Mistakes To Avoid In Your Blog

Too often bloggers complain that after a great start, a year later their blog is as dead as can be. This is a common problem that almost always revolves around a small list of common mistakes made by the blogger. A blogger can sit back and expect the blog to do all of the work for him or her, which is a terrible way to approach blogging. A successful blogger would tell you that great blogging takes a certain amount of dedication and hard effort to make it work. You have to put effort into a blog to sustain it, especially after the first month or so of completing the design. Many people work so hard during the initial design phase that they get lazy after it is complete. To avoid this happening to your blog, check out these five common mistakes that can bury a blog.

Infrequent Updates
One of the biggest mistakes a blogger can make is to “forget” about posting. The most successful blogs are updated with new posts at least once a day. Some larger blogs are constantly being updated. You should try to create new posts as often as possible. If you miss a day here and there, it will be no big deal. However, if you miss a week or more without posting, you might as well consider the blog dead already. You have to take a few moments, even as few as five, a day to create interesting posts or content. If you are writing short and concise posts like you should be, this should not be that challenging. It is easy to keep your blog updated, if you make it a priority.

Too Much Advertising
Most bloggers today do want to make a profit from their blog. This is a trend that can get out of control quickly however. If you are interested in adding ads to your blog, do so with caution. There is nothing wrong with a few appropriately places ads that offer viewers links to places that correlate with your blog's content. However, adding a massive amount of advertisements on your blog is a mistake. If you have a bunch of flashy ads on your blog, your content will get lost within the whole thing. Therefore, you should always limit your ads to three or less per page. Make sure you place them in appropriate places that let your content shine through. Don't allow enormous ads to fill up your pages either. They will simply annoy readers. Be smart about including advertising on your blog.

Losing focus
When you started your blog you had a particular reason for doing so; it might have been to express your views on a topic or it might have been to just communicate with a close circle of friends about your daily activities. Readers will come to your blog for the first time and either be interested in your subject matter or not, will either like your style or not and, if they like your subject and style they may comment and then come back later. Once you've established a topic and tone for your blog you're free to change it but to do so you're basically starting all over. Be aware that you can have more than one blog, each one devoted to a particular topic and each one, if you choose, under a different identity.

Plagiarizing
There are some great bloggers out there and as you surf through blogs you might find one who said something really well, something that resonated with you and something you want to put in your blog. DON'T just copy and paste someone's words in your blog without giving them credit, making it look to the world like the words are yours. If you write it, write it in your own words and write it better, adding your own thoughts and feelings and then be gracious, mention where you got the idea and provide a link.

Ignoring the reader
Some of the people who read your blog will leave comments; some readers will agree with you and some readers may even praise your insights but most will pick a point you've made and criticize it. People leave comments on others blogs for the same reason they themselves blog, to exchange ideas and express their points of view. Always respond to your readers comments; thank them for reading and taking the time to comment (even the severe critics) and then respond, as appropriate, to their comment. If you ignore your comments your readers may end up ignoring your blog.