With more than 130 million blogs up and running, the challenge of breaking out of the pack to become a recognized authority blogger is not for the meek. One must be truly dedicated and committed to make money online.

Many blogs were started for the fun of it, a means of expressing whatever the owner decided they wanted to blog about. Many of these bloggers had no intention of making money online, but through their dedication and eventual popularity, have come to make really serious money online.

Others have from day one, set out to turn a profit. However, the vast majority of this group has failed to reach their goal. There are many contributing factors for these failures, but I will cover 20 MAJOR reasons for their demise.

1.   Lack of knowledge – Starting out on your own with no guidance and no real knowledge of how successful blogs reached their status is a recipe for failure. You simply will not last long enough to figure out all that you need to know to become a successful and profitable blogger. The lack of measurable progress will lead to an eventual lack of motivation, which leads to another abandoned website. You must seek out an educational source or mentor to keep you on a well developed and proven plan.

2.   Lack of focus – Without this key ingredient, you’ll struggle from day one. All of the knowledge in the world will not save you from yourself if you cannot master the art of focusing. Remove distractions from your environment when you are working on your content production or studying a lesson to enhance your skills. Set aside a set time period to blog and let your family members know that you are “working” and would prefer to not be disturbed. Be certain to follow-up exactly where you left off, jumping from subject to subject leaves you with many unfinished projects.

3.   Lack of valuable content – Without valuable content you will fail to attract or keep regular readers on your blog site. Your posts must provide something of value to your audience. Solve a problem, provide some helpful tips or educate the reader about the subject matter you have decided to present. Make your content easy to read. Long paragraphs are a turn-off, as people generally have short attention spans. Remember, it’s a blog post not a novel.

4.   Poor Blog Structure – As a new blogger, you must guard against the temptation to place too many bells and whistles on your site. It’s not a technology showcase. Plastering your blog with banners, widgets and counters only serve to distract your reader from the content you worked so hard to produce. These elements are to be strategically placed. Research the layout of the highly successful blogs as a guide.

5.   Poor theme selection - There are hundreds of blog themes available for usage (many free) and a big mistake is to choose one of the most popular themes available. Do you really want your blog to look like hundreds of others? The idea is to stand out from the crowd. If you have money to invest, have a theme customized or purchase one that serves your purpose without being in heavy circulation.

6.   Sporadic post schedule - People who visit your blog will come to expect something new on every visit. Try to post daily if at all possible, but minimally 3 times each week. Be aware that the frequency of new post you began with is what you need to maintain. Your visitors will not return to see the same post day after day, they will simply go elsewhere.

7.   Unrealistic expectations - Blogging is hard work, make no mistake. It’s a long-term project with a continual learning aspect. You will not write your way to riches in a few short months. The top bloggers have been dedicated to their craft for years, and you will have to do the same. Disillusionment may attempt to creep in occasionally but this is something you’ll have to work through.

8.   Lack of originality - It is a challenge to produce fresh content on a daily basis and sooner rather than later, you’ll find that you are covering the same topics as others, this is inevitable. What you cannot do is copy or otherwise produce the same content. Put your stamp on the subject by adding your personality to the content. Everyone does not have the same writing style, so let your particular brand of writing show through.

9.   Lack of RSS feed - Really simple syndication is a means by which you can receive blog content without actually visiting the website. You can read my article on the subject here. This is a critical tool for your blog because readers who subscribe via your RSS feed will be notified each time you have a new post, which is important for you traffic building efforts. You may subscribe for free updates to this blog here.

10. Lack of social interaction - No blog will run solo and draw readers, so it is important that you reach out and let people know what you and your blog are all about. Twitter and Facebook, to name but two, are places you need to join and network with others. Many opportunities may come your way as a result of this interaction with others.

11. No outbound links to other blogs - Often during the course of writing content, you will have to make reference to other sources of relevant information. When this occurs you should link to the source you are referencing, which provides a convenient 1-click maneuver for your reader if they choose to visit the other site. Share a little “link love” when appropriate.

12. Too broad of a focus – Your blog subject matter should be narrowed to a specific niche. Trying to cover a wide range of topics means that your readers have no idea what to expect when they visit your blog. Look at you blog as a specialty shop instead of a Walmart.

13. Promoting your blog too early – When you first launch your blog you are excited and may be tempted to tell the world to come see it. But come see what? If you only have a handful of articles and only post once or twice weekly, there is just not much there to see. Build up you content with a good number of articles (at least 30) before heavily advertising. When your traffic comes, you must have something of value for them to read.

14. No or few inbound links - Your blog should have a good number of inbound links from a variety of other sites. If you are going to make it on the “web”, you’ll need more than a single strand. This is why it is important to network and interact with other bloggers, even the ones in your niche that you see as competitors. No successful blog is an island.

15. Too much design time – Many new bloggers spend far too much time designing and window dressing their blogs. The actual content on your blog is much more important than all the pretty colors and fancy widgets. People want to learn something or obtain the ability to solve a problem, thing that bring value to their lives.

16. Failure to optimize for search engines - Search engine optimization (SEO) is very important, as it allows people searching the internet to find your site according to subjects that you write about. The goal is to have your blog ranked on the first page of Google or any other search engine. This can drive massive amounts of traffic to you site.

17. Inability to stay on topic - This can be one of the greatest turn-offs for any reader, as they will have no ideas what you are trying to convey. Switching from one topic to another comes across as aimlessly rambling on with no real purpose. Nothing can be more boring than this.

18. Lack of attention given to comments - When someone leaves a comment on your blog, they are telling you what their opinion is about what you have presented. Both negative and positive comments are very valuable and you should determine if what the reader has said has merit. This could help you make an adjustment that may pay off later.

19. Failure to check spam comments - Many blogs have plugins that pick off what they consider to be spam. In fact, it is a must that you employ one of these tools. The mistake that many bloggers make is assuming that every comment picked off by the plugin is really spam. Much like your email, mistakes are made and there could be something of real value placed in the folder. Check that comments spam folder and unspam legitimate comments. I have often found positive comments comingled with the spam.

20. Failure to pay any attention to the above - Okay, I cheated on the 20^th reason, but you get the idea. In reality, there are a couple hundred reasons why most bloggers fail to make money, including the selection of your products.

Let’s be clear, if you don’t have the basic fundamentals down you are doomed to failure from day one. This is a tough business to begin with and you will need every advantage you can find to become successful. Just be patient and observe good blogging practices, as someday you will suddenly be surprised when things start to become more favorable for you and your efforts.

Now I have taken enough of your time for now, get back to your blog and continue the journey that will surely reward you in time.

Happy blogging!