8 mistakes to avoid in blogging

I thought of sharing some of my experience in reviewing various blogs over here. While the quality of the blogs varied a lot, one thing for sure is every blogger has the passion to blog. I think only this passion to blog has carried me this far and many other bloggers.

I always restrained from commenting on the content itself. My suggestions usually come from the viewpoint of the layout, arrangement of the page elements, navigational tools, text styles and similar. I had no intention to hurt any one in the review process and the whole intention is to improve the blog and bring in more traffic. I am happy that many of you have taken my comments positively. Here is my view on the common mistakes that should be avoided while blogging:

1. Do not clutter the top portion of your blog completely with advertisements. I am not against placing advertisements. But, I personally feel that if you don’t sell your content to the readers you cannot sell your advertisement. Make sure when someone opens your blog, they can see at least a part of the content/ post.



2. Do not expect your readers to scroll through the entire blog from top to bottom. Provide adequate navigational means for your readers. A simple list of recent posts or popular posts should help to keep them longer on your blog. The more they read, the better the chance for them to become your regular reader. A list of related posts just below each post would also help.



3. Do not commit the mistake of not categorizing your posts. Always, include tags for each post. Keep the tags short, in one or two words. Try to keep the list of tags at an optimal level; about ten categories should be ideal.



4. Do not use a standard template provided by your host. Look around for a template that looks professional and gives a better impression. Readers give better rating to blogs with a better looking template than a better written blog. If you do not want to spend, there are many free templates available.



5. Do not use a different style for each of your posts. Use a consistent style for your font type, font size and font colour. I have seen bloggers using one colour for each post. This really doesn’t look nice. Do not use italic font for very long sections of text.



6. Do not underline text, as readers would mistake underlined text as links. Use bold font or different colour to highlight a particular section, if really needed. Keep it minimal.



7. Do not write long posts without any line breaks. Arrange your post into little paragraphs. Include sub-titles, wherever possible.



8. Do not leave your blog un-posted for long durations. Update your blog regularly. Keep to a schedule and ensure that your posting frequency does not vary too much. If you are going on a long break, leave a note to your readers.

Just to conclude, I am not a great blogger myself. I am learning new tricks everyday. So, read other blogs and see what makes you to visit their blog regularly. Feel free to add your opinions on the topic as comments to this post.

Please subscribe to my feed if you like this post