Open Letter To New Mom Bloggers: The 9 Reasons Why You're Failing

There are 4 million mom bloggers in North America alone, but you know what? Most of them are failing.

And you're probably one of them. Not because I'm picking on you, but because statistically, the majority of moms who blog make little to no income from their blogs month after month.

When you consider the fact that many moms start blogging with the purpose of bringing in more money to their household, that paints a pretty sad picture.

If you're a new mom blogger that's struggling to grow your blog or turn a profit, I've got news for you: There's a reason for it. Or more accurately, there are 9 reasons.

These 9 roadblocks surface again and again with the mom bloggers I work with who are trying to grow their blog.

Let's call them out, one-by-one:

1. You waste time on things that don't matter

We've all done it. You sit down at your computer with the intention of getting productive work done, but instead get distracted by social media and tweaking your blog design to make it "perfect".

You're doing things that others have said you should do, but you know what you're not doing?

One single thing to help your blog grow or make money. You need to focus on things that will have a direct impact on the growth of your blog.

2. You don't have a work schedule

There's a notion that a lot of mom bloggers seem to be fond of, but that's actually working against you: blogging "during naptime".

After all, we're busy moms with no extra time to dedicate to our blog, right? Let's cram some work in while the kids are napping, or playing, or watching TV, or fill-in-the-blank. But that's a slippery slope, mama!

You know how frustrating it is when baby wakes up early from her nap or the boys come wailing to you to settle a fight. You get frustrated with them for "interrupting" you and you get frustrated with yourself for getting frustrated with them. Frustration all around. And you didn't even finish your post.

3. You don't have a blog growth plan

The ol' Field of Dreams mantra, "If you build it, they will come", is romantic and all, but it doesn't work for blogging.

You can write epic post after epic post, but if you don't have a solid plan to drive traffic to your blog, get email subscribers, and earn money, then your blog is going to be a ghost town with no readers, no comments and no profits.

You need to develop a detailed profit plan from the start, even if you don't have an audience yet.

4. You don't want to be "salesy" and think ads are going to make you rich

I get it. You don't want to come off as pushy or slimy or "salesy". Neither do I.

But throwing ads up in your sidebar with a hope and a prayer isn't going to cut it. Without a solid strategy for creating profitable content that helps your audience, your blog won't be making life-changing income any time soon.

You don't have to be a salesperson to run a profitable blog; in fact, most popular blogs don't feel "salesy" at all.

Think about your favorite blogs: does it feel like they're always trying to sell you something? Probably not.

5. You don't know who you want to serve

You started your blog because you had something to say. A message to share. Knowledge to bestow.

But who are you blogging for? Who, specifically, does your content serve? Who do you want to be a hero to?

Without identifying your target audience, you're trying to be all things to all people. And that means your content is going to feel impersonal and generic. Not helpful, not inspiring, and not profitable.

6. You don't know how to create shareable content

If you write a blog post without thinking about how it might help someone solve a problem or reach a goal, you've just created content that no one really cares about and that no one is going to share.

When you blog about you without framing it to benefit them (your audience), you're missing the mark.

7. You're trying to do it all at once

I see it all the time. You're trying to master Pinterest, and Twitter, and Periscope, and Facebook, and Instagram and the million other things that pull you in competing directions.

But in the wise words of Sweet Brown, "Ain't nobody got time for that".

And I get it. You hear about how great "x" thing is for driving traffic or getting email sign ups so you go after it. Your intentions are in the right place, but spreading yourself too thin is going to give you mediocre (or worse) results at a lot of things.

You need to get focused.

8. You haven't set specific goals

We've all heard advice about the power of goal-setting, so I won't beat this point into the ground. But I will ask you this:

Is your blog getting as much traffic or making as much money as you set out for 1 year ago?

If you can't answer with a definitive "yes" or "no", that means you haven't set specific goals for your blog. And that's the surest way for it to fail.

9. You haven't defined your "Why"

Why are you blogging? If you said, "To make money", or "To chronicle my journey" or something similarly generic, then you haven't delved deep enough into your specific motivation for why you started blogging in the first place.

And this is vitally important to the life of your blog. When things get hard, when you feel like giving up, when you doubt yourself, it's your WHY that will keep you going. Without it, you'll give up.

Take Action

You've already started a blog, and in a way, that's the hardest step.

Instead of complaining about things and then going on like normal, you took action to try and improve your life and the lives of those you love. Now, continue that momentum and take action again to identify and break through these roadblocks to bring your blog out of the ghost town and into purpose and profit.