Many things in blogging are out of your control, however one thing is not: effort. We can choose how hard we work and for how long. We can choose to wake up at 5:00 AM to blog for three hours before work. We can choose to educate ourselves more about our craft.
It’s okay to take your shot and miss. What’s not okay is to miss blogging opportunities due to lack of effort.
7 Common Ways Bloggers Don’t Put In Effort
- Not Posting Consistently The #1 blogging lack of effort fail is not posting consistently. Like a popcorn company that doesn’t make popcorn, a blog that doesn’t constantly post new content won’t have any success. While I recommend new bloggers to post a minimum of 1x per week with no maximum, there is no reason a blogger beyond the beginner stage cannot commit to posting three 1,000 – 3,000 word blog posts per week. If you can’t commit to that I recommend giving up.
- Not Continuing To Educate Oneself On The Craft Yes, like anything else blogging is a craft and a blogger who wants to go pro must pursue mastering the craft. “Yes, I would like to be a top professional chef but I don’t want to put in effort learning about any of the culinary disciplines.” Pretty stupid, huh? Yet many bloggers are the equivalent to this! You will have to learn how to be competent with WordPress, learn SEO, and promoting your work.
- Lazy Blog Promotion Every blogger is responsible for promoting their blog because nobody else is gonna do it. I’m a nice guy, but I’m not promoting your blog and I don’t expect you to promote my blog. Blog promotion goes beyond no-effort posts on X “visit my blog.” You have to put in a lot of effort to master a third party platform to promote your blog or nobody will come and read it. Respect Google, but don’t rely on them. Each blogger has to drive their own audience.
- Not Taking Email List Seriously While it’s nice to have affiliate links scattered throughout the blog, the email list is the #1 way to communicate with people that like your blog and are interested in what you are saying. You must create a lead magnet to get emails (“sign up for my email list and I’ll send you a handy pdf”), you must have some type of email sequence set up for new subscribers, and you must treat the people on your list well. Also, the people on your list are your most likely customers.
- Low-Intensity Writing Sessions When you are working on the blog it needs to be at high-intensity, not like the low-intensity work everybody at a typical job does. You need to move, move, move. You are building the thing that will make you free. Every blog sessions needs to be approached with a high sense of urgency and intensity in order to reach success faster.
- Not Waking Up Early To Blog 5:00 AM blogging is the most productive blogging there is. Set the coffee maker up the night before and have it brewed and ready to go for your writing sessions as soon as you flip open the computer. Starting at 5:00 AM should give you three solid hours to write, if it doesn’t, try waking up at 4:00 AM.
- Daydreaming About Blogging Instead Of Blogging This is one of my great blogging sins, dreaming about how beautiful everything will be once all my plans come to fruition instead of putting in the work to make the plans come into fruition. This is an important part of setting a vision, but don’t get lost in the clouds. There’s work to be done!
6 Hidden Costs Of Missing Blogging Opportunities Due To Lack Of Effort
- Sponsorships Even though I’m a dude I subscribe to several women solo-bloggers who blog about women’s interests. Clicking the “work with me” option I found out one of the blogger’s does $250 one-time email sponsorships. Almost all of her emails includes a sponsor in the sponsor box at the top of the email, she sends 2-3 emails per week. On the conservative side she is making $2,100 per month just from the sponsorships. How? Because she put in the effort to build her blog and her email list!
- High-Paying Affiliate Programs Getting approved by an affiliate network does not mean the affiliate partnerships start raining down. In the Impact network, for example. Most of the companies in the network you are not even able to apply to and others have automatic, instant declines for applications (trust me). But once you show you are a trustworthy, consistent, and professional blogger, the (high-paying) affiliate programs come to you.
- Guest Post Invites From High Domain Authority Websites It’s hard to constantly create content for years, so high-domain websites love guest posting. They don’t have to write a new post and they get a great post, and all they have to do is give out a do-follow link. As an up-and-coming blogger, that do-follow link is MASSIVELY valuable and can raise the status of your blog in the eyes of Google. But opportunities only come to bloggers that put in the effort!
- Podcast Invites Similar to guest posting, all these podcasts need guests. How do they find many of the guests? By googling for blogs, websites, and professionals in the field and then sending them an invite. I know most of us love blogging because we don’t have to interact with people, but you’re gonna have to if you wanna bring your blog to the next level. Podcasts are great ways to find audiences that are already interested in what you have to say and they will check out your blog.
- Media Features From Big Publishers Forbes, Entrepreneur, New York Times, and many others have an infinite amount of space that they need to try to fill on their websites. If you keep grinding odds are high that you will eventually appear in a big mainstream media publication and will get that all-valuable do-follow link.
- New York Times Bestselling Author Many bloggers who blogged relentlessly eventually found their names on the NYT bestsellers list and rocketed into an entirely new level. This is because 1.) the blogger caught the attention of publishing house and signed a book deal 2.) the blogger built a big platform with an audience that buys the book. That’s why many bloggers have cracked the NYT list.
Put In Full Effort Or Keep Getting What You’ve Been Getting
The worst situation to be in is starting a blog and not putting in full effort. Because half effort into a blog is not gonna reach any of your blogging goals. To win the blogging game all you have to do is give it all you got, anything less will lead to achieving goals.
I realize many bloggers have financial constraints and cannot buy all of the coolest blogging tools, that’s okay and that’s not what I’m talking about when discussing “full effort.” I don’t want you to go broke. All you need is the cheapest plan with Bluehost which also comes with a free domain + effort. What I’m talking about is putting in full effort into your blog whenever you can. That might mean 5:00 AM blogging sessions every single day for the next three years until you write your way to freedom. And is that really a bad trade? Every single morning for three years and then you are free to do as you wish with your time. I think that sounds like a good trade, personally. A real no-brainer. Stop living life on your knees because you aren’t putting in full effort!