I started this blog site to give useful information to people wanting to make money online. Hard as I try not to, I still make basic blogging mistakes – time and again.
My biggest mistake is not posting to schedule. No matter how hard I try I just cannot post each week. My vow this day is to post at least once a week – let’s make it on Friday. Friday posts give you the weekend to put advice in motion. Along the way I’ll continue to repost guest items that are sure to help you develop a better Internet money-making approach.
Making amends my treat for you today is by Stephanie Norman, an an excellent writer and frequent guest blogger. You can follow her at Facebook and Google+. The following item first appeared on Marketing Insider Group.
Here’s Stephanie’s article:
Do You Want To Make Your Blog Successful? There Are 5 Mistakes You Need to Avoid.
The blogosphere is a noisy place. Blogs come and go all the time, so it’s difficult to determine a precise number when someone asks “how many blogs are there?” There is one thing we know for sure: that number is huge. You thought you would get noticed in this crowd by adopting a strategy “write the best content, publish it, and the right people will read it”? That’s your first mistake.
A blog needs outstanding promotion. There is one thing we need to understand: it’s not easy to find the right angle at the start. The trends of Internet marketing are constantly changing, so we have to adapt our blogging strategy if we want to survive. There are some mistakes that every blogger has made at one point or another. These are the factors that separate the successful bloggers from the ones who fail:
- They realize they are not as good as they thought they were.
- They recognize their mistakes.
- They abandon the counterproductive strategies.
- They find new, better ways to blog and promote their page.
Let’s start from the beginning of the journey that guides you towards success: realizing you’re not the best out there. If you’re not getting as many likes and shares you expected to get, then there is certainly some room for improvement.
Now, we can continue to the next stage: recognizing the mistakes. There are 5 mistakes that bloggers commonly make. If you find yourself in any of these descriptions, you need to abandon those strategies and change them with productive actions.
- Weak Headline and No Headings
You’ve surely noticed those clickbaits of headlines that are meant to intrigue the viewer to visit the website, but they have nothing to do with the actual content you see there? It’s time to get things straight once and for all: this trick does not work! If you want to frustrate the website visitors and make them unlike your pages on social media platforms, then go ahead and write headlines like “This Woman Saw a Black Cat on the Sideway. What Happened Next Will Blow Your Mind!”
It’s important to have a powerful and intriguing headline, but it has to grasp the whole essence of your post. You can ask a question and promise to provide a solution, but then you need to meet the expectations of your reader.
Don’t forget about headings when you’re writing a longer blog post. The piece needs some structure, so consider separating the text in few sections with separate headings to avoid publishing a huge chunk of text.
- Plagiarism
This is possibly the greatest sin in blogging. If you’re caught in plagiarism, your reputation will be diminished with the speed of light. It’s easy to get inspired by great content you see online, and you clearly want to cover the topics your audience showed interest in. However, there is a difference between getting inspired by influential bloggers and getting a little too inspired. You must never copy someone else’s ideas and you must never paraphrase, rewrite, or (God forbid) plagiarize a published piece of online content.
Sometimes you’re not even aware that you plagiarized content. You went through too many resources to get the information you needed, so it’s easy to forget to reference some of them. That’s why you need to collect all those sources in a single platform, and make sure to run each piece of text through a plagiarism checker.
- Rigid Writing
College professors have done great harm with all those academic writing projects, instructions, and expectations. Most people get used to that stiff, soulless form of expression, so they have to reinvent their style all over again when they start blogging.
Do you notice that you don’t usually address the reader directly when you write? That’s a serious mistake. Blogging is all about creating a bond between you and the reader. When someone reads the text, he should get the impression that you’re addressing them personally.
There is a simple rule that will make your style more relaxed, engaging, and comprehensive: write as you speak. Hopefully, you don’t use that academic language when you talk to your friends, so you’ll easily realize what you need to change.
- Elaborate Blog Posts
You understand a certain subject really well and you decide to write an epic post on it? You get carried away with the details, so you end up with an elaborate piece of text that’s over 6,000 words long? Do not serve that piece to your readers. You can’t expect them to think “okay, here is a true expert. He tried hard to write this text and he knows a lot of stuff, so I’ll spend the next few hours reading it.” No; they will scroll through the page and they will just say “I don’t have time for this” before searching Google for another source that gives them the information they need in a quick, easy-to-read format.
There are two things you can do when you have a lot to say on a certain topic:
- publish an eBook, or
- publish a series of blog posts.
If you opt for the series, you can tie them together with a common tag and a new subcategory on your blog.
- Lack of Social Media Activity
When you publish a new post on your blog, you can’t expect Google to bring loads of traffic your way. SEO is important, but social media activity is crucial for a blogger’s success. You probably have fan pages on Facebook and Twitter, but that’s not enough. You need to engage your audience, ask questions, and respond to the comments.
If you check some of the most popular blogs on Facebook, you’ll notice that these bloggers actively interact with their audience. That’s exactly what you need to do, too. When your readers start perceiving you like someone they can talk to, then you can call yourself a successful blogger. Social media websites can get you tons of shares, so it would be a huge mistake not to use that potential.
Talent, Persistence, and Commitment – That’s the Combination that Leads to Blogging Success
Perhaps one of the greatest mistakes a blogger can make is thinking he is flawless. The truth is, your writing talent is not enough for progress in the online world. You have to climb one step after another and always seek ways to improve your bond with the readers.
Start by recognizing the mistakes you’re already making and fixing them with productive strategies. You’ll soon notice the effect of your efforts!
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