Common Blogging Mistakes And How To Avoid Them
Posted on 17. Jun, 2008 by Benjamin Patton in Blogging Tips
Everyday I try to read at least 10 new blogs. While I am not always successful with this endevour for the most part I am. And as you guessed their is a trend within this demographic that reaches all the way up to the “A” Listers. I am even guilty of these at one point or another. Lets dive right in and see if we can help anyone out.
So many people will start off on the right foot while making a plan and putting it into action. I applaude everyone that has a plan. The problem with many of the newest blogs and even some very established blogs is that they are not using self hosted blogs, such as wordpress blog like mine. This opens up so many doors for you monetization wise as well as a plethora of others. Essentially by taking a non privately hosted blog you have just painted yourself into a corner with no options. Re think this and weigh what you will be losing versus gaining. 9 times out of 10 it will be better to be privately hosted on something with much more options for you the publisher. Being at the mercy of someone else who says what you can and can not post or have active on your site is always much better than the latter.
This next one comes from a friend of mines experience. NEVER ever, ever, under any circumstances take a serious domain for a blog for free from your hosting provider. This can and will cause trouble later when and if you decide to leave them. If you do not believe me do a quick Google search on the matter and spend the next couple days reading the horror stories involved. While my friend was lucky enough to get his domain in the end when he left that hosting service it was not without over a week of complete and total downtime which set his blog back from his original plans tremendously. Avoid this at all costs and pay for your domain and own it outright.
Never assume that just because you are publishing new content daily people will find you. You need to promote your blog relentlessly and through every possible available channel. Otherwise you will have one hell of a time gaining a readership. Unless you finally finished that mind control device out in the garage. Oh your didn’t? Get to promoting. You know how.
Make sure your content is a two way street. I am really guilty of this. Publishing posts that do not at the very least encourage your readers to participate makes your site much more boring than say one that was promoting a community feeling that led people to want to comment more rather than the former which turns people off once they have collected the needed information or won that nifty item in your latest sets of contests.
Make sure you are being creative with the titles to your posts. This may not seem like much but many people will not click through the many places this will show up unless you make the effort to make it interesting in that one or two sentence area. Amp it up and notch and spend some creativity points here.
Many bloggers (and this ticks me off more than anything) underestimate just how much time a blog will take to run. Forget the millions of dollars your going to earn, or the famous people you will meet, and don’t even worry about getting any cool stuff in the mail to review until you really understand just how much of a time commitment this is going to be. The one thing that displeases me more than anything while surfing the blogosphere or even my own blog roll is when people become erratic and then even stop posting for long periods of time and then wonder why their readership blow. WAKE UP you have to treat your readers like you care about them. Although if your serious about success posting daily is a good thing, it is by no means required. I can deal with even posting once a week, but posting 2-3 times a day, then 1 time every couple of days and then no posts for weeks on end is a great way to commit blog suicide. Make a plan, ask around and determine if you are really willing to put the time into this that it and your readers deserve. This will earn you many points with your readers if you are simply just consistent.
I plan to expand further on this later as their are many more mistakes which all of us do make or will make in the future. The key is to recognize that your about to do it and avoid it. Your readers loyalty can be doubled by following this list. You will find that a happy reader is a return reader.
Do you have any crucial mistakes you see made throughout the blogosphere that you wish you could fix for someone? Let us know.
Related posts:
- How To Avoid Common Theme, Layout And Color Scheme Mistakes
- Effective Blogging And You.
- Effective Blogging Media For Your Success
- How To Quickly And Effectively Gain Notoriety For Your Blog
- Five Fast And Hard Blogging For Cash Tips
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I really like the tip about not using a serious domain that you get for free. I think this somewhat ties you into the hosting provider, and, depending on that provider…can prove to be more trouble than it’s worth.
Free domains are good when you’re just starting or low on resources, you get to kill two birds with one stone…it’s just that you have to know what you are getting into.
Because if your site becomes a success…leaving that hosting provider can prove to be an issue.
Totaly agree. OHY3 with godaddy for $7.15 .com domains ftw.
Big Ben Pattons last blog post..How To Quickly And Effectively Gain Notoriety For Your Blog
i am just starting out blogging and I am trying to a mass as much best practice advice as possible. thi post is really useful and as stated above i will avoid using a free domain.