I spend a lot of time online reading blogs that are in my niche. Lately, it seems that a lot of the people I follow are focused on growing their blog and business as fast as possible. Everyone wants to do better than last month. Everyone wants to sell more than the competition. Everyone talks about the importance of having high traffic. You can’t make money from your blog if your traffic is low. No-one will want to hire you and no company will want to work with you. It seems that 100k is everywhere, whether we are talking about page views or annual income.
I love reading success stories and I am so happy when it happens to people I follow, but all this talk makes me feel bad about what I’m doing. I often feel that I am doing everything wrong.
My blog has been growing steadily, my email list is growing, and my business with them. I am happy with my work and my lifestyle, and yet I find myself feeling discouraged. I used to feel that slow growth only happens to me, but after talking to other people about it, I realized a lot of bloggers and entrepreneurs worry about it.
Why it matters to me
About a year ago, I decided to focus on growing my blog and use it to launch my own creative business.
I started thinking about having my own design studio many years ago, but at the time all I wanted was to work with large companies. It didn’t take me long to realize that working on large websites wasn’t really the dream. What I really want is to create my own products, so I did just that. It took me about a year to create my own WordPress themes and graphics, but selling and promoting them was not as easy as I thought and I’m still working on my shop.
When I re-launched this blog at the beginning of the year, I expected it to take off right away. I had some posts on the first page of Google and many ideas. The realist in me knew that growing your blog is not a walk in the park, but it’s easy to lose track of that when you are surrounded by so many success stories.
My blog and business go hand in hand, and it wasn’t until late spring that things started to get better. I’m still not completely satisfied with everything, but I’m trying to come to terms with the slow growth of my business.
How to deal with the slow growth of your blog or businessClick To TweetIs slow growth bad?
I spend a lot of time writing, researching, creating graphics, and promoting my blog. Sometimes, I feel that I spend more time on my blog than on actual work. Considering all the effort I put into this, I feel very disappointed when I see that my traffic grows at about the same rate every month.
When you lose your enthusiasm, it’s easy to think that you are a failure and ignore the fact that slow growth is still growth. You might not be where you want to be, but you are getting there.
The majority of businesses fail in their first year. A lot of them grow fast and fade fast. Achieving success right away does not guarantee that things will stay that way.
No matter how disappointed and discouraged you are, it’s very important to keep moving forward. Dealing with slow growth might even be beneficial in the long run. It requires a lot of patience, but it also helps that you stay focused, improve your skills, and build a strong brand that reflects who you are.
What to do about it:
If you are not happy with your stats, stop feeling sorry for yourself and start doing something to get those numbers up:
- create blog posts that are relevant and beneficial to your ideal audience and share them
- use Google Analytics to find out what your readers like and write more posts in that niche
- take a more intentional approach in the way you promote your blog or business
- create free products that will attract your ideal readers
- guest post on successful blogs from your niche
- update your website or rebrand
- take a class and learn something new related to blogging or your business
How do you deal with the slow growth of your blog and business?
Insightful! I too am feeling the same way. I see people in my niche whose blogs and businesses are booming and then there’s me, everything is going so slow for me. I started having doubts and berating myself for doing things the wrong way. Thanks for this post Cristina, it was reassuring.
http://www.allebasidesign.co.za
You’re welcome, Isabella. I decided to share this because I know deep down that this is what most of us go through. Things will get better, you just need to believe in yourself.
This post hit home for me. Recognizing that slow growth is still growth is a great way to put it. Rome wasn’t built in a day and a successful business can’t be either. Slowly but surely my business is beginning to pick up speed and I’m starting to learn to appreciate the journey. Growing slow has taught me the value of patience and how to work for self fulfillment instead of instant gratification.
It sounds like you are doing the right thing, Ariana. I finally see how important this experience was for my business. I had time to learn and experiment and I’m better prepared to deal with everything. Things are moving faster now and it can also be a bit scary.
This is exactly the post I needed to read. I have just started a new blog, and everyone makes it seem so easy – like if you’re not getting the traffic, it’s because you’re pinning wrong or something 🙂
Here’s to patience 🙂 And thanks for a great read!
I’m glad you like it, Anne-Li. The bloggers that tell you it’s easy are either lucky or have been blogging for a long time.
You have a great blog, by the way. I’ll add it to my reading list.
Thank you so much, Cristina!
Now you’re on my reading list as well 🙂
Hi Cristina. This post really hit home. My blog will have its 1st year anniversary on March 7th and I do find it quite discouraging when I don’t see growth or little growth. For a long time, the only time I would see engagement was when I shared posts to my personal FB account. Just recently I started noticing more activity through Pinterest, which is encouraging. I am not giving up though. I am currently working on my business portion of the blog, which I am excited about, but I wonder how well I will do with such little engagement. Thank you for this post, it reminded me that I am in a much better place today than I was 5 months ago, and that I shouldn’t let little growth discourage me.
You have a lovely blog, Dari, and I’m sure your images will do well on Pinterest. I still think that slow growth means that you are doing something right and you just have to keep going and see what you can improve. My traffic grew quite a lot since I wrote this post and a lot of that has to do with Pinterest and promoting it on Twitter and Facebook. And I’m really bad at promoting my blog and business so it took a lot of effort.
YAY! I love this! So true. There are SO MANY “I make a million dollar” stories out there! It can make us get discouraged about our slow growth. I love this post because it is just an encouragement to keep doing our best one step at a time!!!
Thank you, Elizabeth! I needed to write about this and I’m happy it helps other bloggers and entrepreneurs.
I’m so glad to know I’m not alone with growing my blog slowly. My greatest hope is to write posts that are interesting, helpful, and entertaining for my readers, and provide them on a regular basis. Better to be slow than not at all, right? 🙂
Yes, it’s so important to create great content and be consistent. And I think you can only learn to do that if you slow things down and try to find out what works for your audience.
My traffic suddenly doubled at the end of the year thanks to a Pinterest strategy that took about half a year to perfect.
Your blog will also grow if you keep writing and promoting it.
Thank you, Cristina. Just what I needed. No bullshit inspiration and encouragement, sprinkled with some solid advice. Much appreciated.
You’re welcome, Jude. I’m glad it was helpful.
Thank you so much for this! I literally just started my blog in the middle of March and I keep having to remind myself that it isn’t going to take off overnight, and that’s ok 🙂
You have a great blog!
Very insightful! – I’ve been blogging for a week now, so this is still relatively new to me however… as lovely as it would be to get noticed, it’s damn near impossible unless you’re willing to actually work for it and even as a new blogger I can see that! x
http://www.sheintheknow.co.uk
You’re so right, Rebecca! You have to work a lot to get noticed. But you blog will grow if you have patience and keep writing and promoting.
Thanks! This is a wonderful article. I hope everyone who writes gets a chance to read it!
Love this post! I completely relate to this. Too much information and each success story has led me to pivot too many times to count in my business. This year I’m taking an entirely new approach. It’s still slow growth tho, so I’m happy to see someone else knows how it goes.
Glad you like it, Taylor. I think most people experience slow growth but it’s not really a subject we like to talk about.
This was exactly what I needed to hear this morning. My slow growth has been awesome to watch but when you see all of these other blogs getting thousands of views a day and I’m still pulling in double digit views a month, it can be discouraging. I’ve learned that slow growth is going to be the growth that stays and continues, but I’m trying to keep my patience under control.
Thanks for this!
Your blog looks lovely, Ashleigh! And you have really great posts. I know how hard it is to see only success stories when your stats are not that great, but your blog will grow too. It’s just too awesome not to.
I’m so glad to have stumbled on this post of yours, Christina!
You’re addressing some issues a lot of bloggers and small biz owners are struggling with. It’s so easy to get discouraged when you see income reports all over the place thrown in your face and everything you do seems to be, well, simply not good enough.
But nothing’s going to change if you don’t do something about it, just like you said. Thank you for this great reminder!
Thank you so much for sharing, Rali! All those income reports and success stories are great because we can all get there if we work hard enough, but I wish there were more posts about the struggles of blogging and building a business.