Bloggers at any level of their experience, feel that what they are doing is the right thing and there are minimal mistakes they are committing, and if any, they could be ignored. Having such a mindset itself is one of the mistakes that every blogger does. You are a learner from the first day to the last in your Blogging career. Words and paragraphs don’t flow out of your mind into the keyboard with perfection all the time. And it isn’t a particular blog post am talking about, but the entire blog where each and every aspect including the design, the conversations, which all hold equal importance.
In keeping a check on what all steps followed would be advantageous for the blog, many bloggers ignore what all mistakes are being done and the latter one would question the quality of the blog. One shouldn’t feel low or discouraged if someone points out the mistakes they make, because Bloggers are humans and are bound to make mistakes, but a few blunders, if kept a check on, could be avoided and would make the readers feel that it is a valuable resource they have reached to spend some time reading.
Here are the few Blogging Blunders that a blogger commits usually, and should try to avoid:
1. Lack of promotion, focusing just on content
You are not famous from the first day itself. Every basic step has to be taken to make the blog noticed by the readers, and the promotion has to be done for a blog to be run with good reader base and conversations. If you aren’t promoting your blog and the posts, and are just relying on the good content for visitors to flow in automatically, you are making a big mistake. You can use Social Networking and Bookmarking for Blog Promotion.
2. No check on Typos and grammar
Make yourself a reader and think for moment whether you would be reading any content which has got grammatical mistakes and typing errors. You surely won’t be liking it that way. Feel the same way for your readers, and so have your content neat and free from grammatical errors. The trust on the quality increases with the reduction of errors in the article. Always allocate some time to proofread your blog posts.
3. Re-writes are not always loved
This is the case we have seen many a times with bloggers. A couple of news rewritten might gain some instant popularity, but the bloggers make it a trend to start rewriting all the best written material from the other blogs. This leads to saturation, and is not always suggested. Try to research on the topic you are writing, so that what you write “stands high” well above the others. Try to produce more creative quality content instead of reinventing the wheel.
4. Blogging for money, not passion
Earning money would be a passion for anyone, either that would be a blogger, a freelancer or a webmaster. Making money has got hundreds of ways, but when someone thinks to blog only for Money, the main passion for Blogging isn’t there and this always would restrict you from being open-minded, which would have been a totally different case otherwise. When you are Blogging with a passion of writing and expressing yourself, the response and appreciation is totally different.
5. Starting with a niche, generalizing later on
Sticking to a particular niche when you have opened it for the same purpose, requires some guts and determination because many a times a single niche won’t bring in much traffic initially and the blogger would be motivating himself to write about the niches which are totally different, just to bring in more readers. There isn’t an ethic to follow that a particular niche is to be stuck upon, but the current return visitors of your blog would never like it when they get to read something entirely different than the regular trend on the blog. Imagine yourself finding a story about football on a health blog, that’s what your readers might feel too. Choose a perfect niche for your blog before starting your blog.
6. Images speak a thousand words, don’t forget to include one
Images are a style adding factor to the content. Content is a substance that people would read to gain the information, but to make the same interesting and stylish, and keep the users interested for more, the Images play a main role. You are jolting down thousands of words writing about something really important, but without any images, most of the readers would ignore more than half of the content just wondering how boring it would be to go from A to Z of the entire page. There are several reasons to have images on your blog and you can get copyright and royalty free images easily.
7. Comment on other blogs, but stick to the niche
Commenting on other blogs to attract new visitors and blogger friends is one of the best tricks around, but if you have an intention of just keep commenting and not have a control on where you are doing that, it would hurt the blog’s ranking, firstly for sometimes landing into those blog pages where there are hundreds of outbound links already, and secondly because you aren’t sticking to the similar niche. We always see many bloggers commenting on .edu blogs which are related to education, and the blog they are promoting in these edu blogs are related to technology. This doesn’t hold any advantage, but can go the negative way sometimes. By doing these you can become a hero on blog commenting.
8. Decision on choosing Blog Platform and Design
Don’t go with the trend. It’s good to take suggestions and ask people which Blogging platform would be holding an advantage over the other, but the end decision has to be taken by you. The Blogger platform is simple, has limited options and is the best for Amateurs, and just because the probloggers use WordPress, you shouldn’t use the same if you have no knowledge of how to customize the design or make changes in the blog. You could make irreversible blunders which might want you to start from the scratch.
Some useful posts related to this:
- Blogger vs WordPress – Reasons Why You Must Choose Blogger
- Which Suits You Better? Blogger or WordPress?
- Which Blogging Platform Is Best For You?
9. Accept criticism and learn from it
Not everyone has the same mindset. Each blogger and reader has their own aggression and politeness, but you should keep in mind to accept the criticism from those who don’t like the way you express yourself. Try to explain, rather than bashing back at them trying to defend yourself. Doing the latter would end up making you lose your potential readers, who sometimes had an intention to teach you but in their own way.
There are several other blunders which bloggers easily make, and I might be doing the same in this post but we are all learners. Trying to maintain a standard style of writing would help, rather than showing aggression and being too polite at times. Copying or Plagiarizing content is what many newbie bloggers do, just to fill up their blogs being confident that the readers would not find who is the original author, but if this becomes a habit, the blogger would never learn how to write on their own. Write, make mistakes, listen to the commentators and learn from it. Nothing else can make you a better blogger.
awesome post!!
yes it is right earning money would be passion for anyone,either that would be a blogger ,freelancer or a webmaster.
Thanks.
I agree with all the points you have mention , particularly with niche point you have mention. changing niche after lack of success in short term is the worst mistake anyone could do
Hey great stuff! I must admit though I’ve been guilty of doing a couple points you’ve raised.
Hello Chetan
You have mentioned some great points. I have a doubt regarding point no 7. You have said Comment on other blogs, but stick to the niche. Does that rally matter? I was unaware of this fact actually. Can you please tell how will this affect? My next doubt is that you have mentioned re writing is not good, now if rewriting is not liked, then what about the spun articles? why do clients order spin articles?
Sanjib
Hi Saha, here are my views,
1. Even for both traffic and link building, if you stick to the niche you can get more benefits mate. If you get backlinks from the same niche as your blog then it will be essential. You can also find people with similar views and improve your blog readership.
2. Article Spinning is quite popular but not encouraged mate. Clients order because they expect the same concept but slightly different perspective on the topic.
Cheers. 🙂
awesome post dude…..really u mention massive points which can be ignored by any blogger
I like the point that we should blog as a passion but not for money. Money will be generated automatically one day. Great post.
These are cool tips. Wish everyone who is going to try their hand in blogging would read them before they actually get started. The bloggers should really try to find a niche by doing some research rather then just jumping and writing the first thing that came to their mind. I also agree photos would add a little glamour to the site so thumbs up for that advice.
It is true that visual stimulation is very important. However, it is pretty hard to find nice pictures that attract people in a way that they consider reading the blog… We are bombarded with messages, ads, signs in our every day lives. Content comes from the mind, but there are no easy ways to find pictures that help both the blog and the website in terms of branding. I know 2-3 people who re-write posts and are extremely talented and successful, because they put the emphasis on beautiful images. As you said, images speak a thousand words…
Chetan, a very strong write up you got there. This has to be one of the articles that a newbie blogger should look at ! Nowadays most of the new bloggers actually do not have the passion of blogging rather to earn money ! That’s what I think. With so many great blogs earning lump of money, it automatically sends a message to all that if you start blogging, you will earn money. But that is not the case. It does take time and effort to build up a blog and reach that level !
well written post
Glad to see you here Chetan Bhawani , Nice to see your guest post here . Tips was explined very well , keep writing 🙂
Its a good advice hope people follow it. Its very irritating to read blogs which have no substance and even more annoying when there are errors in it. That’s why its right to say one needs passion to do this work. All the points are important in order to write great blog. These are the general rules and one must try to avoid these types of blunders if they want to be taken seriously in this stream.
I think every blogger should write for their readers with such a language that they can understand. And if any reader suggests him some ways to develop his blog then he should accept it.
Some really nice points, I think it’s always important to choose your niche first only then you would be able to give full effort for its success.
I think you missed out on a valuable point: The importance of intro/summary paragraphs. It kind of ties in to points 1 (thinking that people will read the whole post) and 2 (using paragraph format), but it was never mentioned outright. The intro paragraph is absolutely critical to piquing readers’ interest in the rest of the post. If I can’t figure out what message you’re trying to deliver in the first 30 seconds, there’s no way I’m going to invest the next few minutes of my time reading through the article when I don’t even know if it’s interesting or will help me or whatever I’m looking to gain.
From my opinion these two things put much importance in blogging :-
1. No check on Typos and grammar : Every newbie blogger should check grammar for their content and this is so easy to do because many tools are available on google to check grammar and it would be not take much time for all this.
Blogging for money, not passion : No doubt in that this is nice platform to make money and many blogger make good money as well with blogging but in starting you shouldn’t think to make money with blogging other wise it could be prove costly for you.
The most common mistakes are wrong typos and grammar with missing edits. It’s a major no-no since content is very important in building your brand and Google loves unique and fresh content. Thanks for summing them all up.
During my early days in blogging, I use to write in general. Niche is something that has slipped through my knowledge. Also, I don’t promote my post too much. I only use social bookmarking sites and just pray that my post will be discovered by people. The reason why I am doing that is because 1. no or little number of blogs have the same topic as me. 2. I was using Blogspot that time. I believed that ranking is fast using that platform.
Now my question is, how do you do promotion if you only little blogs have the same topic as you?
If only little blogs have same topic as yours then there is a *good* chance that your post will be easily recognized mate. Just create a tempting *title* for your blog post and try to spread it in the community where people related to your *topic* belong. So visitors into readers, and you can get good number of returning visitors. Just do normal Social Promotion mate.
well written
i agree rewrites not well treated but re-thoughts can work out
Oh, this is a great guideline to follow, not only for new bloggers, but perhaps even for old timers like some of us. The thing that I hate the most with some bloggers is that they never check for typos and grammar mistakes. These errors make their blog posts difficult to read and understand!
But content is king Jasmine!!!