Do You Learn from Blogging Failure?

One of the best blogging lessons I ever learned was to observe where and how I failed in order to change course.

Doing this simple thing stung the ago. I hated to admit that perhaps I was wrong. Egg, meet face.

But eating crowd, owning struggles and learning to move in a different, freeing direction accelerated my blogging success.

For example, I struggled to succeed with my blogging campaign for years. But the struggle only continued because I refused to learn from blogging failures. Nothing seemed to come together for me. Nothing succeeded. I felt a little like a blogging victim. Google seemed to handcuff me. Facebook put my hands behind my back. My email list did not help me. My tribe vanished.

Failure kissed my blogging campaign but not because of outside conditions. Google, Facebook and my list are inanimate objects. No thing can do anything to you.

I had to look within my mind to observe the thinking, feeling and actions that produced the blogging failure.

Eventually, I decided to do what pro bloggers do. I learned from blogging failure versus acting as if I was a victim of failure. Imagine how sweet blogging becomes if failure points you toward success instead of seeing failure as some nasty, damaging jailor. Failure points you in the direction of success if you plan to succeed by carefully analyzing your blogging failures.

Formerly, my blogging campaign consisted of publishing 30-60 posts daily between multiple blogs for a few months. Even though most posts seemed to be links to a video or 100-200 words and I secretly knew no post yielded much value I charged forward into greater blogging failure. Life became a bit chaotic. Deep down, failure seemed imminent but I did attract 12,000 to 15,000 page visits daily between the two blogs collectively.

Did this approach appear to be sustainable? No. Could I publish 60 thin or link-only posts for the next 2 years? No. Eventually, I felt disgusted, burned out and ready to throw in the blogging towel. At that moment, analyzing my failed exposure increase even though 12,000 to 15,000 page visits daily suggested otherwise revealed a few basic truths:

• readers gravitate toward detailed, helpful content
• readers tend to ignore 100 word long blog posts
• readers tend to ignore link-only blog posts pointing to videos
• quality and generosity attracts quality and generosity.

Oddly enough, publishing fewer posts drew greater blogging success to me. 10,000 disinterested page visits pleased the ego but none became loyal followers, customers or clients. It turns out, a small collection of humans who desired my blog content, blogging courses and blogging eBooks actually bought the courses and eBooks in addition to following my blog closely. Quality trumps quality. Being thorough, mindful and detailed with your help lays a solid foundation for your blogging career.

But I only discovered this truth by admitting my blogging failure and analyzing blogging failure. I spotted my mistakes. My lofty page visits metrics did nothing much for my blogging bottom line. What gave? High quality blog traffic seeks a lesser number of deeper, in-depth, detailed blog posts discussing some pressing problem in the blogging tips niche.

Be diligent. Spot your blogging errors now. Own your blogging failures. Do not put your blogging head in the sand. Let me share another blogging failure freely made, by yours truly. I succeeded by mentioning fellow bloggers freely through most of my blog posts and guest posts. But I stopped doing this for various stretches of my blogging career to the tune of experiencing increased blogging failure.

Why in the heck did I pull back on promoting fellow bloggers when said bloggers accelerated my blogging success? I made a mistake. The ego and its fears goaded me into trying to get all the smoke.

Observing my failure alerted me to this simple fact; mentioning other bloggers through blog posts and guest posts:

• strengthened bonds
• formed friendships
• influenced people to share these pieces of content

I corrected my error. Blogging success accelerated.

Network to Succeed

Bloggers often wonder: where can you find blogging buddies for networking, for befriending and for promoting each other’s success?

I want to mention a handful of successful bloggers for you to follow, help and befriend. Learn from these pros. Serve them. Blogging buddies make life easier, and easier and easier.

We can do so much together and do little to nothing if divided.

Blogging teamwork makes the dream work.

I am mentioning these bloggers too because they have been SO helpful to me over the years.

Thanks guys!

• Lisa Sicard
• Janice Wald
• Corey Hinde
• Marie Leslie

Learn.

Look at your blog in the light of truth.

If you appear to be spinning your wheels get serious about spotting blogging errors, correcting these mistakes and moving towards increasing blogging success.

Being mindful of your failure is the only way to correct it.

About the Author

Ryan Biddulph helps you to become a successful blogger at Blogging From Paradise.