Out of stock

Sometimes, if we have a question or concern and ask others what we should do, no matter how good the answer is that we get, we simply don’t hear it or don’t act on it.

On a very regular basis, I get questions from people who are blogging asking me why they can’t seem to build up an audience.  Maybe they have a few people who come to their site from time to time, but they can’t seem to get over the hump and establish a regular audience.  You will never instantly have a large regular audience, no, you have to start out small.  You will, hopefully, start attracting a few people who will come back to your site regularly to check and see what you have that is new.  After you get those first few, they will tell others about your site, and other people will just find your site through searching, finding a link on Facebook or generally stumbling upon your site in one way or another.

As more and more people find your site, and many of them like it, your audience will grow.

Stagnation

The problem that many people run into is that they lose patience while they are building an audience.  They never get to the point where they have a decent sized group of readers coming to their website.  Because of this low number of readers, the blogger or website owner gets frustrated and starts writing less and less.  Soon it is months or even longer between one blog post and the next one.  The blog becomes stagnant.

Why is this a problem?

Think about going grocery shopping.  Most of us don’t consider going grocery shopping a highlight of our week, but we all have to do it.  We need things to keep our lives functioning, particularly we must have food to keep us nourished, so we must go to the grocery store at regular intervals in order to keep things that we need in stock.

Let’s say that you go to a certain grocery store each time you want to shop.  For the most part, this is what we all do, we have a store that we usually shop at.  Say you go to that store with a list of items that you need and they are out of stock.  Well, you would probably just put off buying that item until your next trip.  Perhaps you would find a substitute item that will hold you over until the item you really want is in stock for your purchase.  You go back in a week or two, and that item is still out of stock.  Maybe the next 3 or 4 times that you go to the store, they still have no stock.  It becomes a problem if this is an item that you really like or need.

Making a move

If your regular store is constantly out of stock of what you need, sooner or later, you are probably going to decide to start shopping at the grocery store across the street, or around the corner.  You may go back to the original store from time to time, but it is likely that your regular store will end up being a store that actually has stock of the items that you want and need.

Applying this to your blog

So, this is all great, but you are probably wondering what this has to do with your website or blog.  Think of your blog being a grocery store.  People have a need to nourish their mind.  Whatever your topic is that you write about, people go there to partake in it and to fill their mind with information.

So, folks get used to using your site as a source of information or entertainment.  The next time they go back, you have no new posts.  Maybe they are going to go back again 3 or 4 more times, maybe for the next few weeks or even months.  If you go all of this time and have no new posts along the way, how many times do you think your reader will keep coming back?

The fact is, for nearly any topic under the sun, there are many blogs online covering that area of interest.  There is more than one blog or website for nearly any topic that you can think of, no matter how obscure it may be.  So, since there are other sources of information on any topic, if you are “out of stock” of new material, your reader will likely look for, and find a different website to fit their needs.

So, instead of keeping your blog growing, keeping your regular visitors coming back, and gathering new regulars as well, you are now moving backward!  You are in reverse instead of moving forward.  You are going back to basically starting over again if you ever start back at all.

So, my advice to you?  Keep writing!  Keep adding new articles.  Keep engaging your readers!  Be there when they are coming looking to be fulfilled with new material.  It is the only way you can grow your audience and become successful at blogging!  You can do it if you are persistent!