Hello and welcome back to today’s topic which is Why My First Blog Failed And How I Can Help You Now. We see a lot of successful bloggers but did you know most of them didn’t make it on the first blog?
Blogging is a great thing to get into but it’s not all sunshine and roses it’s actually hard work.
With the first blog I made lots of mistakes and learned a lot from them does that mean I get it all right now? definitely not but I’m making way fewer mistakes this time around.
I started the first blog in the health and wellness niche because it’s something I’m passionate about and I thought it would be fun to write about.
How did the blog FAIL?
It made money in its first 4 months through a review of a supplement and the princely sum was $45.48 a good amount for a first commission.
Then it all went downhill from there 🙁
The reason for starting to blog was a way of escaping my day job which I hated with a passion and what I wanted to happen was not coming to fruition in a timely manner.
Now though I am a full-time blogger and I love the freedom to do what I want to when I want to!
No working for a boss, no fighting my way through traffic on the drive to the office, no 9-5 hours. I can take time off whenever I want. It is absolute Bliss.
This post may contain Affiliate Links that means if you click a link and make a purchase I may receive a small commission. The price you pay will not be affected.
Why The Health And Wellness Blog Failed
As a mother of 4 grown-up daughters and 3 young grandchildren who have kept fit all of her life I thought I could write about my experiences.
Why not they are factual right?
The trouble was nobody knew it existed and nobody was reading it.
I put this down to the fact that it’s new and only using SEO techniques at the time that it would pick up at the 6th-month mark.
But that didn’t happen according to plan.
Let us dive in and figure out together where it went wrong from the prospect of a full-time blogger.
Not Concentrating On My Audience
The blog was all about my fitness journey so it contained lots of photos and opinions all based on me.
One of the biggest mistakes new bloggers make is not writing for their audience.
It is easy to get caught out in this way because in the beginning you probably don’t have an audience and you are unaware of what they are looking for.
If you are doing this get out of the habit as soon as possible.
The biggest difference between blogging now as opposed to then is that this blog is written with a very specific audience in mind.
A lot more research goes into the blog posts to make them more user-friendly and what the visitor is seeking answers to.
And to be fair writing the content now is a lot more enjoyable. This makes it a breeze to write.
At first, the health and wellness niche was exciting to write for but after 10 months it became boring and I nearly quit blogging altogether!
I started to use Pinterest about 6 months in and tried diversifying my content to see if that got more engagement it did for a while so I carried on plugging away.
Not Doing Simple Important Things From The Beginning
There was one important fact that I did get right all of the way through and that was to concentrate all the time on SEO.
The rest was all wrong:
- I spent 6 days on the about me page, Seriously stupid!
- Months were spent trying to get the blog to look perfect, believe me, there’s no such thing.
- Not writing consistently because of looking at non-growing stats every 5 minutes.
- Creating content that people weren’t all that interested in.
I have learned big time from those mistakes and the same errors won’t be repeated this time around.
No Emphasis On Collecting Emails
As a new blogger, I just didn’t understand the importance of building an email list.
Do you get hundreds of emails a day that you don’t want? Me too they drive me mad!
Stupidly I thought it was the same for everybody, it turns out that, that is not the case.
From collecting emails on this blog from day 1, I have learned that people enter their email addresses because they want information as well as help.
These people on the list are true followers and they really do open and read the emails. Best of all I help them to get their blogs started and they buy my recommendations.
There are many different email providers around but I like to use Aweber, they provide lots of useful tools that include landing page builders and opt-in form templates.
I Tried To Run Before I Could Walk
Creating content full of affiliate links when you have little to no traffic is just asking for trouble! I totally did that!
Doing this just makes you demoralized when there’s no money coming in.
Beginners think that is how it’s done, but it’s not.
For you to get the money you need to have traffic.
Using Pinterest has been a godsend for traffic and learning to do things in better ways.
You need to monetize your blog strategically and one of the best ways is with a resources page.
Instead of filling your posts with links just point the posts to your Resources Page.
On that page put all of your links to everything you use on your blog, not just the paid parts but also anything that you use that’s free!
Help your readers to get answers!
Get Training
Trying to blog all on your own with no training is really hard going.
You go to Google and type in the search bar How to work from home?
Then you get caught up in some MLM company that promises you the earth for only 2 hours a day, they are living the life you want with the house and fancy car, or so it seems!
It’s not until you have been scammed once or twice that you realize all is not what it seems.
Although I lost thousands of dollars I didn’t give up I kept trying to find the right help cautiously. I knew there was a way.
After a year or so of searching, I came across Wealthy Affiliate and joined for free.
Wealthy Affiliate is a training platform that has everything all in one place. It is not a done for you option, you do have to do the work.
The program has been around for 16 years and has taught me how to build a website, taught me about SEO, how to blog, how to start with affiliate marketing, social media strategies, how to use WordPress, it has its own hosting, a keyword research tool built by the owners of WA and you can even buy a domain name from there.
Because of WA I’m still blogging and I understand the importance of training and learning from the experts.
There are over 1million members to teach you as well as super affiliates who will guide you through the process some blog, some do Youtube, some do TikTok others do drop shipping, in fact, there is help available 24/7.
Another bonus is the support staff that is around 24/7 as well as a live chat feature where you can also ask questions.
Why I Chose to Quit The First Blog When I Did
Ten months after starting the blog I just had no desire to continue with it.
Upon reflection I really think I chose the wrong niche, even though I was passionate about it in the beginning I don’t think that was enough.
I didn’t really enjoy learning more about the subject and that makes it tough going!
No blog posts were written for over a month at this point I had, had enough so I quit with it.
To Be honest it was the best decision to be made at that time after a week of researching This blog was born.
The old blog just sat there forlornly I could have done something with it to revive it, but, to be honest, I just couldn’t be bothered.
Then 2 months later I managed to sell it for $420.00 not much but better than it just sitting there. A sort of happy ending!
My Final Thoughts
In retrospect, these are the main points of why my first blog Failed!
- Not Concentrating on the all-important audience, too much about me. What I think doesn’t really come into the equation.
- Concentrating too much on unimportant tasks that don’t really matter in the beginning
- Not collecting emails from the start
- Trying to sell things before getting a proper traffic flow going
- Not learning from those that have been successful in this industry in the form of training.
It is okay to quit and start over with something new as long as you don’t give up completely.
If you want the laptop lifestyle you can have it if you put the hard graft in.
Not started a blog yet then read this next: How To Get Started With A Money Making Blog.
If you have found value in why my first blog failed let me know in the comments and please re-pin me, thank you.
Thank you for this open and honest blog.
I totally agree that it’s not about me, but it’s about the customer and what they are looking for. But unfortunately until big G likes it, no one else will get to see it! Unless we utilise social media of course.
I certainly agree that Wealthy Affiliate have a brilliant platform and really is a one stop shop for anyone wanting to get online. Their training is fabulous and takes you step by step through everything you need to know.
It is just amazing how quickly you get up and running.
It’s good to share the fails as well as the successes.
I agree Wealthy Affiliate is a brilliant training platform for beginners and advanced users.
I am grateful I found your blog. Thank you for documenting your experience with your first blog. It will help us not fall into the pits that affected your first site from having success. One point that has sunk into my ears is paying attention to our audience. A business is always built with an audience in mind.
You are so right, we are here to help our audience!
It was motivating to read your post. I have always been motivated to learn about how people become successful in the things they do, and I think you make a lot of good points in your post. I think another thing that is helping you with achieving success, is that you are not giving up. It seems one of the common traits that successful people share, is that after they take action, they evaluate the action, and make necessary adjustments to achieve success. Thanks again for the great post, I definitely learned something as well.
Very much appreciated thank you. Not giving up is definitely a big part of success.