How to Stop Blogging (and Grow Your Business)

Blogging is a waste of time, effort, and money.

There, I said it.

And, in a nutshell, that’s why you should stop blogging.

I’m sure there are a lot of profitable blogging empires decked out to the nines in digital courses with affiliate partners that provide links for somewhat shameless promotion and ads that clutter a page up to the wazoo.

Those people won’t like what I’m going to say because it’s going to change your blogging trajectory and make your business grow.

To be quite honest, there are MANY bloggers out there who want you to start a blog (so they can profit). But, once you get started, set up a few posts, get Pinterest traffic, and create an email funnel, the support ends there.

I know firsthand that it can be challenging to continue to pump out content in the blogosphere not knowing if it will ever be read. 

I’ve been there.

I’ve also recovered.

Now, I’m writing this post to show you why quitting blogging might actually be the BEST thing for your business and its growth.

Say what?!

The Evolution of Blogging

Yeah, the boring stuff comes first, but it’s important to establish the foundation for what blogging is so you can understand why you shouldn’t be blogging.

If you’ve never explored the origins of blogging, pick up a dictionary and you’ll realize that “blog” is a portmanteau, or a combination of words (web + log).

I like to call this the diary stage of blogging.

The Diary Stage of Blogging

People are simply writing their thoughts, feelings, and emotions, almost as a cathartic expression and less because they think others will benefit from it. Remember, no one else reads your diary.

(Unless you’ve got a nosy mom.)

Eventually, blogging in that sense got corrupted. 

It’s why many people decide to stop blogging.

They’re not interested in what modern-day blogging looks like because it’s far from that.

The Modern-Day Stage of Blogging

Today, blogging has nothing to do with what YOU want to create. It’s all about your audience. In fact, you don’t have a business without your audience.

If you write content that you want to, chances are no one will read it because it isn’t Googleable. 

The essence of blogging has shifted so drastically over the years that it’s unsurprising many people who blog stop.

Just look at the people in the blogging heyday of 2008 and 2009. Many of them aren’t still around (but I have interviewed some that made the cut on my Scaling Succes Stories).

I even had an English professor in college start a blog on Buffy the Vampire Slayer back in the day that’s no longer been maintained.

If you want to succeed at blogging, you have to understand that it is first and foremost a long-term effort and you’ll constantly have to adapt in the process.

In this modern age, blogs are started with a business in mind. People want to become full-time bloggers.

What beginner bloggers may not understand is that they are sold on the premise of blogging without understanding what it takes to be a blogger.

Reasons Why People Stopped Blogging

To get a true sense of why people decide to quit blogging, I did that thing called journalism and actually asked people.

Here’s what they had to say!

Make sure you check out Kristie Hill’s video on the subject, too. Great stuff!

Being Overwhelmed, Stressed, and Burnt Out From a Crazy, Hectic Life

It turns out that a lot of bloggers stop because of how the blog is trying to control their life.

For Chhavi Agarwal of Mrs. Daaku Studio, she says she stopped blogging because she was overwhelmed with all that there was to learn. One day, she just quit.

There was so much to do and so little reward.

Blogging tends to be a labor of love for most, but for Cendu Param, after realizing what really went into blogging, she was just overwhelmed and felt it was just labor (without the love).

Blogging tends to impose a challenge for those that travel, too.

Craig Melton, the blogger behind KC Family Travel, said that while traveling, he was left with “very little time and space to accomplish any work.”

I personally think that keeping your momentum is one of the hardest things to do when blogging. 

Even though Aberto Gajano of Appetite for Investing scheduled posts for 3 months out, he lost pretty much all his traffic after he stopped maintaining social media and interacting with people.

For others, blogging just coincided at a bad time.

You know, that pesky full-time job?

Steve Clark of My Kitchen Serenity started his blog around the same time that he picked up a new full-time job. Unfortunately, he reports, the “full-time job was very time consuming and stressful.”

As one thing picks up, blogging tends to get left behind.

This was the case for Carol Lovett, author of Ditch The Wheat, who “couldn’t handle writing the cookbook and writing recipes for the blog.” After completing the book, she was so burned out that she intentionally took a year off.

Health Issues

Working crazy hours to get a blog on its feet reveals a lot about who you are inside.

It’s a constant battle between putting in the extra hours to get something done and trying to catch a few hours of sleep.

The Curious Frugal blogger, Suchot Sunday, said that she simply didn’t have those extra hours because of a health issue that came up.

Even though her mind still wanted to work on the blog, her body said nope. 

There have been times when I so wanted to write a post or design some graphics, but my body just said no when I tried to wake up at 5 A.M.

Some things just aren’t meant to be, in that respect.

For Rachel Clare Watts, of Planning Mindfully, she realized after blogging for so long that she had depression.

It was negatively affecting my work in general and made getting anything done impossible. I kept believing if I was pushing through and ignoring the symptoms, that I would get past this hurdle.

Speaking of getting over hurdles, Melissa Tumino of Think About Such Things stopped blogging because her father had an injury and then passed away shortly thereafter.

Every time she tried to write, she was just wrought with confusion and couldn’t produce anything.

But, she says the break was worth it and she’s now qualified for Mediavine and seen great growth.

Family Comes First

Blogging is a profession where I feel like there are way more females than males.

But, that presents its own problems as blogging may not provide enough money for those starting a family.

For Alicia Nicole of Soberish, she was newly pregnant and also (unexpectedly) newly sober.

In 2017, she quit because “the emotional rollercoaster of both made her ill-equipped to handle getting a blog off the ground.”

My heart wasn’t in it.

Even though Amanda Ramkissoon of The Frugal Mom Guide was already starting to make money from her blog, she got a job as a high school teacher and found out she was pregnant again.

In her words, “I really did try to keep up with everything, but my blog took the back burner and I ended up quitting.”

Blogging when you have a family is no easy feat. 

Brooke Weiss, of Simply Well Family, felt a sense of disappointment in herself when she “wasn’t organized enough to find the time to continue putting in the work” for her new blog of a few months.

She was pregnant with her older children home for the summer and she just couldn’t make it work.

We’ve already established that blogging takes an exorbitant amount of time and for Derek Semmler, of Divvy Dad, it came at the cost of time with his wife and kids.

He reports that the few thousand he earned just wasn’t worth it.

Ter BelizeGal of Kale and Kombucha was dealing with a transition from Texas to Kansas and putting her kid in school. She simply put her family’s needs before hers and let her blog fall off the grid for a little bit.

Not Making Enough Money

Some newer bloggers buy into these education programs with grandiose promises.

Luckily, I was not one of them, but income was not quick to come to my wallet from blogging.

It appears as though I’m not the only one.

Melissa Stephenson of Flea Market Flipper says that “5 months into this blogging journey (beginning of 2016), we weren’t making any money, so we stopped.”

She even admits openly that her blog wasn’t any good and that she shouldn’t have made any money. 

But, she did go down the rabbit hole of blogging because of a good friend that made $1M in her first 13 months.

I’m pretty sure our expectations were a little unrealistic.

Amy Kemmer of The Multi-Tasking Mom Life agrees.

She thinks she was a little naive as far as what it would take to make money blogging. 

With a full-time job, another side gig, and two busy kids, time is very precious for her. And, she “couldn’t justify the huge amount of time she was putting into it with no financial return.”

Pearl from Charm of Gifts saw all those blogging gurus post about how they made thousands per month and she felt disheartened and thought she was a failure when her blog didn’t make that kind of money.

When Brianne Bell of Frugal Minimalist Kitchen realized it was going to take a lot longer to make an income with blogging than she thought, she put it aside and focused on getting a real job (you know, other than blogging).

But, that didn’t help her as much as she thought because job hunting can be quite the soul-sucking pastime.

Stagnant Growth

If blogging had a definitive roadmap to success, everyone would be doing it.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.

It can be hard to keep blogging when you just don’t see any growth. 

Amanda Grossman of Frugal Confessions said that her growth was stagnant.

She then corrected herself to say that was an understatement.

I was losing traffic over the years, not gaining.

She had no direction to follow and couldn’t figure out how to rebrand.

Even though Charlene Hess, Hess Un-Academy actively posted, it became obvious to her that the “if you build it, they will come” concept was a bust. So she abandoned it.

If you’ve reached a plateau, you may not want to quit blogging, though as it can be harder to come back, Victoria of Blog Ambitious reports.

She recommends posting once a month and staying on Pinterest to stay in maintenance mode.

Bob Haegele of The Frugal Fellow thought it was better to just close shop. He was in a niche that he thought wouldn’t drive any traffic, no matter how hard he tried.

The Blogging for Business Mindset

As mentioned in the evolution of blogging section, blogging for yourself rarely exists anymore.

It’s evolved.

It’s changed into blogging for the sake of building a business. You know, content marketing at work.

Isabella Biava of Boundless Roads wasn’t fully on board with that idea. She stopped wanting her blog to become a business and only left a few affiliations and ads.

She’s happy with her decision, especially when she travels.

Kyle Kroeger of Financial Wolves did just the opposite. He went all-in.

He had a revelation that a blog needs to be viewed as a business and that if he was going to make it successful, he needed to step things up. While grateful for the outcome, he quit on his first blog as he didn’t post for a month.

I like to think of blogging as being formulaic. 

Fernando Doglio of My Writing Corner didn’t get that formula for business blogging, or in his words, the science of blogging. After multiple failed software blogs, he’s putting his best foot forward and thinks it’s his best effort.

Didn’t Enjoy Blogging

After 4 years in college graduating with multiple degrees, I realized that I didn’t enjoy that chosen career path.

The same exists for blogging.

Some people don’t enjoy it as much as they thought they would. Or, they’re not enjoying it because of setbacks or hardships.

Jade MacRury of Live A Blissful Life said that she has two failed blogs before her current one. She would write once or twice and then give up.

She didn’t enjoy blogging because all the technical details bogged her down. Now that she’s taken some coding classes, she feels more confident about those aspects and is enjoying blogging more.

Sometimes, your blog starts becoming a chore; you feel like you have to put in the time, but you don’t want to.

Jody Grayston of Jody in Technicolor stopped blogging because she hadn’t found her voice and it had become a chore.

Making everything perfect tends to be a recurring issue. Deborah Madill of The Cave Mom was trying to do that and in the process, she started chasing topics that just felt inauthentic to what her mission was.

She, too, found that she enjoyed blogging less because of it.

Also, bloggers themselves change over time.

Valentina Batrac of The Female Business started her blog when she was 12. Five years later, she wasn’t the same person and didn’t relate to the fashion topics she originally discussed.

Now, she’s started a new blog because she missed blogging. 

Many bloggers feel very content in their small bubble, but when they look at bigger bloggers, they get very intimidated.

Being surrounded by her competition, Klara Donovan of Her Happy Heart copied tactics other bloggers used and failed miserably. Now, she’s doing things her way and finding success.

Why I Quit Blogging

When I originally conceptualized this article, I was just going to write this part.

I wanted it to be my story.

But, I realized that in presenting ONLY my story, I was doing you, my lovely reader, such a disservice. It was providing an incomplete picture on blogging and I didn’t want to do that.

These are my (slightly) unfiltered thoughts on why I stopped blogging and quit for months on end.

The Wrong Niche

A lot of people say that you should blog about what you can endlessly talk about.

Well, for me, that was career advice from the perspective of a college student going out there and getting his dream job.

The only issue is that I didn’t personally care for the niche. 

My advice was sound. That wasn’t an issue.

It just felt contrived and it felt like it was something that other people were pressuring me into. So much so that when I launched in November 2017, I didn’t actually get a post up until August or September of 2018.

I formally launched on my birthday in late September (with a whopping TWO posts and a quiz). But, hey, that quiz performs the best for me out of any post on my site.

The topics just didn’t flow out of me like they do on this site.

I just had no desire to continue down that path. There was SO much resistance. 

I think a lot of people look at something that’s not making any money — and mine definitely wasn’t — and think that it’s a reflection of them.

It’s the same story with me.

I was investing all this money from my part-time campus dining job into the blog and had nothing to show for it. And, this was something I wanted to do full-time after graduation.

The cherry on top of being in the wrong niche was that I was making false claims. 

I alleged that I would be able to help people land their dream job.

So, back in September, when I applied for my dream job at Marriott International for their manager-in-training program, suffice to say that my concept was entirely shot when they rejected me after the second stage of the interviewing process.

Not Enough Time

When I started my blog, I was very busy (as most people are).

I was a:

• Full-time college student at Johnson & Wales University
• Part-time employee for campus dining
• Officer of the largest club on campus

I just didn’t have the time for blogging. 

I didn’t have time to create content. No time to promote the little I could produce.

And, since I started off with the Genesis framework having no knowledge of coding, I had to spend HOURS just to accomplish a color change with CSS.

Needless to say, it was a very exhausting process with no end.

Thankfully, I have Grayson Bell to manage the tech side of things, but it wasn’t always like that.

I’ve learned that batching tasks has helped me with managing my time, but not having any time really made me think about quitting blogging.

No Direct ROI

As a new blogger, it can take MONTHS to gain traction.

Even longer if you’re only focused on Google and don’t use Pinterest.

So, when you don’t have time like me to produce content, you don’t get any traffic.

Without traffic, I was getting no return on my investment of time and money.

It can be a very vicious cycle. 

But, what I learned throughout this process was that I enjoyed freelancing.

And, with freelancing, there’s a very clear ROI on the tasks that you perform. You get compensated for them.

If someone paid me for all the blogging tasks I did, I might have not been as quick to quit blogging.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen until you have the traffic and have implemented monetization strategies that have proven themselves.

Now that I’ve seen some significant ROI from freelancing and my business as a whole is making money, I’m putting more resources into resurrecting my blog.

I’m happy to report that it’s going well. 

My Google traffic has more than quadrupled since February when I started my interview series and my Pinterest traffic has been doubling in recent months.

I’m also starting to make affiliate income — PASSIVELY.

And, I’m doing this full-time 🙂

The Scarcity Mindset

I’ve been following Natalie Bacon for some time now and I love what she has to say about the scarcity vs. abundant mindset.

It’s so true.

I quit blogging because I didn’t think there was room for me.

I saw established blogs in my field and didn’t believe that I could compete with them. 

Sure, the geeky strategist in me could concoct a plan to rival them and build a better mousetrap, but I wasn’t compelled to take action.

I also thought that if I put myself out more, I’d get scrutinized.

If you had a fake headline like me, you would’ve been concerned, too.

Honestly, I think what brought me back to blogging and online business was freelancing.

I began to realize that even though there were a lot of freelancers doing what I was doing, I was still getting clients and making the bills rain.

Making moolah can be quite the persuader.

What also makes me feel better and abundant is the niche that I’ve arrived on.

It’s unsaturated and that gives me a lot of room to grow and establish myself as an expert.

I don’t have to compare myself to the competition because there aren’t many people with my unique point of view and mission. 

Mindset is such an important part of online business.

Bloggers That Have Found Success After Quitting

You should know right now that there ARE successful bloggers that have quit.

It’s part of the process.

Most businesses fail, especially when the business owner doesn’t have any prior experience.

But, some people learn how to overcome that obstacle. 

Melissa Stephenson is now a full-time blogger making $10k per month. Amanda Grossman was able to complete her site audit, get great Google traffic, start a new site, and no longer produce any useless content. Chhavi Agarwal is monetizing quite well now through affiliate marketing.

Ben Adler of Affiliate Niche Builders has now grown a Facebook group to over 2200 members and launched digital courses after taking a year away from his niche site to try a new business venture which failed.

Alex Nerney and Lauren McManus have swept the failure of Health and Happy Hour behind them and went on to gross $103,457.98 from their health and fitness blog Avocadu in its first year and now make 7-figures between that blog and Create and Go.

Cheryl Bennett of Crochet 365 Knit Too had four failed blogs before she started her current one because of topics she wasn’t passionate about anymore.

Despite the criticism that she couldn’t monetize the crocheting space when all people were searching for was free patterns, she’s built up great advertising and affiliate marketing revenue.

In the process of finding success, you have to take a step back and realize what’s changed in an everchanging blogging environment. 

Rediscovering What Blogging is

Jaime Gibbs from Bubbling Brook Budgets quit blogging for four years. After she came back, she realized that “blogging had evolved into a whole new world” and that it took her a long time to learn how to navigate it again.

She regrets stepping away because of the learning curve.

That’s why Amanda Satawa of Momma Ever After advises against being inactive.

You’re just taking 100 steps backward.

It’s a reality that professional blogger Lena Gott of What Mommy Does has had to adjust to. After quitting three times for over 6+ months at a time during her first four years of blogging, she was able to “build up a nice base of content and earn a little bit of income on autopilot.”

Now that she’s taking it seriously, she’s no longer in maintenance mode, but the hardest part about quitting, she says, is coming back and learning the new trends.

How to Grow Without Constantly Blogging

At a point in your blogging career, you don’t always need to add fuel to the fire.

Take it from Debbie Gartner, whose flooring blog gets over 500,000 pageviews each month. She says that not adding new content has helped her SEO growth.

As articles mature in Google’s index, they have more of a likelihood of ranking. So, if you produce great content, then the same thing might happen to you. 

Not having to produce content allows Debbie to concentrate her efforts on another blog she acquired, Healthy Savvy and Wise, which does need the attention her other blog has gotten for many years.

Bryce Mattheson of Sane Cents has switched to produce a different kind of content. He’s ditched blogging in favor of YouTube and finds that there’s more growth there than when he was blogging.

Caitlin Nicole Atterberry of The Flaneur Co deleted a lot of off-topic articles, which, in turn, clarified her focus and allowed her to have a more niched site.

You know the expression…Niches make riches.

And, revisiting Rachel Clare Watts, while she was dealing with her depression, she found herself also growing.

Because she took the time to set up systems beforehand, she was able to still grow her email list, increase Google traffic, and get organic Pinterest traffic.

Blogging should serve a purpose; it shouldn’t just be an assembly of words to illustrate a topic.

Why You Should Stop Blogging (For Business Growth Purposes)

First off, I’m going to go Mythbusters on the blogosphere for a hot second.

It is a myth that you need to have a blog to succeed in online business.

There are plenty of successful business models that don’t require a blog.

In fact, a blog itself isn’t a business model. 

It’s a vehicle for executing other models (affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, display advertising).

And, there are highly profitable businesses out there without a blog. They utilize paid ads to position themselves in front of their target market and use crafted landing pages and email sequences to convert them into students.

I say all this for you to understand that blogging isn’t the full picture.

But, here’s what is.

The Benefits of Stopping Your Blog (Even Temporarily)

When you stop blogging, you…

1. Gain clarity on your current business model and its effectiveness
2. Create an action plan and strategy for when you come back
3. Focus on other areas in your business (that can actually make you more money than blogging)
4. Come back to blogging with renewed energy
5. Let search engines rank you (even without new content)
6. Enjoy your personal life (which will later help your business when you decide to invest more effort)
7. Save expenses and become a more lean entrepreneur
8. Determine if your niche has the potential for long-term success

But, before you quit blogging instantly, take the time to set up systems so you can come back and not feel entirely behind.

Remember that blogging is a marathon, not a sprint. 

As Cindy Wells Muir from Destress This Mess says, “I know nothing and am just working my way from the ground up.”

We learn over time and adapt ourselves accordingly.

But, if you’re deadset on stopping your blog for good, the next section is for you.

When You Should Stop Your Blog

First off, there’s no definitive time to stop.

It’s your decision and yours only.

That being said, there are some indicators of a failed blog.

Here they are:

• You’ve tried to monetize unsuccessfully: this means there’s a disconnect between what you’re blogging about and what your audience is interested in; you can either scrap it or attempt to correct the course
• You’ve run out of content to produce: if you choose a super-duper small niche, you may find that you have nothing else to say; your options are either niching up (instead of niching down) or repurposing your content with a broader site
• You don’t want to discuss the topic anymore: if you choose a topic you’re not passionate about or don’t have an interest in, then you won’t make it long-term; your options are rebranding it to something new or trying to sell the blog to someone who is interested
• You don’t want to turn it into a business: if you’ve convinced yourself that you only want to blog for fun, get rid of the software and other expenses and blog for fun; or, if that’s too much effort, just let it expire and pursue another creative outlet
• You’ve monetized successfully in other ways: freelancing doesn’t really require me to maintain a blog, but I choose to have one that complements my freelancing specialty; you could totally ditch the blog, though, if you’ve found another vehicle to monetize
• You haven’t gotten traffic, like ever, and don’t think you will: if traffic just doesn’t waltz its way into your Google Analytics account and you’re actively pursuing it, you may not have a winning concept; besides giving up, you could try different ways to get traffic

If you have any other reasons (or why you quit blogging), let me know in the comments below!

Conclusion

I know that this was a VERY long article, so let me take the time to repeat some key points.

Blogging has evolved quite a bit.

From blogs functioning like diaries to the modern-day business application, you need to adapt with the times to succeed at blogging.

The most common reasons why people stopped blogging are:

1. Being overwhelmed, stressed, and burnt out from a crazy, hectic life
2. Health issues
3. Family coming first
4. Not making enough money
5. Stagnant growth
6. The blogging for business mindset
7. Didn’t enjoy blogging

I quit blogging because of:

1. The wrong niche
2. Not enough time
3. No direct ROI
4. The scarcity mindset

We also discussed how you can continue to grow, even when you’re not blogging

Finally, we touched upon the benefits of stopping your blog, even temporarily, and when the ideal time is to pull the plug. 

If you’ve quit blogging and I haven’t mentioned why you did it, feel free to let me know in the comments.

I want this post to expose the truth behind blogging as many people come into it with rose-colored glasses and don’t know if blogging isn’t serving them right or they’re screwing up.

If you’re struggling, I’m here to support you and build you up into the best blogger you can be.

Cheers to future success!