Maintaining Motivation in the Middle Phase of Blogging

In the beginning

In the beginning blogging is easy. You’re fueled with the energy of having started something new, you’re full of ideas for new posts, you spend lots of time learning the technology of blogging, planning your work sessions, tinkering with your site’s design. You savor every spare moment you can give to your new passion. You’re certain you’re going to succeed.

In the End

You will be an A list blogger, with huge traffic to your site and a massive Twitter following. You merely have to whisper the name of an affiliate product and sales will follow. You’ll have a queue of guest posts lined up for your site, and you will be turning down offers of joint ventures on a daily basis.

Photo by Mike CJ – Barranco in Flood

The trouble is, you’re:

In the Middle

• You’re starting to struggle with ideas for great posts
• The family are getting a little pissed off with you spending so much time at the PC
• Only a couple of hundred people are reading your blog
• You’ve made some money, but you can’t access it until you reach the payment threshold
• You’ve spent quite a bit on products, software and training you need
• You only have a few subscribers (and your test emails are two of them!) and a handful of RSS readers
• Just occasionally, you’re having doubts as to whether you can cut it

What can you do?

Don’t Give Up!

You’ve made it through the hardest part of creating a new blog. All those hours you put in at the start designing the site, optimizing it and creating your pillar posts have resulted in some traffic. From nothing, you have created a site that people are reading. You have generated income with nothing more than your own thoughts and some of your time.

Get Organized!

When you’re in the doldrums, your organization and focus start to slip. You can find yourself spending too much time doing the things you enjoy, but which don’t contribute towards achieving your goals. Your posting frequency may well go down. You need to dig deep and plan each session with those goals in mind. Draw up a session plan – I blog in two hour bursts – and list all the things you need to achieve in that session, then put them in order of priority. Do one at a time and keep doing it until you can cross it off your list. Spend some time looking at the applications you use. For example, can you save time by pulling all your email accounts into Gmail?

Rebuild your Post List

At the start you will have written down dozens of ideas for great posts. Have a look at your list of ideas, right now! I bet there are only a few on there. So invest an hour in topping that list up – you’ll find you will start to get excited again. For ideas, look at your most read posts and think how you can add a new one to the topic. Visit some forums and read other blogs and the ideas will start to flow.

Bring the Family Back On Side

Go back over with them the reasons you’re working on a blog, bring them up to speed with what you’ve achieved and what your objectives are. Make sure you schedule time for them, and stick to your promises about time. Don’t fall into the trap of saying “I’m going to do a two hour session on the blog” and then spending four hours at it.

Have a Subscriber Drive

Take some of your best posts, craft them into an EBook and offer the book free to people who subscribe to your site. There are few things more satisfying than to see your subscriber list go up dramatically.

Engage with Successful Bloggers

Invest time in engaging with the kind of blogger you want to be – remember the old saying that to be a success, you should surround yourself with successful people. Comment on their blogs, chat with them on Twitter and work hard to guest post on their blogs.

Get Some Guest Posts on Your Own Blog

There are plenty of people out there, who are just starting out as bloggers. Many will be commenting on your site. Go and have a look at their blogs. Do you like their writing style? Are they offering a message your readers would enjoy or benefit from? If so, contact them and ask them to write a guest post. A couple a month will take the writing load off your shoulders and they will also promote your blog and bring some of their readership to you.

Don’t Give Up!

Yes I know this is the second time that I’ve headed a section with those words! Even in my relatively short time as a blogger, I’ve been shocked at the number of new blogs which start off and then slowly peter out. It makes no sense to have done so much hard work for no reward and to simply give up.

You are on the threshold of achieving what you set out to achieve. Keep going, apply the suggestions above, keep learning from the experts.

Are you a blogger “in the middle?” If so, let me know in comments – we can help each other.

Are you ready to guest post? Please comment and tell me – I’ll get back to you quickly.