When Do You Throw in the Towel?
The other day, a regular to my Freelance Writing Jobs blog sent this email:
“I have a blog that I love but the problem is, no one reads it. It’s been six months and I only get 30 or 40 visitors a day. When do I throw in the towel?”
If you enjoy blogging, there’s no need to throw in the towel. 30 or 40 people are visiting this blog every day, obviously there’s some interest. I wondered though, what this blogger did to promote her blog and to bring in traffic so I sent her a return email. She responded that she didn’t do much to promote her blog beyond writing a post every day and adding other blogs to her blogroll. I also found out she really loves her blog, she just doesn’t really know how to promote it. I suggested if she enjoys blogging she keep it up, but do a bit more to pimp out her blog including visiting other blogs and commenting, joining some social network sites and submitting her blog to social media sites. Just because you don’t receive the traffic you’d like, doesn’t mean you should throw in the towel. Not if you enjoy what you’re doing.
So when do you call it a day?
- When you don’t enjoy what you do anymore – If your blog becomes a chore rather than a passion, you might consider closing your doors.
- When you don’t have the time – If your blog is languishing for weeks with nary a post, you might consider giving it up or letting another blogger take it over.
- When you’re losing money – If you’re putting out money for design, content or anything else, and not even coming close to making a profit, you’ll need to decide after some time as to whether or not it’s worth it.
What do you do if you don’t want your blog anymore?
If you’re absolutely sure you don’t want your blog anymore, you have several recourses:
- Delete it – Remove it from cyberspace. Once it’s down no one will come back and read what you wrote or leave comments.
- Leave it up but don’t update – You may still get a couple of visitors each day and some may even leave comments or bring in revenue.
- Give it away – Perhaps another trusted blogger can take it over?
- Sell it – This doesn’t work well for personal blogs, but if you have a niche blog that does well, consider selling it. I know of one blog that sold for a couple of hundred dollars, and another that sold for over $10,000.
Something to keep in mind
I know a couple of people who transferred ownership of their blogs only to become distressed when their “babies” changed under new management. If you sell your blog it’s probably not going to stay the same. The design will change, the writing style will change and whether it’s a change for the better or worse, there’s really nothing you can do about it. If you’re contemplating giving up your blog, do be sure it’s what you really want. The last thing you want is regrets.
Mike Pedersen Golf | September 30th, 2007 at 10:39 am #
Man…I can vouch for how time-consuming a blog is, especially if you are working hard to promote it and still can’t get the level of involvement you hoped for. Everyday it’s a “gut-check” as to how much you want to put into it.
Supernegro.com | September 30th, 2007 at 9:18 pm #
I almost threw in the towel about a month ago when my site’s traffic seemed to plateau and I just could not seem to grow traffic no matter how hard I tried. It took a huge surge of traffic, which came with adding the Blogush widget to the mainpage and is actually sticking, to give me the kick in the rump to keep plugging away.
Monika @ The Writers Manifesto | September 30th, 2007 at 11:15 pm #
Good post Deborah,
I agree with the fact that one should definitely have passion e.g. love what they do in order to make it worthwhile to blog.
Like Mike said, it is very time consuming and therefore it has to be done with happiness rather than an awkward feeling about it.
Hope your reader will find a solution to her question.
Monika
Dave Starr --- ROI Guy | October 1st, 2007 at 3:01 am #
I realize the original question was heartfelt, and I have a lot of empathy for the blogger who asked it. But, as with many “what should I do” questions, there is no where near enough information upon which to base good advice.
There are alot of people in this world who do not have 30 ir 40 people who “listen” to them in a week, let alone daily. 40 people may not be many when one’s goal is to be a direct contemporary of John Chow or Darren Rowse … but is that the writer’s goal?
40 people a day is a significant number if, indeed, s/he “loves blogging” as the original question stated. One thing to remeber as well … 6 months seems along time to some, but it’s not a long time for a blog to build. If you read Darren, John and another of popular bloggers they blogged much longer than 6 months before any significant traffic increaes came along.
In my view the question is not, What do I do today with 40 readers? It really matters not if it took 6 months or 6 days to get to that level, The question should be, where do I want to be in 6 more months? An honest assessment will give some real clues as to what to do from this day forward.
Kevin | October 1st, 2007 at 8:38 am #
Promoting your blog can sometimes be timeconsuming and frustrating but unfortunately its something that needs to be done if you want more readers.
I have to agree with Dave Starr though. A lot of bloggers expect their blogs to be popular very quickly. There are some blogs who get a lot of subscribers quickly but for most blogs it will take a year or more to get to 1000 subscribers.
Deborah Ng (Post Author) | October 1st, 2007 at 8:41 am #
I absolutely agree Kevin & Dave, it took over a year for Freelance Writing Jobs to take off and another year or so for decent revenue to flow.
If there’s one think I’m constantly telling my readers it’s that blogging isn’t going to happen overnight, you need to have lots of patience.
Perhaps I’ll write about that next week.
Viral Inviter Bonus | June 26th, 2008 at 11:52 am #
Oh yeah It sure takes a lot out of you… you gotta promote, promote some more… try building better responses all while having to post regulrly - good posts that is and then having to think what to talk about next ahha
But it’s all worth it after doing that for like 2 months straight haha i guess
J