With more than 150 million blogs floating around cyberspace, Income Diary reports, it’s no secret people are using them to reap big personal and professional benefits. Blogging can help you get a better job, start or grow a business, and establish yourself as an expert in your field. However, not all blogs are created equal. Many bloggers fail to understand how their approach sabotages their potential for success. Read on to learn the top five mistakes bloggers make and how to avoid them.
Sloppy Form
The web is 2D, which means how your blog looks has a big impact on how readers respond to it. If you want a good-looking site, you’ll need to take three things into consideration:
1) Use of quality images. People like pictures — unique pictures. You can’t expect to excite readers with stale clip art, so get yourself a digital camera and some photo skills. A quick search on YouTube will yield helpful photo tutorials. Just remember to be thoughtful about photo inclusion. Be sure to cater your images to your content. For instance, instructional and photography blogs warrant more photos than political blogs, as Wikihow reports.
2) Appealing web design. Don’t let your site look like an Internet junk drawer. Good website organization helps readers feel oriented and confident while they navigate your content. We can offer invaluable tips on layout, typography, color, and resources such as well as help you figure out web hosting options.
3) Editing matters. Sloppy grammar makes you look like you don’t care enough to write well. Take time to edit your posts before you publish them, or ask a grammar-savvy friend to review your work for you.
Forgetting to Engage Your Audience
Your life or business objectives might be exciting to you, but readers like blogs that engage them. Make sure your blog posts are directly relevant to your readers and that they offer unique, actionable insight to problems they might encounter. Don’t forget to listen to reader feedback and requests, which are a great source of idea building, and don’t forget to respond. Responding to readers is an important way to let them know you care about their experience.
Writing With an Uptight or Fake Voice
Ask yourself this… When you call customer service for a specific issue, do you prefer getting an automated response, or a real person on the line? The same preferences apply to blogs. Readers are drawn to blogs with authentic, helpful voices. This doesn’t mean you should abandon grammatical writing style, but it does mean you should write in a way that reflects your persona. So relax, and let your personality shine through.
Forgetting to Care About Web Traffic
People can’t read your blog if they don’t know about it. It’s important to draw traffic to your page, especially if you’re hoping to drum up new business, or gain advertisers. Do your SEO and social media homework, and network with bloggers and readers in your field — anything to get people to your blog.
Being Impatient
Blogging success rarely happens overnight, so be patient. If you have a well-written, helpful and unique blog, and you’re working to draw traffic to it, it will eventually get noticed. When it does, it’s important that readers find frequently posted, up-to-date content, so keep at it. For a while, it might feel like you’re writing to no one — but if you’re avoiding these common mistakes, eventually your blog will succeed.
Did we miss any? Please comment below with some of your pitfalls.
About the Author: Evan Hemmings
Evan is an entertainment blogger who prefers theater over movies, vinyl over MP3 and books over TV.
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