When it comes to blogging, the opportunity can feel hugely exciting. Being able to host your own content, giving people the expertise that you hold within, is a hugely enjoyable venture. However, blogging is very easy to mess up in sadly. Making blogging mistakes is almost inevitable.
Many people find it quite hard to manage their blogging content and it can become very easy to create content that, in truth, fails to deliver.
If you want to get as many people onside as you can, then one of the smartest things you can do is start working with a better idea of what makes a good blog. In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the most common blogging mistakes that people make; the kind of mistakes that could ruin your chances of success.
Universal appeal
One of the most common blogging mistakes is to be too universal in your approach. Universalism when writing is a bad idea; your blog has to stand for a specific topic or industry. Trying to be something for everyone will only cause you problems.
Really, your blog posts should all be built around trying to give people clear ideas that they can work with. It’s also vital for traffic; a blog will struggle to get regular rankings and traffic if it covers everything. Be more specific, and it’s easier to gain authority and placements on the search engines.
If you want to make sure your blog can be a success, it should be built around the primary aim of having a specific, clear appeal. Never copy too many topics; select a few major and minor topics within your industry and stick to them fervently.
Writing without purpose
One of the worst things that you can do (it’s one of the well-known blogging mistakes) is to write without any clear direction or purpose. When you are writing, length isn’t always the main thing – it’s value. An article that has 500 words of true value is better than 1,500 words of claptrap.
Always build your blog around the idea of giving people the information they might not have already. If the piece has no purpose other than to fill a hole on your blog, think again. A piece covering local industry news, a new product release or review etc. is far more useful than just ‘a’ post.
Never fill up your blog unless you know exactly what you are filling it with. It’s pointless to just add extra pages to make it look busy. People can see through vapid content easily; always build up your content so that it follows a strict, well-defined purpose.
Writing without passion
One of the most common blogging mistakes is writing about something you feel can make you money, not make you happy. When you are only writing to get a sale, you concentrate far too much on the commercial aspects rather than trying to educate, inform or otherwise help people. That will be pretty bad for your blog in the long run.
If you can, avoid giving people pieces that you have only vaguely researched. If you have to defer your knowledge to someone else, it’s better to do so than make a poor imitation of their own copy without any definition.
If you write about something you only know a small bit about, it’s probably to try and make you money. Write about something you love; it’s more likely to give your blog authenticity and energy that is lacking at present. This can make a huge difference to your blogging quality.
A lack of lead capture
Without the right kind of lead capture, too, your blog is failing its primary purpose. Do yourself a favor and invest in something like aWeber to help you start collecting e-mails from the very first blog post that you make. Getting an early introduction and to let people know they can get more from you later on down the line via email is very useful.
If your blog is going to be used properly it should be used to capture attention and excitement. Without that, your blog will most likely struggle, so invest more time and money into capturing leads. A major mistake you can make with your blog is to simply use it as an ego massage; use it as a marketing tool at the same time.
Collect contact details so that you can use your blog to build up authority and gain contact details.
Dull titles
For anyone running a blog, your blog posts need to catch the eye of the readership. The way to get people to click on a link – and having something dull, generic and without smart keyword usage (naturally) will hurt your blog from getting the traction needed.
So, invest some time and money into working with a copywriter to help you make up titles. Not everyone is good at making up titles, and you can either stay too generic and conservative or go too far and wind up with something that makes little sense. Hiring someone makes sense in that case.
At the same time, avoid clickbait headlines. Always make sure the title is explaining the key part of the story, or bringing up a particular problem with the promise of a solution waiting for the reader at the other end when they actually click to read.
Poor introductions
After the title comes to the introduction – and a bad introduction will have people hitting the side-buttons on their mouse. Introductions have to try and let the reader know what they are reading about, what you are offering as a solution or what the primary reward for reading the article is going to be.
If you cannot do this, then it will be much harder to convince people to want to take part. The first words you write set the tone for what is to come. Whether you use the intro to set a very creative tone and a scene or you use it to capture the audiences desire to buy something, you have the power to use it well.
So, make sure you do so. A poor introduction is going to leave the reader wondering what the end game of the post is. Make sure that intro and title work together to do the selling for you.
Patronising
One of the worst things that you can do is write a blog that is patronizing. This means that if you are having readers come to you to learn about a more advanced section of your industry, don’t spell out the basics; chance are, they already know.
Never talk to people like they are fools either; as if they are doing you a favor reading the piece. Make sure you are minimalistic in terms of the terminology that you use, so that more complex terms can be understood without getting lost in lingo.
Build up a more progressive way of talking to people. To avoid one of the most common blogging mistakes, talk to their emotions and their interactions, not to any perceived intellect. This is an easy way to offend people or give off the impression you think they are stupid – a big no for a blog!
Using standard designs
Since you want people to trust your blog, it has to look trustworthy in the first place. We suggest starting with one of our blog WordPress themes. Build up a creative platform that allows your blog to be visually appealing as well as interesting in terms of what it talks about. If your blog lacks this kind of personality, then it will likely struggle.
If you use a standard design, then it might explain why your blog has problems picking up peoples’ interest and getting them engaged with your content; there’s no incentive. If you aren’t willing to go full-out for a design, why should they go full-out and read it?
Not investing in the “relevancy check”
One of the most important things to do with any blog post is going to Google Trends and type in the keyword you are ranking for. How many people are talking about it at the moment? How local is the relevance to where you live?
Using this simple check you can make sure that your blog is having content created that actually is likely to get people interested. If you start talking about something that came out months ago, chances are you still struggle to get people to care.
What you can do instead, though, is invest in “the relevancy check” to make sure that people are genuinely interested. Spend some time researching key terms on Google Trends; this lets you know if that big long-read you intended to write out is actually going to gather any traction in your industry.
Lack of credibility
The last major mistake you can make when running a blog is leaving out vital links. A few hyperlinks slipped into authority sources and to other good blogs, stat websites and major publications can help. It backs up where your ideas are coming from and makes it easier for people to want to read what you are saying.
Yes, it can be hard to get it right and yes it can take a long time to put together credible content that uses hyperlinks regularly. That time is worth it, though, as people are more likely to read and enjoy a piece that can back up the assertions it makes.
Also, good use of hyperlinks to back up your points helps to improve your search engine ranking. It also makes it easier for other people to feel comfortable linking to you, as you are backing up proven information instead of just offering a baseless opinion.
Conclusion
As you can see, then, blogging takes a hell of a lot of work. It needs you to put in a lot of effort to avoid the blogging mistakes posted above, with each one more than likely to run you into your fair share of problems as time goes on.
Following the ideas of what not to do, you can begin to plan and prepare for a more successful blogging career. It will take a lot of time to get things in place and to be ready to make the progress intended, but it’s very much worth your time.
Now, you should feel far more confident making more readable and enjoyable content. Read over what we have mentioned throughout. You should find it easy to start making major changes to the way that your blogs read. It will help you to keep them interesting and relevant to readers.
Do so, and your blog can thrive!
