Patience:

When I started this site back in January 09′, I noticed several other bloggers who started their own sites around the same time as I did.  They would read my articles and leave comments, and I would do the same.  We were all newbies at what we did, and would offer advice to each other, hoping to climb the ladder of the blogosphere together.  Looking back, some of those blogs are long gone, and some of them have gone on to flourish!

Six Measly Months!

That seems like years ago, but that was only six months ago.  In the blogosphere, six months is like a lifetime, because so much can happen.  New blogs will spring up, old ones will die, existing blogs will change subjects or themes, new software will change the way we interact, and all other types of variables will come into play.  But here’s a reminder for you, the reader.  You may exist in the blogosphere, but the world doesn’t.  In real life, six months isn’t really that long!  To a great, many people, six months is a drop in the bucket of their life!

Forget About Instant Gratification

As a blogger, you must take the focus off of achieving quick results, and have patience with what you are doing!  Remind yourself that you have immersed yourself in an alternate reality where time slows down, which was doing very well before you came along.  And As accommodating as the blogosphere is to newcomers, you can’t expect the blogging world to stop in it’s tracks and shine it’s spotlight on you.  Remember that it is going to take TIME and PATIENCE to achieve any sort of notoriety in the blogging world.

However, in this age of instant gratification, people want results immediately.  We expect our burgers and shakes to be promptly served up in minutes, our doctor visits to be brief and painless, our computers and internet connections to load quickly and effortlessly, and our blogs to skyrocket with fame and explode with readers hours after we launch them.

But blogging is not like those things.  Blogging is about building relationships, both with your readers and with other bloggers.  And guess what?  Building relationships TAKES TIME.  It takes effort.  Just like anything else that’s meaningful, it isn’t always easy, and it will require a sacrifice of time and effort  on your part.  If your blogging for any other reason except to connect with people, then you are probably in it for the wrong reasons.

Okay, So How Long Should It Take?

As for how long it takes to build a successful blog, one of the world’s top bloggers, Darren Rowse, concluded back in 2006 that the top 100 blogs had an average age of 33.8 months.  Of course, that number has probably changed, but I doubt that it’s changed much.  Competition has increased since then, and lots of blogs have popped up and become quick successes while some of the other heavy hitters that were on the 2006 list are still around!

Back to the subject of six months.  Another of the most successful bloggers, Yaro Starak, likes to give a timeline of six months to launch a blog.  This is for a few reasons.  First of all, giving yourself a six month “launch timeframe” allows yourself to focus on building, tweaking, and refining your content and voice so that you are more focused on the process of creation as opposed to the results from your blogging.  Secondly, one of the biggest turnoffs for a reader is to go to a blog and notice a lack of material.  You must commit to your writing without encouragement for as long as you can.  That way, you can get better at what you do, and when you write that killer article that gets viewers flooding into your site, they’ll have plenty of other good material to read and get them hooked!

You Need Plenty Of Quality Material!

This is why most blogs develop readership over time.  There may be times when your you will write a hit article and get a spike in traffic, but those will often taper off, and you’ll be back to roughly where you were before.  The best way to develop a loyal readership is to stick with it, and give your readers a reason to keep coming back, day after day, week after week, and month after month.

I can’t stress this enough.  If you want your blog to do well, you must be patient with it.  Nothing that was ever worth doing was easy.  If you want to be a great blogger, then it takes time and effort.  Otherwise, being a great blogger wouldn’t be a big deal, as everyone would be one!  So don’t be an impatient blogger.  Be a great blogger!  Stick with it, so that by the time the blogosphere has changed it’s face six months from now, you’ll still be here, and we can look back at this point and laugh about how you were considering quitting.