How To Grow Your Blog During Difficult Times

During a pandemic, it can be a very stressful time for many bloggers who are trying to grow their blogs and make an income. People aren’t visiting blogs as much and are more tuned with the news which can make it difficult for many bloggers to continue to grow and pay their bills just like it is for many people. Only about five percent of bloggers live off their blogs so not a whole lot of people survive off of them but it’s not because the people that don’t can’t but because they read something on Pinterest that said how you could get rich in your first few months of blogging. Technically it is possible to get rich of a blog but so incredibly rare and usually, the people that do become rich off their blogs don’t just write blog posts but also sell products. Blogging is not a get rich quick scheme and takes years to build so during these challenging times bloggers that are making a full-time income often struggle just to make ends meet like most people who work real jobs do and don’t make near as much as they should. My blog makes some money and I am so far from being able to use to support myself but I am still trying to grow and it has been a struggle to grow my blog even if I am not making a full-time income. Right now everyone is more interested in getting new updates and not reading blog posts but even during this you can still thrive and grow. My blog has taken somewhat of a hit but nothing major so here is how I am continuing to grow during this difficult time until I have my regular flow of traffic back.

Build a community- When you are a new blogger one of the biggest blogging myths that many new bloggers believe is the more content you create the more popular you become. Actually, that is not true at all and the secret to becoming popular is promoting your own blog posts and the posts of others because without a community you will never grow or do so at a very slow rate. Blogging technically can be done solely but one of biggest mistakes I made as a new blogger was not priotizing building  a community because it will help you grow. I have blogging friends that promote my blog posts more than I promote my own but with their help, my blog wouldn’t be where it is today.  Blogging can get very lonely and frustrating but without your blogging friends you will promoting all your posts on your own and figuring out how to fix your broken site.  There are more experienced bloggers than you that can help fix whatever issue you are having a lot faster than you would yourself and give you more exposure by promoting you on their social media which may have thousands of followers.

Utilize social media- To run a blog you don’t have to use social media at all and many bloggers don’t which is why it is important to get on their email list because you never know when a blogger is going to get sick of using social media and shut it down but having it can certainly help you grow! Often times when blogger shut down their social media they will just do it and will do so without warning because we aren’t required to tell you when or if we are going to shut down our social so it sometimes comes as a surprise. Since Twitter only has a life span of about fifteen minutes I use Twitter mostly to promote my blog posts because I can schedule multiple posts several times a day and it wouldn’t become annoying since Twitter is fast whereas if I did that on Facebook people might become annoyed with me. I also use Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest to promote my blog posts my strategies are just different for continued growth.  Every social media platform will have a different strategy so don’t try and get on as many as you can but that actually that is not very smart if you can’t manage them all and are feeling overwhelmed but do what you can handle.  Start with just one or two social media platforms and if you think you can handle more then you can always add on but don’t be ambitious and take on more than you can handle because you will hurt your blog when you have too many platforms that aren’t receiving any attention.

Stop with the daily COVID updates- When people read your blog they often don’t read it for your daily COVID updates and some actually get annoyed them.  There is nothing wrong with an occasional COVID update but if that is all your doing it might hurt your blog because some people don’t like them and are sick of hearing about it so the last thing they would want to read is more updates. I have a large percentage of my followers who have voiced to me that they don’t mind an occasional COVID update but they don’t want daily updates and actually they are sick of reading about it because nowadays that is all people write about. If you absolutely must have COVID updates and think it’s important then create a tab on your blog so readers that like these updates can read them and the ones that find them annoying don’t have to.  Also, remember that yes COVID is one of the hot topics right now but it doesn’t stop there and there are many other important topics that we shouldn’t forget to talk about.

Be positive-   There could be a little bit more positivity in this world and during challenging times it can be more difficult to stay positive but you are not helping yourself by creating “whoah is me posts”. No one is searching for content about how horrible life is right now but they are searching for is content that sheds some light into their day and brings hope and positivity. The last couple of months the content that has done the best for me has been my positivity posts and although my life is far from perfect and I still have days of struggle being positive is what has kept this blog alive and will bring you more engagement than negativity ever will.

Be consistent- One thing all successful content creators have in common is that they are consistent and don’t quit because of one bad day when stats were way down. Just because you saw a dip in your stats doesn’t mean you should quit because you know what stats fluctuate from day to day so it is normal to have low and high days so if you quit on a low day then maybe your not cut out to be a content creator. Try and post on the same days so your readers know when to expect a post from you but sometimes life gets in the way and you can’t that’s okay the most important thing is that you are consistent have a schedule that works best for you. I try to post Tuesday Friday but this week I was not able to stick to that scheduled because of pain. Sometimes you may stray from your desired blogging schedule but as long as you are consistently creating new content and not going months without creating something new then you will grow even if it is traffic may be a little slow! Slow traffic happens to all of us and eventually will return to normal so I wouldn’t stress over it.

Visit other blogs- If you are serious about growing your blog you have to visit other blogs in your niche. Yes sure you can grow your blog without ever commenting on any other blogs but it will much so unbelievably slow it will be frustrating. When you comment on other blogs and leave a genuine comment on someone else’s blog most people will do the same for you and you will grow a lot faster than if you waited around from someone to come to your blog and comment. You can’t sit and hope someone will stumble across your blog and like it enough to comment but find your tribe because not always will people find you if you are not actively looking for your tribe. If you are struggling to get views you have to get seek your tribe out because your readers are not handed to you on a silver platter but you have to seek them out and more often than not this is very difficult to do and is like a needle in a haystack.

Revamp old content– If you have been blogging for a while then you probably have content that you wrote in your early blogging days that might not be your best work. I am currently working on rewriting some of my older content to help improve my rankings so when people google certain blog topics I rank higher because people will never find your blog if you are on page ten of google. If you want to grow ideally you want to be in the first two pages of google’s search results and one good way to do that is to update old content to improve SEO and reshare it so you will get more views and rank higher. Sometimes older content can be forgotten but when you reshare it can be brought back to life!

Give your site a makeover– If your blog is all over the place, sloppy and very difficult to navigate then some people may give you the benefit of the doubt and still view your content but that won’t be the case for most people and it won’t matter how fantastic your content is it won’t be given a chance. Your readers shouldn’t have to search for the follow button and I don’t know anyone who wants to follow a blog that badly who would be willing to search for it. Give your blog a makeover by making sure it’s accessible for your readers and not bombarding them with ads because that too will annoy a lot of people and be a major turn off! I understand many bloggers use ads to make money and there is nothing wrong with that but there are ways to do it effectively so you aren’t annoying and don’t lose readers!

Some people haven’t seen much of a change in their views during the pandemic but some people have and are really struggling. Try not to stress over it too much and understand that panic writing will get you nowhere but may in fact hurt your blog because people aren’t looking for more content but more helpful meaningful content and that just can’t be created in five minutes. Many bloggers often are really good at creating content but forget it’s not only about creating content but eighty percent to building a successful blog is not writing at all but promoting what you already have published. Your posts can be absolutely fantastic but if you don’t constantly promote them no one will know you exist or be reading them so it will seem like all your hard is for nothing. Staying plugged informed with the latest new updates is still important but don’t forget to check in with your favorite bloggers just like you would any other time because when you don’t it makes it really hard for them to survive. Luckily I am not in a situation where I use my blog to pay my bills but if I did it would be times like these that would make me feel very frustrated and unsure of if I will make it. Support small businesses, bloggers, and Youtubers that survive off their platforms that may be feeling the same way because of the added stress of not being able to get the same readership that you normally would when there aren’t challenging times. How do you support yourself during challenging times? Has the pandemic affected your readership?

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