Darren at Problogger was asked a question about giving up on a blog – when do you know a blog’s not working out?
On A Secret to Profitable Blogging – Trending Up Over the Long Haul Darren says: “You see early in my blogging ‘career’ I was close to giving up on blogging as an income source because my blog only earned a few dollars a day. What kept me going was that while the numbers were not high – the percentage growth each month was an indication that there might be some potential reward if I keep at it.”
Watch Darren’s video, it’s very good.
Many bloggers go through a “my blog is cr*p” phase; it’s perfectly normal, so don’t feel that you’re alone, or that your blog really is cr*p. Chances are it’s fine, it’s just going through growing pains.
Here’s my advice if you’re wondering if a blog is a dud – start another blog.
Your “iffy” blog may be fine
I’ve got lots of blogs. 
I haven’t done a blog count lately, and if I did count them the total number would probably scare me, but I manage them all. Since I’ve got lots of blogs, I tend to start a blog, post to it intensively for a week or two, and then leave it alone for a while. Then I give the blog another burst of posts when I’ve got something to say on a particular topic.
The benefit of having lots of blogs, and not being overly concerned about any of them, is that the cream rises to the top. Some blogs take off, which is good, others don’t, which is fine by me too.
The first year is the hardest
Blogs are Web sites, and although they’re indexed faster than static sites, they suffer from the same “trust” issues as regular sites. So in a blog’s first year, Google won’t bestow a lot of trust, and if you’re in a competitive niche, you won’t appear in the search query results for popular keywords.
You can get around this using various techniques (like article marketing, press releases etc), but this is a lot of work, and you may or may not feel that it’s worth while. After all, you could work like a demon, and still be ignored for the first year.
Start another blog. Add the occasional post to the first blog.
By the time you’ve established blog # 2, the first one may be showing signs of life.
The benefit of starting another blog is that you may be pleasantly surprised, when your “dud” blog rises like a phoenix.
OTOH, if it doesn’t you’ve still got blog # 2.
Working on a blog is a much better option than getting depressed and feeling that blogging isn’t working for you.
BIG TIP: if your blog has earned $1, it can earn $100, and if it’s earned $100, it can earn $1000.
You really won’t know until you know, so in the meantime, keep blogging.
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