Why am I writing this? Because every writer, aspiring or otherwise should know and have it ingrained in his head that there are certain things within the digital world that you do not attempt in blogging. Doing such things marks you as the black sheep of the blogging world takes your business down and discredits your site in your audience’s eyes as well as the search engine’s. You do not want that, the people who are working with you do not want that and even we who are writing this do not want that.
1. Stealing is a big NO-NO
The age-old favorite, the cliché, the trap many people end up falling into despite the many-fangled precautions they do or do not put up. Let us be perfectly clear about a few things. If you are taking the content of someone else’s blog or website in a more direct manner and not giving them credit then you are practically stealing. So if I can see the correlation (being a moderately serious blogger) then so can the professional ones who read at least twenty blogs a day and write profusely. The last thing you need is comments on your blog telling you that so and so the blog has your content too, with the link posted just below.The fix: Some content is great and you want to include that. That is perfectly alright, knowledge sharing and content expansion are after all what these blogs are about. The hitch? Just make sure you credit the blog you take the content off. I am a blogger and nothing is worse than seeing my content posted on other blogs without being given due credit. Add the hyperlink to the blog you borrowed content from. It saves you any embarrassment and adds value to your own blog as well as tells readers that you do include other opinions too for validation.
2. Being Lazy: Sloth: Not Coming Up with Ideas
I have seen far too many bloggers nowadays who are simply willing to follow whatever the more followed blogs are posting and include those topics in their own posts. Now trying to offer insight into a trend is one thing but blatantly following everything your neighbor is doing is adding no value to your own blog.Your blog is your entity, your marketing strategy so if you are only copying whatever the neighbor is doing then you are only hacking your own potential in the foot. Think of it as one brand getting a successful advertising strategy rolling and the other brand copying all of their ideas for the ads. Remember it is not the content here you steal but the ideas. So, in this case, the audience does not dismiss you as being dishonest but it does dismiss you as being uncreative and unoriginal with your own marketing. All are traits that you do not want to be connected with you or your work.
3. Do not Make Your Blog Difficult to Understand
This is pure common sense. But because too many writers violate it, it has become a gross sin now. Again you have readers of all sorts coming to your blogs, all have a varying sense of reading and comprehension but many of them can be your potential clients or customers. If none of those, then they can be your blog’s admirers and avid readers and all these things only do good to you. So keep your language easy and simple to understand. Yes, a versatile vocabulary helps but do not be verbose where the ideas can be communicated simply and directly.4. Do not OVERLINK
Very simple to follow right? Would you like to read an article that has more blue lines over its paragraphs than actual ones? Probably not right? So do not subject your readers to the same ordeal. It is highly irritating for people if they come across blogs with too many hyperlinks stuffed into the article. Such a blog is not only unprofessional but also gives the impression of an over boarded marketing technique. Remember marketing with your blog is fine but if you make it that obvious then your blog’s content loses value.5. Do not Put Others Down
There is a fine line between offering criticism on an opinion or a post offered by a blog and then going outright against the blog and discrediting everything they say. Even with criticism, your tone and writing need to be in check. Remember you are criticizing to not only give the readers your view but also to offer something corrective to the other blog. Become too harsh, become too personal, or just be uncouth and you risk losing your professional standing.6. Do not Mislead Your Readers
For marketing purposes, many writers try to rake in audiences with catchy titles while they talk about things on the blog that are little relevant to the topic itself. Do Not Do That. The harmful comments that appear in the comments section of blogs like these do a lot of harm in the long term. Google especially is introducing a stronger mechanism for content checking upon pages which means those comments which talk about your content being misleading might very well start to factor in Google discrediting you.Aside from that, tactics like these make the newer readers distrust your content for future reference as well, even if all of the other posts are 110% spot on with content.
7. Do not Just Write What Your Readers Ask of You to
The keyword here is JUST. As a blogger you are supposed to write your topics with your perspective, all the while keeping things fresh and answering some questions that audiences may have. You do write for the audience too but you do not center your post around the audience. Remember subtlety is the spice for a good life in blogging so you make things come off subtly without being seen as a marketer.Offer your insight, be creative and never be pressurized in your line of work. This keeps the content on your blog fresh and adds a lot of knowledge value to your site.
Megan Dennis is a web enthusiast and passionate blogger who loves to write about online and B2B marketing-related topics. Follow her on Twitter.
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