Don’t focus on having a great blog. Focus on producing a blog that’s great for your readers.
Brian Clark
Many people who start blogging give up easily!
Why?
They lack the key mindsets that are necessary to succeed as a blogger. And when they don’t attain success in the short term, they give it up entirely. I have been a blogger and writer for more than 5 years now. And blogging is the best thing that ever happened to me.
Besides getting better at blogging, it has helped me learn so many new things about life, technology, Internet Marketing and so on. Most of the positive developments in my life in the past 5 years have been the result of blogging and writing.
And in this post, I am happy to share 11 Key Mindsets of a Blogger to be successful:
Blogger Mindset #1: Curious
The more I blog, the more curious I get around things that I need to write about. Every blog post I write, makes me smarter. I have generally grown more curious on how the internet works, how SEO works, how SEM works.
As a blogger it helps to be curious. For example: I was writing an article in about money in the year 2014 and I stumbled upon something that I would have never heard of otherwise: BITCOIN.
Yes, it was through a need to write about money I was researching and speaking with my friends and I discovered this amazing topic of Bitcoin. And then started a wonderful journey of getting to know Bitcoin and Blockchain. And that interest has never stopped since that day. I have been through the rabbit hole of bitcoin and discovered things which I would not have known unless I had the curiosity to learn more.
Same thing with SEO. When I started blogging online, I knew nothing about SEO or SEM. But my curiosity drew me to learn about SEO. I am happy I did so. It helps me to this day to optimize my posts and articles I write online.
Being curious is the best mindset that you could gift yourself. And as a blogger this mindset will only help you.
Blogger Mindset #2: Willing to Learn
I love to learn new stuff. When you are naturally curious, you will yearn to learn more. Learning and keeping yourself updated with latest technologies will give you an edge over others.
If you are interested in a particular topic, let’s say, SEO, there are now various ways for you to learn these.
My learning process:
- Search online resources
- Sign up for a course online on the particular topic
- Deep dive with a combination of free and paid learning
- Write an article about it
- Present the topic to your followers
Continuous learning is the prerequisite to success in this age and time. The technologies are evolving everyday. If you do not keep yourself updated with the latest developments in your area of work, you will be outdated sooner.
A blogger needs to have a mindset of learning. There are so many changes to the blogging arena on a daily basis. SEO has drastically changed from 5 years. Email marketing has seen so many changes. The tactics, the strategies change often. But what should not change is your willingness to learn on a continuous basis.
Blogger Mindset #3: Willing to Fail and Rise Up
If you are thinking that you will start one blog and be successful, I would wake you up from your dream. There are one-hit wonders. I would call them extremely lucky. Blogging is not luck. Blogging is pure hard work and tenacity.
Before my first blog was popular, I failed at least 3 times!
And I rose up with each failure with more knowledge and more enthusiasm. As a blogger, you will face lot of challenges. And giving up will mean that you will no longer be able to taste the fruits.
Look at any top bloggers these days: Pat Flynn, Tim Ferriss, Darren Rowse. Everyone has failed many times. But the mindset they had was to rise up and seek the next challenge.
Blogger Mindset #4: Consistent Hardwork
Blogging is not an easy thing. If someone has told you that you can set up a blog and automate the stuff, RUN.
It used to be easy. But not anymore. The challenges are only steep. But blogging is the most effective medium to attain influence. Blogging has changed drastically in the past 5 years.
Gone are the days when you could keyword stuff your articles to launch them to the top of Google SERP. Blogging these days is consistent hard work. You have to get down to writing the article, creating the podcast, creating images and so on. It does not stop there. You then have to promote your blog on the social media, spread the word through email marketing. And all this does not guarantee success.
Success in blogging is when you solve the problems of people through your content. It took me several years of blogging to realize this. I used to write random articles previously. I had not clear goal.
But when I started writing articles to my audience, that’s when magic happens. Consistent Hard Work is the key here.
Blogger Mindset #5: Persistent Towards Mission
Every blogger needs to have a mission.
My mission is to help 10000 bloggers find success online.
Having started successful blogs, I realized that I could share my tips and tricks with writers and bloggers to help with their success. In my other blogs I had a clear mission on helping readers with up to date information in particular segments within the blog’s niche.
Persistence achieves goals. When you are consistent and persistent towards a certain goal, you will leave no stone unturned to achieve your goals. This not only works for blogging but also in other areas of your life.
Blogger Mindset #6: Entrepreneurship
Blogging is a serious business; not in the literal sense. If you treat your blog like a business, you will have success. Although blogging requires no full-time attention, you need to take it seriously and run it almost like a system, like a business.
You need to:
- Plan for the content
- Plan design
- Plan monetization
- Plan optimization
All these and other activities are not too straightforward and require your attention. Treat your blog like a business and the fruits will be enormous. When you have a well monetized blog, you will like the efforts you have put in and your efforts will be worth it.
Blogger Mindset #7: Creator
Blogger is creator. Blogger creates content which is useful for his/her audience. To date I have written more than 1000 articles on various blogs that I have created and as a guest blogger.
Creating value through information is what bloggers do. And you don’t have to be the best at it now. You will get there with sheer repetition. The goal is to be one of the experts in your are of blogging. This will only come with repetitive work and creation.
I am sometimes embarrassed to read my own articles. How could I be so naive? I ask myself sometimes.
But if you read my articles after the initial 3 years, I had improved a lot. Creating content is challenging and it is fun as well. Ask any blogger who creates content!
I find jot in creating content these days. And if my content I created helps someone, I am the happiest.
Blogger Mindset #8: Giver
At heart every blogger is a giver. Bloggers who give most of their content for free are the most successful. If you see the top bloggers I have mentioned above, most of them give away so much of their content for free.
Like in life, to be successful, you have to first be a giver. Giving is fundamental to blogging. As a blogger, you give your knowledge, time to create awesome content that is consumed by many.
When I started my blog initially, I did not know I could monetize my content. I was just writing without getting anything in return. Without earning anything from my blogs, I was so happy.
The day I learned about monetization, I was so much more happy and I started creating and giving away more content.
Be a giver and the world will give you back what is due to you in one way or the other.
Blogger Mindset #9: Patience
I kept the best for the last.
You know, your blog will take a long time to prove as a concept. It is not a physical commodity for you to sell in the marketplace and get instant feedback. Success with blogging takes time. I took at least 2 years to understand the basics of blogging by doing it continuously.
But you don’t have to take so long. But it does take patience. You have to put in initial work and wait to see whether you will be successful. There is not testing, although there are ways to validate your blog niche.
Like with all good things, patience is one of the best mindsets that you can have as a blogger. Be patient and success will be yours.
Many people think blogging is easy. Let me give you a rude shock. It is not.
The above blogger mindsets are a requirement for you to be a successful blogger. I can confidently say that because I have done these same things. And after more than 5 years as a blogger I am confident that if you have these mindsets, you will be successful.
May you be well, may you be happy.
Blogging is to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out loud.
Andrew Sullivan
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