Why blogs fail.

Knowing that we’re passionate bloggers, our friend Fritzjambo recently e-mailed an article to our friend Ben and Silence Dogood that he thought we’d find of interest. It was from The New York Times, and was called “Blogs Falling in an Empty Forest.” In other words, why blogs fail.

The Times as always presented some interesting statistics: For instance, that Technorati, which tracks 133 million blogs, reports that only 7.4 million had been updated in the last 120 days—a 95% abandonment rate. Further, of the 7 to 10 million estimated active blogs, 50,000 to 100,000 generate most of the page views, according to Technorati chief executive Richard Jalichandra. This makes sense to our friend Ben, since it’s comparable to publishing stats in general (think of, for example, the number of books published versus the number of bestsellers). Mr. Jalichandra also pointed out—again, coinciding with my own observation—that sites like Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook were draining away both bloggers and the blogging audience. I’d add Flickr and YouTube to the list.

The rest of the article interviewed bloggers who’d allowed their blogs to run down, and then cited various reasons for the blogs’ failures: only family members read them, they didn’t make any money, they didn’t result in a book deal. Bloggers who wrote highly personal tell-alls were apparently appalled when friends and coworkers became aware of their blogs and felt that their privacy had been invaded (d’oh!!!).

Along the way, our friend Ben learned two things I didn’t know and found quite interesting. One was that a blogger generated 50,000 views per month by advertising his blog on Craigslist. (By comparison, our blog, Poor Richard’s Almanac, will be a year and a half old next month and should hit 100,000 total views that month. But we’re not bitter.) I also inferred—and those who know, please correct me if I’m wrong—that ads on blogs pay the blogger only when a visitor clicks on them. Obviously, we have no ads on our blog, but I’d always assumed that advertisers paid bloggers to put their ads on the site. It didn’t occur to me that they only paid if people actually clicked on them. No wonder blogging doesn’t make any money!

The article was certainly thought-provoking, but I felt that it failed to draw the obvious conclusion, perhaps because it was focused on failure. It’s our friend Ben’s opinion that blogs succeed when they fulfil the purpose the blogger had in mind when s/he created them, and fail when they don’t. Simple as that.

Many of the blogs I read obviously originated as a way to show and tell distant family and friends what was happening in the blogger’s life. Then, because the blogger was talented and what he or she had to say had broader applications, other people (such as our friend Ben) began reading it, and the blog’s scope expanded. This is great, but so, in my opinion, is the original purpose. I would love it if my own family and friends all had blogs so I could follow along with their lives. It beats the hell out of the annual Christmas newsletter! And of course, blogs like this continue because their originators don’t mind “an audience of one” if that one is a friend or relative.

Other blogs succeed because they’re a natural outgrowth of something else. Two examples that spring to mind are Jackie Clay’s excellent blog, “Ask Jackie Clay,” on the Backwoods Home website, and the King Arthur Flour bakers’ blog on the company’s website (you’ll find both on our blogroll at right). Jackie is Backwoods Home magazine’s most popular contributor, and blogging gives her a chance to share her adventures with an audience that can’t get enough of her, and answer readers’ questions along the way. The King Arthur bakers can share recipes and tips and create a human face for their company. Our friend Ben has long thought that smart bloggers who’d like to maximize their blog’s potential should link it to their website and to their Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Flickr accounts. Everything should connect and lead visitors from one site to all the others. (Do we do that here at Poor Richard’s Almanac? Of course not. We’re such Luddites, we can barely manage the technology involved in blogging. Maybe we’ll manage to get a website one of these years. Maybe.)

Then there are other, highly personal reasons for blogging. For example, if you like to write. Our friend Ben and Silence Dogood love to write. Challenging ourselves to write a post or two a day helps keep our writing skills sharp. We love it. And when people visit our blog and, especially, comment on our posts, we feel vindicated for getting up that extra hour early to make it happen. Would we love it if a book deal or offer of a regular column or occasional op-ed piece came out of our writing? Damn straight. (And of course, our friend Ben still lives in hope of being discovered by a MacArthur nominator and awarded a fellowship.) But if no one read our blog, would we still post? In the immortal words of Sarah Palin, you betcha. Our blog is fulfilling its purpose for us, and that’s ultimately all that matters.

What about the blogs that fail? Some of our favorite blogs have vanished in the past couple of months. We miss them! But we feel that they had one thing in common: They were trying too hard. They were fabulous for that very reason—all the how-to, the photos, the videos, the attempts to help other people master their skills. But reading their posts, our friend Ben and Silence both thought, “You know, this blog must be a full-time job.” That might be justified if your blog feeds into your main income stream, but not if you’re, say, a fulltime homesteader or small-scale organic farmer who’s trying to realize a dream and support a family on a marginal endeavor. Trying to do everything well can lead to chaos and an abrupt reordering of one’s priorities, especially when one’s spouse points out that hours spent blogging are hardly helpful to the family’s well being, however appreciated by others.

Our friend Ben and Silence have reached a point where we can pinpoint the blogs most likely to fail from trying too hard, and we miss every one of them. But we totally understand. Unless blogging feeds your income, it should simply be fun, not work. It’s one thing if you’re contributing to Arianna Huffington’s Huffington Report, or the Drudge Report, or Slate, or something. Otherwise, our advice is enjoy it or quit. Or scale back so you can enjoy it without having to spend hours crafting the perfect post, while your work and family suffer from those hours you could have spent with them.

Okay, your turn. Why do you think blogs fail? What do you think helps blogs stay the course? And, of course, if you have tips for making blogging profitable, everybody here at PRA is all ears!