You’ve heard all the advice about what you should do to succeed as a blogger. What about the things you shouldn’t do? In this post, Beth Bauer (@JourneyofBethB), freelance writer, travel blogger, yoga instructor, and entrepreneur, points out six things you need to avoid as you move forward with your blogging efforts.
You can find a plethora of information about what to do to become a successful blogger. However, there are things you definitely do NOT want to do—especially if you want your blog to succeed.
If you want a long blogging career—one that also helps you succeed as an author, make sure you DON’T do the following!
Abandon Your Niche
If you’re not even sure what your niche is, you’ve got some work to do! Successful bloggers know their audience demographics. They all have some lifestyle characteristics in common, such as age, income, level, interests, location, and more.
Sometimes, we get an idea for a new topic and run with it, forgetting that our established audience may not share our enthusiasm for a different subject. This pivot may even cause your readers to lose interest in your blog altogether.
For example, I was a travel blogger. Then I got involved with yoga, and I wanted to write about my yoga school. So, I made an effort to spin my yoga articles in a way that they still reflected travel and cultural experiences. That helped me keep my audience.
Be Inconsistent
Typically, in the beginning, your enthusiasm for your blog is off the charts. This excitement keeps you writing often and consistently.
Then, as time goes by, reality sets in, and you realize it’s a lot more work than you anticipated. That is when many bloggers begin to post more inconsistently. Maybe you used to publish posts two or three times per week, and it dwindles down to once per week or even once per month.
Consistency in publishing posts is crucial to keeping your blog ranking high and your audience engaged.
Get Lazy
Similar to being inconsistent, general laziness can be just as devastating to your blog. Maybe you think it will take too much effort to apply filters to your photographs to enhance the quality, so you decide against it. Or possibly you just stop using images in your posts.
Perhaps you thought about going to that writer workshop but went surfing instead. And you don’t bother anymore to put your posts through a grammar checker anymore since it takes more time and effort.
Laziness can lead to career death for anyone, from executive to receptionist to entrepreneur. Try always to put your best foot forward and feel proud of your work.
Allow Yourself to Burnout
One significant cause of laziness is burnout. Often, people work so hard and long with no break that they hit a wall. Pacing yourself is crucial, as is self-care.
Our society glorifies being a workaholic as if it’s a sign of success. The truth is, working too much and too hard is not sustainable. Just like the tortoise eventually beat the hare, your competition will eventually surpass you if you’re not careful to avoid burnout.
Ignore SEO Practices
What’s the point of posting a great article if no one reads it? Understanding and applying search engine optimization (SEO) best practices is vital to your success as a blogger.
Using keywords and keyword phrases, checking that you’ve created the best post titles, adding proper descriptions to your photographs, using snippets, and generating good slugs, are all part of blogging successfully. If you ignore SEO, you might as well jot your thoughts down on a piece of paper and toss it in the trash, because that’s how many people are going to read your post.
Think You Know Everything
The world of blogging is always changing, and so is technology. To keep your skills current, you must continually be learning. If you think you know everything, you’re not going to learn anything.
When you don’t learn and apply new skills, that opens the door for your competitors to sweep in and pillage your audience. Additionally, the quality of your work may suffer. Eventually, thinking you know everything and not “sharpening your saw” will catch up with you.
You Know What to Do
Now that you know the six things to NOT do as a blogger, you also know many things that you should do!
Sometimes doing all the right or necessary things to help your blog succeed can feel overwhelming. Remember: a walk of a thousand miles begins with a single step. You don’t have to do everything at once. Pace yourself. Slow, s
Can you add any don’t-dos to my list? Tell me in a comment below. And if you found this post useful, please share it with another blogger.
About the Author
Beth Bauer is a freelance writer, travel blogger, yoga instructor, and entrepreneur currently working on her third novel. She has traveled to over 20 countries in just the last two years and enjoys life as a digital nomad. She is originally from the Pacific Northwest of the U.S.A., and when she’s home lives on the Long Beach Peninsula with her dog, Ozzie.
Photo courtesy of Mkaboompics
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