A lot of people want to know, “how long?”

How long before I get a lot of traffic to my blog?

How long before  I can make money?

How long before I close my blog down if it’s not working?

People need to understand that a blog is just like a business, my blog is just around 8 months old and I am still not 100% satisfied with my traffic levels, design, etc.  When you start a blog you are starting from 0, you literally have nothing, just a blank page on which you can start writing.  Your traffic levels start from 0 and you have to understand that to make it grow you are going to have to sweat a little.

The early stages of blogging are always the hardest because it is easy to get discouraged.  I’ve seen it happen several times, people write for 1-3 months, don’t see the traffic they hope for (or the money) and then they close up shop…big mistake.  It’s not going to happen overnight and it’s not going to happen in just a few months…how could it?

As a blogger it is your job to get readers to your site that you have never met before in person, does this sound like an easy task you can accomplish in just a few months?  I know I can’t.  Don’t give up and don’t stop.  If you aren’t seeing the traffic levels you are hoping for that doesn’t mean the content you are writing is crap, it just means that you need to be more aggressive at promoting yourself.  Don’t think that just because you write a lot of great stuff that people are automatically going to come to your site, how are they going to find you?

I’ve talked about this before but I’m going to talk about it again, you have to promote yourself and your blog if you want to see results.  When I was in Turkey I saw streets with many cafes and restaraunts lined up next to each other, do you know what they did to bring people in?  Store owners or managers would stand outside their stores (in nice clothes) and greet every single person that walked by; chatting them up and inviting them in.  You are the store owner of your site/blog you need to be out there talking to everybody, inviting them into your store.  So what does this mean?

It means putting a link in your email signature to your blog

It means putting your blog URL on your business cards

It means joining in on similar topic conversations on OTHER blogs

It means using twitter and facebook to promote your content

It means going to meet ups or gatherings all the time so that you can meet people and connect with them

It means going to conferences such as SXSW, Blog World Expo, etc.  Here you will meet tons of folks

It means trying to get syndicated on sites such as alltop, social media today, etc.

It means using digg and stumbleupon (or others) to get the word out

It means responding to every single email, twitter msg, blog comment or other interaction that you get

It means writing quality content; often!

Don’t worry about how long, if I told you it would take 6 months or 1 year, would it really matter?  You’re doing this to achieve a certain goal and you just need to work hard until it happens.

Instead of thinking about “how long”, just think about “how.”

p.s.

By the way I recently announced that I am going to be writing guest posts for everyone, so if you want a guest post, read this.

thanks for reading

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