There is a lot written and said about blogging but somehow not so much on blogging mistakes. Blogging is supposed to be easy, simple and fun isn’t it? You punch your thoughts into the keyborad and hit ‘publish’ It is supposed to be that simple. (Image credit: Flickr)
Unfortunately some common blogging mistakes are made which make getting readers much more difficult than it needs to be. Hopefully this guide will highlight some of those mistakes and point you in the direction of the acquiring more of an audience.
MISTAKE 1: RELYING ON A SEARCH ENGINE
Common blogging mistakes include putting too much focus on keywords in the hope that your blog will be easy to find. Search engine rankings are not based solely on keyword searches. Keywords are only a very small part of how search engines work. The most important factor is links from trusted sources. The more links you have the higher your ranking will be. In the end search engines are not going to help a beginner blogger.
MISTAKE 2: THINKING VALUABLE CONTENT IS ENOUGH
The idea ‘Build it and they will come’ may work in the movies but in blogging it does not work.
Yes great content is vital, yes you should help people and yes you need to be a little patient, however if that is where you stop you will have ‘the greatest site no one has ever heard of’ The internet has so many ‘voices’ valuable information is missed all the time.
MISTAKE 3: TELLING YOUR LIFE STORY
People don’t tend to want to read about other peoples lives unless it involves near-death experiences, explosions, nudity or making millions of dollars. Also you need to be a great story teller which in itself is often a difficult skill to master.
Bottom line don’t count on your blog to pull your blog out of obscurity.
MISTAKE 4: WASTING TIME REDESIGNING YOUR BLOG
Many people ask blog reviewers ‘so…. how is my design?’ Thinking someone will see your design and think you are a fool with no idea and leave will cause you to waste more time focusing on design that could be used to ensure you have quality content.
Most readers are oblivious to the design of a blog as long as the content is clear and legible.
Design is more important once you have some traffic and are trying to convert visitors to subscribers. A simple ‘wordpress’ design will do just fine to begin with.
MISTAKE 5: DAILY WRITING
The trouble with writing daily is it simply does not help increase new traffic it merely wears you out for limited exposure.
MISTAKE 6: SPLITTING YOUR FOCUS BETWEEN MULTIPLE SOCIAL MEDIA SITES AND YOU BLOG
This wont work because popular bloggers already have tens of thousands of followers and fans so when they share they have a massive audience waiting. When you are just beginning you only have a few fans and followers. This does not mean you cannot succeed. It just means that you can avoid these blogging mistakes by choosing one platform and working exclusively on that until you have a few thousand followers and then expand slowly.
MISTAKE 7: WAITING FOR TRAFFIC TO SNOWBALL
You need to be persistent, if you don’t see growth in a few months you need to look at making changes in your strategy. Don’t feel bad about ‘no one reading your blog’ Just keep going, it will eventually pay off.
What are other blogging mistakes that you find to be quite common? What challenges do you have with dealing with blogging mistakes? Let us know in the comments below.