It seems a lot of people these days believe that one can become an expert, just by copying and pasting random articles in a blog.
The bitter reality proves to be far different from that unfortunately.
People wiling to become full-time bloggers need to remember that doing just a single thing, which obviously doesn’t even work, is not going to lead to success. There is variety of factors that should be taken into consideration for a better blog.
And in the ever-changing blogosphere one needs to constantly adjust, otherwise failure will be short to come.
The following article is made especially for the bloggers in the described position.
The next paragraphs will go through some bad habits that should be avoided if you want to gain recognition among your readers and reach success (whatever success means to you).
1. You Don’t Care About Your Blog Layout
Design is of a great importance and a lot of bloggers underestimate it, thinking that content is the king.
Even though I can’t argue about the importance of quality content, the focal point for every first time visitor is the overall look of the blog and the feel to it.
Having three or four sidebars, full of useless widgets is only going to make your visitors more confused. In order to make them stay longer, you should strive for simple, but easy to navigate blog.
Always think twice before adding any additional coding to your site and ask yourself whether it will actually help your visitors.
Choosing color combinations wisely is another important factor for a successful blog. Everything flashy and bright should be avoided if your topic is something along the lines of business and marketing. It just seems unprofessional and irrelevant to your subject.
On the other hand, the less additional jpeg or png files, the faster your load times. And those do play a significant role for your visitors and now for Google as well.
Recently, I discovered a very useful plugin, called “ShortPixel” (read about it here). Just by installing it and running the automatic bulk image optimization, I gained a few position in the GTMetrix PageSpeed Score.
2. You Tolerate Plagiarism
Being yourself and coming up with original ideas is one of the ingredients for successful blogging. Copying someone else’s work is not going to do any real good to your business. You should instead perform a thorough research to produce quality and unique content.
A blogger needs to have his own style – writing in general, structuring of the article, etc. So when someone reads two or more articles from you, it must be evident that they are deed of the same person.
On the other hand drawing inspiration from other bloggers’ work is not a problem. You have the full freedom to go to your favorite blogs and start reading their articles. Checking out the comments section can also be a great source of ideas.
Remember that if you want to become a recognizable face, you should stop copying the big players and instead try to be original.
You may want to read: 4 Effective Tips to Help You Write More.
3. You Don’t Have Any Real Goals
In order to reach your desired goals your first need to have them set. Not having a goal is a common problem for many bloggers and a reason for failure.
Setting realistic goals can be highly beneficial, since it serves as a great motivator for getting things done. I’m not talking about long-term goals like earning 300$ a month though.
Try to set some very achievable weekly goals, such as reaching a specific number of comments on other blogs or submitting specific number of stories to social networking sites.
The tip #8 at this post published in WHSR blog suggests to create a community around your website.
Whatever the goal, it is always helpful to have one, as it keeps you from getting lost in the endless sea of tasks.
4. You Write Whatever is on Your Mind
Every blogger out there has a lot more interests than just blogging. Of course there is nothing bad in it.
One just needs to keep in mind that the business blog he owns is NOT a diary and therefore it should be kept clean of everything else.
For example my biggest passion except for blogging is skydiving, but considering the fact that my subjects have nothing to do with it, I have no intention of including it in the blog.
It is ok to add some more personal articles (very) occasionally and still knowing when to draw the line is a crucial skill that you must obtain for a better blog.
As always feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section.
What other bad habits can you come up with?
Are the ones listed above valid at all?
Hello Erik, I am new to this blogging scenario. I must say that this post hit me hard. I changed my blogs layout several times. At the beginning it looks fine to me but after a few days I start to hate it and change it again. LOL. I think keeping the design as simple as possible is the best way to go.
Hi Sam,
I’m sure you going to chance your blog layout many more times in future.
Good luck with blogging! 🙂
And nice to connecting.
Hi Erik,
Well, your post remind me about my past habits because I have ever done them when I firstly had a blog. Talking about plagiarism, I also hate it especially for the bloggers that copied my writing. I do agree with this post, hope u will share other next inspiring and useful post again. Thanks before and after
Hi Kando,
good to read you enjoyed the post.
Stay tuned for more posts.
These are some very good tips Erik. I am looking to hear more from you.
Thanks for the feedback, Ravi.
I like point number 2. We at times get lost in wanting to copy what other big people in the industry do. it is very true that is is high time we stick to originality and believe in ourselves.
That’s right, Iornah.
We should find our writing style and show our personality.
Thanks for commenting, have a good one!
Hi Erik, that’s fantastic post, I think new blogger get ideas about this article, basically, I have used these ways on my past time. Hey Erik Thanks for shared and remembered me past time. Thanks Again.
Glad to read you are already avoiding these bad blogging habits.
Thanks for leaving your comment, Asif.
Hi Erik,
I don’t really write personally, but I do agree on what you pointed out here. Copying others work is really a no-no, but the reality is a lot of people does it.
What’s your thought on continuing, adding or proving a point (either negative or positive) of a particular article? Let say, google released a new update and the article posted by a blogger has an incomplete thought and you grab that opportunity to create an article in relation to that.
Positive on that, Marlon.
That’s a way to enrich your content with latest news and right information.
Plus, if you see a particular blog post is going well, if you add insights and recent data helps rank it even higher, in my opinion.
Regarding point number two “you tolerate plagiarism” This is just one of my pet peeves when it comes to reading a person’s blog post.
To put it very bluntly.. when you copy someone’s work you are stealing from them and to make matters worse you are lying to your readers
Unfortunately People just dont seem to understand the issues.. again to put it bluntly..you are ruining your own reputation as a person and who wants to be branded in such a manner? I sure dont!
A good post..thanks 🙂
I agree with you, Diana.
But there’s a simple solution to make the most out of people who are stealing your content.
Imagine gaining a link for every time someone is copying and pasting your content. Even the formatting will be copied as well.
It’s a great way to fight against content thieves.
This service I’m suggesting is called Tynt (free). Of course this tool won’t disable the copying of your content, but it’ll add an attribution link back to your website whenever a piece of text is copied from your blog.
Once you register for free at their service, you just need to install a script code and that’s all.
If you make a test copying a piece of content from your website, the result will look like this:
”
Copied content
Read more: “URL of your web page where the text was taken”
”
Most of the people who are copying content will just add it automatically to their websites, without even noticing the link back to your blog. They simply copy, paste and publish.
There are also more features….if you want to read more about it, see:
http://reviewzntips.com/wordpress-security-tips/
Hi Erik,
Great tips here, thank you for sharing this,
I found this post’s notification today at Bizsugar pages and I upovoted it and shared thru my social sites,. I am sure these are some of the vital points in blogging every blogger should make note of and avoid. I am sure thru my share few will be benefited.
Thanks again for this informative post.
Regards
~ Ann
Good to read you landed here from BizSugar.
Thanks for visiting and commenting, Ann.
Hi Erik,
You are right, doing these mistakes will take us nowhere. Although we must check out content for plagiarism because someday it may end up in Google penalty.
Thanks for the comment, Robin.
i am nb 3 wrong and not setting a goal for myself, i’ll give it a go for next week and see how things go, thx for the info nice post
Hope this is going to help you, Wissam.
Hello Erik,
Love your article about us, I mean bloggers, another bad habit blogger have, that for the Temptation of getting lots of comments that don’t bother to enable comment moderation on their blog, and that is atrocious for their blog.
Very nice post. Keep it up bro.
Getting my layout in order was a big difference maker for me Erik. Big time change when I created a simple, clean and navigable blog, because folks could get around and check out my content easily. Seamless experience. Thinking like a visitor or reader versus thinking like a blogger helped me kick the bad blogging design habit.