I wrote this post just for you.
You know who you are.
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Recently I was glancing through the comments on a few different websites with blogs that have hundreds of comments. I decided to look through the list and see who had websites and blogs.
What I found astonished me.
Of the 90% of commenters who chose to have a link to a blog, 99% of the blogs were inactive.
1% of these people, who were leaving comments, had sites with recent blog posts. One percent!!!
Whoa.
So what about these other 99% of the people? What are they doing with their blogs?
Most of these blogs were at least one month inactive. Some were 6 months or more. Others had blog posts with dates from 2002 or earlier. In essence, these were dead blogs, but the people who owned them still used them as links to their own web presence. They still felt ownership to their dead blogs.
Admit it. Are you not working on your blog?
It’s OK. I totally understand. After all, I haven’t been as prolific on this website as much as I would have liked, but that is mainly because I am still learning how to handle two blogs at the same time.
It’s harder than I originally thought, but totally worth it. And I am learning so much by juggling two blogs at the same time.
So if you have a blog and you’re not doing anything with it, I wrote this for you.
Here are 10 reasons why you aren’t blogging. Which reasons are you using not to blog?
10 Reasons Why I Don’t Want to Blog
10. “I don’t have a blog.” If you have a blog set up, good for you! To everyone else who is reading this but does not have a blog, shame on you. I have met a few professional writers recently who do not have blogs. They claim to write for a living, but do not keep any sort of website or blog. I do not think a blog is right for every single person on the planet or for every business in the world, but in this day and age you have to at least try blogging. And every person on the planet should have some sort of web presence. Even your granny.
9. “It’s late.” This is a time management issue. If you truly want to write, you will find the time. You find the time to eat, you find the time to sleep, you’ll find the time to blog. Find the time. Go write on your blog.
8. “I don’t know what to write about.” Everyone has something to say in this world, or else we would have more peace and quiet on the planet. You have something to say about anything. Here’s something to get you started: Go to Google Trends and write about one of the topics you see. I dare you.
7. “I don’t want to write about my niche.” A nice is a good thing for most blogs because it keeps you on topic. But if you truly feel cramped by your niche, perhaps you have chosen too small of a topic to write about. On most personal blogs, there is the variety of interests of the person writing. On this site I have already written about a variety of topics on this blog. Yet, if your blog does have a specific niche, take out a piece of paper and write out everything you have already written about on your blog. On a separate piece of paper, write out all the things you’ve left out or haven’t yet talked about on your blog. I know you’ll come up with something. Pick just one of those items from the second piece of paper and get writing.
6. ” I don’t want to write about my life.” I’ve seen way too many personal blogs (especially on Livejournal) that are WAY too personal. When I was on Livejournal starting in 1999 I blabbed on and on about the mintuia of my day to day life because my close friends were reading. I wasn’t writing for a larger audience. Then again, I wasn’t adding value to the world by talking about how I had a migraine again and I needed to feed my cat. Fortunately I no longer have migraines, and my kitty has since passed away, so I can instead devote my life to helping you live a happier life. And to get you to blog.
5. You’re reading other people’s blogs instead of working on your own site. It is great to get inspiration from other websites, from books, from videos, and all the other places for inspiration in your life. But if you are not taking that inspiration and contributing your own, you are not giving back to the world. You’re not contributing to the conversation called the World Wide Web. Stop looking at everyone else and get back to work.
4. That one feature doesn’t work on your site, so you don’t take any action. Uploading pictures to my site is incredibly hard compared to Blogger. That’s why I rarely do it. It also is the biggest reason why I have not written on my blog. This is not a good reason not to blog. This is my main excuse. Stop the excuses. Figure out what technical problems you are having and fix them. As long as you can type and press “Send” then you can blog. Get back to writing a blog post.
3. “My Internet Connection is Down.” I can relate - it’s happened three times at home here in the past week. If you have electricity, you can still type out your writing and post it when the internet is back on. If you don’t have power, there is still the technology of pencil and paper! If you really needed to connect to someone on the internet, you would find a coffee shop or wifi cafe or somewhere with internet access. The whole internet did not go down. Leave your house. The fresh air will be good for you.
2. Life in general. “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.” - John Lennon One busy day can take you away from your goals in life. But everyone has 10 minutes in their day to get back and focus. No matter what happened in your life today, you can still take that time and write on your blog.
1. “It’s been too long.” Once a certain amount of time has passed, you have decided that it has been too long. This is when the blog has become flatlined and is essentially dead. This excuse is the same phenomenon with people who own gym memberships but never go. They used to go, but “it’s been too long”, and now they will pay their gym dues until the end of time. It is time to put your blog back on life support. Breathe some life into your blog - write a post. Then breathe more life into it; write another post tomorrow.
These are all blogging excuses. You know it. I know it. These are all excuses. These are not reasons not to blog, these are reasons you tell yourself why you are not blogging.
The one simple remedy to these top 10 problems?
Write a blog post. Now. Do it in 10 minutes.
Do it now.
And if it has been awhile, write your post and then leave a comment so all of us can go to your blog and cheer you on.
- Heidi