Let’s be honest up front here about blogging. You have millions of competitors out there, uploading new content to their blogs every second.
That’s the bad news. The good news, however, is that most of them are not very good. In fact, since we are being honest, most are pretty bad. Usually it’s the same problems that are preventing bloggers from truly creating an audience for them to share with.

Following is a concise list of 7 common mistakes to avoid with blogs, and their simple solutions.

1. Not Blogging Regularly / Not Replying to Comments

This is a common problem with many bloggers who were just starting out. If you really want to be successful in blogging, put your heart in it, put some time in it, and get yourself dedicated to blogging. Nothing beats a blog that is updated regularly. Nothing is worse than a blog that rarely gives anything new of value.

Another big blogging mistake is to not reply to your readers’ comments. You should always encourage them whenever the comment on your blog. Be interactive and you’ll see a clear difference in your blog traffic.

You have to GIVE away content or information, valuable to your audience. You give. And then tomorrow, you give some more. And the next day, you give more.

Then, after boat loads of giving, you are allowed to make an incredible offer that is worthwhile to your audience.

Then, be prepared, because only a small selection of your audience will respond. But that’s OK. The beauty of this is that if the information you GIVE to your audience is valuable enough, it will attract a large number of people, and your blog will grow.

Remember this. The reason all of these “get rich quick” schemes don’t work is simply that they’re only about TAKING, and not about GIVING.

2. Excessive Advertising

Too many Ads – Honestly, folks won’t click. Trust me!

It’s fine to monetize your blog or use affiliate links, as long as they are not intrusive to users and overshadow useful content. When ads appear all over the page and even in the middle of posts, the user experience suffers.

That is exactly why I want to tell you about a fantastic new way to monetize your blog that gives you ongoing, recurring income, and won’t scare away your readers. It’s called CB Tag Clouds.

CB Tag Clouds were designed to blend in seamlessly with your Blog. I can’t tell you how important it is to integrate your advertising into your site, instead of having it jump out at the reader screaming “This Is an Ad!”

Instead, CB Tag Clouds look like a normal and familiar part of your blogs, and readers will be more comfortable clicking on links that interest them.

You’re not tricking them, because every link goes to information from Clickbank about that very topic – just without triggering their buying defenses.

It has become harder and harder to make easy income with Adsense, and CB Tag Clouds are exactly the type of advertising you need that is, ads that don’t look like ads, and products that will end up paying a whole lot more in commission than Adsense.

I highly recommend you consider using CB Tag Clouds on all of your blogs. It’s fast, it’s simple, and it works!

Finally, if your blog is very new, it’s a good idea to wait until you’ve built up a history of useful posts before running much advertising. Don’t shove 20 ads on a brand new blog that contains no blog post and has no traffic.

Write a few blog posts first and get some traffic coming; then you can think about slowly adding a few ads. If you have a popular blog you can almost do anything you want with ads, but if you don’t have a popular blog your visitors will probably think you are just in it for the money.

3. Not Moderating Comments

Allowing anyone and everyone to post whatever they want in your comments section is asking for spam. Yes you’ll still get spammed, that’s the reality of the Web. WordPress blogs come with Akismet anti-spam which does a good job at catching most spam. Not only is spam annoying to your readers, but it really takes down the professionalism of your blog.

Comments are an important part of blogging and Web 2.0 social networking, so don’t avoid them. Just make sure you moderate all of the comments before they are posted.

4. Not Having an About Page

Do you have an about page? This one is often overlooked. Readers always like to know who the person is behind the posts. Many people just do not trust content coming from a seemingly anonymous person.

Make it a little personal, but by all means, protect your privacy. Include a good picture of yourself; let your readers know something about your interests, and why you are compelled to blog.

A good about page goes a long way in making that personal contact with your readers that is so very important.

5. No Contact Info

Some blogs can pull off the mystique of an anonymous posting. But if your website is for business, it’s hard to have a two way dialogue when you make it impossible to contact you.

Transparency is fundamental to building trust on the web. And you don’t want users to mistake your reputable blog for a “splog” or spammy blog that scrapes content from other sites.

If you don’t want to advertise your email address because of spammers you can at least enable comments on your posts.

As noted in #3 above, you need to moderate comments before they appear on your blog.

6. Not Having an “Articles” Page

This one is crucial, but missing on most blogs that I see.

Articles help to drive traffic to your blog so as long as they are keyword rich it will really help.
These posts give your site an identity. Your credibility as a blogger depends on how relevant and popular your content is, so make them easy to find.

7. Poor Website Design and Usability

Don’t clutter your blog with useless features and design elements (widgets). You do not need a graphic intensive blog or 20 different RSS feed options, all you need to do is make it as easy as possible for visitors to read your content.

Bland design scares readers away. Too much nonsense stuff pasted all over your webpage is even worse.

There is beauty in simplicity, but don’t think that you can just use the default template of a blog.

The easiest design for you to use on your blog is the generic theme that comes with the blogging platform. Some people may think it looks good and you might be fond of it, but you don’t ever want to use it, simply because most splogs (spam blogs) use the generic themes. The last thing you want is people coming to your blog and jumping to the conclusion that it is a splog.

One of the most important parts about a blog is its’ readability. So before you think about getting creative with the font color, style, and size make sure you think about the readability. Would you like to a read a blog that has small, grey, cursive text?

If you’re going to use dark background make sure that your font is light and vice versa.

Readers uses internet to gain access to information easily, so design your site for easy navigation.

Do you have sound that plays while the page is loading? Chances are: your favorite song might not be your readers’ favorite. So think carefully about this.

Conclusions

Now take a long hard look at your own blog. Are you blocking your own potential? Just stay away from these 7 Blog Killers and you’ll do fine.

‘till next time,
Barry

Hi Everyone,

You have just sat down at the computer to write a new blog post. You’ve adjusted the chair to a comfy position. Moved the keyboard a few inches left, no, back to the right a bit, perhaps a little closer. Yep, that’s right. Oh, and moved the pen to a new position on the desk in case it moved from the place you put it two minutes ago. (C’mon we’ve all been there)

Take a deep breath. Fingers poised over the keyboard and…. Er….well …nothing, blank.

Ok my friend, don’t despair, you’ve got writers bloc and Dr Barry ? (Hmmm) is going to prescribe a very tasty medicine.

You can take it whenever you feel short of ideas, or when you feel agitated because you’ve got two hands full of thumbs, or if the lights gone out in your head!

So what’s the name of Dr Barry’s magic Elixir? …….. ‘StumbleUpon’

There I was in my ‘Bermudas and shades’ (Don’t even picture it) surfing the net as you do, when I came across this great video showing you how to use ‘StumbleUpon’ to search for great content for your blog or articles. If you’ve never heard of StumbleUpon, prepare to be enlightened.

Check out this video. (There’s no affiliate link here, I just wanted to share what I found)

Keep Smiling,
Barry

Keeping people interested in your blog, whether it’s a business or a personal blog is the key to attracting a lot of regular visitors. Many blogs have run out of steam because their owners have lost interest.  If the writer loses interest so does the visitor who will not come back. One of the main reasons is simply a lack of posts by the blogger. Regular, frequent posting, which will boost your blog’s ranking in search engines, is essential to the survival of any blog.

As a Blogger you might ask: How frequent should you post, how many entries in a week, one or more than one? But the biggest question is: How do I write consistently good posts? Let’s try and break this down.

How do you decide what’s frequent?

Frequent blog posting is producing enough to keep your readers interested. Obviously, visitors will not want to come back to a blog that hasn’t been updated in months. They want to see regular posting so that they know coming back won’t be a waste of time.

How many blog entries per week?

This is a fairly hard question to answer. It’s all down to the purpose of your blog. With a personal blog maybe once or twice a week, a hobby blog probably three or four would be better. A business blog will need at least two to keep threads active.

The point to remember is that quality counts every time. Posting just for the sake of posting can result in unimaginative and uninteresting posts. In other words – boring. Whatever you do ‘Think Quality’.

How do I create quality postings consistently?

It’s all about following a pattern of writing and maybe you’re not a natural writer and find this is difficult. Let me give you an outline to help.

Pick a topic that is interesting to you as well as your readers. Your interest and enthusiasm will show through in your writing. If it’s a personal blog write as though you were talking to your friends telling them what’s happened today. If it’s a business blog, plan your topic. Make notes first by way of headings and ideas so you’re treating it like a road map. You know where you want to start and where you want to finish. This should make your writing flow when you’re filling in the content, and it will stop you from shooting off in different directions and possibly losing your reader. 

Unless you’re confident with your own knowledge of the topic make sure you do your research. Some of your readers may already know the subject and you don’t want them to think you’re just making it up. That’s a sure way of losing them.

In your planning stage pick out some keywords that are relevant to your blog. If you use keywords naturally throughout your post the search engines will rank your blog higher. Don’t flood your post with the same keyword or phrase, this will have a detrimental effect on the search engines and you’ll get nowhere. When writing your post don’t limit yourself to a particular amount of words. Let it flow and do what’s natural, but don’t get carried away you’re not writing a novel. Ideally 200 to 600 should see your post long enough to keep the reader interested but not too long for them to think you’re going on and on. If you find any part of the post is hard for you, just take a timeout and relax. You can always finish it a bit later. Remember don’t rush it. A good blog post should be enjoyed by both the writer and the reader. That way you’ll both want more.

Happy blogging and keep smiling.

Barry

Hi Everyone,

I’ve got my blogging hat on today and for those of you who don’t know, Blog is short for ‘Web Log’ which means it’s a online diary.

The main function of a blog is to communicate your thoughts and ideas to others, and have some fun while you’re doing it. I know lots of people say they can’t write but it’s not as difficult as you may think. I was talking to a chap once and I said, “What’s your grammar like”? And he said, “She’s about 5 foot, makes nice cakes and nearly eighty”. No, no, no. Not ‘Grandma’, grammar, English, putting sentences together – Oooh, Shish!

Anyway, apart from that if you write as though you were telling a friend a story or explaining to your pal what you did yesterday you will be surprised what you can do.

Step by Step.

The very first thing you need is get your blog online. “What!!! – I can’t do that, mumble, bumble, grumble….”, Now hold on buddy, it’s really, really easy and I’m going to show you how, right here, right this minute, now, pronto as soon as I’ve stopped blabbering.

In ten minutes from now you can have your blog online and it won’t cost you a cent because it’s Free. That’s right, zippo, zilch, nada, nothing. How cool is that?

One of the most popular blogs available is from WordPress and you can get a free WordPress account from: wordpress.com, just click here and be whisked away to the WordPress site.

1.      Click on the Sign Up Now button.

2.      Give yourself a user name. (Think about this first because it will be your blog address i.e., oliver(at)Wordpress.com or CumberlandHigh(at)Wordpress.com (example for a school blog)

3.      Enter your email address

4.      Agree to the legal gobble de gook

5.      Select the button ‘Gimme a Blog’

6.      Click next.

7.      Then ‘Sign Up’.

Lastly

8.      Slump back in your chair as you view your blog online in the big wide world.

As easy as falling off a blog … ‘err log …. Sorry.

WordPress has a great tutorial to help you get going, but I’ll be back with more Blogging goodies soon.

Keep Smiling

Barry

Hi Everyone,

With the sun glimmering through the lace curtains and the smell of fresh polish in the air. The silence gently broken by the ticking of the clock, and its’ deep but gentle chime sounding the hour. Pen poised above a clean white sheet of paper the young lady thought carefully and then began to write: Dear Diary……

I mean…WOW, fast forward 90 years or so. That was Blogging in the first instance. Thoughts put on paper to be read by every one and maybe no one. Although I must admit if you don’t get people to your Blog that bit might still be the same.

It was all about communicating your thoughts and ideas to others. From chalk stone on cave walls to squeaky nibs on rough parchment, and now to nimble fingers on a keyboard. Writing fine words was only for the educated and chosen few, but now its every man and his Blog (Ooops, sorry I couldn’t resist that).

“Good Heavens”, exclaimed Ma. “Our Jacks got a job with his jacket on”.

That’s progress.

Seriously though, Blogging is the way to get your thoughts across. You can have a personal blog, dear Diary and all that, you can have a work blog, club blog, school blog, family blog, I hate my lousy neighbour blog, or even a make mucho lovely money blog,

(Now you’re talking).

This is such a fantastic subject I think I’ll explore this some more. I’m going to go away and then bounce back with another instalment. Is that ok? Just nod yes and I’ll be back.

Keep Smiling,

Barry