It’s true. Starting a blog is quite easy, but maintaining a blog long term is what separates those who talk about success and those who attain it. I really enjoy sitting in front of the computer trying new software because I’m an idea guy. I like to take a new piece of software and think up what I could grow it into, or how I could use it for things it wasn’t intended for. I’ve spent marathon sessions in front of the computer setting up different sites because for the most part, it’s fun and it’s easy.

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The tough part is not spreading yourself too thin so you can update these sites regularly which is my Achilles heel. I like setting them up much more than I like updating them. Unfortunately, consistency is what counts. I’m sure we could come up with hundreds of analogies like the tortoise and the hare, or the power of compound interest, but whatever parallel you use, it’s all true. If you want to be successful, it’s not always going to be fun, even if your site is about something you truly enjoy.

This post stems from a simple theme change after only a hundred or so days with a different theme. I have spent the greater part of the last week updating each individual post by replacing an image with an ad, filling in seo friendly titles, keywords, and descriptions for each post that I’ve carefully researched using the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, tweaking image sizes, and slowly customizing each aspect of this new theme to be how I want it. I’ve learned an important tip from all of this work. Make sure you do it right the first time because you don’t want to have to update thousands of individual posts a year or two down the road.

When you put in the kind of hours I just did while also realizing you’re on a journey with an unknown future, it can fill you will a little bit of self doubt. I find myself wondering if I’ll be one of the few who can create a sustainable living from blogging. It’s not that I doubt my long term resolve, but I do notice a big difference between myself and those make money bloggers. I don’t know how to do what they do and I don’t pretend to know. They seldom talk about how they learned or what failures it took to figure it all out, but instead they simply tell us what to do to succeed.

I’m not second guessing their advice because they’ve attained such coveted financial success from blogging. I just realize that I’m not there yet. I’m not showing people how to make money, but instead I’m letting people watch me try along the way. It will be interesting to see where this leads to in a couple years time. I’ll either be financially independent and a believer that anyone can be taught the trade of profitable blogging by following in the footsteps of giants, or I will have learned a painful lesson that there’s something special in the DNA of those success stories that I am missing.