It is easy to make mistakes when blogging. Even if you know what works and what does not work, you can end up forgetting so many things at the end of the day and your post ends up not being as good as it should be. In order to help every blogger, let us list the mistakes that many make and that should stop as soon as you read this post.
1 You Think People Will Read All You Write
Some readers surely just skipped to the bolded sub-title above. Statistics show that only around 15% of your blog visitors read every single word you write. The rest will just scan the content. This basically means that key messages have to be presented in a way that the reader sees them while just glancing at the post.
It should be added that a related blogging mistake is using paragraphs that are too long. You surely see so many of them every single day. Take a page out of the news sites. Did you see how short their paragraphs are? This actually helps the reader scan everything faster and read more of what the blogger writes.
2 Bad Titles
The title is one of the most important parts of your blog post. It is a shame to see that so many treat it as being something that is not at all important. Your title has to tell the reader exactly what to expect in the post. In addition, your title will create expectations.
There are too many situations in which titles are so vague and creative that they actually do not entice anyone to click. Any blog post title needs to be enticing and descriptive, no matter how long it is.
3 Lack Of Lists
Because of that lack of fondness towards long paragraphs, any list ends up being preferred over it. Point form lists and numbering lists work very well as people can instantly see key information that is presented in a post. For instance, in this case we have a sub-title that may be of more interest than another one above or beyond. The reader that is interested in seeing why a lack of lists is bad in blogging will read this paragraph.
4 Using Improper Language
By this we mean big words. Bloggers sometimes want to impress readers with the vocabulary that they possess. Contrary to what you may think right now, this can lead towards a loss of readers. You should never use acronyms without explaining what they are. The only situation when such a rule would not apply is when we use acronyms like “SEO” since 99.9% of the readers of this blog will know what that means. However, while some of the acronyms are suitable, industry lingo is never a good idea.
5 Not Adding Extra Value To A Post
I might be personally guilty of this with the article you just read (or scanned). By not adding value I mean not bringing new information to the reader. There are many bloggers that take information from here and there, only to repackage it. A professional blogger that is experienced surely knows all the mistakes that I highlighted. However, the beginner does not. I added value for the beginner as this is who the article was meant for.
There are obviously many other common mistakes that can be mentioned but from my point of view these are the ones that you should never make. Let me know with a comment if you agree or not!
