How to shake up your blog for the better

This is a guest post by Angelita Williams.

You haven’t had a comment on any of your posts in a long time. You’ve written guest posts for other blogs to no noticeable effects. Your SEO and follower analytics reveal that no new reading has looked at your blog for a few days. You feel as though you’re writing the same article day after day, and you’re at a loss as to how you can attract new readers.

The paragraph above depicts an all-too-familiar scenario that plagues countless bloggers. What do you do when the chips are down and you have nothing to show for all your hard work on your blog? How can you redirect the downward spiral of your blog without sacrificing your scruples as a blogger?

The solution is both simple and unnerving: change something.

If your blog never quite took off and doesn’t look like it’ll become a success story anytime soon, then you have some tough decisions to make. How can you change a blog without knowing why no one took to it in the first place?

Question your blog from every angle

In order to localize the flaw in your blog, you have to consider every possible reason a reader might have for ignoring it. This is no easy task, as you have to be brutally honest with the way you’ve run your blog thus far if you want to make any progress. Consider the following questions: Do you find your articles interesting? Are you discussing relevant material and framing it in a compelling manner? Or are you simply recycling content from a competitor’s blog? These questions matter because they make you step inside a reader’s shoes and look at your content in a new light.

Keep it fresh

Blogs are a dime a dozen, and the typical scatterbrained web user doesn’t have time to read a blog whose content retells the latest headline in college basketball, Apple news, or celebrity gossip. I would venture to guess that the majority of content on the web is mere repetition of a few current news stories and trending discussion topics. Adding to the echo chamber won’t do you any favors. Let me put it this way: if you can barely make it through a rereading of your own blog posts, then you need to get in touch with a smart editor or reconsider your content entirely.

Stay on top of things

However if you want to stick with the theme and style of your current blog, there are a number of sound options that will help you make your content more interesting. To stay relevant, you can set up news notifications on very specific topics through media sites like Google, CNN, BBC, FOX, and MSNBC to get the latest updates on information directly pertaining to your blog. When you find a trending news story, don’t merely regurgitate the piece on your blog. Find a way to incorporate the key points of the story into a narrative that directly addresses the needs of your readers.

Take a stance

If you don’t think that relevancy is a problem for your blog content, you might consider taking an alternative or opinionated angle on issues discussed on your blog. Blogging with attitude is an easy way to attract attention, and you don’t necessarily need to compromise your morals in order to do it. An opinionated blogger doesn’t have to be a crude and uninspiring one; it’s just a matter of blogging what’s on your mind and doing so with honest intentions. Some of the most popular bloggers in the world have established themselves on expressing their opinions without being out and out controversial.

Know when it’s time to move on

Try as you might, it may be the case that your blog isn’t a right fit for the blogosphere. Even the web has it’s limits, and your blog might fail for any number of reasons outside of your control: your market is too niche; your market is too general; your blog has been done before; or your blog is straight up boring. But if you decide to pull the plug on your blog, it’s not necessarily a reason to feel defeated. Blogs rise and fall with each passing day, and one failed blog is just a learning experience towards the next potential success.

About the author
Angelita Williams writes on the topics of online courses. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: angelita.williams7@gmail.com.