Success and Failure in Writing Articles

When I saw yesterday morning that I had less than 800 page views to go until I reached 100,000 page views, I set myself a goal of trying to write articles yesterday that would get me there by the end of the day.

I struggled with what to write though, nothing in the news seemed quite right, and so I ended up writing an article about What To Write About.

I had also had some problems fitting new door handles in our bedroom on Sunday, due to the poor quality of the screws, and since I had managed to strip a few of the heads, I came up with a catchy title for an article called Head Stripper Frustrated Over Screw Quality.

Right, I thought, these two articles, plus a slideshow on Southsea just might do the trick.

To be certain, I wrote an article on my main blog, about trying to reach my goal, and some friends picked it up and ran with it, but alas I didn't quite get the 776 page views that I needed to pass the 100,000 mark, I fell short by just 37.

The good news is that one of my evergreen articles that gives me daily page views, might alone tip me over the limit, and then not only will I have 100,000 page views, I will be 50% of the way towards Clout 9, an important goal to reach here at Associated Content.

The good thing about doing well is that it spurs you on to try harder and to do even better.

It's also a good thing in some ways when you fall short of a target, as it also spurs you along to try harder and to make your next target.

Trouble is though, if things come too easy for you, the incentive to try harder isn't necessarily there.

Similarly, if things are too hard and success seems almost impossible, you are often likely to just give up.

Fortunately I am in a position where I am not quite meeting the targets that I set myself, but all the time I am learning more and getting a bit closer to that elusive knowledge that I seek, the secret of earning more money online, enough to allow us to visit my daughters in Florida, and to provide enough for us to live on when we finally retire.

As well as writing articles, I would really love to publish a book, but I haven't so far managed to come up with a story line. I think that I would have to write a fictional piece, but just haven't found the right topic, at least not something that I could write without having to do a lot of research.

A good friend of mine here on Associated Content, Michele Starkey, has suggested that I publish a coffee table book, as my photographs and slide shows on here are very popular.

I think that is a great idea, and I am looking into software to help create this, as well as the content. Unfortunately when I do look at the photographs that I want to include in the book, they come up woefully inadequate, with compositions that could do with a bit of tweaking here and there, like catching certain scenes at a different time of day, or with fewer people there.

It's definitely a nice idea though, and I think that a coffee table book, with nice photographs, some quotations and poetry, might just sell. Promoting it however will be a different matter, but I have to create it first.

The biggest enemy as always is time, and time management.

The second biggest enemy is inspiration, and being in the right mood to work on a particular task.

I personally find it easier to write in the mornings, either early morning when all is calm, or mid morning when I have sorted out what needs doing first thing, and am ready to put pen to paper, or in my case fingers to keyboard.

In the evenings, which is when I actually have more time to write, I more often than not feel drained, and sometimes even struggle to put a slideshow together, but that does help me to have daily articles, and also very often gives me ideas for written articles that are related to the images.

Right now though, I feel I am faced with a virtually impossible target.

I joined Associated Content in January, and every month my page views have increased dramatically. This month however, I haven't managed to publish any articles that have had a lot of traffic, at least not outside of Associated Content, and it has been a really frustrating month, filled with trying different types of article, and hoping to get a new audience in the wider world.

The only article that has really done well this month with over 5,000 page views, is one about the problems with actor Mel Gibson and the extraordinary affair with his girlfriend and some secret recordings.

Even my weekly Offbeat News articles are struggling to get 200 page views each, so I know these are not being picked up well by Google or Bing. I refined my keywords on these, but if anything it only made traffic worse. I will get there one day...

So July for me has been one of frustration, but it is summer time, and people are on vacation, so traffic is lower. Still, it's no reason to just sit back and do nothing.

I have therefore set myself some new targets for the next four days.

My first target is to try and get the same average daily page views that I did back in May. To achieve this, I need 1,500 page views a day, which is twice what I got yesterday. Gulp!

My second target is to beat the average daily page views that I had in June, but that would now require me to get 2,500 page views a day over the next four days.

Personally I think both of these targets are now impossible, but it would only take one highly successful article to make this happen.

I think the best thing to do, therefore, is to stop prattling on, since this article must now have reached three or four pages in length, and to see what I can write about that WILL get me some decent traffic.

Wish me luck...