Ever since blogging became established as a way to make a strong income about a decade ago, millions of blogs have been created, and billions of blog posts have been published. Despite all of the work bloggers put into their blogs, few bloggers are actually successful. The majority of bloggers are making under $1,000 every month, and that’s not enough money to live on. It is unfortunate to see many bloggers’ dreams go south when they give up.

Part of the problem is that bloggers want immediate results. They want the money right away. Most bloggers don’t want to wait a few years for the money to come. The other part of the problem is that success as a blogger is seen as a very complicated formula. It is seen as a formula with countless tools, tactics, and a little bit of luck. There are a variety of statistics on the web that cloud up what it means to have a successful blog. There are social media numbers, email list numbers, sales numbers, traffic numbers, and more.

In this sea of statistics and tools, there is a simple way to determine a blog’s success. This simple approach does not consist of dozens of components that all work together to produce a successful blog. On the contrary, this simple approach only involves two components. The journey to successful blogging becomes easier when you can narrow down success to two simple components.

The first component is blog traffic. How much traffic does your blog get, and what are you doing to get more traffic? You constantly need to be discovering new methods of getting more traffic. Don’t stop at 100 monthly views, 1,000 monthly views, 10,000 monthly views, or even 100,000 monthly views. Another thing to know is that your blog traffic can grow quicker than you may realize. In 2012, my blog got 32 visitors and 119 views. In 2013, the same blog got 8,183 visitors and 14,285 views. In 2014, the same blog got over 150,000 visitors and close to 250,000 views. I am not displaying those statistics to toot my horn. Instead, I am displaying these statistics to show you how possible it is to exponentially increase traffic in a relatively short period of time.

The second component is what visitors do once they go to your blog. Are your visitors subscribing and buying products? Do visitors read your content, like it, and then decide to come back? Your blog needs to provide a great experience for your readers and offer a way to grow the relationship between you and the reader (connect on social media, get the reader to subscribe, etc).

 

In Conclusion

Blogging success just comes down to those two components. Don’t make it more complicated than it has to be. There are methods to strengthen those two components. If you want more blog traffic, then SEO and social media will be very helpful. If you want to get your visitors to subscribe, then landing pages and pop-ups will be helpful. However, by narrowing down a blog’s success to two components, you will make is easier for yourself to focus on the priorities that will move your blog forward.

What are your thoughts about these two blogging components? Let us know in the comment section below.