Starting a blog itself doesn’t require too much, but you will have to invest some time, money, and energy if you want your blog to be successful. Unlike a couple of decades back, anyone now can start a blog, thanks to significant advancements in technology.
But starting and running a blog isn’t a walk in the park and definitely is not as easy as it may seem. But starting and running a successful blog also isn’t impossible.
Here, I’ll walk you through some of the signs that may indicate you aren’t ready to start a blog.
Before moving further, I would like to point out that this isn’t a post to discourage you from blogging.
Instead, you’ll learn about what you need to do before starting a blog to avoid significant disappointments in the future. That said, let’s first look at why people start blogs.
2 Reasons Why Most People Start Blogs
There are usually two reasons why most people start blogging. These reasons include:
Blogging for Passion
Many people worldwide are passionate about writing, and blogging is an excellent way of expressing this passion. As a passionate writer myself, I have been writing different types of literary work since I was young.
In this digital era, passionate writers, including myself, have found a way to express our thoughts and to an even larger audience. Passionate writers usually write about their opinions, personal experiences and engage with other like-minded individuals.
Because most bloggers who write for passion or as a hobby, have other jobs, they usually write two to three times a month. That’s because it isn’t their main priority but only a hobby. These days though, you can find passionate bloggers posting even daily. This ultimately depends on your schedule, priorities, and the objective for your blog.
Blogging for Money
The second reason why people also start blogs is to earn money from blogging. Whether writing is your passion or not, blogging can be a source of income. However, creating a blog for money requires you to take a different approach, unlike when blogging for fun or passion.
If you want to start a blog to make money, you need a solid strategy, goals, and a mentality change. You now have to view blogging as a business and not a hobby or passion. It’s possible making money from blogging, but you will have to be serious about this approach.
For instance, you have to do a lot of research, create tons of useful conte and have a long-term plan to follow for your blogging business.
The growth of information technology has made blogging a well-paying career. It is much more interesting because one can choose to work in the niche that they are most familiar with. This allows you to work on what you love. People will consume the information you produce if it significantly adds value to their lives. When there is increased traffic on your blogging site, you can get financial gain from your blogging.
With that in mind, those are the two main reasons why many people start blogs. Now, let’s look at why you are not ready to start a blog:
Why You Aren’t Ready To Start A Blog
1. You don’t have a Niche
Being passionate about writing is one thing and running a blog is an entirely different experience. With many topics to write about on the internet, not having a niche is a clear sign that you cannot start a blog. When it comes to blogging, generalizing your blog won’t bring you the best experience. Although you can, I would strongly advise you not to, especially if you want to start a blog and earn money from blogging.
Choosing your niche is like setting the foundation of your blogging journey. That’s because it will direct your entire blogging experience right from the start. With a definitive niche for your blog, it becomes easier to choose a domain name and theme for your blog. Moreover, a niche is also essential when focusing your content on the target audience.
Without a niche, you will just be moving from one direction to another. The sad part about this is that there are many directions, and you may find yourself going nowhere with your blog. Niches help you strategize, target a specific audience, generate new ideas, create content, and eventually capitalize on your blogging experience. Therefore, you shouldn’t start a blog just because you love writing or want to make quick money without a niche.
The first step is to ascertain what you want to write about and do more research on your niche of choice. This way, you’ll have a clear direction right from the start, something that a majority of bloggers who give up lack.
2. Not Ready to Invest
As I pointed out earlier, blogging doesn’t require you to have millions or coding knowledge to begin. However, you do need to invest different resources in a blog before it can start paying you back. Note that this isn’t a make-money-quick scheme as perceived by many newbies in the blogging world. It’s fair to say that blogging isn’t easy if you want it to start paying your bills someday. This is understandable considering that no income-generating activity is a breeze under the sun.
For your blogging work to pay off, you need to invest the following resources into it:
- Time
- Money
- Research
- Ideas
- Content
The time invested in a particular blog will ultimately reflect on the results you receive. Secondly, you need money to facilitate running your blog. This includes money for hosting, plug-ins, and mail-lists, among other associated needs when running a blog. You also need to research more about your niche to find content ideas to write about.
Investing in your blog is necessary if you want to generate a significant amount from the practice. And it’s possible to earn from blogging, with the big boys making thousands of dollars every month from blogging. However, you have to understand that none of them started earning such amounts right away.
It may take months or even years to start earning a stable income from blogging. On the other hand, some may even start making money within several months. However, this depends on different factors such as the niche, content creation strategy, and SEO practice, among other healthy blogging practices.
So, you need to take blogging seriously if you want to earn good money from blogging. Ensure that you invest adequately in all the areas required to create and run a healthy and successful blog. When you do this, it’s doubtful that you will lose out on the entire experience.
3. Too Busy with Something Else
This is one of the most common signs that you are not ready to start a blog. Unlike a few decades ago, blogging now is a demanding experience. To create and run a successful blog, you need hard work, dedication, and patience, among other associated obligations. This is if you want to build an income-generating blog.
The first few months of creating and running your blog are the most important. Therefore, you need to maximize your efforts and investments in your blog at this time. Remember, no one knows about you or your blog. Even search engines won’t be familiar with your work when you start blogging from scratch. This means that you have to work hard and even overtime for your blog to gain credibility.
This is where the investing part gets real, and you are required to be all hands on deck for your blog to be recognized. To do this, you’ll need to be full-time blogging or dedicating more time to blogging than any other place. If you can’t be all hands on deck when you start a blog, you will need months and even years to see your blog succeeding.
I understand that not everyone can manage to go full-time blogging with bills to pay and meals to eat. This means that you may find it hard to blog because you are too busy with work or even school. If that is the case, then you aren’t ready to start a blog. But if you can find or set aside several hours a day, it might not be a bad idea to start blogging. You may do it after work, classes, or during the weekends when you are not so busy.
4. Not Business Oriented
Let’s face it, a majority of people who start blogging do it as an income-generating practice. Right now, it’s hard to find someone blogging for passion. And if they are, then money and financial drive have to be on the table as well. We all have bills to pay and want to have a hot meal at the end of the day. Therefore, blogging for passion doesn’t make sense if you don’t have a place to stay, something to eat, or finances to pay your bills.
With that in mind, you need to be business-minded if you want your blog to be successful. If not, then you are not ready to start a blog. It would be best if you looked at your blog as a store or a business entity. Blogs are like assets, and different blogs have different valuations based on varying factors. Therefore, you need to have a business plan for your blog. Otherwise, it will end up failing in the long term.
Similarly, your blog might not reach its full potential if you lack a solid business plan when starting the blog. This is why you must start thinking like a business person to achieve the most out of your blog or blogging experience. Remember, you are not just a casual writer in this digital era. People are earning big time from blogging, and it’s only right if you strategized practically to join the league. I mean, what better way do you have to generate income apart from doing what you love.
5. Lacking Ideas after a Few Blog Posts
Other than monetization, traffic statistics, and SEO-friendly practices, your blog’s content is another crucial factor to consider. People come to your blog to get information from your content. If you don’t have good content in your blog, it will be hard for visitors to stay. Even worse, search engines will pull their attention from you because you only have little to offer.
You aren’t ready to start a blog if you run out of content ideas after a few blog posts. This might be as little as 3 to 10 blog posts. Back when blogging wasn’t as intense as it is now, you only needed 15 to 30 blog posts to start earning good money from the blog. However, times have changed, and people are now posting consistently and in high numbers. Right now, 100 blog posts are the standard number to start earning good money from blogging. That’s because you will have more keywords and content to rank for with 100 posts compared to a lower number.
Note this is only an estimation because every niche is different. In fact, you may start earning good money from other niches with only 50 posts. Nevertheless, you need content on your blog to start earning good money. Personally, I think it would be best to have a content strategy before you even start your blog. At this point, you will have chosen your niche, target audience, and learned more about your niche of choice.
So, when you decide to start writing blog posts or outsourcing, you will have a monthly content creation plan for your blog. It’s the best way to launch your blog and reduces your chances of getting disappointed on blogging.
6. You Give Up Easily
If you are a quitter, then you are not ready to start a blog. Like many things in life, blogging isn’t an easy experience. Like explained earlier, you need to invest many things for your blog to pay off. If not, then you will only be wasting your time, energy, and money. For this reason, you need to understand that blogging requires you to be patient on all ends, whether it’s ranking top on search engines, traffic rise, or even monetization.
This isn’t a make-money-quick scheme, as pointed out earlier. You can become a millionaire from blogging. Many people are making that a reality. However, you will be lying to yourself if you think you can reach that milestone overnight.
Most bloggers who are now earning big money will tell you (if they can) that their first dollar came several months after starting. Some even confess that it took a year to earn their first dollars from blogging. So, this is a long-term investment. That’s why you need a solid strategy, a lot of hard work, and patience.
If you give up easily, you will join most bloggers who usually quit after working on their blogs for a few months. This is generally because of not seeing the expected outcomes, whether in traffic or financially. Only those who are willing and patient enough to wait get to see their blogs reach their maximum potential.
So, you are not ready to launch a blog if you give up easily. You must be prepared and willing to invest your time, money, work, and patience into blogging.
Final Thoughts
There you have it, six massive reasons you aren’t ready to start a blog. Some of the reasons we discussed here are super obvious, and others may be a bit of a surprise. Especially if you are new to blogging.
As you have seen, blogging isn’t an easy experience, and it’s even more intense if you are doing it to earn money. Remember, it’s totally possible to turn your blog into an income-generating activity.
But you will have to implement all the required practices for that vision to become a reality. With a successful blog, you have the freedom to do so much more with your time. Unlike other business models, blogging only requires a few hours of work during the week. However, this depends on the stage of your blog and also the type of services you offer on the blog.
Remember, you can earn good money from blogging. Any blogger that has a successful blog can attest to that. But if you notice any of the six explained reasons above, you aren’t ready to start a blog.
