Have you noticed some blogs get the limelight, just in a short span of time after they launch, while others struggle for years for a little traffic? Why does that happen?
Why do some bloggers start to get into the mainstream so fast while others, far more capable and talented, can’t figure out why can’t they get their share of the pie? What mistakes are they making?
Are You On The Right Track?
First of all, success is a subjective thing and, whether or not you are becoming successful with your blog, depends on your goals.
This is a very important point to remember. You must have clarity about your blogging goals because a confused mind can’t make right decisions.
If you started blogging for your personal branding alone, you probably shouldn’t worry if you aren’t making a lot of money online through your blog. As long as you are able to control your brand image online, you are doing fine.
However, a lot of new bloggers are starting out to make money online. If your goal is to venture into blogging to build a successful online business, you have work to do.
Success in anything needs intentional hard work with focus and discipline. Your blogging career will largely depend on how you conduct yourself online. So, what is the most important thing you shouldn’t forget?
Your Goal Is To Attract Readers
The goal of writing something is to get other people to read it, right? What is the point of writing if nobody is reading?
Even when you are starting a blog on your name for your personal branding, your goal is to get readers on your blog so people can get to know about you, your expertise, your thought processes and about your work.
Likewise, if you are blogging to make money, for selling affiliate products or for selling your own products – you still need readers on your blog. No readers can only mean no money.
Everything begins with traffic. Generating traffic is the key element of your online success. Then comes engagement and this is where you have to avoid some of the biggest mistakes of blogging in order to make your way to success online.
Okay, let’s get into the topic and discuss these mistakes that you want to avoid at all cost.
1. Blogging Every Day Isn’t Important
If you think this is the best blogging strategy ever because some of the experts are suggesting you to do that, you couldn’t be more wrong!
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been a victim of that strategy due to advice from an expert that I have tremendous respect for. Well, he wasn’t wrong in saying that it helped him. I was dumb enough to believe that what worked for him, will also be my secret weapon.
If you already have an established blog and have a decent amount of traffic, you may be able to double your traffic with this strategy because your foundation is strong.
When a popular blogger says that increasing his/her blogging frequency doubled and tripled his/her traffic, they are not lying. But, this strategy can lead you to frustration and may cause you to fail miserably because you are in a completely different situation fundamentally to begin with.
Why so?
Imagine an established blogger like Neil Patel who gets 20,000 visitors per blog post (Now, don’t get hung up on the 20K number. Remember I said imagine?) If he writes twice a week (which he used to do in 2013), he gets 40,000 visitors per week.
Now, if he increases his blogging frequency to 5 days a week, chances are, his traffic will at least grow to double (if not triple) in due course. And then he will come out and share how he was able to double his traffic with a simple trick such as this.
Now, consider your blog.
If you have 50 visitors per blog post and you write twice a week, you get 100 visitors a week. Now, if you start writing 5 times a week, definitely your traffic will increase too. Your blog will more or less start to have same traffic effect. That means you will start to see about 250 visitors per week.
Your traffic doubles as well with increased blogging frequency. Sure! But the problem is, it’s only 150 more visitors per week! Is it worth the pain of writing every day?
I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t like to take that pain and because I’ve been there and done that, I can tell you straight – it’s pretty dumb!
2. Your Blog Doesn’t Have To Be The Prettiest
I want to speak from experience one more time. This is one of the things I have wasted more time and money fixing and now I realized, it was all a waste of my time and money.
Being a perfectionist by nature, I just had this urge of making everything perfect before I did anything. Can you relate?
You may be just like me and might be thinking that until your blog’s design is not absolutely amazing, publishing new content is probably not a good idea yet. You don’t want to give an image to the world that you don’t know how to design a good website.
This is what I thought in the beginning.
Well, what I found out is, for the most part, your readers hardly pay attention to your design as long as they get what they came for.
Yes, if your website is broken or your content is impossible to read, then surely it’s bad. However, as long as people can navigate through your website and your content is good, they stick around and even share your content.
Does it mean you shouldn’t ever pay any attention to design?
No, that’s not the idea. But if you can remember what the title of this blog is, this is something you shouldn’t worry about during the launch.
Once your blog matures, you will benefit from a great design for sure. Why? Because a great blog design is helpful when you get into activities related to converting your visitors to subscribers. At that time, it becomes an important aspect of your strategy because you are now onto the next level.
Don’t worry about design too much for now. Just get a decent premium WordPress theme from any of the following marketplaces and get started :
Concern yourself with custom design, converting visitors to subscribers etc. later. This isn’t a time for you to have a perfect blog with all perfect features.
3. You Don’t Have To Be An Expert
This is popular advice experts give, from their perspective, which you and I take and make it difficult for ourselves.
What I mean by that is, trying to find a perfect niche before you can get on with your blog isn't going to happen in most cases until you get experienced in blogging.
You don’t have to have a strong niche to start blogging. You don’t have to become a rocket scientist and figure out a perfect niche that will propel you to amazing success. If you try to do that, you are setting yourself up for failure.
The best way to get over this hump as a new blogger is to remember this:
When you do something, something happens. If you keep waiting, nothing will happen. [tweet this]
Do not wait to identify your niche. Just find out what you are interested in these days. Ask yourself, “What are a few things you feel passion towards?” and get started.
If your interest changes with time and you start to find another passion for another area, you can always expand or start one more blog for that niche. But, if you keep waiting and don’t get started with what you have today, you will never be able to figure out your true passion tomorrow.
Be yourself, start out easy. Write about what you know, what you can teach today and what you can help others with. It will come to you naturally and that’s the best way to get started and keep moving.
4. You Don’t Have To Be Sensational For Sake Of It
Many newbie bloggers fall into the trap of trying to be sensational for no reason. For example:
They read on the internet that sensational headlines bring traffic and they get busy doing headlines that have no relation to the content they publish.
Now, think about it for a second. If you write a sensational headline such as “5 Unheard Ways To Double Your Google Traffic” and all you write is, some of the well-known, beaten up techniques, you will surely have visitors coming in because of your intriguing title. But they will go back with a feeling of emptiness.
But will they come back to your website again?
I don’t think so. I will not come back to your website if I feel cheated. You promised something intriguing and delivered the same old. I feel deceived.
If you really have something sensational, go for it by all means. But, avoid the urge to be sensational for the sake of it, please!
5. You Need To Make Your Blog Posts Skimmable
Patience is something the world is running out of very quickly. Everybody lacks time for some reason.
There were days when we used to wait for 30 seconds or so for a page to load so we could read. Today, let alone humans, even Google bots are not willing to wait that long for your page to load when they come crawling.
Knowing this, you shouldn’t expect that your visitors are going to have time to read every word of your blog posts.
You may have great content, but the attention span of your visitors is very short. If you can’t get hold of their attention in less than 15 seconds, probably they will be gone!
The best thing you can do is to make your post as skimmable as possible.
If people can get highlights of your post through your headlines, images, sub-headings and highlighted sentences etc., probably you can get them interested in reading your entire post.
If you are writing big, long paragraphs, you are losing readers.
If you are not using images effectively in your posts, you are losing readers and upsetting Google.
If you are not using sub-headings and bullet points effectively, you are losing readers.
These are some of the most important content marketing strategies you should be paying attention to while you are getting started and trying to establish yourself in the blogosphere.
6. Just Publishing Great Content Is Not Enough
You may be great at publishing epic content with great value. But, because you are just starting out, you also need to be concerned about making sure people read your posts.
Imagine you produce epic content after epic content and, except your friends and family, nobody else even knows about your content. What return on investment of your time and energy did you get?
Not much!
The biggest challenge you have after writing your content is to get it promoted to places from where people can get to read it. Content syndication, social media promotion, blog commenting, all these things become absolutely important work for you in the beginning.
If you are not active on social media, if you are not visiting other influential bloggers and adding value to their posts through your comments, you are losing out a big chunk of readership and community building for yourself.
Get busy promoting your content after you write it. It is the most important thing you can do after publishing your blog posts.
7. Inconsistency Is Dangerous For Your Blogging Career
Let’s say you decide that you aren't going to publish every day and instead, you will publish three days a week.
Well, do you have a clarity on the schedule of these three posts? Is it going to be M-W-F or T-T-S or W-F-S? What are the days of the week are you absolutely going to post something?
Why is it important?
Well, while it may sound logical that focusing on quality means posting something of value whenever you have something of value.
But the problem is, if you don’t fix a publishing deadline for each week, it will be easy for you to start skipping some days with an excuse ,”Well, I can’t think of something of value today, so let me skip today.”
This becomes a vicious cycle. Soon you will find yourself skipping weeks and then months without new blog posts. That is how bloggers fade away and their blogs die.
Until you make publishing a ritual, it isn’t going to work for you. It has to be a routine that can’t be broken. You have to have a publishing deadline that you must meet each week. Only then you can make some noise.
8. You Can’t Ignore SEO – Do Your Home Work
SEO does seem like a complex game and many newbie bloggers don’t even want to indulge with this thing.
But, don’t you want more people to find your blog posts? Don’t you want search engines to send people to your blog posts when they are looking for the information you are sharing?
Yes, you do. But probably you are ignoring it because you think it’s too complex.
You should make sure all your posts have:
- A descriptive, keyword-rich title
- A search engine friendly, natural-language and keyword-rich “permalink” structure.
- Section headers (sub-headings H2, h3, H4 tags) that are descriptive and utilize keywords properly.
- An image with keyword properly used in a descriptive “ALT” tag.
But you will be surprised how simple it is, especially if you are using WordPress as your blogging platform. You have no reason to be afraid of SEO or ignore it.
Also, you should have an SEO plugin like WordPress SEO by Yoast or All In One SEO installed and configured properly.
You shouldn’t ignore the submission of your website’s sitemap to Google and Bing. That helps these search engines to index your pages and posts faster.
These are simple things that you can learn and implement slowly. But ignoring these simply because you find it difficult, is a bad idea.
9. You Can’t Do It Alone – Participate In Communities
Your network is your net worth. This is not just true in the business world in general, it is true even more in the online world.
Even Google ranks your website based on how many authority websites in your niche are linking to you. That simply means that Google decides your worth based on how many influential people within your niche know you and think that you have something of value.
If that is the case and you are just starting out, doesn’t it make sense for you to be out there where influential people are?
Such a place in blogging world is a blogging community where people in your niche, influencers in your niche participate. There are many Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups and blogging communities online where you can apply for membership and get a way to get in touch with and build relationship with other bloggers.
Remember, you can’t become an influencer all by yourself. You need other people to talk about you, refer people to you. This can only happen when you start participating in blogging communities and begin to add value by being active there.
It is a time consuming activity but avoiding this is a big mistake. You must find time to get this done because it has big long-term benefits.
10. You Must Not Forget The Golden Rule
What do you want people to do when they come to your blog? Probably you want them to read your blog posts , share your posts on their friends on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. May be you also want them to leave some thoughtful comments as well.
Well, the question is, are you doing it to other people’s blogs that you visit?
Are you spending time to read the contents of other bloggers and influencers who you want to build relationships with? When you visit other people’s blogs, do you share their posts with your friends on Facebook, Twitter and Google+? Do you take time to thoughtfully respond through your comments?
If you are not promoting other people, they are not going to promote you either. If you are not leaving thoughtful comments with an intention to add value to other people’s blog posts, you are going to get similar results on your own blog. That’s just karma.
In addition to that, when you do these activities genuinely, you establish your brand image as a genuine blogger, with genuine passion, who is intentional about helping others and building genuine relationships.
That kind of an image in the blogosphere goes a long way and you will be amazed how fast you will be able to get promoted into the mainstream.
But you need to do it. There is no shortcut to success!
Your Turn – More Blogging Mistakes/Challenges?
My goal has been to help people establish their brand identity and naturally, blogging is one of the key elements of this whole phenomena. I wanted to write this post to help new bloggers and aspiring online entrepreneurs to get their footprint established.
Now, will you help me educate others with this knowledge? Will you share this with others so they can benefit?
Also, what are some of the other blogging mistakes you think people should avoid? Please scroll down into the comment section and share your thoughts.
Thank you kindly!
Hi Kumar,
I’ve found your first point to be true. It takes a lot of ingenuity to create content on a daily basis.
Besides that, most people don’t have time to read that much content. I think it also limits your ability to effectively share it as well.
I also agree with your 6th point too, which requires a necessary investment of time and energy to get some traction.
All the best!
Bill
Hi Bill,
Glad you resonated with some of the points. Being successful at anything requires significant investment of time, money and resources. And we have to be wise about prioritizing what is important. That’s the idea behind the post as well.
Thanks for dropping by and everything that you do. Have a terrific Thursday!
Regards,
Kumar
I must agree with you, Bill.
I sadly discovered that though I was willing to create content on a daily basis (and go to the extra pains of actually promoting it in a tireless manner), ‘catching up’ was really a problem for my readers. It was my discovery too that even my most loyal readers had challenges following up on a daily basis…
My reaction? Once a week henceforth (and on Sundays).That way, each entry gets the promotion it deserves and all my readers have the pleasure of following up at their pace…after all, its for them I blog – not for my own personal consumption!
Always,
Terungwa
Hi Kumar,
That was amazing information about blogging mistakes. You believe you’ll want to publish regular part as most people think the only method to pull through is putting up daily precisely how ever i have noticed top quality pays a lot more than quantity and there are many bloggers i realize who post less nevertheless quality blogposts and have confidence in me readers are desperately awaiting their next posts on a regular basis.
Thanks
That’s right Manoj! Quality always wins! Daily posting may be a good idea for a news type website. But, for blogs, this may be a bad idea and can get the blogger frustrated fast with little or no benefit.
Thanks for dropping by. Appreciate your feedback.
Cheers!
Kumar
Hello Manoj,
You are so on point! Bloggers like Adrienne Smith only get to publish twice a week, yet the shares, comments and traffic to her blog are definitely something to be proud of, any day.
Quality, should only be taken along with quantity if it will not in anyway dilute it!
Always,
Terungwa
Hi Kumar,
Wonderful post indeed 🙂
You stated the right mistakes most bloggers tend to make when they start their online journey. If you are not consistent, it becomes tough to rank, unless you have really reached the great heights as I’ve seen some of such bloggers even blog once a fortnight and get away with good ranks. In such cases, they have something more than backlinks and SEO working for them, but that doesn’t work for people like us.
Whatever schedule you follow, make sure you stick to it, so that your readers don’t keep waiting for a post update from you. It’s after some time now that I’ve started doing this, unless I get stuck with some problems in the home front or the server issues. I too am not in the favor of bloggers who blog daily because they hardly could be getting any comment, except the probloggers who’s blogs people flock. More over, you drain yourself pretty soon too I feel.
Other than that – you’ve said it all, the last being the most important – to build relationships with fellow bloggers by commenting, sharing, and visiting their blogs – the reciprocation rule is what really works, isn’t it?
Thanks for sharing. Have a nice week ahead 🙂
Hi Harleena,
Thank you for the value addition. You are right. Whatever the schedule is, stay consistent and do not leave your readers wondering if you are going to post today or not 🙂
And yes, the people who get things working for them right from the start have other factors playing major role in their success. It isn’t for everyone. You are right about that.
Thank you for a very thoughtful response!
Regards,
Kumar
In general the main ideas that website, blog or any other kind of website should be looked like business, not just as side project without perspective.
Correct. It will give you what you give to it. You treat it second class, it remains second class. You give it your best and it becomes the best you could imagine. Good assessment!
The biggest mistake new bloggers does is to cram their website with the advertisement in order to monetise it. As a thumb rule one should not go for monetisation till one has reached say minimum 200 readers per day and they should be genuine readers and not through link farms. Gauraw what is your take on it !!
I wouldn’t say that although I did what you said. But your blog is your business. Why would you open a business with no products?
Imagine a TV channel with no advertisements. How long can they stay in business?
So, I am an advocate of using ads and selling affiliate products but with conscience. Too much of anything is bad. But if your blog is for making money online by selling ads, go for it. People will not mind as long as you are providing great value 🙂
The problem happens when people are writing for the sake or writing and to sell ads. That is when visitors feel frustrated.
Hope it makes sense Gaurav?
@ Gauraw : Its nice to get a quick response from you as new bloggers will get a contrarion thought process and you are right that excess of everything is bad and thus a judicious mix of good content coupled with some advertisement can be a right mix. Regards
Glad we discussed this!
Have a great week my friend!
Hello Kumar, I think I have made all of these mistakes hehe especially trying to get everything perfect before I did anything. My first blog I actually paid Pro Solutions to build for me and I still didn’t publish my first blog post for months. Wow. I had not clue as to what I was doing.
Sure wish I would have found a blog post like this one 3 years ago, it would have saved me a lot of lost time, Live and learn HUH?
I do believe that taking consistent action is the main thing when it comes to anything really, wouldn’t you agree? Well looking forward to getting together with you next weekend in Dallas!! Chery :))
Hey Kumar,
Great list, I think the biggest thing for me was realizing that you don’t have to know everything before you get started! It’s easy to get caught up thinking you have to know it all, but experience has told me that it’s better just to jump in and go! So to new bloggers, start writing and learn as you go!
Great read,
Zach
Very valuable information, Kumar 🙂 I believe all advises are very important and I will use your wisdom, as I did from the day I started my blog 🙂 Thank you for such information!
You are very welcome Aistis. Glad to know you liked it.
Have a successful week my friend!
Cheers!
Kumar
Very good post, Mr. Gauraw. They always are.
It’s really hard to post every single day. I need to work on 9 and 10.
I thought about another mistake, maybe it’s not to buy a domain for your blog. What do you think?
Yes mam! It is absolutely worth it. Having your own domain name gives you that instant credibility and a professional image.
If you need any help in setting up your own domain, please let me know. I will be glad to help.
Regards,
Kumar
Awesome advice Kumar. All your points are spot on but I couldn’t help but smile when reading the one about not getting caught up in the advice about blogging daily. I also got sucked into that when I first started and it made me crazy. I’ve been blogging for a little over 4 years now and after testing my audience response I finally settled on 2 new posts a week. With that I get a good response, plus it leaves me time to do other things like communicate with my subscribers, work with clients and write / market my books.
Excellent strategy Marquita! Looks like we both got started the se way.
I think people with passion and self confidence will do that and as I can relate to your story, I know you started on a daily posting schedule perhaps for the same reason that, “If this is what takes to be successful on fast track, so be it.” 🙂
But it didn’t work out very well and I also settled down to a two post strategy and occasionally, 3 posts a week. But pretty much that’s it.
Thank you for dropping by and sharing your story.
Regards,
Kumar
Hey Kumar,
I really don’t think you left anything out here my friend.
I had someone tell me just this week that since my nephew had a brand new blog that he needed to have at least 30 posts up now and he better be able to stick to blogging everyday or he wasn’t going to have any success. I politely told her that was bull and I could prove it.
As long as I’ve been blogging I’ve never blogged every single day; ever. I even had a test blog I created with a course I was doing at that time and only posted once a week for eight months and not only did that blog gain traction but I started making money my very first month. Within five months my Alexa ranking was at 125K, I had consistent visitors and got up to just below 100 comments per post with some being over that. I hate when people tell newbies that.
I think with anything we all want to come into this knowing it all and thinking to ourselves that we’re not authorities to talk about certain topics so we feel like frauds. I think if we learn as we go and share our experiences and results then that’s the best learning experience we can ever have.
Great job with this list and right now I can’t think of anything to add Kumar. Hope everyone reads this one and takes a load off and just gets to work.
Have a great weekend.
~Adrienne
Aha! So you couldn’t find even one point to add to my list? Hmmm…. next time, I am going to leave one or two points on purpose so you could add some from your repository 🙂
Thank you for sharing about your test website’s success. That again tells us that hard work is definitely important, but in the right direction. Consistency is important (you see you did blog there for 8 months) but when efforts are put wisely. A great testimonial.
Happy Friday to you!
Regards,
Kumar
I completely agree with you and Kumar, Adrienne. I was told that in the beginning and blogged 5 days a week for the first six months. I had readers complain that they enjoyed my posts but couldn’t keep up with the content. I truly believe that blog posts need some time to breathe!
I’m so glad you told that person off, Adrienne. Thank goodness your nephew has his dear Aunt A to guide him with his new blog!
“3. You Don’t Have To Be An Expert”
A great way around this if you’re thinking you don’t know anything in depth, is to create a blog in this format:
“Follow me as I ____”.
Take your readers on the journey.
It makes things more human, honest and believable as well, which helps connect to people better.
Hi Andy,
That is an excellent approach. Wow! How simple it can be, right? Thank you for the suggestion. I hope people read this!
Have a great day!
-Kumar
Hey Kumar,
You touched on a couple of points that hit home. I was told to blog everyday, which I kinda did LOL.. I was blogging 5 days a week but it didn’t really help a lot. This is the one thing that really got me, plus I wasn’t commenting and replying to comments either, and we all know the law of reciprocity. I scratch your back and you scratch mines.
Plus number 6 was a doozer for me as well. Yes you can have the greatest content in the world, but if you’re not promoting it or out networking with others on social media and blogs, then you won’t get any traffic at all. No readers and no organic traffic at that. You definitely must make it a point to meet and interact with people or else you’ll be fighting a losing battle.
Thanks for the value Kumar and I hope you have a great weekend!
Hi Sherman,
It seems a lot of us have been in the zone where we blogged everyday and even twice a day. 🙂 I was also in the same league for a period of time and then I started to scale down when I began noticing people who taught daily blogging also scale down.
It made sense and I have never seen my traffic coming down because of that.
See you soon with some great new posts this coming week.
Regards,
Kumar
Hi Kumar, This is a fantastic primer for new bloggers! Boy, do I wish I had read this when I was starting to blog! I want to address each of your 10 points individually.
As I said above in response to Adrienne, I’m against writing/publishing every day. I have done it, not only the first six months of blogging but also in December last year when I had so many topics to cover. My traffic went up a bit but not by 40%, even though I was writing 40% more articles. People only have so much time to spend on your blog.
You’re right, your blog doesn’t have to look stunning and in fact I think some people work too hard on the design and then my eyeballs hurt with all the colors and patterns I see when their site loads. I have actually closed pages when I realized that reading their blog would give me a headache!
You’re right about not being an expert, but definitely people should do research and stay within their niche. I once visited the blog of a dear friend whose niche wasn’t tech but he had a guest post about a tech topic. The facts were 100% wrong so I had to write him and tell him that he didn’t want that article on his site because the author clearly didn’t know what he/she was talking about.
#4 really is a pet peeve of mine. Link bait in the tech world is rampant. Headlines such as “5 New Features in the iPhone 6!” lead you to click on the article and then it’s the 5 features that the author would like to see in the next iPhone. You’re right, you might get a reader once but they won’t come back!
5 is so important. Headers and organization really make a difference. I went to a blog once that was one long paragraph! Sorry, that just doesn’t work. You do a great job with this every time, Kumar!
6 makes a difference too but most new bloggers don’t know the importance of sharing. It takes time to build up social network connections so you should share the posts of 10 other people for every one of your own you share.
I adhere to number 7. I post on a Monday Wednesday and Friday with bonus articles every so often (such as in December). I post even when I’m away on vacation, I’ve never missed a day. But I will say that others don’t seem to follow a schedule and blog when they can. Either the passion is there or it isn’t but sometimes a schedule just doesn’t work for some people. The brilliant Josh Wilner said it best, “I blog at the speed of me.”
8 is interesting to me because finding the right keywords is challenging. This past week I wrote about apps for the NCAA Basketball Tournament, also called March Madness. My keyword research told me that NCAA was much more popular than March Madness so I used NCAA as my hashtag. Later in the day #MarchMadness was #1 trending on Twitter and #NCAA wasn’t trending at all. Oops. You’re right about SEO, it’s very important!
#9 is so important. Doing it alone is a recipe for failure, plus it’s lonely! I’m a big fan of Triberr. You meet great people and get your content shared much more broadly. My Twitter followers of 3480 get expanded to 60 million because of Triberr!
10 is ultra important too! What really bugs me is on Triberr when others post their articles but never share anyone else’s. The amazing Harleena Singh has it right. She is the most supportive blogger out there. She is usually the very first to comment with meaningful insights, she shares widely over many social networks and is responsive on her blog as well!
Thanks so much, Kumar. I know this great article will help many people. I’m off to share it widely!
Hi Carolyn,
Wow! Thank you for taking time to share your thoughts on each point. Regarding the 4th blogging mistake, a lot of people seem to do that just to come across as sensational. “Secrets of something”, “things you have unheard of”, ” 10 things they didn’t tell you” etc. Mostly these headlines do not deliver what they promise. And it is a definite pet peeve 🙂
Have a great weekend and a productive new week coming up! Looking forward to some great posts from you this coming week again.
Regards,
Kumar
Hi Kumar,
My initial reaction to your post was, “It would be very easy to throw my hands up in despair and give up on my blog, because I can never do all that!” But right away I realized I’d fallen into the perfection trap. Several of your points come back to that very thing — it does not have to be perfect! Just work toward improving in each area at my own pace.
The most important ones for me to work on right now, are consistency in posting and communicating with those who comment.
Willena
Hi Kumar,
thanks a lot for this great information. As I just started out with blogging I really learned a lot from it. There’s quite a couple of thinigs I shall start to implement immediately.
Cheers
Torsten
right publishing great content is not enough one need to be consistent and better SEO is must as it increase our audience which brings much more customers
Great post and worth reading! Since I am new to blogging I am trying hard to rectify my mistakes!
Learned a few things from this post too!
Keep sharing such useful info!
Hello Kumar,
Its great to be on board again – its evident I’ve missed a lot!
You see, blogging is an experiment that only the blogger in question can decide. What I keep on telling my readers is that subscribe only to what actually works for you!
As relates to the blogging frequency, I have experimented blogging randomly, then twice a week, then once every two days and then, everyday. Its a surprise that I have now simply opted for the once a week schedule! Why? That is exactly what I believe will work for me (while giving me ample chance for adequate promotion and pursuing my other online businesses.
This is a super awesome post…and I leave your readers with what I always leave mine with: “subscribe to only what actually works for you!”
Always,
Terungwa
Hi Kumar,
What a wonderful job you have done on this post!
Blogging every day? Not me! I did fall into that trap a long time ago and it wasn’t worth the effort. I found myself just blogging and not doing any other important work for my business. When you get enough of visitors, it is so time consuming that once or twice a week is good for me!
As for the design I like it plain and simple! The worst thing for me is to go on to a “pretty” blog where my eyes go all over the place except the post itself.
And of course, Inconsistency has to be the most dangerous of all. That’s where you will find yourself in big trouble. Even if you can only handle one blog a week, consistency is the key!
-Donna
Great ideas Gauraw… but onbe learn from his misktakes.. i did many mistakes.. and still trying to find my own different ways to make my sites run…. One main factor for making a blog success is being Unique. Try your own ways.. Might our own ways will bring great success for us in some or the other way… 🙂
Hi friend,
Read your post which was fabulous and informative.
I thing this post show that. It is an excellent launching point that you can realize due to stop learning. There usually are many completely new avenues you will go down because you increase ones readership and also improve your website.
Thanks for posting.
Kumar- You are great teacher as your posts are written so they make sense to everyone. The biggest mistake I find on many sites is that they use jargon that may not apply to all to understand. One of the best things I have learned about blogging is Participate In Communities. Blogging everyday is something I couldn’t do and I am glad it is not necessary. I write once a week and I will maybe write a blog so that I am ready for the following week just to get a head of the game. I do not publish it which also gives me more time to tweak my blog.
Hi Arleen,
Thank you for your kind words of appreciation.
I post twice a week and do not have any plan to bump it up in the near future as well.
I think it is more important to promote what we already have than to keep creating more and more content.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your blogging style. I am glad you have found your sweet spot and it’s working well for you!
Regards,
Kumar
Where to begin Kumar!
You cover so many valid points in this excellent post, but the main ones that really
hit the nail on the head are points #3,6 & 9. They really make total sense!
Far too many of us, especially when just starting out, get way too caught up in this ” Will I be
viewed as credible “expert thing?”
And practically everybody starts out far more concerned with spamming our links
everywhere, instead of learning how to strategically use the process of social engagement and community to
accomplish so much more, so much faster!
Thank goodness I found my coaches and mentors Adrienne Smith and Donna & David Merrill!
Otherwise I would have continued to just spam in vain!!
And finally, unfortunately, being small business owners and or entrepreneurs/solopreneurs, there’s always that
tendency to try and be the lone ranger! Especially when you’re first starting out!
I don’t know Kumar, but may be your list should be standard reading for all serious bloggers, especially when they first come out of the gate!
That way they don’t burn out, before they even get going! This was a really good read! And has definitely inspired a few blog posts! Thanks!
Ah! Thank you Mark! I appreciate your words of appreciation and take it as compliment. Thank you!
I am glad you found this list helpful and that you found it valuable!
If I can be of any help in your blogging journey, please always feel free to ask for it.
Regards,
Kumar
Hello Kumar,
This is one of the awesome post I have ever read. I visited your blog for the first time and got mad over all your posts. You write so well.
I really liked the idea of being consistent as this is a must for every blog to survive in the blogosphere. When I was a newbie I know nothing about proper blogging strategies and I posted articles whenever I wished. This caused a negative effect on my readers. But after contacting the pro blogger Neil Patel he gave an awesome advise to publish your article on thursday,friday or sunday. You are very true that we should work on a proper routine.
Really I learned a lot by reading articles by probloggers like you. Thanks for sharing this awesome article.
Going to share it to my followers. BTW I am a big fan of your blog comments on Ahanow.com 😉
Thanks again 🙂
Hi Nikhil,
It’s a pleasure to meet you here and thank you for dropping by to share your thoughts. And again, thank you for your kind words of appreciation 🙂
I am glad you liked this post and that you have followed my comments on Aha-Now. Harleena does a tremendous job with that website, right?
Wow! So, did you speak to Neil in person or did you interact with him on email? I am planning to talk to him as well. I know I have his 30 minutes of talk time reserved with him which I will be leveraging to get to talk to him and learn a few important things from him very very soon. You reminded me of that pending task today. So thanks again Nikhil. Have a great day!
Cheers!
Kumar
Hi Kumar,
Your “You Don’t Have To Be Sensational For Sake Of It” reminds me of the article “4 Unheard Types of Blogging Commenters You Should Know About” (the first one being spammers LOL). I guess you remember both the headline and my comment 🙂
Oh yeah! Actually, that title came to my mind right then. But I didn’t want to make him an example of it for sake of it 🙂
Glad you remembered it too! LOL!
Great tips and i love the way you write.. Now i just have to start making adjustments to my blog and the way i write and all that. Great tips and keep up the good work 😀