Blogging takes time. Many recommend blogging for at least a year before deciding whether it is a viable option or not. Others have different amounts of time but the principle stays the same. Blogging takes time. Even the greatest blog in the world filled with life changing content will take time before it picks up a healthy reader base. Even if everything was done perfectly from the SEO, the content, the marketing, and everything else. It still takes time, quite a bit of time for most.
It’s like working out. You could have the perfect regiment, perfect nutrition, and perfect sleep cycle yet it would still take time before your body adjusted and changed. Everything is done right day in and day out and it may still take months before you have the body that you desire. It’s the same with blogging but it takes a bit longer for a blog to catch on and have a substantial readership.
Day In And Day Out
When I first started writing years ago I figured that writing was something that was driven by passion and the desire to write. At first this propelled me quite a ways. But soon I slacked off and ended up not getting much writing done. It was then that I made myself commit to a schedule of writing one thousand words Monday through Friday no exceptions. There were many times when I would sit down at the computer and begin typing away despite having thousands of other things that I wanted to be doing. Yet it was that consistent effort that ended up in being a book written.
The good writers will tell you it isn’t passion that finishes their work. It is consistent effort day in and day out. The guy who does fifty pushups and twenty pullups everyday is going to be in better shape than the guy who goes all out in the gym one day a week.
Blogging is actually quite simple. Acquire knowledge. Sit down. Write about acquired knowledge to others. Understand some basic marketing and writing skills and bam you have yourself a blog post. Now do that one thousand more times over the next year and you’ll be cooking. It takes time.
How Long?
How long is the question that you are probably wondering. You understand it will take time but how much time? After all it’s our most valuable resource. The short answer is, it depends. I know that sounds like a cop out but there is a way that we can narrow down what the time will be.
First off what is it you are blogging on? Is it a viable marketing idea? Are you blogging about picking up women something half the population wants to do or are you blogging about knitting sweaters for cats? Don’t get me wrong just about anything can be viable given time and proper marketing, it’s just the bigger potential pool of readers you have the better off you will be.
Is there places you can network? Is there a central blog that you can submit an article to? A place where your readers gather or are you the first in your topic? Being the first in your topic can be good or bad. Good because it’s unique and anyone looking for that topic is going to find you and bad because you will have no one to network with to expand your readership directly.
Essentially a variety of factors influence how long it will take your blog to catch on. You can do research on them and see how long it took others in your niche to make it but honestly your time would be better spent either working on a different project or actually blogging. Regardless of the time it takes, it’s best to get started sooner rather than later.
Minimum Time
The minimum time I would give a blog that is viable would be a year. If after a year it isn’t going anywhere at all, then it may be time to pack up shop and move on to bigger and better things. However with following everything laid out in Blog Yourself Rich it is extremely unlikely that you will not be where you want to be in a year, unless the concept is absolutely bunk.
Blogging is something you do for the long haul. You can’t expect to start blogging and two months later have the money rolling in and tens of thousands of readers. If that happens great then you are the exception to the rule and more power to you however that is not realistic and certainly not something you should expect from your blogging career. No the daily work done over time is what will get you readers, influence, and cash.
Blogging takes time. It rewards those who are consistent over those that are flashes in the pan. It’s a marathon not a sprint. Put another way after starting a blog don’t quit your day job…yet. Follow what is outlined here and over time your blog will grow as will its influence. Some of the most popular blogs in niches aren’t even done right. They don’t have pictures, poor indexing, and a host of other wrongs yet they are popular because they have been putting out quality content the longest.
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If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it. You can follow me on Twitter here.
-Charles Sledge
