Don't Let Your Blog Go

While surfing and searching the internet for ideas on a new blog name(something shorter) and coming across an abandoned blog that I very much liked gave way to this article and how many bloggers suddenly disappear or stop posting abruptly or only post once in a while.

While it's understandable that many bloggers have very busy lives and some simply have no time for a blog so they let it go leads to alot of loss when it comes to readership. People will go elsewhere looking for their daily dose of entertainment or tips or whatever it is they are looking for.

Tip: If you suddenly let your blog go for a few weeks you can lose alot of readers who never return. They just find another blogger to follow since there are so many of us out here in the blogosphere and getting a blog is free to anyone who signs up with sites like blogger, wordpress, livejournal, tumblr and a myriad of others that I have no idea about because blogger is hands down my favorite. It always has been. Wordpress.com is good too if you aren't interested in monetizing. You can get a hosted wordpress theme cheap. I have a website with a blog that costs me very little a year and I use wordpress. I don't like it as well as blogger. It has taken me far longer to get traffic and I don't make as much in adsense earnings as I do with blogger but I also have it monetized with amazon as well. So, that's a nice bonus. Not that blogger doesn't allow affiliate programs but you must have a good article written around the affiliate program in question. Since most of my blogging is purely personal or mindless ranting I rarely add amazon to a post. If I happens to have a really good post with good content I will add amazon but no others. Amazon actually has added some good content to my posts with the many items they have to offer. I primarily offer books and no more than one link so I try to make that one link count. Generally, I'll only add amazon if the entire post is along the same line rather than one or two different things which can happen when it's purely personal. Tumblr, livejournal and wordpress.com do not allow affiliate links. Wordpress.com says they allow amazon under certain circumstances but do yourself a favor and don't take the risk and get a hosted wordpress site if you prefer wordpress. Personally, that's who I would choose for a hosted site.

I absolutely will not add any make money links with adsense. That is the one thing that can get you banned from the adsense program and will get you banned from many free blogging sites. It can also make you look bad to google and other top search engines so I avoid those at all costs. Unless it's an affiliate program and it's the only method of monetization I'm using and I'm very careful about who I will promote. Besides most people aren't interested in hearing more so called gurus teling them if they just do this or that they will make tons of money on the internet. That went out in my opinion, ten years ago. Most of the information they offer you can find on the internet for free if you look and spend some time doing research.

There are countless bloggers out there offering free information on marketing and making money with your blog. Some of the information you can use and some you can't but you can't complain because you aren't paying anything for it. But you have to be careful. Not everything is going to work and some is just a waste of time and some bloggers may unknowingly lead you in the wrong direction. If you find the same or similar information across several sites you can rest assured that information is probably not going to lead you astray.

From my own experience I can tell you that only posting once a while is not going to get your blog noticed and if it does get noticed your readers are going to bail when they don't see any new information/posts. Some top bloggers don't recommend you post everyday or consistently(at least a few times a week) they for some reason I'm still trying to understand think that posting irregularly will get and keep readers.

One top marketing blogger wrote a massive 12,000 word post on his blog and never writes consistently but when he writes he writes alot. That affords him the ability to write infrequently and that keeps his readers. That 12,000 words could almost have been a book. Since that post was so long, I've had to go back to it several times just to finish reading it because he also had a number of links within that post that I also wanted to read. And in case you're wondering so you can also read that massive post on blogging it's Viperchill: The Future Of Blogging at http://www.viperchill.com/future-of-blogging/.

I don't recommend posting infrequently especially if you are just starting out. Viperchill is an established blogger and has been writing for a long time. Some bloggers can get away with only posting some of the time and still get good traffic and make money from their traffic but traffic doesn't mean you will make money. The visitors must want what you're selling. In most bloggers case that is either advertising or affiliate programs or maybe both. I don't recommend running adsense with affiliate programs and don't do it on my blogs.

If you have to suddenly let your blog go my suggestion would be to let your readers know and if possible give them a timeframe for when you will be back and be back when you say you will be. If you don't foresee coming back I suggest deleting your blog but keeping your posts so if you ever do decide to start blogging again you can just start fresh with new posts and gradually add in the old posts if you feel they are worthwhile. If not, you may be able to salvage them by rewriting them and adding new information.

I'm hoping that in another year I will have my blog back where I want it to be. I really wish now I hadn't let it go so don't do what I did if you can help it. It makes your work that much harder when you return.