Beginner Week: My 43 DOs and 25 DON’Ts of Blogging

Eleven and a half years ago when I hit publish on my first ever blog post, I had little idea what I was doing and what was going to unfold for me over the coming decade.

As I prepared for a recent mini ProBlogger event event in Perth, I created a little list of some of the ‘dos and don’ts’ of blogging that I wish I’d known back in 2002 when I started. As it’s Beginner Week here on ProBlogger, I thought it might be appropriate to share them here on the blog today:

Note: these are MY dos and don’ts, and reflect my own style of blogging. I am not putting them forward as ‘rules’ that apply to all. I’d love to see your dos and don’ts in comments below.

My 43 DOs of Blogging

1. Do create a blog that is meaningful to you
2. Do set yourself some goals and objectives for your blog
3. Do ‘write’ something every day (note that I didn’t say ‘publish’)
4. Do as much as you can to get in your readers shoes and understand who they are
5. Do use surveys and polls to help you understand your reader
6. Do create content that meets your readers’ needs, answers their questions, and solves their problems
7. Do write in an engaging voice
8. Do start an email newsletter
9. Do pay attention to the design of your blog – first impressions count!
10. Do communicate clearly what your blog is about into your design
11. Do spend time ‘off’ your blog engaging in the places where your potential readers gather
12. Do go to the effort of registering your own domain
13. Do create visual content
14. Do model the kind of community that you want your blog to have
15. Do install analytics and track the results of what you do
16. Do find some blogging buddies who you can bounce ideas off and have mutual support with
17. Do make sure you have ‘real life’ friends too – they’ll ground you
18. Do become hyper-aware of problems (yours and other people’s), and obsessed with solving them
19. Do create something to sell from your blog
20. Do think beyond what you’ll write today – develop an editorial calendar
21. Do set aside time to learn the skills you lack
22. Do set aside time to brainstorm topics to write about
23. Do read other people’s blogs – you’ll learn a lot from them
24. Do share your opinion – it is what often differentiates you
25. Do share stories – your own and other people’s
26. Do back up your blog!
27. Do blog with passion
28. Do look for ‘win/win/win’ relationships with brands where you, the brand and your reader benefit
29. Do show your personality – be yourself
30. Do pay attention to what is energising you and do more of it
31. Do pay attention to what is energising your readers and do more of it
32. Do spend time refining and perfecting post headlines
33. Do think about what ‘action’ you’re calling readers to take in your content
34. Do make peace with the fact that there will always be more that you can do
35. Do learn how to prioritise and focus upon activities that take you closer to your goals
36. Do pay attention to your archives – update and promote them regularly
37. Do push through bloggers block
38. Do spend time analysing what types of content are being ‘shared’ in your niche – publish this kind of content semi-regularly
39. Do use social proof
40. Do take breaks from blogging – weekends and vacations are important!
41. Do ask your readers a lot of questions and listen to what they say
42. Do treat your blog as a business today… if you want it to be one tomorrow
43. Do create content that Informs, Inspires and Interacts

My 25 DON’Ts of Blogging

1. Don’t be afraid to hit publish
2. Don’t feel you have to publish something every day
3. Don’t publish when angry (or drunk)
4. Don’t become a comment spammer on other people’s blogs
5. Don’t publish just for the sake of publishing content
6. Don’t use other people’s stuff without permission and credit
7. Don’t focus so much about the readers you don’t have – have a big impact upon the ones you do have
8. Don’t stretch yourself too thin (too many posts, too much SM) – do what you do really well
9. Don’t become too promotional
10. Don’t hit publish without one last proof read
11. Don’t write purely for search engines
12. Don’t sell out
13. Don’t engage in every type of social media – analyse where your readers are and do those mediums well
14. Don’t look for a ‘blueprint’ for successful blogging – forge your own path
15. Don’t publish large chunks of text – break it up and make it scannable
16. Don’t hide your mistakes – be transparent
17. Don’t feed the trolls – be polite, kind, and firm
18. Don’t let the negative things people say about you sink in – it’ll pull you down
19. Don’t let the hyped praise people give you sink in – it’ll over-inflate your ego
20. Don’t expect to get rich quick
21. Don’t compare yourself to others – compare yourself to you when you started
22. Don’t spend all your time ‘learning’ about blogging at the expense of actually blogging
23. Don’t think there’s just one way to monetize your blog
24. Don’t become so obsessed with blogging that you forget to have a real life
25. Don’t give up too quickly – building a blog takes time

Of course I’m scraping the surface in this list but I hope for those of you starting out it gives you a few starting points. Also keep in mind that these are not ‘rules’ and that the do’s don’t guarantee success and the ‘don’ts’ don’t guarantee failure. In fact I’ve written many of the don’ts as a result of my own mistakes but things turned out ok in the end for me despite those failures.

If you’d like to go deeper on some of these themes check out the recording and slides of my webinar – 10 Things I Wish I Knew About Blogging.

Also don’t forget we are having a 50% off sale on the ProBlogger Guide to Your First Week of Blogging during Beginner Week. Simply enter the code BEGINNERWEEK at the checkout.