During my blogging journey since 2009, many blogs have come and gone. Blogging can be tough because being consistent is tough.
But ironically, one of the biggest mistakes I see bloggers make is writing too much about their blogging journey.
Unless you are a blog about blogging, readers want to read about everything but blogging. The more you write about how you’re monetizing your blog, the more readers will feel like you’re using them like guinea pigs.
If you start writing more about blogging you’re simply going to attract more bloggers to your blog.
When this happens, you better have a course or book about blogging for money. And you better have a huge blog with proof that your book or course works, otherwise, you’re never going to grow your blog. This is where the big mistake happens for most bloggers.
Your blogging readers may be supportive, especially if you have a larger blog. But they may also end up copying everything you do. For example, there are a couple bloggers who copy so much of what I do – from the topics, to the author bio at the end of each post with the same affiliates, and more Pretty interesting to see why they just can’t be original.
Readers who are bloggers are the minority. Therefore, writing content for the minority of your audience is a mistake.
The Key To Growing Your Blog
The key to growing your blog is to keep topics about blogging to a minimum. I would limit your content about blogging to less than 10% of all content. In other words, for every 10 articles you write in your niche, you can write one article about your blogging journey if you must.
At Financial Samurai, less than 2% of my articles are related to blogging. I’m hardcore focused on personal finance topics such as real estate crowdfunding, stock and bond investing, early retirement, career/severance negotiation, and estate planning. 99% of my readers come to Financial Samurai for personal finance topics, not blogging.
When I write about blogging, it fits into my Entrepreneurship category. If i dominate my writing about blogging, then I will lose my readers because I’m not blogging to make money blogging.
The more you blog about your area of expertise, the more you will make money blogging.
Now that Financial Samurai is a relatively large site with over 1 million organic visitors a month, I can now blog about blogging with credibility. I can also earn money about teaching others how to grow a blog if I wanted.
Too many bloggers make it a priority to make money blogging. This ends up killing their momentum due to a lack of credibility.
The Same Concept Goes With FIRE
As one of the early FIRE bloggers who focused on retiring early to do whatever you want, I don’t constantly write about FIRE because I’m interested in everything that comes after FIRE.
Despite not constantly writing about FIRE, Financial Samurai still benefits greatly from everybody searching online about the FIRE movement because of the older articles I’ve written about the space. A rising tide lifting all boats in our peak FIRE state.
Once a reader understands the concept of Financial Independence Retire Early, there’s really no need to keep on writing about FIRE. If you do, you’re just rubbing it in people’s faces.
Instead, the reader wants to learn about everything you have done before and after achieving FIRE. Post FIRE is where the real excitement lies.
Focus On Your Expertise
Yes, we all have dreams of making big bucks blogging in our underwear, overlooking the ocean with a tasty beverage. But extremely few will achieve this result if they just write about their blogging journey.
Write about what people care about the most in order to grow your blog the most. When you become a big blog, then write as much about blogging as your heart desires.
If your blog is not growing at the pace it wants, it’s probably because you are not providing as much value as you think you are.
Lots of valid points! So true that bloggers are a minority of overall readership, so blogging to much about blogging can be risky. Writing about what people care about truly makes such a difference in engagement and traffic from regular readers and search. Your blog is a perfect example of that!