Every now and then I will see a list of things bloggers should do, but I notice people are not that inclined to do what they are asked to do, while they pay more attention to things they should NOT do. That is why I decided to create the list below. Here we go:
1. You Must Not Expect Results Overnight: This is happening everywhere and that is the major reason why a large percentage of bloggers fail. Many bloggers come online unprepared and with the wrong set of expectations. They think blogging is a bed of roses and they only need to write one or two posts and begin to make money right away. Wrong!
2. You Must Not Ignore Your Readers: Some bloggers start gaining traction fast, and after a while they start to make their blogs gravitate around themselves. That is, they start talking exclusively about themselves, about the things they like, about how cool they are and so on. Big mistake. Your blog is about your readers, not about you.
3. You Must Not Scrape Another Bloggers Content: This is funny but nowadays you will see many new bloggers who don’t even know the basics, and yet they start to scrape another bloggers content. Often times these people won’t even credit the source. You can’t get far with this attitude.
4. You Must Not Expect Success Without Promoting: Many people think blogging is like setting up a shop at the road side and that all they need to do is wait for people to start finding them. Build and they will come, as the saying goes. This unfortunately is not true. Even if you have great content you’ll need to work your butt off getting people to visit your blog and read it.
5. You Must Not Be Another Blogger: This is so common among many bloggers nowadays. They no longer want to be themselves, they now want to be one popular blogger they know. It is like using the “fake it till you make it” strategy. Will it work over the long term? No. So keep it real.
6. You Must Not Fail To Update Your Blog Regularly: You will see some bloggers telling you they want to be a problogger, only to leave their blog without updates for weeks. If you can’t commit to updating your blog regularly, why would you expect people to commit to reading it regularly?
7. You Must Not Ignore SEO: Nowadays, you will see many bloggers not optimizing their blogs for search engines, if you ask them why, they will say they don’t know SEO. The real answer, however, is “Because I am lazy.” Don’t be lazy and learn what you must if you want to make your blog popular.
8. You Must Not Ignore Networking: You should never underestimate the power of networking. As people say, it is about who you know and now about what you know in the long run.
9. You Must Not Have An Unreadable/Unnavigable Site: Many people think blogging is all about your content. No! Blogging is far more than your content. You should work on making sure your site is easily navigable and that readers can easily get what they want without looking twice. Usability is a big factor on the web.
10. You Must Not Throw Mud Around: Some new bloggers that if they attack other people or bloggers, they might create a buzz and increase their traffic levels. This might be true in the short run, but over the long term such attitude will create many enemies and burn yourself.
It is true blogging success do not come in days it take time and consistency. Great Post
I’m agree with you Onibalusi, all this tips are very helpful. I’m a new blogger and I’m writing about blogging and Internet Marketing, even though I’m not a professional. I started my blog for three reasons. First, I wanted to improve my English Skills. Second, I wanted to learn more about the topic and third because I wanted make some money.
Valuable content and promoting your blog both are very important. Side by side you must write good, interesting and useful articles on your blog and perform some promotion for your blog. Some simple promotional techniques would be commenting on other related blogs, article marketing and guest posts. So keep focusing on both the above mentioned things.
I agree with all your points!
Great post as always, Oni. All are very good points to consider especially for one that is just starting out as a blogger. It’s easy to fall into the trap and believe that blogging is easy, won’t take much work and will make you money quickly. Hopefully they read this first!
Great points to make especially with #1, I agree with it because it comes in time and we should be patient yet still be determined.
Hey Onibalusi, nice and to-the-point tips. “It’s all about who you know and not what you know that counts” – can’t agree more to this. Blogging is about perseverance, patience and for those who like to keep it real.
I’ve got a question about my blog’s particular style. Right now I more or less find some interesting links on a subject, write a brief comment on each one, and post it.
The response from friends is good. And if I recall correctly, link blogs are the genesis of blogging. I’ve also got deeper “[subject] Week” style things planned.
I want to get linked and read, but I also don’t want to tie myself down to one or two subjects. Most of it ends up being science and technology, but I’m expecting there will be more variety.
Would this produce too broad a set of subjects?
Well you are speaking from experience looking at the amount of followers you have! Nice simple guidance. Why do people look to complicate things? Good valid content is key. SEO and backlinks also very important. Develop relationships with peers and followers.
Thanks,
Martin
May I add one more tip: don’t look up, look down.
Don’t try to impress people that know more about the subject you are writing about. Instead write for people who know less about it. There are (probably) much more people that can learn from what you have to say, so you will have a bigger audience. And this way you can avoid looking ridiculous.
All these points are so true. And I have had e-mails from marketers offering such bad ideas for bloggers. Things like self writing blogs, and literal “set it and forget it” blogs.
SEO is hugely important, and so is ease of navigation, and so few new bloggers these days think that they need to actually work to get noticed. That’s why you see so many blogs on Blogger with a couple of posts and then nothing else.
The trouble I’ve had is with SEO. Until I stumbled on to this place, all I could find were seedy places with generic and/or useless info.
Now I’m spending a ridiculous amount of time going through your blog’s archive.
On the plus side, I figured most of the other stuff out on my own, so the blogs I’ve tried still get some traffic, despite not being updated in ages.
I agree, to be a true blogger need patience. have the attitude of respect between each other, like friends in the real world. Blogging is not just a post, many people can afford to be a writer, but few are able to become a blogger.
Great points here, I especially agree with the fact that you can’t just set it and forget it so to speak and expect you will be found. You need to take an active interest in your blog, whether it be from a promotional standpoint or regarding contribution. Writing great content that will be interesting and relevant for people and promoting it via the right avenues will get you noticed.
very good list and so true.
I am a new blogger and to be fair a lot of those probably apply to me but hopefully one day i will have it locked down š
Valuable content and promoting your blog both are very important. Side by side you must write good, interesting and useful articles on your blog and perform some promotion for your blog. Some simple promotional techniques would be commenting on other related blogs, article marketing and guest posts. So keep focusing on both the above mentioned things.
Great tips! Especially, “scraping content” of other bloggers and not giving a credit to the original source., is a real faux pas!
Developing your own content that offers readers a fresh source of ideas is a key!
I salute the bloggers that talk about “issues” and not themselves — focusing on readers is very important. Thanks for sharing your wisdom!
This is a must read article for every new blogger like myself. Very useful points. Thank you and keep up a great work.
Terrific post. I especially agree with #4 and #6. Promotion (commenting on other blogs, guest posting, networking with other bloggers and so on) is often the key to success. If you were not to use any promotion tactics at all, your journey as a blogger would be a slow one.
I also learned the importance of #6 the hard way. In my early days of blogging, I would begin to lose motivation and my post frequency would decrease until I wasn’t posting anything at all. Mainly my loss of motivation was the result of me not promoting myself, reaching out to other bloggers and getting involved in the blog community. As a result, I lost focus on why I was even blogging in the first place.
Over time, I began to acquire that focus once more. I’m now very pleased to where I am in my blogging career. My blog is heading its way on up and readers are contributing a lot more to comments. I also find that I’m much more motivated to write now that I feel like I’m part of the community and have been reading other blogs in the same niche.
While most points are dead on, I’ll have to disagree with #7 when you state “The real answer, however, is ‘Because I am lazy.’ Don’t be lazy and learn what you must if you want to make your blog popular.”
First of all, I love SEO. I optimize all my sites for search engines. However, I’ve talked to many people who don’t bother with SEO at all, and it’s not because they’re just “lazy.” Many people just don’t believe in SEO.
Take Leo Babauta of Zen Habits for example. He has a very successful blog with an ongoing readership. He hates SEO and believes that content should be focused directly on the readers and not search engines. He has managed to grow his blog admiringly without optimizing it for search engines. Even though he hasn’t optimized his blog, his posts end up getting picked up anyway. He mainly got most of his traffic through guest posting and interacting with other blogs. Search engine traffic is a minor portion of his overall traffic compared to the traffic he gets from referral websites.
While I don’t agree with Leo on some of the things he says, it makes sense why he doesn’t use SEO. He’s not “lazy.” Look at Zen Habits and you can automatically see that. He just doesn’t believe in SEO.
I completely agree with the SEO point. SEO still works, and most of all, it is one of the most logical and predictable ways to promote your content on search engines. I was able to get many of my articles to number one on google in a couple of weeks. Great point!
Hey bro, your second point made me lough! I sometimes happen to see such bloggers and feel the same. In addition to these I feel a blog loaded with ads can make readers skip your page though you have good visitors count!
Accessibility is another important quality which blogs should have. Apart from being usable, blogs should consider persons with special needs and have accessibility features to ensure that their content can be understood, accessed, and enjoyed by all users, regardless of their ability
Put this either under ‘do’ or ‘don’t forget to’: provide a takeaway.
Excellent tips. I agree with all of them, except…
while I agree with number 10, I have seen some people have really successful blogs by bashing people. In fact, some people do that for a living. I certainly don’t like it, but in some cases it does unfortunately work.
Great article on important topic. Onibalusi, all points have equal importance but I personally give more importance to point#1. Expectation of results, overnight has major contribution in blogs failure. Blogging career will only step forward if, bloggers try to survive in first six months of their blogging career. What’s your opinion at this point?
Yea PATIENCE is the main thing in blogging š
I’d like you to elaborate more on #2. I reply to the comments my readers make. How else should I be making the blog posts about them?
The biggest one – You must not forget to be you! A blog is not a blog if it doesnt have a personality!
Very good tips. There is a significant learning curve in blogging, particularly as it relates to marketing, and the semi-technical concept of SEO. I am quite technical, having spent much of my career in IT, and had a bit of a challenge understanding it!!
Cheers!
Mike
quite interesting list! first one is maybe the most important, because so many people start their blog with great expectations and just a min from its creation, they go to google and look for any changes in results.
cheers,
@RolandoPeralta
Great Tips..
Putting all these together really tells a blogger that he is doing a business and not a job
I enjoyed your list, but I think the number one thing that Bloggers should not do is think that it is all going to be easy.
Some people blog because they think it is an easy way to make money. It isn’t. It’s hard. You made some good points.
Good list, thanks.
Blogging reminds me of the “musicians” I used to play in bands with. Everybody thinks that all you have to is get some guys together, have a few practices, play a few shows, sign a record deal, & voila, you’re famous. They forget about all the years driving around in a van playing to nobody.
If you’re not enjoying the journey to get there, then you’re doing it wrong.
In other word I would say: A Blogger should have a systematic routine for blog writing, blog promotion, networking
take care of SEO, design and social media presence..
Great roundup Onibalusi
Great tips. I have a problem with number 6 š
You need to identify your hurdles to overcome this issue. Most common problems blogger don’t update on regular basis are: Don’t have enough time, lack of blogging ideas, disappointed with their ROI.
What’s yours?
Sadly, I have that problem as well and my main problem is lack of blogging ideas. But I’ve been moving around from blog to blog to learn on how I can improve this.
Thumbs up for the post, Onibalusi.
To be honest, I was guilty of a few before. Lol.
Very, very useful points.
Thanks a lot for sharing!
quality tips. helpful
Two thumbs up for this useful list. I agree to all the points and issues you presented here. Blogging is really a hard work and these tips are definitely must be remembered by every bloggers.
Thanks.
Great post Oni! I agree with all your points! Thanks for sharing man keep the good work up.
Hi Oni
This is perfect. I couldn’t agree more with every point you make, especially #1, #2, #7 and #8.
Thanks for this great post.
Michael
Keeping it real and being yourself (#5) as you blog is very important. Sometimes, though, that flies in the face of #7 (SEO) and even #2 (blog for your readers).
Patience is the name of the game when it comes to Blogging. Overnight results just don’t happen…..overmonth (I just made that word up, btw) results either. The big boys (copyblogger, shoemoney) languished for years until their started to pick up good traction and eventually made it.
Good post.
Great post, Onibalusi! I agree with #2, #3, #5, #8, and #10. Your blogging reputation is very important and it will affect your success, so it is better to do it the right way than the wrong way. š
In my opinion, all of the tips are very good and a lot of bloggers are doing those mistakes.