Lack of Content Is a Lazy Excuse

Have you ever come across a blog whose latest, most recent post was published 1 month ago? 6 months ago? A year ago?

I have, several times, and it's sad.

It's sad because I know (like I'm sure most of you know too), just how much work it takes to get a blog up and running. And, once it's up and running, how much work, time and dedication it takes to maintain it. I'm almost 100% sure that all of you who have blogs now or are planning to start a blog soon do not have “stop blogging” marked at any point on your calendars.

So the question is: why do bloggers stop blogging?

Well, it may be for a number of different reasons:

1. Lack of time.
2. Lack of energy.
3. Lack of results.
4. Lack of content.
5. Moved on to bigger and better things.

I can only hope that #5 is the reason all of the blogs I've visited no longer produce content, but to really believe that would be erroneous.

A lack of time and energy I can understand.

Like I mentioned before, starting a blog is a big commitment, one that many people fail to realize exactly how much time and energy is required to care and nuture your blog until it grows into something awesome. Time is a constant and the number of hours in the day will never change, so that's why when time becomes an issue, it's the blog that gets put aside.

A lack of results I can understand too.

I really do believe that any struggling blog at any moment in time can make certain changes to eventually see results. However, I can understand how after a certain period of time, people may realize that what they're doing isn't really what they want to do. The “results” doesn't always have to be income or traffic, it can be happiness and comfort. And thus, they'll move on to the next project. I can respect that.

Lack of Content

I bolded this reason in the list above because this is the one that bothers me the most.

Why?

Because to me, it's a cop out excuse. A lazy excuse. You should never have nothing to write about. There is always content to be written, and there are a million and one ways to write it.

We just have to be smart about how we approach what we write.

Every idea about any topic can be approached a number of different angles, giving you virtually an unlimited amount of blog posts you can write about.

Let's take, for example, the topic of “house training your dog“. For those of you who don't know what house training means, it's basically teaching your pet to go potty in the correct spot (i.e. not on your carpet).

🙂

From this topic, we could obviously write a blog post entitled: How to House Train Your Dog. But, if you leave it at that you're missing out on several other blog posts that you could write about on the same topic:

• 5 Tips Everyone Should Know About House Training Your Dog
  
• The ONE Mistake that Most People Make When House Training Their Dog
• An Interview with Steve Slater, Professional Dog Trainer, About House Training
• Special Tricks to House Train an Older Dog
• Case Study: My House Training Success Story
• How to House Train a Golden Retriever (or Maltese, Chihuahua, Labrador, etc.)
• Ask the Readers: What Did You Do to House Train Your Dog?
• Use This Homemade Scent to Help House Train Your Puppy
• How 5 Experts Suggest Praising Your Dog During House Training

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. And it's not like they are all talking about the same thing, even though they are about the same topic. Spaced out over a long period of time, these posts could actually make a great series of posts, or maybe even an ebook too.

So if you're ever feeling like you're running out of information to write about, don't worry. You'll just have to take some time to think of the different approaches the topics that you're writing about or have already written.

For more about finding content to write about, I recommend checking out Glen Allsop's post about generating a year's worth of content in an hour. I'm sure he would agree with me when I say that “lack of content” is just a lazy excuse.

Have a good week everyone, and keep crushing it!