That’s right, I said it. You’re not blogging correctly. This two part article series will expand on my previous post, 4 Things Bloggers Do WRONG!
There are a ton of blogs that are already established and a ton of new blogs getting started every single day. You won’t stand out by making the mistakes other blogs make. Below are some things that I see wrong and avoid like crazy because they drive me crazy and I’m sure you’ll agree:
Hodgepodge Blogs
This is why you niche out your blog. Pick a topic. Write on that topic. End of story.
Do not post about your life unless your life has to do with that blog topic. If you’re a fishing blog I don’t want to see Project Runway on your blog unless you ran into a cast member fishing and they caught something or did something silly and you have proof of it (e.g. a photo or video clip). If you’re not a political blog I don’t want to read about Obama and what you think of the latest happenings in Washington D.C. Why? Because I simply don’t care, and neither do your readers.
You are not a lifestyle magazine. You are not a newspaper. Let me repeat – stay on topic! That’s right, no off topic posts for you. Keep your personal opinions on life in general and random thoughts off the blog unless your blog is about those things… and honestly, unless you’re somebody famous it shouldn’t be. Personal blogs are not something I subscribe to. I want information and clever articles about the topics that interest me from the people who write them.
Blog Article Titles
Even though you’re not a newspaper, you’re not excused from bland titles. You lose more readers than you know with generic titles. Why do you think headlines are so important? The bigger font isn’t there to just look pretty it’s there to grab your attention.
I skip right by a lot of posts in my Google Reader because nothing in the title made me think it was worth spending two seconds clicking the link to go see the post. That’s right I view my blogs rss feeds in List Format. You have to when you subscribe to as many blogs as I do.
So what are bad titles?
For example, I hate seeing posts entitled: SOMEBODY’S NAME Guest Blogs or some variation of the same. I have no idea who that person is and why would I care if they guest blogged? Why don’t you give me a title that refers to the topic of their guest blog?
Similarly don’t get cutesy. If you’re reviewing a product, give me the product in the title of the post not the name you would have called it yourself if you were on the naming committee. How will I ever know what you’re really talking about at a glance?
Keira runs a book review blog for readers by readers on romance novels entitled Love Romance Passion. She’s been reading romance since she was in her teens and began blogging about romance so she could share her passion for her favorite genre. She loves reading paranormal, Regency, historical America, and highlander most of all and completely adores blind and wounded heroes.
Photo Credits: Lori Greig
Originally posted 2009-12-11 03:24:04. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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8 comments ↓
Add to this, blogs that give overly positive reviews to everything.
blogs that use extremely dense “insider vocab” that a beginner won’t recognize.
blogs that confuse themselves with legitimate news – i.e. report on series topics but lack all forms of fact checking.
contrarian blogs. I.e. blogs that are not founded on informing about a topic but are rather anti (insert inane topic here) pieces. – 99% of the time, as soon as you get their title you know what they’ll say anyways – so why read them?
Hi Keira,
Interesting post, but I do have a question/comment that I’m hoping you can expand upon…
My blog, Reading Between The Lines, The Hidden Power of Language was originally set-up as a promotional tool for the up-coming book of the same title.
The book covers a myriad of topics, all aligned with a non-fiction/self-help publication including quantum science, meditation, etc (this isn’t a plug for the book!).
In addition to that varying subject matter, I’ve found the whole blogging experience to be quite fascinating, so I’m also sharing posts about my newbie experiences while learning about blogging (as you are here).
There are two posts currently providing the most referral visitors at the moment; one from my primary subject mater and the second is about my blogging experience.
If I had followed your advice to ‘stay on topic’ I would only have half the visitors, however I’ve been asking myself the same question?
Am I deluding (and potentially putting off) self-help readers when they land on a post about blogging or vice versa?
My primary subject matter is by default a broad array of genre’s, so what’s the best way to keep focused on a single topic which includes so many supporting topics???
Write On!
What if you geared your blogging posts toward authors who blog instead of regular bloggers? It would be more helpful I would think, give you an interesting spin, and would continue the feel of your blog which is about your book (primarily yes?) and your accumulated blogging experience.
You might also want to consider a blog tour as an author. You could find several self-help, language & writing, and health blogs and set something up with them. Many bloggers would be happy to give you space for interesting and well written content. (See my post Should Authors Own a Blog?)
Get yourself setup with a 2 or 3 line bio with a link back to your blog and you’ll start to see a lot more traffic.
For the guest blogs, you could come up with several blogs that are related to your book but are not excerpts before seeking space so if you’re accepted on a blog you can immediately hand them an article. If you get more blogs interested than anticipated ask some of the bloggers if they have any topic ideas for you.
Hi Keira,
Thanks for replies! Both offer great suggestions and I really appreciate your feedback and links.
Too bad I don’t write romance…;)
Cheers
Curtis
You’re welcome!
@Aaron – Just saw your comment and I agree completely about fact checking and overly opinionated blogs that are nothing but negative.
No images is as bad as too many. It makes the text look bigger and less friendly. Most blogs don’t have a good font and format style for their text so it comes off very utilitarian and hard to read.
Insider vocab is something I strive myself to always define in a post, but could definitely be accused of forgetting to do, especially when talking about romance novels. How much is too much when it comes to jargon for you?
Nice post and tips.
Get a few simple things down, and your blog traffic will grow. It really isn’t rocket science..lol Just takes repeating the steps on a regular basis to see some great results.
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