I've been hosting a blog for around 10 years that has some pretty decent success (in spite of my really infrequent posting). Yes, it is getting harder though I'

I've been hosting a blog for around 10 years that has some pretty decent success (in spite of my really infrequent posting). Yes, it is getting harder though I'm not really trying. The game has changed, and as so many others have posted the heyday of blogs is over. Only certain types of people really care about long form stuff anymore. Those people are hard to reach. So you have to define what success is for you. Is "success" for you: 1. A big audience? This will be a ton of work and is largely outside of your control. You'll have to be different from everyone else out there and get attention. Not impossible but it's a long uphill road. 2. A dedicated, loyal audience? This is something you can control. If you decide you want a smaller, but happy and loyal following, then start creating quality content specific to a niche group. When people find your site and find this treasure trove of articles they'll bookmark you. 3. Lots of money? If your goal is to make large profits you've got the biggest climb yet. Of course it's not impossible to build a blog in 2017 and make a lot of profit from it, but I personally wouldn't waste my time on such an endeavor. Anecdotal: at one time I made around $1000 a month from my blog, just from ads. Algorithms changed, the world changed, and in 2012 or so I was super steady at 1k per month. By 2015 I cut it off because I was making around $20 per month with the same ad networks, and... MORE traffic. Things change and you have to be ready for that. Finally here's something I've been telling bloggers for years. Spend the time on your content instead of spamming. The hours you spent posting links on social media, posting to Reddit, HN,lobste.rs etc is all time you could have spent creating more content. "Build it and they will come" is still valid in blogging. If you keep creating and pumping out quality content it will be hard to ignore it for long. But it's harder than ever.