Recently, I’ve seen a number of blogs shut down. Sometimes they formally announce their intention to cease adding new content while other times they just fade away. While it’s a little sad when a blog that you follow drops off, it seems to happen fairly regularly. So all you can do is wish your fellow blogger the best of luck and keep plugging away yourself. And while I haven’t ever thought about shutting down this site, I do understand where those that do are coming from. As anyone who has ever run a website knows, maintaining a blog is challenging and there are many ups and downs of blogging.
Prior to creating this site, I was never active in blogging or posting on social media. I was busy working and spending time with my young children. And honestly, I never knew this world existed.
As hard as it is for me to believe, I’ve been running this site for about 13 months. I started slowly for the first few months only publishing an article every few weeks or so. But then around April of last year, I increased both my posting frequency as well as my participation on other sites.
And as I began increasing my activity, I found the experience more and more enjoyable.
But as enjoyable as blogging can be, there are things that I dislike about running this site. I came up with the following list of the ups and downs of blogging:
The Ups and Downs of Blogging
Blogging can be a fickle activity. The challenges range from continually coming up with awesome content to thinking about ways to grow your traffic to strategies for monetizing your site.
Just as in most jobs, there are times when things just click. New ideas are popping into your head. The words flow easily from your keyboard. And visitors just seem to be flocking to your site.
But then there are other times when you can’t think of a single thing you want to write about. Maybe you’re distracted with life or another project. Or you’ve just hit a wall and cannot figure out a way around it.
And blogging requires a significant time commitment. Writing posts, responding to comments, and just maintaining your site all take time. And when that time takes away from other ventures that may be generating (or have the potential to generate) greater income, no matter what the reason, sometimes blogging just feels like a chore.
But luckily for me, those periods tend not to last long. And when I find myself in those slumps, the best way to crawl out is to just start writing.
Benefits of Blogging
There are three main benefits I get from writing regularly on this site that help counter the ups and downs of blogging:
Blogging keeps me continually looking for and thinking about new material. The longer I go between posts, the harder I find it to write. When I am posting daily, the ideas seem to be plentiful. Maybe it’s because I know I need new material so I’m continually on the lookout for great ideas. And the more I am looking for new ideas, the more engaged I am with the world and especially the world outside of my comfort zone.
Blogging forces me to have an opinion on the issues. Not only does writing regularly keep me engaged with what is happening in the world, it also forces me to take a position on those issues. As I read stories or think about blog topics, I must decide how to present those ideas on my site. Which ones will best benefit my audience? How can the audience implement these ideas and make them work in their own lives?
Blogging keeps me accountable. It’s easy to get caught up in your life. Work demands, family demands, health demands all pull you in different directions. Having a blog and writing regularly is something I do for me. And while I cannot control the external factors such as viewer metrics and how articles are received, I can control the site itself. I can control how often I post and what topics I write about.
The Future of Financial Slacker
While I wouldn’t go so far as to refer to Financial Slacker as a booming business, it does generate income. And by income, I mean it brings in more in revenue than gets paid out in expenses. But more importantly than the level of income generated, the site has served as an incubator of sorts.
Over the past 13 months, I’ve used this site to expand my finance knowledge and experience from the corporate world and bring it into the personal finance world. I’ve written mostly about my own personal experiences making money, saving, and investing.
I’ve also written extensively about everything else including current events, lifestyle ideas, travel, and of course blogging.
Through Financial Slacker, I have met people from around the world and have been exposed to many differing views and perspectives. And I believe this growth has helped me see things in new and better ways.
But as I begin year two of this blogging experiment, I ask myself the question, “where do I go from here?”
And this is where I am asking for help from you, the readers of this site.
I love this post! I haven’t left a comment on a site in a while now, but I felt a need to write one here.
Your third point on accountability resonated with me and I feel many don’t understand until they’re in the process of writing/declaring goals to the public. Without an online outlet, I’m convinced the DD household would only have had a marginal improvement in 2016. Instead, blogging gave me a route to see so many great sites, share ideas, and most importantly, have those great readers offer me advice, insights, and of course, accountability.
I don’t have any insights into what more you can write about. I feel that’s one of those questions you know the answer to already 😉 What I can say is keep being authentic. Many bloggers online write flashy headlines and you can tell they’re looking for a quick profit. We all know it doesn’t work that that way and many of those burn out quickly.
Keep up the great work!
Thanks, Distilled Dollar. I appreciate you stopping by and leaving a comment.
We are in the same situation. Most of us know that one of the keys to success is writing down your goals. But writing them down and sharing on your blog is an even more effective approach.
I’m looking forward to another great year of writing, reading, and sharing with the community.
Thanks again.
I agree with Distilled Dollar. Blogging has not only kept myself accountable for living a frugal life, but the benefits I’ve gained from being part of this community have been so beneficial as well.
Like you, FS, I sometimes struggle with coming up with new articles that I think will be entertaining and hopefully, some value to my readers. I’ve got a heap of half-written articles that I started and then thought, “meh, don’t like that one”. I’ll go back and finish then sometime but it can be hard to get motivated sometimes.
Here’s to another productive year of writing and blogging for us all.
Thanks, Martin.
One of my challenges is also finishing articles. Sometimes I start down a path and realize that to write what I want to write will require much more time than I have allocated. And often, I wind up either condensing my thoughts or putting the article aside half-written as you say.
Now that I’ve been writing on the site for a while, I am thinking about taking some of the older less popular articles and rewriting them to either reflect my current thinking or to better say what I was trying to say in the first place.
The other thought is to take articles that have been well received and write complementary or expanded articles on the same topic.
You basically described my blogging life in this post. Periods of boom and bust with frustration in between. I really like blogging to stoke the fire of ideas but to also, as you say keep yourself accountable. I have been so busy since the summer, I have had a difficult time keeping up with the blog but I am about to go on a posting tear as I have about 15 drafts started and I am re-engaging in the site. Thanks for posting this as it is nice to see I am not the only one who struggles blogging from time to time. Cheers ! Best of Luck!
-Brian
Thanks, Brian.
Great to hear you have built up a backlog of articles. I’ve never had much success with this. I find it challenging to go back and finish drafts. But I know bloggers who excel at creating a big block of content that they can post over time. Maybe some day!
I’ll be sure to stop by and check out your new articles as they hit the site.
Life as a blogger is full of ups and downs, it literally is like a roller coaster. You’re sat in the front row of your own ride (life as a blogger can be very solitary at times) you’re nervous climbing to the top of the first climb…all the way, which feels like a lifetime, then BOOM! You drop of the end and its one hell of a ride. You just gotta keep that momentum flowing.
Thanks for stopping by, Finance Inspired.
I like your analogy. Blogging is very much a solitary activity at least compared to my prior life running businesses.
Sam over at Financial Samurai compared blogging to fishing. Most of the time, you’re sitting in a boat by yourself with your line in the water and nothing happening. Then suddenly you get a bite and maybe it’s a small bite and maybe it’s a big one. You just never know what will happen.
Great analogies in the comments on blogging… I have had ups when I was high on blogging, generating a lot of content and commenting around, then a few weeks almost nothing. finding the balance was hard.
As for content, I am always curious to read what people plan to do when they are FI.
I think that’s what keeps me coming back to specific blogs. I am always interested to hear about what is happening in the author’s life.
A lot of what you’ve said here resonates with me FS. There definitely ups and downs, we have lots of ideas yet it’s impossible to them all at once..plus like you say, there are other projects too. Sometimes just having longevity can make a blog more popular – you build up a readership and more people get to know you. We aren’t going to shut down our blog..ever, probably, as long as blogs are a thing over the next 20 years. We’re probably going to take things a little slower over the next several months and aim for one post a week perhaps. Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts on this 🙂
Tristan
Glad to hear you don’t have any plans to shut down.
I’ve been posting a little less frequently as well. But I found that I miss being active everyday.
My compromise is that I have two types of posts –
(1) featured articles which are longer and provide more helpful content, and
(2) Shorter posts which are more conversational.
We’ll see how this goes.
I agree with everyone. Blogging is a lot of work and can be very rewarding. For me, the best thing about blogging is holding myself publicly accountable and gaining friends in the process.
Blogging is one of those things that’s so easy to start but takes discipline to keep up long term. Many blogs come and go, especially when people are only focused on doing it for the money. Blogging for fun or for a specific purpose first and treating money as a bonus or lower priority is what keeps many of the long term sites going strong.
Thanks, Sydney.
That’s the realization that I’ve come to.
When I started, the idea of making money blogging seemed far off. But quickly you start to think it’s possible.
And then just as quickly, you realize that when your focus is on making money, it can take all the joy out of the process.
I’m back to blogging for the sake of writing and connecting with others.