Ready to throw in the Towel
It has only been three months in my blogging adventure, and I confess that I am about ready to throw in the towel. Blogging problems have driven me to the edge. Okay, I won’t bore you with the gory details, but once upon a time, I believed that words could move mountains and I would write my way to stardom.
Science Fiction
You see, this is not my first strike at fame. I once wrote a couple of short story collections and even a Science Fiction novel. I have another one festering on my hard drive, but really, I don’t think that one will ever see the light of the day.
There are only so many people who are interested in robots policemen in miniskirts and one such story is one too many for the world to bear. I usually confess to my best friends, and even to anyone who will bother to listen, that I didn’t know what to really do with that first book.
“Stop Littering. Place in a Bin,” I have been told even by the seven people who have bothered to lambast me in reviews on Amazon, is nice enough a title. Unfortunately, that was about the depth and breathe of my creativity. The one thing that I learn’t from the whole saga is that humor is provincial.
Humor is Privincial
One of my short stories has a distinguished looking gentleman slapping a prisoner who is being taken to the cells by a policeman. That was clearly intended to be humorous at least for my inexistent Zimbabwean audience. Unfortunately, my one or two American readers thought that the scene was intended as a symbol of the decay that’s supposedly getting out of hand in my country of origin.
Network Bees
I don’t really know how I came about the idea of creating this blog. However, I suspect that I was motivated by one Indian guy who has been doing so well that he has taken to publishing his earnings on his blog! He earns at least $20 000 every month from his venture and I though I would emulate him and soon be rolling in money.
Unfortunately, the guy in question turned out to be something of a douche-bag, but that is a story for another day. Okay, perhaps it is a story for this day, since I probably wont have another chance to vent.
Link Building
One of the ways through which you can get your blog placed high on Search Engine rankings is by developing a healthy link profile. Backlinks; links that point back to your web pages from other domains, are one of the major ranking factors that exist today.
One way through which you can gain backlinks is by Guest Posting. What this means is that you will be writing great articles and posting them on other people’s sites. In return, they allow you to include one or two links that point back to your own website.
However, after writing what I thought was a great article, imagine my surprise on discovering that the 20 000 dollars a month Indian guy does not allow backlinks in the Guest Posts that are published on his site! I mean, if I am going to slave for anyone, I am never going to do it out of the goodness of my heart.
Money Money Money
Between you and me, most bloggers think that their sites are going to release the Proverbial Manna in the Desert. At least that’s what I thought would happen when I started out three months ago. I even wrote an article in which I focused solely on blogging as a way of earning money online. If you read that, you would be excused in thinking that I have made millions already.
However, the reality of the matter is that not many bloggers every really actually make money. The few who do publish their cheques on their blogs and that serves as a motivation for the losers to continue with their doomed-from-the-start ventures.
It’s something akin to the lottery. We all hear stories of people who have won untold riches after spending only a single dollar on a ticket at the local supermarket. What they don’t tell us is that for the single lucky bastard, there are millions of fools who have just been swindled out of their money.
Blogging Problems: How Much Have I Made so Far
Other than turning myself into my own enemy, I have made absolutely nothing since starting out three months ago. I mean, those who have been blogging for long will tell you that it takes longer than that to start carving out one’s footprint, but none of them ever started out by writing 1000 articles.
Whats more, most of mine are over 1100 words in length. And they are, I won’t hesitate to say, of the highest quality. If there is anything that I can do, its churn a tale or even three. In fact, my site now has nearly 170 articles.
This translates into about 56 articles a month, which, you have to admit, is phenomenal. However, that has, so far, not translated into any income which is a major reason why I am just about ready to throw in the towel.
Blogging Problems; What Have I learn’t so far?
The way things have been going, I would rather I had learn’t nothing from the whole calamity. However, I have picked up a number of things, that I hope will serve as a guide to other people who are experiencing blogging problems;
- Blogging is a thankless business
- There are so many blogging problems that you will soon want to give up.
- Search Engines put too much stock on domain age. This gives new guys like me virtually no chance of succeeding. That is why up to 90% of bloggers soon give up.
- Search Engines also put too much stock in backlinks. I mean, the links to other sites that I include on this blog are pretty much chosen at random. I don’t think I have even read more than a couple of the pages to which I am linking. I pretty much just half open a page, copy the URL and pasted it on my site.
- Success turns you into a douche-bag? Remember that Indian guy? I do have quite a big axe to grind with him. I mean, I have countless links to his blog that come from my web pages! Oh well! I will soon hunt them down and remove them all.
- The final thing that I have learnt is that I am not quitter. I mean, it has only been three months in my blogging adventure, and I confess that I am not yet ready to throw in the towel. I will just give it another three months, and, perhaps, even three years.
- Before the blogging problems really get to me, I will, I suspect, yet have my chance to build up a pile of conceit of my own.
