To keep maintaining a good blog you have to stop looking at the success of other people and stop feeling sorry for yourself. Yes your blog might not be where the other blogs are but if you dont give up any blog can be a success. Blogging should not be out of force to make money but blogging should be fun even if you dont make money. The reason why I think most blogs fail is because they start for the wrong reasons.
Many times I used to look at bigger blogs and especially blogs in the top100 of technorati and think how the heck can I get my blog up there. But as I learned most of them started a long time ago and if they gave up half way, they would not be there.
Same for any blog. You see the big blogs but you forget about the 100’s of other blogs that started the same time as they did but who gave up on their blogs.
If you start a blog you should blog till you win. Otherwise you are waisting your time.
So even if you blog looks like its failing, keep on blogging and one day you will reach the place where you have one of those blogs you are looking up to now.