Incredibly there are an estimated 6.7 million people who publish blogs across the globe, while another 12 million share similar content through their social networks and sites such as Tumblr.
These facts make a compelling argument for people to blog, but creating a successful and popular platform relies on far more than content creation alone. There are also a host of universal mistakes that novice bloggers make, each of which can prevent your content from achieving its full potential.
With this in mind, here are five of the most common blogging mistakes and the steps that you can take to avoid them!
1. Your Topics Are Too Broad
This is arguably the biggest mistake that new bloggers make, as they find themselves swept away with the notion of publishing an unfiltered stream of consciousness. This can be detrimental to your blog, as it creates a lack of direction and makes it almost impossible to effectively target and engage readers.
Whether you blog for personal or professional reasons, it is crucial that you leverage your precise expertise and publish content that creates a focused niche. This is the key to building an engaged and loyal audience, while it also helps to establish trust with readers.
2. Do Not Overlook the Importance of SEO
While some marketers believe that SEO is an increasingly moribund practice, the simple truth is that its boundaries have shifted and diversified during the last few years. Make no mistake; however, SEO remains a crucial aspect of online marketing and one that will ultimately determine the online visibility of your blog site.
It is therefore wise to pay attention to at least the basic elements of SEO, particularly in terms of relevant keywords, meta tags and content relevance. In order to gain an initial understanding of your blog site's SEO performance, you should also review this and compare online against similar resources.
3. Your Writing Lacks Substance
As we have already touched on, one of the main appeals of blogging is that it enables you to publish your thoughts, opinions and social commentary. If you want to create truly engaging content that drives readership, however, you will need to balance this with a more objective outlook and leverage facts and data where possible.
Whether you use data to support your opinions or to provide an objective counter-argument, this is a crucial step towards informing readers and creating a sustainable, trusting relationship with them.
4. Your Content Lacks Originality
Clearly, there are no circumstances where it is ever acceptable to plagiarise content from another source and publish this as your own. While you can link to content (this is recommended from an SEO perspective) and syndicate relevant articles with the express permission of the author, as a general rule you must ensure that your content is original, relatively unique and offers an interesting perspective on a topical subject.
If you are struggling to create content, consider selling guest posts on your blog to external authors. So long as the content is relevant to your niche, this can create a viable revenue stream while also creating a fresh perspective on your blog site.
5. Don't Forget the Importance of Sharing
On a final note, it is important to consider what happens to your content once you have finished writing. After all, there is no point crafting a unique and insightful piece of content if nobody ever gets to read it, so it is crucial that you look to share your posts across an integrated social network.
This means sharing content on multiple occasions with different introductions, through staples outlets such as Facebook and Twitter alongside other relevant channels like LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google +. Try to engage readers with an energised and active-tense introduction, while you should also not be afraid to share older content if it has topical relevance.
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