Blog News Watch

I just love lists on a Monday morning, don’t you? Here we go - the six key mistakes bloggers make and how you can steer clear of these sneaky little traps!

1. Ignoring your readership. Writing whatever pops into your head might be therapeutic - and if that’s what your blog’s purpose is (and you don’t care about traffic), then by all means, be my guest and ramble away. But if you’re like the rest of us in the bloggy world, you do care about those readers, and you want them to come back. Which means you have to keep their needs and their demographics in mind when working on your blog.
2. Posting the first draft. Akin to stream-of-consciousness posting, but a bit different. You can have the most thoughtful, original post in the world but if it’s full of typos, misspelled words, and pathetic formatting, you’re going to lose readers. Maybe not immediately - but enough such posts, and I guarantee a drop in readership. Take a moment to revise. Look at your blog critically and ask yourself, “What can I do to make this killer?” Don’t be afraid to “kill your darlings” - a little advice from the fiction-writing world, this means to be willing to start all over from scratch if that’s what’s best.
3. Eschewing the all-important ping. Why oh why are you not pinging? It’s so simple! It takes less than 15 seconds, and can do so much for your stats.
4. Remaining tag-less. Proper use of tags will also help you drive traffic - the right traffic - to your blog.
5. Copying other bloggers wholesale. Yes, I’ve written about it before. Yes, it’s my pet peeve - for good reason. You’re not only cheating another blogger out of his or her own credit and/or stats (even if you properly attribute the post - why would a reader waste energy by going to the author’s blog to read the same damn thing?). If that author’s blog carries ads, then not only are you cheating him or her out of stats and readers, you’re also taking money out of the author’s pockets (potentially). It’s wrong. It’s also wrong to deprive the world of your own god-given talents and juicy original thoughts! Cure: post a snippet, link to the original blog, then give us your own take!
6. Treating what bloggers-about-blogging have to say on the subject as holy writ. Nobody knows everything about blogging. Corollary: every blog is different - thus, every piece of blog advice will have a variant effect, depending on the blog to which it is applied. Ergo - think for yourself. Sure, take my advice if it strikes you as applicable or a good idea. Try it out. But then use your own common sense, your own (far superior) knowledge of your blog and your readership, and your own talents to refine those ideas - or trash them entirely and come up with a new rule!
7. Bonus! Not previewing each post before posting. You might be surprised to see the number of mistakes I make on a daily basis on each of my blogs. All I can say is, “the preview (or ’save and continue editing’) button is my FRIEND!” Take a look at the post before you publish it - keep an eye out for off-style formatting, grossly misspelled words, errant hard returns - anything that throws your post off visually, grammatically, or stylistically.

There you have it! Go forth and blog well.

six blog mistakes, blogging