Why Do Most Bloggers Fail? 7 Reasons + How To Make It Right

Whether you are in doubt about giving blogging a try or tired of blogging failure, here are the most common reasons why most bloggers fail. And by fail, I mean they don’t make money.

If you fit any of these reasons, it might be the right time to reflect on how to take your blog to the top.

1. Most Bloggers Fail Because They Lack Patience and Quit Too Early

Blogging, as long as you’re constantly pushing yourself, starts showing substantial results (and by substantial results, I mean traffic and money) between 18 and 24 months.

I can’t stress enough about this! Three months of blogging are nothing! You won’t get rich in three months. You must accept that.

Your biggest victory after three months of blogging is that you haven’t given up yet and keep pushing yourself.

Some bloggers manage to make $1000 in their first three months, for sure. Others make $100-$200. Most make $0.

And do you know what these three types have in common? They’re equally likely to be making $7k-$10k a month in their third year.

Most bloggers fail because they lack patience. However, blogging is a long-term compromise.

Blogging is a long-term compromise even when you’re doing it right! Did you know that Google takes a few months, usually around 8, to start indexing your blog and articles?

Besides, your blog posts might not be converting because you might have chosen the wrong blog niche. Unfortunately, it happens all the time.

So, the sooner you realize and accept that you’re going to make mistakes at the beginning of your blogging journey, the faster you take steps to migrate to a niche that better meets your expectations.

Just don’t be one of those people who give up when things are about to get good. Focus less on your still disappointing Google Analytics reports. Focus more on studying blogging as much as you can. You can also invest in reliable courses if you can afford them, so you speed up your journey by learning from other people’s mistakes.

But don’t cross the entire ocean to die on the beach.

2. Most Bloggers Fail Because They Don’t Research What Their Audience Wants — And Therefore Make Poor Keyword Choices

One common reason behind many bloggers’ failure is that they just write about things that don’t interest anyone else but themselves.

If your blog content doesn’t:

Help people solve a problem
Teach something useful or interesting
Target keywords that have a steady number of monthly searches

How can you expect a relevant number of monthly pageviews then?

To make it as a blogger, you need to know which searches people do on search engines. And give them what they want to know.

For that, you need to use a keyword research tool such as KWFinder.

With KWFinder, you can find out:

The keywords’ search volume
In which countries the searches are made
What degree of competition do those keywords have

If a topic has a very high level of competition, KWFinder tells you similar keywords, but with low SEO difficulty and high search volume. That gives you actual chances to rank well on Google.

KWFinder has exact search volumes, the most accurate SEO difficulty, and prices over 75% cheaper than their competitors.

So if you’re having a hard time figuring out what your audience wants to read, be sure to give KWFinder by Mangools a try — they offer a free trial with no credit card required, by the way! 😉

3. Most Bloggers Fail Because They’re Just Too Lazy For This Business Model

Laziness and blogging don’t walk hand in hand. Blogging is about constant improvement. It genuinely can make you rich, but you need to work hard.

You want to have a successful blog, right? So you must forget right now about that summer slowness. Or the desire to stay in bed doing nothing watching the snowfall in winter.

If bloggers want things to happen, they need to make things happen. Most bloggers will fail if they don’t.

We all know a few people are unbearably lucky (good for them, I guess).

As we are not that kind of people, the only thing left for us is to make our own luck.

Being a successful blogger and earning $5k+ a month is within reach for anyone with internet access, but it takes constant dedication.

Most bloggers fail because they’re too lazy to put their brains to work and figure out what’s keeping them far from having the success they so desperately want.

If things on your blog aren’t going well, even if you’re supposedly doing everything right and being patient, but all you do is binge-watch the new series on streaming instead of finding out why your blog is stuck, then you have nothing to complain about.

I know this sounds harsh, but listen. Years ago, I had to face the harsh truth that my plan of making a living as a freelance writer was not going to work. Then I decided to change things. For that, I spent some more years with my face buried in my laptop, trying to perfect my approach with my baby blogs to achieve financial freedom. And you know what? It worked.

Remember: you need to work first and play later if you want to be successful.

Playing first will only make you ramble on about the things you want but can’t have (’cause money). And that will make you unmotivated and lazy. That will make you work less hard on your blog, which will keep you further away from reaching your goals.

When laziness strikes, ask yourself how much you want the things you want. And forget about binge-watching series if you don’t want to be one of the bloggers who fail.

4. Most Bloggers Fail Because They Don’t Work As Hard As They Should On Getting Traffic

Just because you created your blog and posted 1-4 articles in your first month, it doesn’t mean that thousands of people will magically find your content and make you money.

You have to keep on creating more and more quality content constantly to grow an audience.

Also, you have to be shrewd to identify and fix what you’re doing wrong. Sometimes, you simply have no idea that your very practices are killing your chances of getting significant traffic.

To illustrate, let me share a personal story with you.

I have been exploring ways to earn some extra money online since 2013. I’ve had several online shops, from operating an Etsy shop all by myself to selling products on demand (POD) through WooCommerce stores.

Do you know which challenge was always the most difficult? Which most e-commerce entrepreneurs also face? Getting traffic.

Getting traffic is so freaking hard!

I wasted money I barely had by paying for ads on Google, Facebook, and Instagram to attract traffic that rarely converted to sales.

So, as I couldn’t keep wasting money on ads like that, I knew I needed a traffic strategy that was cheap and efficient. But what could it be?

Well, I heard that businesses with blogs receive 55% more visitors. As a writer, I thought that was the best option for me.

That’s when I made one of the best choices I have ever made in my life: I decided to create a blog for my online store.

In the following days, I wrote four articles following quite outdated SEO strategies and expected to see tons of traffic on my blog. But that didn’t happen.

I posted my articles on Facebook and Instagram, which only generated a dozen visits and no sales.

It seemed to me I was not meant to be one of the bloggers who make it.

The involuntary thoughts that occurred to me were “my articles must not be good enough”, “blogging is a scam”, “why does blogging work for everyone but not me?”, etc.

But I’m not the type to give up. I just kept to my routine of waking up three hours early and going to bed four hours later (I didn’t sleep much) to test one approach after another on my blog. One way or another, I’d find the right approach to get my desired results. No way would I pay ads again!

So I stopped paying for traffic once and for all and spent, for almost a year, all my spare time (and much of my sleep time!) testing all sorts of techniques to attract organic traffic through Google SEO and Pinterest strategies.

During that time I didn’t make a single sale at all.

And you know what? Because I didn’t give up, I eventually found my path.

But it turns out my path didn’t involve using a blog to promote my business but rather making blogging my business, but how I came to conclude this is a far too long story for this post.

The point is that I pushed myself to make things happen, and that did work. And if I could, so can you!

Don’t wait for traffic to fall from the sky. Study strategies to attract organic traffic, listen to related podcasts while you do housework or drive back home, and don’t be afraid to venture into new approaches.

Most bloggers fail to make money because there’s no audience to display ads to or to buy the products and services they sell or promote.

If your current strategy to get blog traffic isn’t working, something else will. But you need to test and put what you’ve learned into practice.

5. Most Bloggers Fail Because They Don’t Start With Realistic Expectations

As mentioned above, blogging is not a get-rich-in-three-months scheme. Blogging is also not about 100% passive income, although that’s what the internet gurus preach.

So many new bloggers fail because they believe in such myths.

To have an article that continues to make you profit even months or years after you have written it, you still need to make that article exist. You have to write a quality article that people will find genuinely interesting and helpful. You need to research the niche and define how you will profit from that niche: Have you developed a product of your own to sell to that group of people? Have you researched trustworthy affiliate programs in your niche?

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Whatever your strategy, it’s time-consuming to develop it, put it into practice, and create content to get people to visit (and don’t leave) your blog.

And don’t forget that you need to keep your blog safe so you don’t lose all your hard work.

None of this sounds that passive to me, don’t you think?

Blogging is a dream job, and I agree with that. But the keyword here is “job”.

Blogging is still a job. Most bloggers fail because they don’t think about blogging as a job.

I feel a deep disdain for people who try to make it look like blogging is as simple as picking a fancy name, signing up, and that’s it! It’s done! You’re gonna be effortlessly rich tomorrow! Easy-peasy.

No! This is crap. Forget about it.

Those people spreading such false information only harm those who genuinely believe in changing their lives by blogging.

When someone finally starts a blog, they feel discouraged when they don’t see immediate success. It makes them think that their blogs are not good enough.

That’s when they give up. Being that all they had to do was keep going and improving.

Most bloggers fail because they think blogging is easy.

Be realistic then – good things take time, effort, and dedication.

6. Many Bloggers Fail Because They Don’t Plan Their Next Moves

Years ago, I was still working 45+ hours per week as a freelancer.

So, planning my blogging hours ahead was the only way to make the most of every single hour I had to work on my blog.

That was the only way to accomplish all the several blogger tasks:

Setting up
Securing
Performing maintenance
Writing good content
Posting
SEO-Optimization
Designing
Studying the niche
Testing new monetization strategies

This “passive” income business model demands too many different tasks. If I were to think about what to do when I should be doing it instead of thinking about what to do, I would just waste that rare free time. And do nothing.

Have you ever felt paralyzed by realizing you have a thousand obligations but no idea where to start? Then 30 minutes go by but you still haven’t decided where to start?

30 minutes of indecision is a lot of wasted time in a day when you’re running out of time to turn your blog into a profitable job.

That’s why, as a blogger, you must plan ahead.

Let’s say you posted 4 articles on your new blog last month. This very month, however, you don’t know what to write about. Of course, because you didn’t plan your content in advance. So you end up posting nothing for lack of inspiration.

Inspiration ends up not coming the following month either.

Then — surprise, surprise — it’s been two months without posting anything on your blog.

That is NOT how you grow a blog, tough. Most bloggers fail because they lack consistency and blog randomly.

If you don’t have a plan, you won’t know how to proceed.

7. Beginner Bloggers Think They Know Everything From The Start

Just because you read one or two (possibly misleading) “step-by-step on how to make money blogging” articles (and perhaps half a dozen income reports from bloggers who magically made $10k in three months), it doesn’t mean you’ve learned the get-rich-quick magical formula.

Such articles make everything seem easy, don’t they? You just need to stuff all your blog pages with two hundred affiliate links and that’s it! Now you just need to start looking for the 6-bed house you’re going to buy in 6 months… 🙄

You know, it’s okay to be a beginner at something.

If you are completely new to the blogging universe, you either know very little or know nothing at all. And it sucks because there are terms you don’t understand. There are settings you don’t know how to configure. And why the heck aren’t you getting insane traffic yet?

Not to mention that it’s expected to find some things too complicated or even impossible to do (spoiler: they aren’t, you’ll get there!) when you’re just a beginner, and that sucks.

If those limitations get on your nerves, that’s pretty normal. It’s also pretty normal to wish you had started sooner.

Through experience, studying, reading, and learning from the mistakes of other bloggers, you will be able to master blogging adversities.

The problem is when you’re not honest with yourself and don’t recognize that you might be making mistakes typical of inexperience.

Most bloggers fail, thinking they’re doing everything right, and that there’s nothing they could fix or improve, because they think they know everything already.

If they know “everything”, and their blog is not generating revenue, then blogging must be a scam. Then they quit.

Nobody starts anything knowing everything. Certainly, no successful blogger did when they had just started.

Giving up before giving yourself a chance to improve is impulsive and, frankly, absurd.

There are so many reasons why your blog may not be successful yet, most of them may not even have crossed your mind:

Your hosting server may be too slow, therefore your bounce rate is high
Your blog design might be too stuffy and unpleasant for visitors
Maybe your site looks oversold (only affiliate links and ads, with no relevant info or “human touch”)
Perhaps your niche sucks
You might post too many irrelevant and short articles instead of a few longer and more informative ones
Your theme may not be responsive
Your site may be perfect but it’ll take a few more months for Google to start trusting your blog and showing it to people

The list is endless.

If you want to be a successful blogger, never think you know everything! Keep learning. Keep improving. And keep trying everything you haven’t tried yet ’till you find out what will work for your blog.

When it comes to blogging, even when it’s hard to figure out, there’ll always be a way to fix what’s obstructing your way to success! But you’re going to have to work hard to figure out the problem. Also, you have to accept that you’re going to have to learn new things — because you don’t know everything yet. 🙂

Why Do Bloggers Quit?

Bloggers often quit because they haven’t seen the desired results achieved as quickly as they would like.

Achieving success as a blogger doesn’t happen overnight. Also, blogging usually requires 1-2 years, sometimes 3 years, of commitment before it starts to pay off.

When bloggers aren’t mentally prepared for this commitment, they, unfortunately, quit, thinking they’ll never be able to make it.

What Are The Most Common Mistakes Bloggers Make?

There are many mistakes bloggers make, especially beginners. But the most dangerous mistake is starting to neglect their growing blogs simply because they are not seeing any financial returns yet.

Ironically, it is this very neglect of their blogs that prevents them from starting to profit from their blogs as soon as possible.

Is Starting a Blog In 2024 Worth It?

Blogging is an extremely powerful tool when it comes to influencing consumers’ purchasing decisions.

Industry data shows that 47% of consumers visit blogs before making a purchase. Additionally, companies that blog as content marketing have 126% higher lead growth.

For all those reasons, starting a blog in 2024 is definitely worth it from a financial point of view.

Fortunately, it’s not expensive to start a self-hosted blog. With DreamHost’s Shared Unlimited Plan, you get quality WordPress hosting for a year + unlimited emails @ your domain for just $35.40 (no hidden fees). And you still get a domain address for free (promotion valid only for the annual subscription that costs $35.40)!

Get DreamHost for only $35.40/year!

Why Do Most Bloggers Fail — Conclusion

Misleading information is often what makes most bloggers fail. They start a blog because they read articles that make it seem like blogging isn’t a real job.

When a blogger realizes that the promises of easy money are lies, and they’re unwilling to face the reality of what blogging is all about, the blogger quits.

Now, again: blogging is a job!

In fact, blogging can be a job that demands even more from you than your current 9-5 job. Any job where you will be your own boss and do your own work schedule will require more from you.

So hopefully, you’ll start your blog knowing you’ll have to work hard. No miraculous promises here. Blogging is not a lottery. The lottery is about luck, and luck isn’t for everyone, but blogging is:

Blogging is for everyone willing to put in the effort to change their lives completely.

When you become successful, you can be proud to say that you have achieved it with your effort — no luck involved.

Blogging takes effort and patience.

On the other hand, though, it gives you the prospect of achieving more and more great things, while so many 9-5 jobs keep you in the same place for years if not decades, always doing the same job, and never seeing your salary going up.

If you think your blog is a failure, take a closer look at what you’ve been up to, as there’s something you can do to get on top.

If you are unsure about starting your first blog, keep researching and studying. Be realistic. And don’t be afraid of blogging: even the most confusing aspects get easier with time.

If you want to start a blog that makes money in 2024, but you have no previous experience blogging and no coding skills, check out this step-by-step guide to quickly get started today!

Why Do Most Bloggers Fail? 7 Reasons + How To Make It Right