Blogging, of course, is a trial and error learning process, but I’ve created a short list of common mistakes that the first time or new blogger should avoid, and (drum roll please)…here it is.
Copying Others Articles for Your Own Site:
A blog or a website becomes popular when original ideas, information, and content is used. People will not subscribe to or re- visit your blog if you dont have original content.
Fans and followers of blogs become so because they are able to glean new ideas, opinions, or learn something useful that they didn’t know before. The web is already overrun with copied content……Don’t do it. Don’t plagiarise. You’ve got your own ideas and opinions in that brain of yours, so use it.
Trying to Make Money Right From the Start:
Can money be made from blogging? Yes. But don’t focus on making the fat cash. Offer a content rich blogsite that has useful and intelligent information. Work on building up your traffic and the rest will follow suit. The most important part of a successful blog is visitors (traffic). Once you have a following you can capitalize on that fact by selling products, etc. But for the beginner, worry about GIVING to the web community, NOT receiving.
Get Your Own .com (this is a must)
Yes, thanks to blogger, wordpress, and other blogging sites you can set up your own blog for free (hosted by the blogsite). This is an easy way to play areound and learn about blogging, but if you want to be taken seriously, host your blog on your own domain. Domain names are as low as $5 online and hosting sites such as Hostmonster.com allow you to host as many blogs as you’d like for one flat fee (about $7 – $10) per month. If you don’t understand about webhosting or creating a blog on your site, there are inexpensive blog developers like Partnership Marketing that will build an easy to use blog such as this one (they built mine) for about $75.00 including a cool header and all your plugins. They can generally turn around a site in 48 hours. So in the span of one weekend, you can be up and running with a blogsite that looks clean and professional.
Traffic exchanges
Don’t sign up for traffic exchange, link exchange or banner exchange sites. Trust me. These are black listed and will make your blog banned, not to mention look terribly tacky. A few trusted ads are okay, but if your blog just looks like a cheesy conglomeration of advertisements, that’s the reputation you will have. Focus on getting real traffic through search optimization and social bookmarking.
Hire an Editor
For the love of God, get an editor. I cringe whenever I read interesting blogs written with poor grammar, spelling errors, and choppy, hard to read sentences. The intelligent reader will put up with some common mistakes, but if your blog post sentences run around in circles and paragraph transitions are abrupt at best, it’s time for some help. Most editors (including myself) only charge about $3 per post to tidy it up and make sure it’s ready for the world to see. You wouldn’t go to work with wrinkled pants, so don’t post the article that reads like your second grader wrote it. (No offense to all those 8 year old bloggers out there).
Don’t Be a Lone Ranger
Yes, some blogs do well on their own with only one author–but if your subject matter is broad, ask for some guest bloggers to contribute to your site. Why do you think people sit around and have brainstorming sessions? Combined efforts of educated individuals will help get your blog off to a wonderful start. Either pay the guest or offer to write a guest blog on their site as well. We are all in this together, so let’s help each other succeed!
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
All of your posts are so good and very useful for me..thanks
amazing, wonderful, amazing!!!
this is a good article for beginner bloggers. it was very basic and easy to understand. thanks for visiting and commenting on my blog (www.homebodyblogger.com) also.