Blogging Myths and Pitfalls

These are some blogging myths and pitfalls and may trap you into a blog quick sand and eventually convince you to quit blogging.

Understanding the myths of blogging may equipped you with better blogging tactics and techniques to proceed further and make your blog into a great blog.

1. Blogging is easy

Don't underestimate the look of blogging. It look easy but it's not. There are always factors to consider in starting a blog and maintaining it.

2. All I need to do is scrape content

To start off, maybe it is okay to scrape contents from elsewhere and recompile and post it in your blog. But this tactics can't go on forever. You need to write your own original contents. People like new contents, fresh contents. People are awed by breaking news. Be the first to blog about a topic and followers will make you the leader.

3. Your best way of getting backlinks is to trawl the dofollow lists

Again, this trick work on a short-term basis. After a while you will be getting tired of submitting your blog URL in those dofollow sites. So the best way of getting backlinks is through volunteered link. And the only way of getting volunteered link is to keeping blogging with original contents and eventually you will have some authority on that subject. By that time, people will link to your blog or your post, for free.

4. You don’t need to study blogging or learn much about the technique

Blogging is just like building a business. There are 1,001 things to consider, to implement and to improve. To make a successful blog, you need to author attractive and quality post and you need to promote it. For easy blog promotion, you need to be involve in social networking and it pretty much the same as marketing or business networking. The whole idea is to gain exposure so that your blog became more popularity among your social networking circle, among friend and in the eyes of search engine.

5. Starting a blog in the “How to make money” niche is the way to go

How to make money online was a fad. Everyone is into it and if you are into it as well, it make you a follower. After all, why waste your time writing article and not getting paid for it ? In truth, "How to make money" is so outdated. There are better niche to go into and still you can make money from it.

6. Darren Rowse only made it because he was in the right place at the right time

Yeah, maybe he have a lucky break. But Darren has put a lot of effort in his blogging efforts. That's for sure.

7. You don’t have to spend time on crafting your headlines

Headlines or blog title will determine if your post is pickup by search engine or if reader like your post. Remember the saying, "First impression is important" ?. Lame or run-of-the-mill headline is boring. So many others are doing the same thing. To be ahead, create catchy title. If need to, create controversial title. Believe me, people love to peek into your blog if they saw your hot and sensational title.

Creating a blog title is an art. In practice, your blog post title must not be too short or too long. It must contained the relevant keywords. If the keywords sound too common, replace it with alternative words.

8. Linking to other blogs means you will leak Google juice

Outbound links or linking to other sites is okay so long as the link are redirected to site or topic related to yours. If you are blogging about girls fashion but your outbound linked to site related to computer games, then it does make sense to your readers. It won't make sense to Google search engine either.

9. Blogging is only about making money

Blogging for money is definitely valid. But to solely blog about making money is not so. The beauty of blogging is that is allow a diverse or varieties of topics. If you are keen on a subject, you can blog about it. If you are a soccer fanatic, you can blog about it. Everyone can blog.

10. Linkbait is simply about being controversial

To some, link baiting is controversial and unconventional. However, to some it is a clever way to attract links and traffic to your blog. How what exactly is link baiting ? It a method to "reward" those who link to your blog in form of contest or competition, link exchange or link carnivals. Take contest for example, you can strike a deal with other blogger if he or she link to your blog in return for your sponsored prizes.

11. You can use a blog to simply sell your products

You can use a blog to sell your products but it's very tricky. To blatantly blog about your products will make your site littered with advertisements. And readers don't like blog full of advertisement.

12. I can blog without having to write long, informative posts

Writing short articles with a few lines or a few paragraph will not take your blog anyway. No one like read a one-liner article. Readers want to read facts and figures and be entertained at the same time. You can't do that with a short posting.

13. Slapping a ton of ads on your blog will bring instant riches and traffic

Blog full of advertisements only scared away readers. First time reader make lurked into your blog but once her or she saw that your blog have too many advertisement, he or she may not return to your site. Readers visited your blog for your posting not for the advertisements. So, if you want include advertisements in your blog, don't overdo it thinking that more advertisements will bring more cash to you.

14. You only need to post once a month

Posting once a month is for lazy bloggers. Readers like bloggers who post frequently, like at least twice a week. Frequent posting will indicate to readers that you are serious about your blog and serious about your authority in your blogging field.

15. You don’t need to spell check

Typo mistake give bad impression. As mentioned earlier, reader like quality post. Never mind about grammar error, but at least your post doesn't have obvious typing mistake. How do you write a post with spell check happening at the same time ? Use FireFox browser that have spell checker plugin.

16. Purple on red is cool for text

Purple on red is cool for text, if and only if you are colour blind. Your post must have a proper text size, font and colour and contrast. You want your reader to enjoy reading your article not to shoo them with weird text colour combination.

17. Animations are fun and it makes the blog come alive

Animations can be fun. But it's taxing for your blog loading time. Heavy animations slow down the loading of the post and most reader don't want to be keep waiting. If need to, include a small animation to ensure that the loading of that animation does not interrupt the visitor reading experience.

18. You can easily rewrite articles from other blogs

Yes, you can rewrite articles from other blogs. You can copy and paste. But you know that is not original. Furthermore, search engine doesn't like duplicate articles. The best way is to get aspiration from other blogs and write in your own way.

19. Black Hat techniques are the way to go and will always work

Black Hat (underground) techniques is a short-cut to failure. Whatever underground tactic that you practiced in your blog may only work in short-term basis but in the long-run, readers will know that you are using short-cut, you are cheating your away and eventually they lose trust in you. Remember, there is no real short-cut in blogging. Just keep posting your original articles and don't be smart to walk around the system. Basically, you can improve your blogging tactics but don't ever think that black hat techniques will help you.

20. Your first comment on someone else blog can contain nothing but talk about your own blog and a link to it

That will be spamming. When you comment on someone else blog, give your own account or input related to the post and not to promote your own log. The blog owner will just remove your spamming comment that it just a waste of your time and the other blogger's time.


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