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I have probably read over 750 blogs in the past five years…I only really follow about five. Why? Because the other 695 just basically suck, and here’s why. I have also taught over 300 people how to blog, and some of the same problems keep popping up over and over again. So, here is my list of things that drive us all crazy. Your blog sucks if…
1. You don’t have a well defined niche, so you write about everything under the sun…one day it’s about how to tap dance, the next day it’s about your business and the next day it’s about the latest cooking show you watched (and it had nothing to do with what I thought your blog was about).
2. You are more concerned about the way your theme looks than blogging. Let’s face it…people are coming to your blog to read your content. If you are a perfectionist, then just go with a blank white template and call it a day. Some people spend six months getting their template “just right” only to end up posting entries that are not worth reading.
3. You abandon your blog.
4. You are infatuated with plugins and widgets, so you keep adding more until your blog is so sluggish, your visitors feel like they are using dial up mode to connect to you.
5. It is impossible to find your blog. You have one, but no one can find it on your home page or other pages of your blog.
6. You use your blog to do nothing but advertise, so you are running off people who could actually become your followers.
7. You have content, but it is just regurgitated from a book or newspaper.
8. You write as a scholar…not in conversational mode that invites people to connect with you.
9. You go for weeks or months without blogging, and you then wonder why you don’t get any followers.
10. You put up a blog, and you only want to use pages for your blog, and then you complain that “no one is finding me on my website!” (If you aren’t blogging, you more than likely will not get followers, and your competitors who are blogging are rising higher and higher in the search engines).
11. You have disabled comments. Blogging is all about creating a conversation. If you are not giving people the time to talk with you about your posts, then the blog is really all about YOU!
12. You are using your blog to spam people by dropping in comments that say “I like your post!”
13. You keep thinking you are going to make millions off your blog, and you don’t, so you whine about the time you spend on your blog. Just give up the idea of your blog making millions, and just write great content! If you write great content, and if people spread your content around, you will get followers who will eventually become clients.
14. Your whole blog is black or you are using a font that is a color (yellow, teal or lime green). Many people are color blind, so black text on a white background is a must.
15. Your blog looks like a circus gone wild. If your blog is packed with opt-ins, pop-up boxes, animation and flash, forget it…people will just move on!
16. You don’t have a clear strategy for your blog. This totally confuses your readers!
17. You don’t give attribution to people who have given you a tip or sent an article your way.
18. You have no way for people to opt in, and you are not giving them a reason for opting in. If you are asking people to opt-in, offer them something as an incentive to opt in. This can be a free report, a small gift or admission into a webinar or seminar you are leading.
19. You are pulling in articles from article directories and using them on your site as opposed to writing your own content. Unique content is what people want. If they want an article from Ezine Articles, they can go there to read it. You will also more than likely stumble upon a plugin that you can purchase that will pull articles in for you to post and claim as your own. Forget those plugins…your blog needs to written by you in your own voice!
20. Your blog is all about you. Your blog should be written for the reader. If you go on and on about you and your life, your recent vacations, name dropping about the people you know, potential readers will get bored and move on.
While I realize this post shows the negatives, when I tell people the methods to use to actually get readers, they still often just go and do their own thing. So, if you are doing any of the above, you are more then likely not getting readers or you are not getting the quality and quantity of followers you want. So, just do the opposite of the above 20 blogging mistakes, and you should see a dramatic change in your blog and the number of readers who come your way.
