Now you’ve set your blog up, you’re waiting for people to come and visit. If you really are just sitting there and watching the stat counter—whichever one you have set up—you’re doing it all wrong. You need to get proactive if you want your blog to make you some money.
If after a month or two your blog isn’t making you money, you’ll want to look at a few factors. It could be anything from the content to the theme. Here’s how to narrow down your problems.
Your Theme Isn’t Mobile Friendly
Websites need to be mobile friendly now. People read them on all types of devices, including tablets, iPads and phones. If you don’t make it easy for them, they’re going to click away.
If you use WordPress or Blogger, many of them have mobile friendly built into them but not all of them do! Check that yours is. If not, make a change.
If you’ve hired a web developer, make sure he’s created a friendly space for those checking on smaller devices.
Your Theme Doesn’t Look Great
Another issue with your theme that means your blog isn’t making you money is that it doesn’t look great. It needs to appeal to the masses, and that means avoiding too many strange color combinations and placements.
A simple two or three column theme is great, with one or two color choices. Avoid red and green together as most people are red-green deficient when it comes to colorblindness. You’ll also want to avoid too many similar colors together, as different screen resolutions will affect how they show up.
Ask your readers what they think of your theme. Ask people you trust, whether they’re other writers or your friends/relatives. Get a wide range of opinions to know if you need to make some changes.
People Can’t Find You
This is the most common reason why your blog isn’t making you money. It’s really simple: there are so many websites now that the idea of “if you build it, they will come” just doesn’t work.
Like I said in the introduction, you need to get proactive. It’s important to market your blog, whether through social media, forums or even good link building. Remember that your blog is just like your business, and you need to treat it that way. Having a marketing plan is great for this step.
SEO is also important. You want to make sure that your blog is following all the things that Google recommends, otherwise it’s going to drop in search rankings. Don’t keyword stuff and use great tags in your posts. You’ll find that you’re easier to find.
You’ve Targeted the Wrong Audience
Your blog content needs to be targeted towards the right audience. If your blog is supposed to be for experience gardeners but you’re offering novice tips, you’ve got it all wrong. Your blog isn’t making you money because the right people aren’t coming to you and staying there.
Create a persona like you would for a business. Think about your ideal reader, and the type of content he or she would like to read. From there, you can think about the next blog posts you’re going to put out.
Are you ready to help your blog make you money? It’s time to put the above into practice and really get in front of the right sets of eyes.
Lots to think about here. I didn’t think about the red green combination and colour blindness, a great point to make.
I think about it with having a hubby who is red/green deficient. I also did a computing degree and it was brought up a lot when it came to web design. Most people don’t think about it–or screen resolutions showing different colours.
The “people can’t find you” is the one people really don’t seem to get. They think that since they’ve put up a great blog, everyone and their mother will find the page automatically, by magic. I mean, after all, there are only 894394839483966111 blogs in the world, of course they’ll find yours just like that, without any effort on your part..
I know. I can’t believe just how many bloggers aren’t on social media to promote their content!
I read recently that light colors on dark colors are hard to read. As much as I like the look of it, I think my readership picked up when I switched from a dark theme to a light one on my other blog, so I’ll probably change it soon for this one too.
For most people, yes. There are always going to be exceptions. There’s a site I’m on where a friend reads better with a dark background and light writing. That’s one where we can change skins, so I’ve created one that is just for her to use. Most other people opt for light background and dark writing because they’re use to it with paper and pen 🙂