Mr Al Young Dot Com

Daily Web Ideas is a blog I read regularly for great tips and ideas on blogging.  Recently, there was an article called “3 Blogging Mistakes To Avoid Like The Plague.”  I have made each of these mistakes at one point, but I did not realize they were mistakes at the time.  I was just blogging and did not know there was a correct way to do it.  I just wrote for fun, and mainly for myself.  Now, I know a little more.  Live and learn.  Here are the 3 mistakes pointed out with my comments.

1. Inconsistent Publishing:   I agree with this 100% percent.  I did not get significant traffic on my old blog until I posted on a regular basis.  That makes sense, as why would anyone continue to visit your blog, if there was nothing new to see.   In trying to reestablish readers to this new blog, I will attempt to post regularly.  Not every day, but every 2-3 days, and anything more would be a bonus.

2. Having A Wide Range of Topics: The idea is to be focused on a niche so you can attract and maintain a loyal reader base.  If you have too many topics you cover, it is less likely that you have a loyal following, and you cannot target a specific group.  I don’t totally agree with this one.  Maybe if your sole goal was to make money from blogging, you might just target a profitable niche.  I’m working on a few projects in this area, but for my personal blog, the aim was never to just make money.  I started the blog writing about my real estate business, and real estate investing topics.  I have a following of readers for that topic, but I could’nt just write about that every day.  Even though, I have a passion for real estate, I have other interests I would like to discuss.  Sometimes when I go into other subjects besides real estate and investing, readers who come here for that info get turned off, but I prefer just writing about what I think is interesting rather than on a specific topic or audience.  Also, I think you can have a successful money making blog writing of a variety of subjects.  I only have to point to John Chow Dot Com, one of the most successful blogger on the Internet, who writes about making money online.  However, John also covers a wide range of topics, such as investing, fine dining, cars, and travel, much like I do.  Variety is the spice of life.

3. Remember Your Kids Will One Day Read Your Posts:  When you blog, you are in the public eye, like it or not.  Whatever you post will be archived, cached, and indexed in places you might even know of.   Whatever you post will be somewhere years down the road, so think about what you put out there.  Think about how it will look to your children years from now.  I have not had a problem with this one.  I try to post only things that would be a good reflection of myself and my family.  I also like the fact that Blogs are a good archive of my life.  Years from now, we may be wondering “when did we take that trip to Sedona where Dad rode the mechanical bull?”  We only need to refer to the blog for details, and even video.  It will also be interesting to see how my view and opinions change over the years as I get older.

In addition to these common mistakes I have made blogging, I have several more to add:

4. Not Having My Own Domain Name:  I started blogging by using the free hosting version of Wordpress.  I did not realize it at the time, but that was a big mistake.  It did get my feet wet in blogging, and using Wordpress, but it severely limited me in ways to monetize my site, and taking advantage of the many plug-in features of Wordpress.  Not having my own Domain name also hurts your credibility as a blogger as many ad networks will not deal with a blog hosted by a free blog host such as blogspot, or the free version of Wordpress.  Its ok to start with a free blog hosting service, but its better to switch to your own host and domain name as soon as possible.  I should have done it earlier, and now I have to switch my readers over to this blog.  Hopefully, they will eventually make their way here, but you can avoid that by having your own host and domain name from the beginning.

5. Being loose with facts and grammar: When I started blogging, I was writing for a very small audience, so I just posted whatever was on my mind.  I was not concerned about grammar, or checking out all the facts, since no body was reading anyways.  As my readers grew, I realized many people were reading with a critical view, so I got called on some inaccuracies in facts and grammar.  So, don’t be in rush to post something without checking out the facts.  Grammar and misspellings should be checked, and corrected as soon as possible if found.  It just looks unprofessional.  Remember people are reading your work, and it affects your credibility with your readers if the facts are incorrect, or there are misspellings in your posts.  If no one is reading now, they will be, so be careful with what you post.