10 Mistakes to Avoid when Blogging

Sometimes it’s just as important to know what NOT to do as it is to know what to do. The pifalls listed below should be avoided at all costs to ensure your blog is both professional and personable in equal measures AND measures up well agaioinst the dozens of other blogs that each and every reader of yours is likely to read on a regular basis.

Blogging is not rocket science but it is often the first time a visitor to your blog has encountered one of your sites. You only get ONE chance to make a first impression so make sure you give your blog the attention it deserves – it’s a great way to cement your reputation within your selected niche and build up a loyal core of readers that will benefit your business both in the short and long term.

Mistake #1

Not Using Your Own Domain

In the same way that you need your own ‘real estate’ online to build a serious internet business, you must make sure that you use your own domain name and not one from the many sites online that include a prefix before you site name.

It’s all about your reader’s perception of your site. You want anyone visiting your site to KNOW that you are professional, your products are of high quality and your site is established online, even if it has only just gone live. This all starts with your domain name.

Mistake #2

Not Promoting Your Posts

Are you one of those who think that if you build it they will come? Well, believe me, they won’t. You’ll need to promote your posts. Use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, forums, email and every tool you can think of to drive people to your posts. Having gone to the effort of putting together an interesting and informative post, it would be a shame to leave it sitting on your blog unread.

Mistake #3

Faking It

Don’t worry about trying to impress your readers by using unnecessarily complicated vocabulary? Just be yourself. People want to connect with you so open up to them and infuse your own personality into your blog.

Mistake #4

Using Boring Headlines

Writing doesn’t come naturally to everyone. If you need inspiration for writing headlines try checking out this blog: http://www.copyblogger.com/. Needless to say you can get all of the coaching you need on Income Elite.

Mistake #5

Not Asking for Help

Why would you want to do everything alone when having others to help you is a lot easier and more fun? You’ll find that most internet marketers work closely with a number of business partners on cross-promoting each others products, swapping testimonials, contributing content to each others blogs, etc.

Collaboration is everything in this industry so these are the types of working relationships you need to develop.

Mistake #6

Not Making It Easy for Your Readers to Share and Subscribe

It should be obvious how to subscribe to your blogs by email and RSS. Don’t count on your visitors figuring it out – it has to be plainly obvious at first glance. It’s your job to make it easy for them. Allow people to follow you on Twitter, Facebook and the rest of your social networks.

In addition, make sure you have links to share your content on the most popular social networks. Try using the following WordPress luginjs for this:

SexyBookmarks: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sexybookmarks

TweetMeme: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweetmeme

Mistake #7

Not Asking for Feedback or Not Learning from It

A blog is a two-way conversation – don’t monopolize it. Ask your readers what they think and actively encourage the debate. And, when they give you feedback about your blog, listen and do your best to give them what they want.

Mistake #8

Posting Too Often or Not Often Enough

What is posting too often? What is not posting often enough? It depends… If you have a lot of information to share, posting once a day (or more) should be OK. Most people post two or three times a week.

It’s important to be consistent – don’t post 20 times this week and only one next week. The most important thing is to pay attention to the actions of your readers. If too many people are unsubscribing, ask them why and do something to fix it – FAST.

Mistake #9

Not Thinking About Search Engines

There is a lot written about making blogs SEO-friendly. In a nutshell, you want each post to have a keyword-rich link, a unique title and a unique meta description.

Try using the All-in-One SEO plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-packfor this.

Mistake #10

Not Linking to Others

Link to others as much as you can. You want to do this for two different reasons:

1. Your readers will appreciate the resources you share with them.
2. The people you link to will start paying attention to you and might even want to return the favour (remember the art of collaboration mentioned in point 5 above?)

By: Steve Peirce