The Top 5 Mistakes Bloggers Make
Writing content for a ‘money making’ blog requires a very different and strategic approach.
In this article I’ll give you the top 5 mistakes bloggers make and how you should avoid them.
It can be very easy as a blogger (wanting to make money) to be self-absorbed in the mindset of how can this blog make me money… and forget that there are real people reading your content.
Real people are finding your content in the search engines and arriving at your page or post. And it’s these people that are going to click your ad or link and buy your product.
If you are focused on ‘how can this blog make me money’ and not on providing the correct user experience, you will not succeed. Here are the top 5 mistakes bloggers make…
Blogging Mistake #1 – Off Topic Content
The biggest blogging mistake I see is writing about things you want to write about, instead of what will add value to your reader.
People are time poor. If someone searches a search engine for information, and arrives at your post, you have seconds to show them they are in the right place.
If not, they hit the back button and go to the next search result.
If your home page is indexed in the search engines and the latest blog post at your freshwater aquarium blog (for example) was about your Aunt’s visit last weekend, you will have no chance of retaining that reader…
If your blog is about freshwater aquariums, every post should be about freshwater aquariums and only freshwater aquariums.
Your reader does not care who wrote the post, where you live, what color your hair is, or if your Aunty Jill came over last weekend.
They want an answer to their question or search query. If your blog post provides great value you will have significantly increased the chances of you selling a product that you recommend on your blog.
Blogging Mistake #2 – Being Informal
For some reason inexperienced bloggers think they should be very informal. I think this has come from the early blogging days when blogs were basically online diaries.
A money making blog is like having a store. It needs to be professional, or people won’t trust you.
Each industry has it’s own expert language and it should be used. Freshwater aquarium and model railroad experts use terminology that identifies them as an expert. It comes naturally and is easily dumbed down for the people they are helping.
The other part to being too informal is misspellings, grammar errors and bad formatting.
Spelling and grammar errors are unforgivable, but bad formatting is just pure laziness.
Paragraphs should not be longer than 2 sentences and creating headlines and sub-headlines in your content allows structure to your post.
Pictures used correctly are worth a thousand words.
These are simple techniques that professionalism.
Blogging Mistake #3 – Being Erratic
Being an erratic blogger will hurt your readership. Once a reader has found your blog and liked the content, they will need to be fed new content consistently.
The more great content you provide, the more likely they are to buy something.
WordPress has a great scheduling feature. So, you could write 20 blog posts over a week and schedule them to be published individually, 3 or 4 days after each other.
20 posts published 3 days apart will give you 2 months of new content. Then write the next 20 posts and schedule those.
Blogging Mistake #4 – Not Being Interactive
Blogs have a comment system which is part of the attraction. It allows your readers to comment and ask questions about your content.
This is a perfect opportunity to engage into the conversation which will provide more credibility and prove that you are real.
You will also identify things that you didn’t address correctly in your content or forgot to mention.
Blogging Mistake #5 – Selling Instead Of Marketing
Great marketing makes selling superfluous. Your blog is a marketing tool. It should be used to build the relationship.
Building a relationship is not about telling your reader about your Aunt Jill’s visit this weekend, or your dog’s new puppies. It is about giving them the relevant information they need.
Just like a good real estate agent would build a relationship by finding out exactly what the client wants and providing information that would help them make a buying decision.
This may include a list of the last properties sold in the area, a report showing the closest school, community hall, shopping center, etc.
A bad real estate agent would just show them the houses available in the area and focus on selling them something.
Building a relationship keeps your reader coming back and leads to referrals and repeat business.
