7 Blogging Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Most of us know that blogging is an important tool for entrepreneurs. In fact, it’s one of the BEST ways to promote your online business and increase your sales.

Kim DeYoung (aka the Get It Done Girl) teaches entrepreneurs how to start blogging (or improve the blog you already have). The idea is to use your blog to create a loyal following of a targeted market who love you and are ready to BUY!

Kim said I could share with you a few mistakes she’s made so you can learn from them and begin blogging more effectively right away. Here’s what she said about 7 blogging mistakes that are easy to avoid…

1. Publish regularly.

Often I’m asked, “how often should I blog?” Whether you post frequently or rarely is not as important and whether you publish regularly.  You need to set your readers’ expectations so find a rhythm that suits you and maintain it.  If you’re going to be away, write posts in advance and set them up to be posted automatically at your usual time. You need to maintain momentum.

2. Stay focused.

Trying to speak about more than one topic in a single post will confuse your readers and will make your posts hard to categorize.  Try to keep your posts as simple as possible and stick to one subject.  It’s great that you have lots of ideas, but save them for future posts. Keep a swipe file or journal for all your future ideas.

3. Connect with your readers.

To really connect with your blog, your readers will want to know something about you. Include an author biography, and preferably a photo to help you build up a relationship with your customers. Share personal stories, when appropriate, so you can build connection and rapport. Consider incorporating video into your blog.

4. Have a point.

The headline of your post is all that will show up in search engine results and links so be sure to make it attention grabbing and relevant to your post.  No one will bother to click on a link to your post if they don’t know what it is about.

5. Pay attention.

Carried away by the success of their first blog, many authors start several more.  Maintaining a blog takes time and effort and the quality of your blog will suffer if you spread yourself too thin.  One high quality blog with regular postings is better than several neglected blogs.

6. Keep it all together.

Your blog is an ongoing story or conversation.  You will want to refer to previous posts but you won’t want to explain to new readers the entire contents of your previous articles.  Insert links to the relevant posts, and keep an easily accessible archive of your most significant articles.

7. Respect your readers – all of them.

Receiving negative comments can be frustrating and upsetting, but don’t forget that the author has made the effort to read your post and make a comment on it””that means your post has been impactful. Read your post again, keeping the negative feedback in mind.  You may be surprised that you start to agree with the comments.  You’ll find that all comments, whether negative or positive, give you valuable feedback that you can learn from.

Whether you’re just getting started, or have been blogging a while and you’d like to learn how to blog more effectively, you should check out Kim’s new product where she walks you through ALL the steps – Blogging ABC’s. Make sure you checkout her free blogging tips available at http://bit.ly/av2YBU.