This guest post is by Joseph of Blog Tweaks.
Don’t worry, nearly every blogger knows the story. You’ve been writing for six months or more, but haven’t seen a significant increase in traffic. Some of your posts have have been successful, but the majority have gone unnoticed.
Quite frankly, you’re ready to quit.
But should you?
No. Don’t give up just yet.
Why you shouldn’t give up yet
Did you know that most professional bloggers weren’t successful with their first blogs? This list includes Darren Rowse, Jon Morrow, and Johnny Truant.
With so much to learn in the first year, it’s almost impossible to start a successful blog on the first try.
But you also learn a lot in that first year. You learn how to write better posts and how to craft compelling headlines. You learn how to use Facebook and Twitter for promotion, and how to work the technical side of WordPress or Blogger or whatever platform you’re using.
After a year of blogging, you’ve got a lot invested in your blog. If things are going rough 12 months, it’s not time to quit just yet.
So what should you do instead?
Hit the Reset button
Instead of giving up on your blog, you should hit the Reset button.
It’s not that your blog isn’t any good—you just didn’t know what you were doing when you started. This is the case with most bloggers.
When starting, they don’t know what they want to write about, and they don’t know how to write for an audience. Most people don’t even know how to write a simple post or headline.
It makes sense that you wouldn’t be successful with your first blog. Does a magazine owner start a successful magazine without any experience? Of course not.
Magazine owners start successful magazines after being in the industry for a decade or more. After years of experience, they’re ready to start a publication. That’s what the first year of blogging is all about—gaining industry experience.
So now that you have some experience, how do you use it to run a successful blog? And what do you do if your current blog isn’t performing as well as you’d like?
Here’s what to do—instead of giving up, hit one of the two blog Reset buttons.
Reset button #1: the Refresh button
If your blog is good enough, you may be able to get away with hitting Reset button number one—the Refresh button. This means cleaning up the clutter, giving your blog a new look, and planning for the future.
To refresh your blog, mercilessly delete any weak or unnecessary posts. After this, take a serious look at everything else on the site. If there are any tags or widgets that are creating clutter and adding no value, get rid of them. All of them.
Widgets shouldn’t just take up space. If you can’t think of what value that they add or if they take away from something important, it’s time for them to go.
Here’s an example: Do you really need a calendar widget for your blog? Do people actually use it? And even if a handful of people do, should it really sit above other important sidebar elements like your subscription widget?
The answer is no. It’s got to go. If there’s anything else like this, it needs to go as well.
The goal is to have a clean, uncluttered site that doesn’t distract from the steps that you want people to take. That means reading your posts, subscribing for future posts, clicking on ads, or anything else that is really important for you.
If there’s anything that doesn’t fit into one of these important categories, it needs to be removed. Immediately.
After cutting out the unnecessary clutter, the next step is to refresh your blog’s look. This is the time to invest in that premium theme you’ve been looking at. They’re usually around $80 and totally worth it.
If you want people to take your blog seriously, you need a professional looking site. To get one, invest in a premium theme.
This is how to hit the Refresh button. If your blog needs more help than this, it may be time for the Eject button.
Reset button #2: the Eject button
It’s possible that your blog is in worse condition than the refresh button can help with. When you started, you really didn’t know what you were doing. Your blog was totally an experiment, and you don’t even like your topic any more.
In this case, you need to hit Reset button number two—the Eject button.
If you’re really tired of your blog and you know you’re ready to start over, now is the time to do it. Hit the Eject button and get out of your blog while you still can. It’s time to start over.
The harsh reality is that you have a limited amount of time to write for your blog. Everything you write needs to be creating value for the reader and needs to contribute toward your long term goals. If you feel like your blog is headed in the wrong direction, don’t just try to wash it up a bit—get out as quickly as you can.
If you do, don’t quit—start another blog. Take some time to decide what you really want to write about, and then get to work.
Pick a topic that will get you going in the direction that you want to go. Then, start a self-hosted WordPress blog with a premium theme that will give you the flexibility and look that you need to create a professional impression that readers will take seriously.
After getting these pieces in place, it’s time to start writing again. Go ahead, make that keyboard work.
A fresh start
Don’t worry, it’s okay to start over. A fresh start in a new direction may be exactly what your blog needs. You may not realize it, but most bloggers have done it already. Most successful bloggers didn’t start out with the site that they’re currently writing. Most of them hit one of these two Reset buttons.
So what do you think? Is it time for you to hit the Reset button?
Joseph recently started Blog Tweaks which specializes in helping bloggers reset their blogs. Check out the site to see how you can get your blog tweaked.
There is a definite hump there and I think if you are active it comes between the 3 to 6 month period. First it feels as if the place is dead and nothing is happening and then it just starts coming to life with a few tweets and some comments. Stick with it because it will come eventually have no doubt!
Once you’re over the “hump,” things start to click and you feel like yourself when you’re writing. You get in the zone and stuff starts flowing – It’s worth working towards that.
well this post comes at just the right moment, I was planning a makeover for my website.
great post !
It is definitely enticing to sometimes just quit. You’ve got a blog that you thought would be great or that you thought you were passionate about and then, a year later, you’re just moving along in the motions. A blog is like a relationship…If you go through the motions, it all gets boring. Sometimes, a good reset can be what you need to do to ensure that the blog grows for the long term.
This is especially true because you learn so much in the first year. After that, most bloggers are ready for a new start, and the best thing to do is to hit the reset button.
I did exactly this a couple of months ago and took what was a photography centric blog to more of a generalized topic personal blog. I was struggling with writing constantly on photo topics and while I maintained a blog for my marketing firm at TMCInteractive.com I felt like I needed an outlet for my other passions that fell outside of the realm of photography and digital marketing.
Traffic has been up, comments and RTs have been on the rise while I have been able to increase my personal brand’s exposure.
Your experience is a great example of why starting over can be a good idea. Thanks for the comment!
I’ve had a similar problem. The focus of my blog is changing and expanding. I started out writing about one thing. Enter life changed and those topics are no longer relevant to me. They are relevant to others, but I am needing to go another direction. I think I need to do a combination of the two reset techniques, starting with getting rid of uninteresting or unnecessary posts. Recently I did change themes and clean up quite a bit. That felt good, but there is more to do.
That is strange that I read this post as I started revamping my entire blog yesterday. Luckily enough, I could just refresh it and not start over! This really boosted my motivaton!
Thank you,
Gabriel Johansson
Awesome, I’m glad this helped! :)
Hard to do, but must do for the bloggers.
And don’t forget to remove URL of removed tags and posts in Google Webmaster’s “Crawler access” page and “remove URL” tab. You can wait for some days, when Google shows the 404 (not found) URLs on your webmasters “crawl errors”. This ensure the quality of your blog in Google’s point..
Regards
Musthafa Ullal
TekNoise
I changed my blog content over time from blogging tips, social media etc to mostly alternative news. I worked long and hard on my blog so starting over wasn’t an option. I get a lot more traffic but very few comments on alternative news but if a post is about inspiration, blogging or humour I get less traffic but more comments. Finding the balance has been tricky, not very successful all round. Over the last few weeks I have been close to deleting but that would be a huge regret. One day my blog is riding high the next its scraping its knuckles on the ground. Trying to find that balance is the problem. I don’t sell anything or have free offers, so maybe this is something new to try.
Thanks for sharing your insight, most helpful.
Joseph and everybody ‘hello’
I believe sincerely that if you arrive at a point in time when you want to end your blog it is very important to stop and take time to check in with your motivation for creating and sustaining the blog.
A few thoughts that can help:
One
If you are truly connected to what you are sharing about and just one person is reading your blog you are making a difference. It is not about traffic it is about nourishing lives. When you have helped one person you have changed the world. Why do you do what you do?
Two
If you need the blog to generate income and that is your main goal then you may need to reconsider the focus of the blog or in fact the mindset you have about your blog and your goals. Blogs often only created pennies of income for a long time before bursting onto the real income scene and sometimes they may never create more than pennies. What is it you want to do? When you are passionate about what you want to do you don’t give up. My site was majorly damaged when a server it was on was messed up. If I did not have the passion for its content I definitely would not have taken the three weeks or so of spare time it took to piece everything back together.
That’s my five centimes for the moment.
All the best to everyone,
David
I came to the point that you describe in this post recently. I started a blog of random musings about just about any topic imaginable about a year ago. I had some friends that checked it out occasionally, but the traffic was painfully low for most of them. I decided to jettison the blog entirely and start out with a more focused blog that ties to my profession. Some of the previous readers seem to ignore it, but I have already been getting more traffic from searches (not a ton, but more) than I did in about a year of doing the last blog. Thanks for the post.
Thanks for the encouragement! I just hit the reset button on my own blog (the “refresh” button). I was tired of blogging through blogger, so I transferred to WordPress, purchased a premium theme (Standard), did a bit of design, and now I’m off to (another) fresh start!
I always thought my blog had potential, I’m just hoping this is the push that gets me over the top. Thanks for the encouragement!
Jason – The site looks awesome! Love the idea of bringing your boy to cut the lawn with you! I’ve got one thats 3 and one thats 2 and they’re so into anything I’m into – It’s awesome!
I totally agree upon giving your blog a professional look. Even I myself always look at how the blog is designed then look at the content. Like when I first saw zenhabits.net it really has a very great minimalistic design that matches up the contents of it.
If you want people to take you seriously – you have to be serious of what your doing first. Try to assess your blog with a reader’s mind set and see if you’ll like what you are doing with your blog.
If you’re having a doubt of refreshing your blog with new looks of the premium wordpress themes, take the words of Darren Rowse, Chris Brogan, Brian Clark and other professional and successful bloggers. Premium themes are really worth it.
Great post by the way. Points are highlighted with great explanations and examples.
Premium themes are totally worth it. They’re like getting a professional design for $80. How awesome of a deal is that?
Great article. I haven’t even begun my blog yet as it will go live in two weeks. Good to know what to expect the first year. Looks like I will have to make sure my content and site are always providing value.
Thanks for this post Joesph. It’s made me rethink my blog to its entireity. I’ll be taking the refresh button route and hopefully it’ll go well. Whether the process has gone good or bad should tell in the feedback I get.
Thanks once again.
I’m glad this post helped, and thanks for sending me a message on my site. I look forward to keeping in touch.
My first blog was a personal blog and didn’t get much traffic – so I started my poetry4fun blog up and that did very well after 6 months. Now I tend to blog more on my personal blog again and that is doing as well as the poetry blog. I think the blog you have most fun with – is usually the one that does well. If it isn’t fun you aren’t enjoying it and neither will anyone else.
I love this Joseph! This is so totally true.
I started blogging a year and a half ago. I spent an ENTIRE YEAR writing a junky blog that nobody read.
Then at the end of January 2011, I registered twohourblogger.com. I hit the eject button! I deleted my old blog and poured my heart into the new one.
I don’t regret it one bit.
This is solid advice.
This is exactly the same thing that happened to me. Starting over while using all of the knowledge I learned from my first blog was the best thing that I could have ever done.
I’ve always preached that your archive’s quality will often determine whether people subscribe or not. If you wrote a bad article three months ago, that actually might hurt you today.
This whole “reset” concept is more important than most people think.
Very true. It can be very difficult when first starting out. The simplest things seem the most complex and you’re likely to fail at almost everything in the beginning, but things slowly get better and easier. Sometimes hitting reset can be great once you have gained all the necessary lessons. It can give you more confidence and put you in a better position than someone just starting out.
This is totally true. Once you start over, everything you learned in the first year can be transferred to a new blog that has the direction from the very beginning.
#2 is exactly what I did. I had been avoiding doing what I really needed to do and wasted a year working on a below average blogging blog. The thought of making a tech tips blog had been rolling around in my head since registered my domain in 2000. I nuked the old one, moved the gems to a wordpress.com blog, and started the blog over there in the Website field.
Going good so far. :)
I am in this process right now myself, and have been crafting a brand new site that will be specific to blogging for the main purpose of connecting with people.
I have to disagree with your assessment of buying a pro-template for WordPress. There is a free theme called Atahualpa that is so Incredibly versatile and clean coded that you don’t need to spend any money on the theme itself. Perhaps just hire a really good designer who knows the theme (its the only one I like to work on) and then invest that money into the designer instead.
When you want to get the most for your money, THINK before you ACT!
♥Emily Rose
Thank You for this post I really needed to read it. I just started my first blog in February and I don’t have that many followers yet. So I thought I was doing something wrong but hopefully more people will start reading it soon.
It’s hard for people to completely scrap a blog, but sometimes it’s necessary. One thing people don’t do early that will make a huge difference with their second blog is keyword research.
I agree that often scrapping and starting over is the best thing to do.
I would recommend for your first blog niche to be something that you know a hell of a lot about. Even if it is not very popular there are enough people on the web that there will be readers for your blog.
Stay out of saturated blogging niches.
I am currently in the process of hitting the recess button. Thanks for affirmation that I am doing the right thing!
Ahhh, it makes so much sense … now. :)
I did the very same thing. I started a *terrible* blog (all traces of which are now removed from the net in order to save my future grandchildren much embarrassment) and after 200 posts over 6 months, I had no real followers or traffic so I canned it and started again. 18 months on, the new blog is doing really well and I’m about to hit the ‘refresh’ button to give it an even bigger kick.
The thing I liked about this post was that it sets long term expectations. It takes *real* time to build a following. I get more traffic in a month now than I did for my first 8 months combined. My only suggestion would be to Refresh at will, but only Eject if you *yourself* don’t like your blog. Otherwise, patience, people, patience. :)
This is totally right. When I started over with my blog, I had more traffic in the first month than the last 12 months. All of this was based on what I learned from the first year that I applied to my second blog.
Great to see you on here again Joseph!
Love this idea. I’ve hit reset on my blog so many times. And each time it’s gotten stronger.
Awesome. Thanks for the confirmation.
I’m astonished to learn that other people have had the same experience as myself. I KNOW my blog sucks. Been feeling too guilty about euthanasing it. Now is the time to delete & restart.
I’m one of them who hit those two buttons. I just feel myself inside this article. Great article I must say
Great advice, and an interesting way of looking at things. I’m about 9 months in to my blog. It’s a personal blog, about myself, my family, and my life. However, as a Career Counselor turned stay-at-home mom, I’m considering options for another blog more in line with my professional training.
Joseph, your post makes much sense!
It’s a real struggle to write a blog; much less make it popular and turn it into an income producing source.
Sometimes the even the domain name you choose for you blog makes you wanna quit! You feel it doesn’t represent what you want to say or do.
Starting over is often the best when refreshing isn’t enough!
Great article. I had to choose option 2 last year with my freebie site. I loved sharing free links to stuff but I noticed that there were not a lot of people sharing the love of Free things like I had. Since there are so many sites doing the same thing. I just tossed it and now I visit those blogs instead (competitors).
And just recently I started a personal blog and also one that broadcast my Talk Show. (link provided)
Great information :) You’ve just put me on full power mode today, so much motivation and inspiration coming from you, I was just thinking about whether I should quit or not earlier today, well I guess I need to work harder on my blog.
I believe that the time to hit the reset button comes for any blog at some point. It might be a big reset button that will radically change the topic or purpose of the blog or it might be a smaller change or tweak like a different approach of things, a different voice or a different personality.
I look at hitting the reset button from time to time as a good thing.
The article is quite good in boosting the morale of all the undermined bloggers who had lost hope and started thinking to switch over. This is a life saver. Most fresh bloggers face such dilemma and in this complex situation finding a ray of light is a life saver. A good advise from a professional is very welcoming and hopefully this article will help many to get ideas for survival.
Good post as always. :)
Thanks for sharing Such a Awesome Article and Yes as you mentioned in the article i also started a blog and i was getting frustrated by seeing the results after 6 months also there was no improvement in means of traffic and page rank and one fine day after 6 months of blogging i just sold that blog and for gods sake that blog has got Google PR2 after selling it and Traffic is also flowing good and earning around $100 permonth now. Now i miss my blog a lot. after selling i thought of quitting blogging after one month i started another blog where i can write something which i have learnt from my previous mistakes.
Quitting is always not a best option as per my experience wait and see the result.
It is always good to sometimes start afresh with a blog – agreed. :)
The blogger is a person. Search for the “I”. Each person is unique. And readers and subscribers love sincerity and honesty in relation to themselves.
The question you need to ask is
Is anyone getting anything from your blog?
That includes you. If people are going there, like it, use it, great. You can always just leave it. Park it for a few months and do something else. Focus on Facebook, focus on Twitter, build a paper.li newspaper, have fun. Don’t be too hasty to delete something you might decide you like later but are just burnt out on now. Same goes for that content, make it drafts, but I would say deletion is a mistake.
Step away from the car…don’t drive it off a cliff. Just my two cents.
~vago
I have always wanted to ask this question. Is there are time at which I should post my articles. I usually post it in a time where it is good for all of the countriie, but is there a secret to this, please write back I would like read some good ideas, Darren if you answer me I will also be glad.
time to moving far…
This is a really timely post for me. I’ve spent so much time this last year on my business site/blog that my personal blog has been like the ignored stepchild.
I don’t want to delete it completely because I think has potential, so it’s definitely time for the reset button.
Sometimes hitting the refresh button is all that it takes. Good luck!
I recently deleted about a third of my posts from the first year. Mainly because my concept of the blog had changed.
You have a great experience, great post!
Hey Joseph, This is a good article on a topic a lot of bloggers are struggling with. The eject button is a very drastic step and I believe that it most cases you don’t have to take it that far. Assuming that your topic has not changed 180 degrees and you are working on a flexible platform such as WordPress there is so much you can do even if you are already far into filling your blog with content.
Suggestions I’d make if some posts worked well and others didn’t is to do the analytics. Find out what you did on those successful articles. How did you structure them, what kind of information did you give away etc.? Compare that to what obviously didn’t work so well. This will teach you what to focus on.
Also listen to your audience and ask for their feedback. Asking your readers what they liked and what you could have done better is always a good way to start a conversation and to quality feedback.
Especially on WordPress changing the look and feel of your blog is quite easy. Perhaps you started out with a standard theme that worked well in the beginning but doesn’t live up to its purpose anymore. In that case you could go for a well coded premium theme or have a custom theme programmed. Normally those ahve advance features to engage in your blog and the code is optimized to get you better ranking, making your blog more stable on all platforms and also decreasing your page loading times.
Taking those few steps you’ll know what to write and how to write in order to provide value to your readers, you’ll have a professional blog online guaranteeing a refreshing user experience and you’ll have the tech stuff all settled for some time.
Just don’t quit too fast! Almost all the bloggers we compare ourselves with and look up to struggled just the same and most likely reached the same point of almost quitting numerous times. But we only hear of those who got over it, continued and made it. So if you want to make it just keep going, blog on what you are passionate about and optimize your blog as you go. Give it time and the results will be there.
I was just a hairline away from trashing my blog last week. Before completely hitting the “reset” button, I recommend doing what I did–tell your most devoted followers–your friends. I learned that they will not only give you the brutal honesty you need, but will also offer what you need to change.
Glad I decided to listen to them for once. Great points mentioned here.
thanks for your advice, really comes into it is very difficult to follow this world is hard, your words help me to keep trying to correct the mistakes and move on, how hard is to go ahead
This post hit very close to home for me. I’m in the process of putting my blog on my own domain and cleaning things up a bit. Not to mention that using code to help modify my blog has been greatly rewarding.
Hey anyone can help me out. I started with Weebly when i did not know anything about blogging. Then i realized that everyone uses WordPress. But my problem is that there is no Weebly Exporter for WordPress and moving over 200 posts manully is a nightmare. Can someone please help me?
Thanks so much for this! I really needed to hear it today! I have been blogging about a year now, and just said to my husband yesterday that it was about time to quit. I really think it’s time to set the reset button for my blog and talk a look at old posts. I did just got a new look and moved my blog to self hosted wordpress. Now, I think I just need to clean up the content a bit, this includes deleting old posts when I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write about. I feel like I have learned tons in the past year, and I want to start seeing results. Along with cleaning up my old blog I’m also thinking about starting new. I have a great idea for a blog in my head that I really think readers would love! I can’t wait to get started. Even my husband is excited, and that hasn’t always been the case! :)
I’m trying to change the niche of one of my blogs but I don’t want to delete the original posts in it. Though most of the articles are not ranked in search engines, I believe that it’s worth to be there forever.
Hi Joseph,
Thanks for directing me here from Blog Tweaks.
I love a good story about revival and renewal! Nothing more refreshing than that.
I recently hit Reset Button #1 and I’m glad I did. Best blogging decision I’ve made in a long time. I’m now using the Genesis Framework and it’s created a whole new look and feel that’s far more professional than what I was previously using. That one change, alone, has made a world of difference.
Beautiful post!
Melanie