding your numbers is half the battle. My break-even calculator shows exactly when your site starts paying for itself.