Years ago on Problogger, written by Darren Rowse, on a post called Should I Stop Blogging, he listed 20 questions people should think about if they’re trying to decide whether they should stop blogging or not. I found it intriguing, to the point where I wrote an article, part of which makes up this article, and I responded to 4 of the items on the list with my perspective on them.
A friend & me; what I looked like when
I started blogging here
At that time, I was in my first year of blogging here, and I was posting something almost daily, which I did for 3 years, so I wasn’t close to thinking about stopping blogging. Even now I’m not thinking about stopping my blogging, but I know I’ve cut way back in the frequency and the amount of blogging I do.
As I get closer to my 6th decade on this planet (next year), I wonder how much longer I’m going to try to keep up with 5 blogs. Three of them are lacking to an extent, but on the two I pay the most attention to, I don’t feel like I give everything needed to be successful.
Is it all about success though? Exactly what is success anyway?
In any case, back then I was reluctant to address all 20 items. Now I think I’m ready to tackle it. Some of my responses are going to be longer than the others, since I’m keeping all the previous statements I wrote on those initial 4 points, with some modifications. Some might be one sentence; even a short sentence.
This is about as honest a personal blogging critique as I can make about myself… but I’m only doing it for this blog. The responses would definitely be different for my business blog; not so sure about the other three. His was just a list of 20 things; mine’s going to be much, much longer. Also, the original post was from 2008, when I really had no idea what I was going to do with this blog. Later I figured it out, so I know my overall responses will be much different than they would have been 10 years ago. 🙂
1. What goals do I have for this blog? Are they being met? Am I getting closer to meeting them?
At this point, the goals I have for this blog is to increase traffic and readership. I’m not totally sure what happened, since years ago I was ranked in the top 100,000 websites in the world; now this blog barely exists. I blame a lot of it on Google Panda and its other animal iterations, but there’s little I can do about that.
Are my goals being met? Nope! Am I getting closer to meeting them? Nope! I’m past the point in my life where I can write here almost every day; that train’s left the terminal, and it’s probably not coming back.
2. Am I Interested in the Topic?
Let’s take a look at the main topics on this blog and figure that one:
* blogging – check
* writing – check
* social media – check
I’m interested in every single subject I’ve ever written about on this blog. If I weren’t, I wouldn’t be writing about it, since I’m not paying myself for it. I still come up with new ways to address my main topics, and I’m not afraid to deviate into other topics that I feel need to be addressed and I address them from here. On this one I’m solid.
3. Am I getting personal satisfaction from posting?
Most of his commenters on Rowse’s blog liked #3. I think this is key, because if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, and it feels more like work than fun, then either your quality is going to suffer or the frequency of your writing is going to decrease, probably both. I know many people who get into blogging because they believe it’s critical for their business, rather than their yearn for having something to say. No one likes working at a bad job; don’t create one for yourself.
With that said, I do get personal satisfaction from this blog; the most of all my blogs. I’m not really sure why, but it’s the truth. Truth be told, if it weren’t for this blog I’d have left social media and blogging in 2016 after the general election; I was that depressed. This blog offers a little bit of salvation and relaxation; who knew that a blog not about personal revelations could do that for one’s peace of mind?
4. How Many Posts Did I write in the Last Month?
If you’re trying to write one post a week, that’s fine, but if you only had one post in the last month, and you’re dreading having to write another one just to have something down on paper, you’re probably of the mindset that this is something you don’t want to do. The only way to bring people to your blog is to have new content; without it, you won’t build up loyalty.
With that said, I only wrote 3 posts last month instead of the 4 I should have written. Kind of my fault, but I’m blaming that cursed GDPR thing. I’ve learned over all these years that every once in a while you might need to break your normal pattern to either work on something else or do a reevaluation of what it is you’re doing. I don’t beat myself up on that type of thing anymore.
5. Do I have time to keep the blog running?
Easily. Writing on this blog turns out to be the most fun I have online, and that’s saying something. I can write freely and offer my opinion without worrying about what anyone else has to say about it. My business blog is sometimes a different animal. I do have to worry a little bit, but it doesn’t stop me from saying what I have to say.
Because I only concentrate on two blogs, it’s easy to keep up with them, though I write for a couple other groups that I don’t own. Time constraints are different because Mom lives with me and I’m the main caregiver, but it’s not like I sit in a room with her 24/7. I could handle 100 legitimate comments easily enough… I just have to get there again. 🙂
6. Is anyone reading my blog?
That’s an interesting question. According to Google Analytics, there are some people reading my blog. The numbers have decreased since 2011; part of it is Panda, but part of it is me. I need to step up my commenting game again. Back in the day, I commented on at least 5 blogs a day.
These days I’m hard pressed to comment on 5 a week. The main difference is that most of the bloggers I was connected with back then have stopped writing, which means they’ve stopped visiting. I still read a lot of blogs, but most blogs are serving up guest posters, and unless I know the person I almost never read any of those articles, let alone comment on them unless I didn’t know they were guest posts, which can happen if I’m seeing the articles on Flipboard.
Lately, some of the blogs I visited more regularly have decided to stop accepting comments. They have their reasons for doing it, and that’s great for them. For me, it means I stop reading those blogs because I like the option of commenting, and if my opinion means nothing then why bother? It puts those folks in great company though, since Seth Godin doesn’t accept comments & I won’t read his blog either.
7. Have I given it enough time?
Ten years… yeah…
8. Do I still see myself writing on this blog in 18 months time?
Absolutely!
9. Is the niche growing or dying?
It’s holding steady. Regardless of all the articles saying that blogging is dying, the pace of new blogs keeps growing, even as it seems more existing blogs are dying. There’s always going to be people who want to learn about the topics I mentioned above; I think I’m set there.
10. Is the blog earning anything?
How dare you ask me that question! Well… no… but it used to. It’s probably the one thing that every once in a while makes me think I’m a failure. How am I almost at 1,800 blog posts and not making any money?
Luckily, that in and of itself doesn’t come close to my using it to make a decision on giving up blogging. I’ve made money with this blog; at one point over $600 a month some years ago. Not a livable income, but not a bad supplement. Maybe I can get there again, but until I do I still have a lot to say.
11. Is the blog growing my profile and perceived expertise?
That’s an interesting question. I know it was at some point in the past; I’m not sure it is anymore.
The interesting thing is that, over the course of all my blogging and writing, I’ve found that I have definitely grown my personal profile. Expertise; that’s another matter entirely. I feel that I’ve shown expertise, but a local buddy of mine wrote something that said “If people don’t know who you are, you’re not really an expert.” That’s all I’ve got for now.
12. Are there any other benefits from this blog?
I’m not sure how to answer this one. I guess I could say that the benefit of having this blog is that I still get to market products I’ve created and, if I put more time into it, I can set up product pages, try to market them and potentially make some money. I could also accept advertising and set up some affiliate products here and there. Are those benefits? Maybe… maybe not…
13. Is the blog giving energy to or taking energy away from me?
Hmmm… If it’s a great effort to continue blogging, your energy levels have to diminish whenever you start thinking it’s time to write something. There are a few times when I’m not feeling it as I start writing for one reason or another, but usually before I start writing, I’m fully engaged because I’ve just thought of something I’d really like to address. I almost always feel a major sense of accomplishment once I’ve hit “publish”, and that gives me a nice boost. My mind says “Mitchell, you’ve done it again”; I can live with that! 😀
14. Is the Blog’s traffic and income growing or shrinking?
Since I’ve already covered income, let’s talk traffic,
Doing a year to year comparison based on Analytics, pageviews have dropped around 9%; that’s depressing. Sessions have dropped 15.6%, but since I don’t know what sessions are, I’m not worried about it.
What’s more interesting to me is that traffic for American visitors has grown 5% and from India by 8%; that’s kind of weird. As a matter of fact, for all but one country listed, China, my traffic has grown for all the countries. Google isn’t telling me something; I have no idea where my traffic’s dropping… just that it is. But I’m reaching the audience I’m mainly shooting for; hard to be mad at that.
15. Are readers engaging with the content?
That’s another interesting question; I’m going to have to say “yes” to it. Out of my last 50 articles, more than half of them have gotten double digit comments. I’m not going to say that all of them are “great” comments, but they’re acceptable comments; I’m a tough grader when it comes to comments.
16. If readers are commenting, what are they saying?
I’m not sure how to respond to this one. The fact that they’re saying anything that gets me to allow to stay is enough for me.
17. What are other bloggers writing about my blog?
Another intriguing question. Like anyone else who’s been writing a while, I have my hard core fans, just like I’m a hard core fan of certain blogs. Those folk mention me; I appreciate it more than they could imagine. It’s diminished a lot over the years, but I embrace my “used ta was-it” persona in style. It’s better than being totally ignored. 🙂
18. Do I have anything original and useful to say on my topic?
This question is a good one. It’s more subjective, because it’s not as much about whether I have enough content but rather if I have enough content, AND am willing to use my personality to help get my points across.
If I wanted to, I could post all sorts of nonsense about nothing, or copy what others have written without comment and forethought, and become that kind of source for information. I could accept all guest posts and take the credit for being a great blogger without writing a thing. How entertaining and engaging is that? If someone is writing on the failed merger between Microsoft and Yahoo, for instance (this was a long time ago), it’s not anything new because a lot of people wrote about it at the time.
I like to think that if my perspective and passion on a topic, as well as how I communicate it, offers readers something they can’t get from reading about the topic from other sources. This goes back to step one of my blog writing series years ago, where I said people should think about what they want to write on their blogs, but not set too fine a line on what it is they can address, otherwise it stifles the process.
Blogging is all about informing, educating and entertaining, but it should have a bit of personality come through to make it interesting. Just going through the emotions is like a bad marriage; it will fizzle out eventually. Who wants to be that blogger?
19. What else could I do with the time that I spend on this blog
I began this process by saying I was only going to consider this blog for these 20 questions. In that respect, I really don’t know what else I could be doing.
Actually, that’s not accurate; I don’t know what else I’d rather be doing. I easily know what else I could be doing. I could be doing a lot of nothing. I could be writing more books. I could be marketing my business more. I could be doing a heck of a lot of other things. There’s nothing specific; it’s probably not a fair question.
20. What would the impact be of me not blogging? (on readers and me)
This is the question that becomes the most realistic, and the most depressing; at least part of it.
What would the impact be of me not blogging for readers? Nothing; nothing at all. If I stopped blogging after this article, it would be a few months before anyone would notice, and that would only be 3 or 4 people. No one would care; no one would miss me. That’s not me feeling sorry for myself; it’s me being honest with myself.
I’ve done some tests over the years where I’ve stopped posting anything at all anywhere on social media for a week, including this blog and my other blogs. You know what? No one even noticed until I wrote about the experiment. I’m not a big enough player in the game at this juncture. Now, if I ever have that best seller… we’ll talk about better things then.
The impact on myself of not blogging… well… for just this blog… I’m not sure. I enjoy writing about the topics I cover on this blog. I love sharing my opinion on all sorts of things. Truthfully though, if I didn’t write on this blog anymore I’d transfer my time to writing more on my business blog. I love the topics I cover there a lot also, but it’s a tough niche to say I can dominate because in general I’m talking to an audience that needs the advice but doesn’t want to believe they need it. That’s pretty much my career. lol
I’d still be writing though; for me, that’s the most important thing. Writing and sharing… which works best on a blog called I’m Just Sharing!
That’s my take on the 20 questions. Way more reasons to keep blogging than to give it up I’d say. How would you answer the 20 questions? Do you have the nerve to try it? If you do, make sure to share that link with me so I can stop by and see it. Now, get on with your bad selves! 😉
“At this point, the goals I have for this blog is to increase traffic and readership.” I don’t think that’s the goal, unless you’re just into metrics. WHY do you want to increase traffic and readership? That’s the goal. What’s the end result you want to achieve?
This list is exhausting. Every time I read a post like this, I hear Dave M’s voice whispering the word, “Metablogging.” Granted, he just left that in a comment, years ago, and that was when I started to lose him as a reader.
It’s the blogger’s equivalent of navel-gazing. Most writers fall back on writing “How to Write [a novel, poetry, short stories, memoirs, whatever]” when they reach this point. They know damned well that other (more novice) writers are looking for the “secret sauce” and will buy such books no matter how many are on the market and never mind they all say the same thing. As Tom Clancy said to me, years ago, “Just write the damned novel.” Or, in this case, post.
“If people don’t know who you are, you’re not really an expert”? WTF, Mitch? That is ONLY true if your profession is advertising or marketing – and only because maybe it means you are literally bad at your job. I could be an expert on anything, if I read enough. I could be an expert on agoraphobia, and who’d ever know?
“Great comments”? Bah. Not everyone can write you whole blog posts in the comments section. Do you remember when I could pull in 1000 comments just by having a conversation in the comments section? Good God, where’d I ever find the time or energy? It was fun, though. I kind of miss those days, sometimes.
“What would the impact be of me not blogging for readers? Nothing; nothing at all.” Sad, but true. And I say this as your friend – you and I both know it’s true for both of us. This is nothing personal, though. The Internet clamors for attention – it’s like standing on a busy street in the center of Cairo – forget New York City, that’s tame by comparison. The traffic is crazy; you could get across town faster by walking across the hoods and roofs of cars. Sometimes, we realize silence is needed more than noise. But in the din, the silent will be trampled underfoot, forgotten, swept away in the morning with last night’s confetti. (If you’ve ever been to New Orleans, you know there’s more than confetti in that street sweeper’s bin.) Anyway… we would not be missed. Hell, we could DIE and not be missed by our closest Internet buddies, most likely. And I’d like to tell you that isn’t true… okay, it ISN’T true, but they might not notice for a year or so. Maybe more. And that’s the thing I loved about Facebook – the fact that I could re-connect with people I hadn’t thought about in years. I hadn’t thought about them because they weren’t omnipresent in my life, and I had nothing particular I wanted or needed to say TO THEM. It’s not that I stopped caring about old friends. It’s not that I didn’t ever miss them, wonder about them, feel bad we’d lost touch. But there’s only so much attention we can give to anyone or anything in a day, and so MUCH that demands it constantly. The best friends are those who don’t play friendship like a ping-pong match, don’t keep score, and always keep that door open between you and them.
Accept that, and it’s less depressing.
Although you’ve made me miss all the old GEnie buddies I’d found on Facebook, over the years. Dammit, Mitch…
Do I have the nerve to try this 20 questions thing? I’d rather eat something that’s neither animal, vegetable, nor mineral. I don’t even know what that might be. Anyway, it’s not a question of nerve. I thought about doing it, then wrote my comments here, got slightly depressed, thought about how I don’t want to blog about blogging, and said “@#$% it, I’m out.” I’m going to go finish up the post that exactly three of you will read, and get to bed. I have to get up early for a doctor’s appointment in the morning.
Nope, not dying. 🙂
P.S. I wrote this offline, so I’m going to sit here typing nonsense for about thirty seconds while glaring at your comment bouncer. He just looks at me like he wants to throw me AND my comments in the Dumpster, some days. So here, I’m tossing some keypresses at him, hoping to distract him long enough to let me slip one in…
I should be responding offline and posting it so I can more easily read what you wrote and comment on it easier. lol
First point; my goal IS my goal, plain and simple. Why? Because writers want to be read, and over the last 7 years or so my articles are being read less and less… across the board. So, the goal of this blog is to increase traffic so more people will read my articles, the search engines will take notice, and any benefits that come from that… well, I wouldn’t turn them down.
Second point, or question; who’s Dave M?
Third point; people will look for the magic beans but no one promises them a beanstalk to the gold of the goose. Well, no one with any scruples will do that. I may cover the same topics others do, but I hope to do it in a different way, since I already know I do it using a different language style. I “suppose” that if I can figure out what’s blocking American traffic from seeing this blog (that has nearly 1,800 articles), at least they can take a look to see if there’s anything I give them that they can’t get anywhere else.
Fourth point; what you quoted above I got from a friend of mine who’s a Ph.D. marketing and social media marketing authority. Now, if you want to debate with him I’ll hook y’all up, but when I heard him say it I thought it made a lot of sense… still do. We can call ourselves an expert all day (even if some people are reluctant to do so) or think we know a lot about particular topics, but unless anyone’s paying attention or we’re secretly making money in our evil labs none of it does anyone any good if they don’t know about it and we can’t get the word out properly.
Fifth point; comments. Great comments are kind of subjective, but I’ve written on my beliefs of what makes a great comment. It’s not necessarily length or style, but it does relate to the subject the writer’s addressing and it mentions something in the article instead of “I like what you said at #3; great stuff”. I mean really, what is that? If you’re really taking something away, and you’re in the mood to comment, share something that shows you actually read the article. How hard can that be? Obviously way too hard for many, based on the comments I end up deleting every day.
Sixth point, and last one I’ll address… we both agree that it can be depressing to think or know that no one will miss us if we suddenly stopped blogging and dropped off the social media radar. Doesn’t mean we sit around feeling sorry for ourselves waiting to die. The reality is that we “could” get there, reach the top, become rich and famous because the right people find our missives, fall in love with us, and share us with the world. Or we find the holy grail of publicity and conquer the Roman Empire of entertainment. We (bloggers or writers) either write, or don’t write; Sidney or the Bush. But we both know that no one’s gets famous (in a positive way) if they’re doing nothing (except for that local guy who just got evicted from his parent’s house; we’re hoping he fades away lol).
In my humble opinion, you look better now.
My aims with my blog are simple. It is a vehicle for me to let off some steam and to get some blog world friends to share the joy that comes from that exercise. No more no less.
I have survived attacks of wanting to give up blogging a few times and hope that I don’t experience that again.
Rummuser, I echo those sentiments, but it’s hard to know the long range future of anything. I know about the here and now; I can’t let the suckers beat me down! lol Guess I’ll be sticking around for a while.
Man, you and Holly sure have the gift of the gab Mitch.
I reckon I’ve been blogging almost as much as you. My main reason for starting was to generate traffic to my, hopefully, money creating sites. Like you, Google killed that but I’m still making money, enough to cover all my expenses with a few grand left in the kitty.
Even if I weren’t, I would continue blogging because I get a kick out of it. Having said that I’m trying to sell off some of my blogs, closed others all so I can lighten the load a little.
Yeah, Holly & I can get a bit wordy sometimes. lol I believe you and I have been blogging for a long time; we’ve certainly commented a lot on each other’s blogs over all these years. I’ve been thinking about selling one of my blogs but I haven’t gotten to the point where I’m ready to relinquish it yet. Overall though, I enjoy the process of blogging, so I’ll continue for as long as it’s satisfying me… which I hope is a very long time.
Every question that stuck in my mind when I had decide to start blogging but now I am overcoming those and growing slowly. Not bad
Thanks! for sharing
Good luck with it long term.
I just keep blogging without thinking too much of quitting totally. For now I think my blog has value to me and maybe to others so I’m not going to let it die. Not yet at least.
Lee
That works Lee. Every once in a while I entertain the thought but until my mind goes I’ll probably keep plugging away at it.
Hi Mitch. This outstanding post is an eye-opener for everyone. It is really hard to meet the expectations of your readers all the time. Blogging is my bread and butter and although I share some of these sentiments sometimes, I will never give up (I hope no one does). Thank you so much.
Thanks Al. I think it’s good to examine the reasons why we blog every once in a while. I’m always self evaluating; without that I might never know whether I should do something or not.
Well, if i answer the question that should we quit blogging, the answer will for sure be no. One should run blog as his passion or a medium to express himself. Thank you for that good article.
Or for business reasons… if one can stay motivated enough to keep it going.
I personally closed this week two big blogs I had, one in English and the other in Spanish. Even when I am not out of the game, blogging will still be here for a while as sharing content is growing. You definitely need to love this thing otherwise you won’t last long I mean even if you are making money with it, passion and creating connections is what will be more powerful at the end. Blogging will remain as a huge platform to made your voice get heard all around the world. By the way, are you updating your blog to HTTPS Mitch?
First, I’ve known lots of people who were making good money blogging who started hating the process of keeping it up. That’s another way to prove that money isn’t everything to everyone.
I won’t be updating this blog to https. The reason is that I have 5 websites and I only got one free https so I used it on my main business site. I’m not paying $169 a year per website for the others; ain’t happening.
I also have several websites but I am using Hostgator cloud services, they have good prices plus they give FREE SSL to all my websites. Forever 🙂 – You might want to check them out.
Are you sure about that Luis? I found this on the Hostgator site & it looks like you have to pay for multiple SSL certificates. Maybe paying for cloud services is a different thing; I don’t pay for any such thing.
I was referred here by my good friend Carol Stephen’s latest blog post. I’m so glad I read this post, Mitch. I related to many things you brought up and found it interesting.
For my blog “Birth of a New Brain —Healing from Postpartum Bipolar Disorder” I published almost 450 posts. I published on a weekly basis, every Friday, & I had a moderate, loyal, and active readership which I loved.
During that time, I was under a deadline to deliver my 1st book to my publisher. I was able to swing the blogging & the editing of my book for much longer than I expected. But I knew there would come a time where I’d either need to stop blogging or take a hiatus. I also knew I’d no longer blog if it became tedious.
My book got published, it received fantastic reviews and endorsements from bona fide mental health experts I had admired for years. It also had strong sales for a niche book. I kept blogging….
Then I broke my jaw in an accident. I no longer had the energy to blog and I told my followers I was going on a hiatus. I didn’t want to close the door on the blogosphere. I stay in touch with many of my blog followers via Twitter and I like that! When (if?) I do return from my blogging hiatus, I will see how it goes.
Thanks very much for sharing your list and enjoy your 6th decade!
Dyane Harwood
Hi Dyane. You told them you were going on a hiatus… then you wrote a book review. 🙂 However, that was on point with what you write about so that made a lot of sense. It also shows that you didn’t quit blogging; you’re just resting and working on getting those blog writing chops back into gear after working on your book… congratulations on that!
Hi Mitch,
I am a newbie in blogging as far as I think of myself. But as much as I have read and learned about blogging, I know one thing for sure that it takes time to achieve whatever your targets may be via blogging. Some people do it for making money, some people do it for socializing, learning and sustaining an income as well. Well I need to do some thinking about what my targets are. Thanks for the insights.
Regards,
Vineet Saxena
Glad to help Vineet. I think most people jump into something without thinking about the long term positives and negatives of doing it. I did that with my first blog and I almost gave up on it; now I’ve been writing it for 12 years and I can’t imagine ever giving it up.
Wow! How did you know what was running through my mind? All these questions have been hitting my mind for some time now. I have a full time job and this takes so much of my time. This has made it difficult for me to update my blog. Sometimes, I feel like the passion is no more there.
I think we all go through it at some point in our blogging lives. Even those who are doing well go through the same thing… it’s not always about money but about commitment.
I have one blog I write out of passion, and one I write solely for income. Obviously, I’m tempted to devote almost all my blogging time to the former, but I take the latter as seriously as a job.
I used to be more about money than passion, but I got bounced a couple of times while being on that path. I won’t say I’ve given up on it, but I have taken a stand that there’s things I’m not going to do to make money online. That’s pretty much what’s kept me blogging all these years.
Hi Mitch, I think this topic is as fresh now as it was when you first wrote it. In fact, I didn’t realize it was written in 2018 until I looked at all the comments. Wow. I’m not sure how I’d answer all these questions. It’s a lot to think about. But the bottom line is whether you enjoy the process. I enjoy reading your blog posts.
Thanks Carol; that’s why I also keep promoting older content. Almost all of it stays relevant for a long time, and it helps keep our content in people’s faces. It’s a great list to share with folks and let them see where their mindset is at the time. I think overall both of us love the process, though I wouldn’t mind a few more visitors. 🙂