According to the most commonly cited statistic, something like 95% of blogs will eventually lie abandoned on the web, gathering digital dust. Success online isn’t as easy as it used to be, that’s a given. Changes in SEO, in business models, in the global economy have all created bigger obstacles between you and your business goals, making it harder to succeed.

Reasons to not give up on blogging
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At the same time, the market has opened up, with lowered barriers to entry and greater internet access all over the world, meaning more competitors are struggling over ever-smaller pieces of the pie. So when should you give up on your blog? Let’s look at some popular reasons offered up by bloggers who want to quit and why they may not be the best reasons to give up on your blog. Then we’ll take a look at a few reasons why it might be time to move on.

7 Reasons why you shouldn’t give up

Make a choice
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Allow us to rephrase that slightly: The following seven reasons may be enough for some people to quit blogging, but aren’t necessarily valid reasons to quit a blog. If you really love what you do, you just may need a fresh topic or a break in order to become motivated again and reach your goals.

  1. You don’t have time to create content.
  2. You haven’t succeeded yet but you’ve been working at it for ages.
  3. You have no passion for your niche or topic.
  4. You haven’t made any real money.
  5. Your carefully planned launch fell flat and didn’t trigger any buzz.
  6. You have writer’s block or just can’t figure out what to write about on your blog.
  7. You’ve suddenly got a much better idea for a new blog.

1. You don’t have time to create content.

Time
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The “I don’t have time” myth is just that – a myth. There are lots of people out there who have built successful blogs while working a full-time job and caring for a family. Each week has 168 hours in it, and each of those hours is yours to budget and spend accordingly.

Be honest: how much of your weekly time budget did you spend on mindless web browsing last week, or watching TV? If you could just find two to four hours a week, you could write, publish, and promote a 1,200 word article every single week.

2. You haven’t succeeded yet but you’ve been working at it for ages.

Push Button
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You may have started the blog years ago, but have you been consistently working at publishing high-quality content designed to convert readers into subscribers since then? Have you really explored every practicable strategy for growing your audience and increasing your conversion rate? Sometimes blogs do need a bit of a paid push, such as with Facebook ads or Google ads.

3. You have no passion for your niche or topic.

Grow
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Passion doesn’t sustain itself. It burns brightly with lots of energy at first. But that passion will naturally ebb and flow. It’s all too easy to mistake that natural ebb and flow for something much more serious and permanent. But that would (usually) be a mistake. Instead, look for the interest that you can sustain, with a market that can sustain your business.

4. You haven’t made any real money.

Money
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What does “real money” mean to you? What was your goal when you initially started blogging? If you have a specific dollar figure in mind, and you’ve been working for at least two years to get there, and you’re reasonably sure you’ve done all you can to get there, then that’s one thing.

But if you’re frustrated that you’re not earning “gobs” of money, your expectations may be in need of a slight adjustment. It’s absolutely possible to make good money from a blog-based business. But you need a practical business model underlying that blog, and a proven strategy to pursue that model. If you have that, it will be much easier to work on achieving your goals.

5. Your carefully planned launch fell flat and didn’t trigger any buzz.

WordPress Website Success
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We hear a lot about so-called “A-listers” in various niches — bloggers who launched and overnight gained thousands of subscribers. We hear about them because they’re unusual. Most bloggers achieve a quieter, more sustained success by working very hard over a long period of time.

Additionally, we don’t always hear the real story behind these overnight successes. There may be a long period of hard work that preceded that so-called overnight success! Of course it’s much easier to start a successfull blog if you already got an established business, YouTube channel or else to push the new blog. So it’s important to see the big picture behind these success stories.

6. You have writer’s block or just can’t figure out what to write about on your blog.

Make Notes
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Ideas are a dime a dozen. The trick is to always write them down as soon as they occur to you. And when you’re truly stumped, there are free headline and topic generators out there you can use. If you still believe that there aren’t any viable topics for your niche, then you may have a market-size problem. See #1 in the section below.

7. You’ve suddenly got a much better idea for a new blog.

Idea
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Maybe so – but be careful here, because it’s all too easy to become a serial monogamist blogger with a string of abandoned blogs and brands littering the path behind you. The “new” is terribly tempting, especially if you’re currently struggling. It’s all too easy to start thinking “maybe I’d have better luck if I just started all over…”. And yet it takes time and consistent effort to build an audience.

3 Reasons why it might be time to move on

Dead End
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Ok, we’ve taken a look at reasons that may not be valid to quit your current blogging activities. Imagine, you’ve spent so much time and efforts into your blog. Do you really want to throw that away? But still there may be reasons and scenarios that would justify to quit blogging.

  1. You feel like you’re pulling teeth to get even the slightest traction.
  2. Your life has changed and your goals don’t make sense anymore.
  3. You’ve realized that you love blogs — you just don’t love being a blogger.

1. You feel like you’re pulling teeth to get even the slightest traction.

Wrong direction
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If you have been struggling to hit a specific amount of traffic, income, or conversion rate, to no avail, it’s possible that you picked a niche that just doesn’t have a big enough market to support a business. Try broadening the niche a bit — say, “running for women aged 50 and up” instead of “running for women aged 50 and up who have osteoporosis and who hate to run”.

2. Your life has changed and your goals don’t make sense anymore.

Telescope ViewSource: wiggijo / Pixabay.com
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You may get to a point where your life has changed and what you originally set out to accomplish simply doesn’t make any sense anymore. Stuff happens, and things most definitely change over time. It’s perfectly acceptable to recognize that things have changed for you to the extent that your old goals simply aren’t a good fit for your present life. If that’s what’s going on with you, cut the old blog loose without a second thought or an ounce of guilt.

3. You’ve realized that you love blogs — you just don’t love being a blogger.

Publishing Website
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Sometimes, the things we love call out to us and we understandably feel drawn to become more involved. But there’s a big difference between wanting to write, and wanting to have written, for instance. Maybe you love blogs but you don’t really love being the person responsible for publishing them on a consistent basis. You tried it, and you learned it wasn’t for you — and that’s totally OK.

Conclusion: Reasons to keep going with blogging

If you feel you’ve given your blog everything you reasonably can for at least a year, and you haven’t made any significant progress towards your goals, it might be time to call it a day. If that’s what you choose to do, take some time to let new ideas marinate, and to debrief yourself to learn why you didn’t meet your goals initially. Have you given up on a blog in the past? Are you struggling with this decision now? Let’s talk about it in the comments section below.

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