Blogging can be a hobby or it can be serious work. But if you want to succeed at whatever your blogging goals may be, you need to work at it.
Success is a very individual thing. For some bloggers, having a good readership with lots of comments is success. For others, just posting is sufficient. Still others want nothing more than to make a living off their blog.
In all cases, there are major mistakes you can make as a blogger.
Mistake 1: No comments allowed
Some bloggers just find this easier to deal with. And a few big bloggers even get away with it and still have good blogs. But for most blogs, allowing comments is very much a part of getting people involved with your blog.
A related mistake is failing to check your comments. I strongly recommend having Akismet installed as a minimum. It’s a part of the standard WordPress installation, and is available for other platforms as well. Make sure it’s turned on.
You’ll still need to watch out for spam comments. I get all comments emailed to me, so I can check them over. Spam comments are deleted, generally before they even show on the blog, as I moderate first comments at the very least.
Mistake 2: Inconsistency
There are a few kinds of inconsistency. You can get too personal or not personal enough for the overall style of your blog. You can post so rarely that no one cares to read your blog. You can vanish for long periods for no apparent (to your readers) reason.
With paid services such as PayPerPost out there for bloggers to earn money, it can be easy to blog about things you wouldn’t normally discuss. No matter the temptation, a blog is best off being held to consistent topics. If you can work in paid posts, do so. It’s little different from posting about affiliate products, if you do it well. But if you go off on wild tangents just for the money, you risk losing your readership.
Mistake 3: No goals
Even if you’re blogging for fun, you should have some goals in mind. Blogs need direction. Without that, they won’t interest many readers..
Goals are even more important if you want to run it as a business. Goals can help you keep going. They provide a focus to the topics you blog about. They let you know if you’re succeeding.
Mistake 4: Being unprofessional
Even if you just have a personal blog, there’s a degree of professionalism you should consider. This includes being professional to people who vehemently disagree with you, or at least not resorting to name calling.
Being professional can also mean getting your own domain name and hosting. While a free solution such as Blogspot is fine for personal blogs in many ways, most blogs do best being hosted elsewhere. At the very least, this gives you more control. If you’re hosted by Blogspot or another company, they can delete you with little or no notice. Do you really want to risk losing all your hard work?
You should also be reading up on your topic so that you can discuss relevant current topics. This can help to inspire you. News is often great blog fodder.
Mistake 5: Unrealistic expectations
If you think your blog is going to be an overnight success, expect to work really, really hard, on a spectacular, attention getting topic. Most blogs take months or years to really be discovered.
Yes, there are many bloggers who have made it big. There are many, many more still struggling. Your writing style has to appeal to your potential readership, you have to choose great topics to write about, and you have to market well. Only a few people manage this in only a couple months.
On the plus side, blogging is a great way to get started working from home. It’s cheap to start, and you probably have most of what you need. You can blog on almost any topic that interests you. You can be as personal or as private as you like. It’s also a lot of fun for many people.
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