Digital Marketing Mastery: Insights, Strategies, and Tactics for Success

Common Blogging Mistakes

Blogging can be a fun and even prosperous way to make some extra money. But, there is more than meets the eye when it comes to blogging. If you think it’s easy, you’re wrong. Creating a readable, friendly, interesting blog that people actually want to come back and read again and again is not easy, its hard work, but if you can figure out some things NOT to do, you just might have a chance at some repeat readers that really enjoy the stuff you’re writing about. Blogging is a superior option when you want to make money, if you are a budding writer, have knowledge or experience about topics no one else does or if you just like to write, but if you want to do it the right way and succeed, be sure to check out the tips below.

 

Platform Choices for Blogging

Using a platform you are familiar with is really important. Chances are, you will be spending quite a bit of time on your platform, so if you have issues with using it, and are wasting more time finding things than posting – find a different platform. While most of the businesses out there use “paid” blogging options like WordPress and Joomla, you can use a free site if you want. The difference between free and paid is really just about the control of the blog. If you sign up for a WordPress.Org (free) blog, you don’t have to pay for hosting, but you do have to watch what you write about and you cannot have your own url. Instead it might be something like wordpress.org/jamiesblog. On the other hand, if you sign up for a WordPress.com blog you have complete control over everything – write what you want, no matter how taboo or politically or religiously crazy it may seem, you can also have a custom url without the WordPress name like https://www.jamiesblog.com. The paid option is not as expensive as people think, you mainly pay for hosting. But, you could (optionally) pay for other things like paid templates, paid add-on extensions for tools, etc. The choice is up to you. You can also find free sites with their name included such as Blogger, Xanga and Webs.com but I wouldn’t really suggest these for business type blogs just because it’s unprofessional.

 

Content for Your Blog

Never ever EVER copy someone else’s work. If you have a blog, it’s your responsibility as the owner of the blog to write original content that is not seen or written anywhere else. Plus, if readers find out about your unethical ways, chances are they will call you out on it – or worse, message the person who originally created the content and get you into trouble. If you start a blog about a specific topic, you should do so with the thought that you are doing so because you have knowledge about that topic or are an expert about that topic. If nothing else, get someone to write the content for you by hiring a top SEO firm.

 

Amount of Posts

When people first start a blog they either post way too much or way too little. While there is no real “right” way there are proven techniques that might work for you. It’s really best to test the waters and see what gets you the best results. But, if you want to try out an equation that helps most people, try 1 post about 400-700 words long once every 3 days. Blogging owners tend to find that too much content is content overload. Posting 1 blog a day or several blogs a day is a good way to not only burn yourself out, but overload your audience. Posting too little – 1 time a week or 1 time a month makes your readers stir crazy for more info, and not in the good way. If they can’t visit your blog and find new content, they WILL go elsewhere.

 

Bad Writing – Slang, Bad Grammar, Bad Spelling

Obviously some blogs call for slang, because it’s sort of what they are known for. But, what I mean here about slang is things like “lol” or “lmao”. Yea, don’t do that. It’s unprofessional. Leave that kind of talk for your friends and family. Also, make sure if you are writing content yourself that you hire an editor to read over the content for grammar and spelling errors. Or if you have someone writing it for you, make sure they have an editor or you hire an editor. People do not like seeing crazy bad spelling mistakes and they will leave a website if they see a ton of errors; I know I have done this!

 

Social Networks

Always take the time to add some sort of a social app to your website. This is really easy with WordPress because all you have to do is download an extension and upload the zip file to the blog and then customize it. I like to use both Share to extensions as well as visit my applications. Share to application can be added to every post on your blog; this is an application that lets a reader visit the blog and if they like a certain post, share it to their network. The visit my application or extension allows people to click the social icon and visit YOUR social profile site. Do the basics like Twitter, Facebook, G+ and of course LinkedIn. This option gives people a chance to see you or your company outside of the blog, web presence, but also allows them to join up with you on those networks.

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