10 Bad Habits Bloggers Should Avoid

"Light Me Up" by The Pack

1. Choosing a niche you don’t know or like.

Lots of people write about how to make money online, and they seem to do quite well… how hard can it be?

What you don’t see is how much work really goes into those blogs. You don’t do well just by writing one post every now and again. Plus, it helps to know what you’re talking about – otherwise, will anyone view you as an authority?

It’s also important to write about something you like, otherwise it’s going to become a chore to update your blog. The best blogs are the ones where the author is passionate about the topic in hand.

2. Ignoring questions.

Replying to comments is a good idea, although you don’t have to reply to every single one in great detail. You can reply to a few at once.

If someone asks you a question, whether it’s in a comment or sent via email, answer it! Well, unless it’s an obvious attempt to knock you down a peg or two – in which case you should answer it very well!

3. Pushing good posts off the front page.

OK, you just posted something that’s doing quite well, and has had a few comments. Do you really want to push it down the page with a new, not quite so great post? What about if you write a great post that’s only been up for a day, and could get more comments if you leave it at the top?

Sometimes, bloggers are far too quick to post the next item. I went for a few months where I blogged every day, and it was tough on me, and tough on my readers. Here’s a novel idea: post less often, and make it easier on everyone!

Of course, the “why not leave the post online for another day?” argument could run and run, and some posts may not do very well at all and you WANT to push them down a bit. So, use a bit of common sense with this one. Watch the comments you do get, see if the discussion could continue, and decide if you want it to. Don’t just post again the next day because you feel like you should.

4. Posting for the sake of it.

This follows on from point 3, but it’s more of an obvious one. Some posts are pretty pointless. The writing makes it seem as though the author is simply treading water, not writing about much in particular, and just posting to up their quota – especially if every other post is sponsored.

Apparently, you can write paid posts without writing worthless posts in between. I wouldn’t know because I don’t do paid posts. Worthless posts though, I’ve done a few of those… not anymore though. All of my posts are now “worthful”.

5. Failing to make your blog load quickly.

Never mind how much clutter there is on the page – how long does it take to load? I say never mind the AMOUNT of clutter because it only takes one widget to kill your load time.

The trick? Don’t put anything on your page! An empty blog loads so much faster. It’s not much fun to read though. So, instead of jumping on every widget bandwagon there is and adding everything to your blog that everyone else adds to their site, add things one by one. See how well they load (or don’t load). Decide if they are actually worth having on your blog.

If you add 20 widgets to your blog in one go and suddenly your blog slows down, who you gonna call? Widget Busters?

6. Not proof-reading your posts.

Proof-reading may sound dull, but it is a very good idea. You may be able to get away with an error here and there, but if you have loads of mistakes in every post, it can be distracting. Some of the errors I’ve seen are so bad that I honestly don’t know what the person was trying to say.

If English isn’t your first language and you’re writing for an English audience, you still have to get your point across. Blogging is all about WRITING – to publish a good blog post, you have to be able to write. If you’re not good at writing, you may want to (a) get better – practice makes perfect, or (b) think about whether blogging is for you.

7. Using full-size images.

You just bought a digital camera and can’t get enough of it. It’s so easy to point and shoot, then transfer the photos to your computer. Trouble is, the photos are taken at a high resolution – i.e. BIG, both in terms of height and width, and file size.

Upload that image straight to the web and link it from your blog. You may be happy to sit and wait for the image to fully display, but many people won’t want to.

Do everyone a favour – RESIZE YOUR IMAGES prior to uploading them to the web. At least make them a respectable size.

8. Mixing English and non-English in the same post.

Maybe you have an audience who likes this. The key is to know your audience. Are they predominantly English-speaking readers? If so – keep the posts entirely in English.

I’ve seen blogs where the posts seem to chop and change between English and … well, I don’t know the language, but it wasn’t English! The author goes in and out of a couple of languages. As I said, if your readers are used to this, it’s one thing … but it can be quite misleading to potential new readers.

Some blogs have posts that are entirely written in English but the comments are in multiple languages – why is this? Am I missing something? Was I supposed to learn to read two or three languages in the same sentence when I was still in school?

9. Writing the same posts as everyone else.

One of my tips for getting links from other blogs was to “report, not review”. This is one way to stand out. The thing with “reporting” is that while some of your readers may be interested to read your post, you may have a lot of people who drop in to find the same post that’s on another site they just came from.

With some posts it’s a case of quoting a section of the original and commenting on it, which can be done to good effect. But some posts just lift the content from another blog and don’t add anything else to it.

Do we really need to know about WordPress version whatever? From every blog on the Internet? OK, maybe you do. I’ll just skip those posts.

10. Spamming anyone and everyone with your link

• Hi, how are you today? “Visit my blog!”
• Hey, can I ask you something? “Visit my blog!”
• Is anyone free for a chat? “Visit my blog!”
• And that concludes my post. What do you think? “Visit my blog!”

Not very encouraging is it? If someone can’t even engage in conversation with you, are you going to visit their blog? If they only comment to leave their link or they email you the link thinking it’s a nice way of networking with you… does that make you want to read their blog?

Nope!

Over to You

What other bad habits should bloggers avoid?