You've spent the time to start your blog. You've written post after post after post. But one look at your analytics, and you can tell that no one is reading it. So what's the reason? There are over 100 million blogs out there, so standing out takes a lot of hard work and time to get noticed. While there may not be one
Your posts are too long and you don't use pictures - Perhaps it's just me, but with rare exception, you lose me after about 800 words. In actuality, it's 500, but I know there are not many who write that few. There are too many sites out there to visit, and people just don't have time to read Moby Dick when they'd rather be reading Dick and Jane. Also, if I hit a site and there are NO images, I almost always bounce off the page. By now you know how important images are, but if you don't—they're really important. Plus, they personalize your stories.
You use too many colors and fonts - Okay you creatives out there...I know you like the pretty pastel colors and swirly fonts, but give my eyes a break. It kinda falls into the first point I made...my eyes are pinging all over the place like a pinball. It's pretty but it's so, so distracting. I'm not saying go white and black all over, but choose a few key colors that flow and stick with them. Same for fonts. If I have to strain to read what you wrote, I'm out of there. On the flip side—don't have a site completely void of color, either.
You have too much "stuff" there - Speaking of pinballs, if your blog has buttons and banners and widgets and ads EVERYWHERE, my eye has no clue where to go first, but I can tell you where it's NOT going...to your posts. If you have to have all those things on your site, consider spreading them around and reserving the most important things for above the fold (the part of your site that you see when you first get to your site). Use your footers for things like tags, old posts, etc.
There is no flow to your content - This is why an editorial calendar is really important. If you don't have a plan when you sit and write your posts, it will eventually show. Remember the basics of writing that you learned in school—use an outline if necessary, but please have a beginning, a middle, and a closing.
Your title doesn't sing - I don't mean that literally, but many writers will tell you that they spend as much time coming up with a great title to their post as they do on the post itself. With all of those aforementioned millions of blogs out there, you have to do something to stand out, and the post title is critical. Some writers resort to post-baiting and while that's not my style, if it works for you—great.
You haven't built a tribe - I'm going to elaborate on this more in another post, but blogging can be a lot like singing to an empty opera house. But what if you were to go and visit other singers and listen to what songs they were singing? Do you think that maybe, just maybe they would visit your opera house and listen to you sing? Take time to actively communicate with other like-minded bloggers. Not only are you giving back, but it's a great way to discover new friends and content!
As you are finding out, there is NO place in social media where the adage "build it and they will come" is more appropriate and blogging is no different. If you don't actively participate and comment on other blogs, it will be very hard for your blog to be successful.
