You are writing about the wrong topic & You are the wrong writer for the job.
Do you like reading articles on entrepreneurial success from cubicle workers? How about investment advice from school teachers? Medical advice from homemakers?
You probably saw articles like all of the above in one way or another, and you didn’t give a second glance to any of them.
This is not about deference to expertise and punditry. Some topics require a type of credibility that only comes with long periods of study and practice. You already know what those topics look like.
Write about what you know, or what you are so passionate about that you own the subject matter like no one else. Whether it’s the best type of whey protein to drink or the best prices on antique designer chaise, write about the actual things you spend your waking hours thinking and doing. The world is dying to hear what you know, and your are the best person to tell it.
You are writing when no one’s reading
A topic can be out of season. Or you can be publishing on the topic at the wrong time.
In an ideal world this wouldn’t happen. Your best content would be timeless and read based on merit.
In the real world people have limited attention. An important legal bill gets overshadowed by a celebrity arrest, an important message gets lost because the readers are asleep when you hit Send.
It’s life.
The latter part of the problem can be solved with good research on the consumption habits of your reader. We are about to launch our new feature that’ll tell you the best time to hit the Submit button, so stay tuned.
You haven’t done the work required.
To produce something highly original.
Original creative work comes from original physical and mental experience. Most people take themselves out of the original bracket, because they think by definition that rules most of us out.
The point is not to give up so easy. If you give it a real shot recalling moments of your life, you might be surprised at what you’d find – it may not be a ground shaking epiphany, but all of you do have completely unique incidences in your lives highly inspirational to you and others. Your story, the way you tell it, is just what we want you to tell.
Or, to uniquely plagiarize someone else.
So you are low on original idea bullets. That’s ok. Synthesizing the works of others, or representing their works from a different angle adds real value to the readers too.
The reality is most of us today are reading from the same pundits, same blogs and same news. It’s obvious when something is a straight rip-off from an article we literally scrolled through this morning. Don’t you find those a yawn-fest too?
You are trying to be someone else.
To be heard, you need a voice that another human being can trust and relate to. You understand this intuitively and definitely read this advice elsewhere. Most bloggers spend quite a bit of effort constructing a persona when they write.
Readers are expert at detecting fake personas though.
lie-detecting – it’s part of our evolutionary package that comes pre-loaded with all human brains, young or old.
Forget about sounding like an expert, or try to inflate your importance. Just write as you would when you are talking to someone you like. Simple.
Wrap up.
We all wonder from time to time why readers don’t buzz about our blog post that we put real work into, why sites with GIFs and lists get more traffic than blogs with real substance.
Pat yourself on the back for wanting to write real stories, and for not succumbing to the tyranny of shareable Cat Posts.
At the end of the day, we all have a voice inside of us that the world is dying to hear. Will you be trying to share it with the world today?
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What do you like to see when you read blogs? What are your best lessons learned from reading blogs and writing them?
Also: Choosing a Blog Topic That’s Guaranteed To Resonate with Your Readership