Prague
Blogging successfully involves patiently building a rock solid foundation for your campaign.
Doing it the right way from day 1 is quite rare.
I’ve seen many bloggers struggle, fail and quit due to making common blogging errors.
Correcting these mistakes puts you on the path to experience increased blogging success.
Keep an eye out for these errors.
1: Covering Multiple Niches
Covering multiple niches erodes your credibility.
The world trusts specialists not generalists.
Stop being a jack of all trades.
Master one to gain credibility.
Do one thing to do it well.
Cover one topic to know it inside-out.
Practical Tips
- pick a single blogging niche based on your passion and reader demand
- cover one topic to gain credibility
- research the niche thoroughly by following top blogs focused on the sector
2: Ignoring All Metrics for Years
Obsessively stat-chasing promotes blogging struggles but ignoring all metrics damages your blog too.
How can you miss critical trends and succeed?
Becoming successful involves doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t work.
Check metrics every 3-6 months at a minimum to long-term spot trends.
Do more of what works.
Stop doing what doesn’t work.
Practical Tips
- allow long term trends to dictate the direction of your blogging campaign
- don’t ignore metrics but don’t obsess over numbers either
- do more of what works
- stop doing what doesn’t work
3: Not Updating Old Content
Old posts need frequent visits to update content.
Statistics, strategies and tactics change with time.
What worked 10 years ago may not work now.
Work worked 6 months ago may not work now.
Websites vanish, strategies morph and broken links need to be deleted or replaced.
Update old blog posts to keep your blog current.
Practical Strategies
- beef up thin blog posts to span 1200-1500 words for search traffic
- delete dead links
- remove dated strategies
- add timely tactics
4: Fearing that You Will Annoy Readers with Your Content
Bloggers sometimes fear that publishing a specific volume of detailed content will annoy readers.
But if you fear doing the very thing that brings blogging success how can you thrive?
Be careful about buying in to this common blogger mind virus spread freely. Contrary to popular belief, people want fresh, detailed blog posts. The rare few who get cheesed on receiving long-form content frequently weren’t your readers anyway.
Be prolific.
Be generous.
Giving freely of your time and talents positions you to succeed.
Holding back guarantees blogging failure.
Exception
Readers may become annoyed by receiving a high volume of thin, 400-600 word blog posts published multiple times daily.
For example, if I emailed readers ten 500 word blog posts today most would not be happy based on the average expectation of a blog post length being at least 600-1000 words.
Overall through, if you publish 1200-1500 word posts – or longer – feel free to be prolific to help readers and to build your blog on a strong foundation.
5: Spamming by Commenting off Topic
Do not promote your business via blog comments; this is spam.
Do not comment off topic; this is spam.
In this day and age of ai-generated content and comments I delete every comment not highly specific, on topic and obviously crafted by a human being.
Publish relevant comments.
Build relationships through your genuine blog comments.
Be authentic. Stick around for a few moments to share your honest thoughts about the blog post.
Frame comments as relationship building blocks.
Build your blogger friend network through authentic blog comments.
6: Spamming by Sharing Your Blog Post Links as Unrelated Comments on Social Media
Avoid sharing off topic blog post links as social media comments.
Bloggers sometimes try to sneak through their posts in response to completely irrelevant social media updates; this is considered spam.
Link only to blog posts fully related to social media updates.
For example, bloggers often ask how to start blogging via multiple Facebook Groups on a daily basis.
If I come across one such post I address the fellow blogger by name and point them to this post via a comment:
How to Start a Blog the Right Way
Link only to relevant, detailed blog posts via social media comments.
7: Chasing Numbers
Stop chasing numbers.
True; following long-term trends points you in the right direction.
But obsessively chasing numbers and analyzing metrics for hours puts you on the wrong blogging path.
Bloggers lose sight of what matters by trying to reach various number goals.
As a rule, the moment numbers become important is the moment helping people loses importance. Being truly helpful forms the foundation for a successful blogging career. Chasing numbers leads to failure; humans, not numbers collaborate to promote your blogging success.
Traffic stats, follower counts and blogging income metrics act like mile markers observed as you fly down the highway. Note numbers for progress but do not interrupt your journey just to stare at numbers obsessively. Over-analyzing results robs you of the opportunity to help people.
Beware trying to reach imagined follower count goals because engaged humans build your community and business.
Numbers and engaged humans are different entities.
For example, nearly 48,000 followers spotted on my Twitter handle differ greatly from the small, engaged group of humans who drive traffic and sales through the platform. The number 48,000 does not mean anything. Human beings who click on my links, retweet my blog posts, engage me and DM me build my bottom line Blogging From Paradise success on Twitter.
Do not try to reach imagined number goals because traffic, followers and income metrics distract you from helping people.
Being truly helpful builds your blogging business.
Publish long-form content. Build strong relationships with readers and fellow bloggers in your niche. Monetize through multiple income channels.
Allow the blogging process to take care of blogging outcomes.
Stats grow for bloggers who lose themselves in helping people.
8: Winging It
Winging it doesn’t work.
Bloggers often profess to “giving blogging a shot” all willy nilly by diving in and trying to figure it out on their own.
Bad idea.
Blogging involves learning, practicing and mastering multiple skills. How does an inexperienced blogger know, learn, practice and master these skills by winging it?
Do you think it’s wise to figure out blogging on your own when professional bloggers and wise newbies follow proven systems?
As I’m writing this long form post for my blogging tribe there are 1000’s of bloggers participating in the same, non-targeted blogging threads for the 100th time this year, trying to squeeze as much low quality traffic as possible from their last post published 3 months ago. Different strategies yield success but no professional went pro by squeezing a few non-targeted visitors from comment threads through posts published 3 months prior.
Learn from professional bloggers.
Follow the leaders.
Invest in blogging courses and blogging eBooks.
Succeed by learning how to succeed from professional bloggers.
9: Fearing to Promote Your Products and Services
Some fear to promote their products and services.
From “annoying” readers, to being “too salesly”, bloggers often struggle to make money by burying their products and services based on the fear of self-promoting.
If you fear selling customers will fear buying.
The world mirrors your belief system back to you.
Promote your products and services to help your readers and yourself.
Offer your community valuable premium services.
Boost your blogging income in the process.
Practical Tips
- promote your products and services once per blog post
- publish easy to find products and services pages to your blog; position each prominently
- mention products and services at the end of videos and podcasts
- note products and services frequently through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn
10: Trying to Do it All Solo
No blogger succeeds solo.
Yet most struggle terribly by trying to do it all by themselves.
Some believe that:
- writing a post
- publishing a post
- promoting the post across many channels
without collaborating brings stunning blogging success.
As these blogging lone wolves flounder then disappear a growing number of collaborators reach the top of their blogging niche through the power of leveraging.
Guest post. Publish genuine comments on blogs. Promote bloggers through social media. Promote bloggers on your blog.
Collaborate to succeed.
Bloggers do truly amazing things by working together.
11: Not Establishing an Exit Plan
I will not be commenting on blogs when I am 75 years old if I remain in the body for that long.
Blogging From Paradise has an exit plan. Eventually, I will pack it in because this blog is just one stage of my life.
As an exit plan, I publish detailed, in-depth, targeted content and promote it across a super wide, highly targeted range of channels to stimulate exponential organic growth WHILE I am offline. I do not trade time and work for success. If I did I’d be working a job.
However, most bloggers err in working a blogging job. Most succeed or fail based only on their own workload.
How can you exit blogging if your success hinges completely on your efforts?
Leverage. Scale. Do things that drive targeted traffic and blogging income to your blog while you’re sleeping or enjoying life offline.
SEO-optimize posts. Share posts in 40, 50 or 100 spots. Be all over the place.
Run a blogging business to exit from not a job requiring your full attention and energy to stay afloat.
Practical Tips
- SEO-optimize all blog posts
- share posts across a heavy range of highly-targeted marketing channels
- open passive income channels
Whether I am sleeping, awake and blogging or enjoying my world travels my blogging courses and blogging eBooks provide bloggers with premium resources available for sale.
Conclusion
Blogging can build your business unlike few online strategies.
Address these mistakes to right your blogging ship.
Correct your blogging errors to thrive.
