Image by nickwheeleroz
This is a guest post by Kevin Geary from This is Broken Blog, a blog exposing important things in our daily lives that are broken and need to be fixed. It’s entertainment and education. Come visit us to see more of what’s broken (and even submit your own ideas).
For every great blog promotion strategy, there are five that suck. Really suck. They suck so bad that using them can get you blacklisted by real bloggers, ignored by annoyed readers, unfollowed on Twitter, and possibly placed on the terrorist watch list.
Being successful is not just about doing the right things. Avoiding the wrong things is just as important. Nobody wants to take two steps forward and three steps back; especially in blogging where success is few and far between, often takes a long time to become successful, and has a gigantic Dip.
If you’re to have any chance at success, you need to protect your blog from yourself. Protect it from your lust for quick success, your desire to become a ProBlogger in six months, and your general blogging ignorance (if you’re new).
10 Blog Promotion Strategies to Avoid at all Costs
1. Leaving “great post” comments on other blogs.
One of the best ways to get readers to your blog early on is to leave comments on other blogs. Of course, there’s a right and wrong way to go about this. Here is an example of a good and bad comment, using ProBlogger’s comment section as an example.
Patrick O’Keefe recently wrote a guest post on ProBlogger titled “Enhance and Grow Your Online Community Through Appreciation“. Here are two comments from that post:
Shane wrote:
Very good post, thank you for writing it.
Baker Wrote:
I saw this first hand, but really I stumbled into it unintentionally. I put up a bumbling video of myself thanking everyone for allowing me to have over 6400+ visits in my first full month blogging. The video wasn’t great quality or presentation, but people realized it was very genuine and I received several comments and e-mails. Again, I wasn’t out to really benefit like this, but I realized a side benefit from my regular reader’s really connecting with the video. Thanks again for 31DBBB, it helped me so much in having a great start!
Shane, you’re comment is broken. Obviously, you got one of the top 3 spots (which drives a lot of traffic on a successful blog like ProBlogger). But where’s the sincerity? Where’s the realness? It’s a fake comment meant to do one thing, drive traffic. It’s a waste of everyone’s time and it’s a big no no.
Baker did it right.
When you leave comments on other blogs, remember these three things: sincere, relevant, and valuable.
2. Emailing random blog authors and asking them to link to one of your posts.
I made this mistake early in my blogging career. Needless to say, I got a lot of hate mail in return.
You never get a second chance to make a first impression. If your first impression is a spam-looking (no matter how good your intentions are) email to a random blog author trying to get them to link to your posts, you’re not going to make any friends.
Instead, find a way to add value to their blog and engage them with that in mind. They call it “link love” for a reason. Very few time-tested bloggers have sex on the first date. Build relationships slowly over time and you’re in like Flynn.
3. Asking random blog authors for a link exchange.
This goes along with number 2. Usually new bloggers will write to other bloggers and try to get them to place a link to their site in their blogroll in exchange for a link back. It’s a good way to build pagerank and get recognition, especially if you’re in the blogroll of a highly trafficked site.
But what’s a blogroll for? It’s to help readers find other quality sites on the same topic. Insincere link swapping devalues the goal of a blogroll.
Again, build that relationship. Add value. You get rewarded for being genuine, not for being hyperfocused on getting traffic.
4. Making Twitter all about you and your blog.
Twitter is a great way to drive traffic to your site. Darren recognized that early and started TwiTip, a site that gives you tips on using Twitter effectively. Unfortunately, as Twitter gets more mainstream it’s going to lose value. That’s just the nature of free networking and exposure.
Twitter is my third highest source of traffic and I don’t have all that many followers. What I do have is important followers. Relevant followers. And I only follow relevant people who I actually care to hear from. That’s what Twitter was designed for. That’s what makes Twitter effective.
The people who are breaking Twitter (yes, it’s being torn down in terms of value as we speak) are the ones who use it to promote only themselves and only their blog. They’ll throw a retweet out there every once in a while and join in on a #followfriday session, but that’s about it. Their main goal is to drive traffic without adding any value. And who can blame them? It’s free and easy.
Let me give you a tip. Free and easy asks for abuse. Abuse is a great short term strategy. So is eating donuts for energy. But what happens when you get a big sugar spike? Crash. If you abuse Twitter and Facebook and others you’re going to crash as soon as people catch on to your antics. Shamless self-promotion on Twitter and social networking sites is a horrible long term strategy.
5. Joining forums simply for promotion.
See point number 4.
Forums are a great way to drive traffic to your site if you do it right. Don’t be a broken forum user. Put a tasteful link to your site in your signature and then make it your mission to interact the way the forum was designed. Be on the forum for the benefit of others and to further your own education, not to promote your blog. If you add value (see the trend), you’ll get the traffic.
6. Submitting all your posts to social media sites.
Are you a social media spammer? Do you have 70 social media buttons below your posts? Do you submit every post to most of them? It’s cheesy. Again, things that are free and easy get abused. It’s your job not to abuse them. Write great content and you’ll get recognized in time. If you force it, you’ll get recognized as the spammer you are and you can kiss success bye bye.
Instead, join the three most relevant social media sites and work to build value. Promote 10 times as much of other people’s material as you do your own. And don’t forget: sincere, relevant, and valuable.
7. Writing for search engines.
I want you to achieve the top spot on Google. Really, I do. But as a reader, I’m hungry for good content that’s sincere, smooth, and easily ingestible. Your keyword soup gives me the runs, in like, I run far away very fast.
If you write for the search engines and not for your readers, you’re going to get the top spot in Google. You’re going to get a lot of traffic and your adsense revenue is going to be great. But you’ll never have a great blog. You’ll never have a dedicated tribe of readers. You’ll never be a respected resource.
Search engine spiders aren’t going to give you good word of mouth. Neither are the strangers that find you on google who visit you once, hate your content, and leave.
Good content can and should be keyword dense. The trick is to do it without making my head spin. Copyblogger will teach you how it’s done.
8. Loading your site up with badges to all the social media communities you joined overnight.
Have you ever been to a blog that has a sidebar full of social media and social networking profile links? They’re on just about everything. On top of that, they throw in a big mybloglog widget and an entrecard widget.
You can be a jack of all social media sites, but you’ll end up being a master of none. Besides that, it’s just a bunch of clutter to your readers. Google beat out Yahoo because Google was simple and Yahoo was hectic. Do you want your readers to focus on the content or to focus on everything BUT the content?
Zen Habits is the master of simple. You have no choice but to read his content because there’s nothing else to do. And look at his subscriber count. Take a hint. There’s no way you can add value to a hundred social media profiles. Be selective and go for clean.
9. Copying someone else’s style or idea.
The easiest way to look creative is to not be creative at all. There’s enough creative out there that you can just copy and paste and people will probably never be the wiser.
And I’m not talking about lifting content from other blogs. That should be an obvious no-no. What I’m talking about is finding a successful blog and copying their overall style and even parts of their design. If I look like them, I’ll have their success. No, you won’t. You can never be more original than the original. Think about how that affects readers…
If they like the original, they’ll stick with the original. If they don’t like the original, they’re not going to go for a copy cat. You lose both ways. When you copy what your competitors are doing, you ensure that you’ll never pick up any market share.
If you want to be the best, you have to stand out. Figure out what everyone in your niche is doing and do the opposite.
10. Using search engine auto-submitters.
Have you seen these things? Get your site indexed on 50000000000000 search engines instantly!
This isn’t particularly bad, it’s just a waste of time and money. It’s not necessary. The only search enginge you need to target is Google and getting your site indexed is free and easy.
Use Google’s Webmaster Tools, get a sitemap plugin, write great titles and great content, and get “link love” by building relationships and adding value to other people’s projects. That’s all you have to do to own Google search. Throw the gimmicks out the window and focus on sincere, relevant, and valuable.
I know there are more broken strategies out there. I had fun talking about the top 10. Now I want you to expose more of them in the comments section. Let’s see how many we can come up with. Go.
#5 is my biggest pet peeve. I recently joined a handful of ning groups, some are serving their purpose and I’m sharing information and networking but a couple of the groups are just non stop self-promotion. Literally minutes after joining I had comments on my profile that didn’t even include “hello” just straight for the sales pitch.
This article inspired me to (once again) take a look at my own blog with fresh eyes. And, I realized something: in the end, when all is said and done, the most effective way for me to be helpful to others with my blog is….first to create a blog that I, myself, would enjoy visiting. Period.
~Dane
The weird thing about #4 is Twitter is SUPPOSED to be all about me. It’s supposed to answer one question: What am I doing?
It’s equally weird to never tweet about yourself, as if you are some kind of news provider I should tune into because you can repost from digg faster than I can just visit digg for myself.
Re Dawn’s comment and not following everyone on Twitter. I fell into that trap – interestingly the 2,000 cap on following (until you get your followers up past, I think , 1800) has been a good brake on that for me. Because I keep finding people I really do want to follow, I’ve been forced to inventory the people I’m already following and question whether they add value to my life.
I’ve been steadily trying to pare away the timewasters (constant sales pitch promo links etc) in order to free up space for Tweeters I want to to follow.
David
I really don’t think people need to think so much about their blogging. As a blogger I believe that making those mistakes by yourself and learning from them is the best way for being a good blogger.
@ Ramiro,
I don’t mean do everything differently. It was a general statement about standing out and being remarkable. The average person is average. If you look like an average person, you’ll always be average, just like them. To stand out, you have to do things differently. That’s what I’m suggesting.
As someone who is currently trying to increase readership to my blog(s), I actually don’t mind a few Shane comments.
I’d *prefer* Baker comments, but I imagine that there are many who read and think the same as what Shane writes, who never comment for fear of simply saying, ‘I agree’. I’d prefer to have a share of those comments than for those people to remain silent and simply nod their heads in agreement. I can’t see the nodding.
When I see a comment that says just “great post” from someone I don’t know on one of my blogs, especially with a link to a website unrelated to the blog or post topic, I assume it is spam and delete it. Comments should refer to something in the post at least.
This was a nice breakdown of “don’ts”. Thank you!
Connie
Hi Kevin, a fantastic and enlightening post. the really interesting thing for me is that this is the 2nd blog post I have read today that has queried the use/abuse of Twitter whereas previously I thought I was the odd one out after having spent 2 weeks on Twitter before Qwitting! Amazing isn’t it – any you have hit the nail on the head by saying it’s because it’s free – that it always has to boil down to the lowest common denominator! Maybe your opinion and the opinion of others will change the behaviour of those abusing this service – or maybe it will just die a natural death….
All the best – Lynda.
Excellent posting.
I had some tendencies in the beginning of my blogging that you have mentioned. bad indeed, but you are hitting my head not to do it.
thanks for taking your time to give all the details.
Some small points with big impact. “Lust of quick success”.
Nice read. Recommended to all new bloggers starting to dive into the blogging.
Thanks Kevin,
As a newbie at social networking blogs like this are refreshing and valuable. I’d been thinking that twitter wasn’t for me, but I’m feeling inspired to tweet-on, link up a blog and contribute more. (this is my first comment on a blog) – probably unleashed a monster! Broken is behaving with less integrity on the net than when face to face – very unattractive no matter how you try to disguise it.
Now this is a very great post for everyone. I’ve made those mistakes and the impact to my blog is very hurtful.
Anyway, #4 is the biggest thing I can see now… And I agree. Twitter will be torn down by people who shamelessly promotes themselves. I almost quit twitter the first time I signed up but then I found out there’re also many people who uses twitter for a good cause just like Darren!
P/S: How I’d hope this post was written earlier last year.
I always find it surprising the comments done in the broken way, why do people still do that, disregard the traffic aspect, it just makes them look like a muppet. Sincerity is exactly what it’s about, blogging, micro blogging and getting to know people across the other side of the world is getting popular big time. of course I’m also comparing the past 5 years or so where the social media aspect was not so apparent.
If you want people to take you seriously and to connect then a broken comment just won’t cut it. People are demanding more, searching for more and generally trying to increase their knowledge.
A lot of Comments on some good posts can really help people to learn, some comments posted are sometimes better than the actual post as it encourages discussion/debate etc…
Keep it real and you can never be broken!
Great post …. too many people are posting for the sake of it instead of adding genuine, sincere content.
We all want to be on Google’s front page but in the long term you will only get there by supplying rich content that visitors want and the rest will take care of itself as Google recognizes the buzz around your site.
Thank you for this post, I really needed to read it. I have a frugal blog and weekly I do advertisements for Walgreens, Walmart, and my local grocery stores. Last week I had another blogger leave a comment on my Walgreens post saying, “Great list, I have found more check it out at …” I was frustrated and then wondered if I should be. I guess my frustration really was because it takes me about 5 hours to do the advertisement in the first place and instead of sending me an e-mail where I could link the extra values to their blog- one I have never even seen before- they just tried to have my visitors see the comment and visit. It definetely wasn’t a comment for me it was a comment for my visitors. I still don’t know if I should have been so upset but really it wasn’t a very polite thing to do and gave me a bad first impression of the blogger. Maybe I’m wrong for feeling that way I still wonder if I am but I never would have done that to someone else.
Thanks!
Great information, glad to see I’m doing most things right. But I realized that I don’t promote other people’s material as much as i do my own. Gave me some good things to think about and to start implementing.
Darren: I agree with all you have said here. #4 Making Twitter All About You and Your Blog struck a cord with me. I am on Twitter regularly and I see this abuse all the time.I’ve gotten very selective about whom I will follow or follow back. I actually look at their most recent tweets to see if they will add value to my twitter experience. If all they are tweeting about is their web site, blog posts, or some product they are shilling, I don’t follow. Yes, its OK to tweet about the above, but I don’t want to see the same tweet 45 times. I have no problem unfollowing if someone is abusive and carpet bombs their tweets.
Twitter is a wonderful tool for learning, making friends and promoting your business. I’ve gotten several clients through interaction on Twitter and gotten help to solve a technical problem I was having with my blog. I’ve helped people I only know through Twitter with interior design and home staging questions and I’ve been asked to be a guest blogger based upon my tweets. I try to add value when I can.
Thanks for all the effort you put into your posts here and DPS. I’m a big fan.
By the way, if you want to follow me on Twitter I’m @HomeStagingPro (http://www.twitter.com/homestagingpro) :o))
With all due respect, and because you asked for more broken stuff, I think the tone of this article is bit broken really. I find it patronizing and little unnecessarily aggressive. Maybe it’s one example where it might have been better not to direct the article at the reader (eg. “are you a spammer?”) but rather at a common enemy out there somewhere. The best bloggers like Rowse and Clark always sound like your soft spoken best mate who’s on your side.
Then again, it made me look dirty chook, so maybe it’s not so broken after all ;-)
A controversial post on how you think people should be allowed to use social media, and crowd sourcing sites.
I couldn’t DISAGREE with you more. If you don’t take the time to do some self marketing in the flood of new content being generated every day, you have NO chance of competing with existing attention grabbers.
How can folks decide if they like your message, if they are never given the chance to experience it? Niche blogs, or focused messages will only appeal to a small subset of all the folks that are interacting online any given day. If you want to have any hope of connecting with this subset you’re going to have to become active in social media, internet crowd sourcing/organizing sites, and not be afraid to toot your own horn to get a few people looking.
Attention doesn’t go from zero to the market group you are looking for without putting out virtual landing pages everywhere a potential reader may look.
The beauty of our modern social web, is that each of us can connect to a huge audience in a realistic amount of time ( a few months of writing and getting noticed). Hiding and hoping is NOT a solution.
When I started blogging in January ’09, I was extremely lucky to have the following blogs as one of the first blogs I ever read: Seth Godin’s Blog, Rajesh Setty’s Life beyond code, Ramit Sethi’s I will teach you to be rich, and Darren’s digital photography blog (and they are permanently on my blogroll).
The major words that come to mind about these blogs are: ‘sincerity’, ‘adding value’, ‘positive’, ‘to affect lives’ and ‘the spirit of giving’!! In my honest opinion, without these traits, there’s no way a blog will see the limelight. The key word is GIVING. “What can your blog bring to the table?”
Just my thoughts.
Just to clarify, I’m strong opposed to 6 and some of 8 Kevin.
Putting up badges to social crowd sites allows readers to easily give a helping hand to a starting blog/site.
This is very good material. My reason for posting a comment is for Item #3. It’s said by Darren and others that you should build relationships with bloggers in the same niche your blog is in. I would like to hear if my strategy is wrong or right. It gives me about a 50% return on links.
I have found various sites related to being unemployed or laid off, and so I take a look at their site. If it’s professional or corporate, there is no value in me emailing them because I’ll get no real relationships.
However I look at the ones that are blogs ran by real people and have good subject matter and send them a short but two paragraph email introducing myself, my job status, my work history, and my blog URL along with comments.
Before I send this out, I have put their URL on my Blogroll already. Then I tell them that my purpose is to reach out to others in the same situation, and I find their site interesting. I do NOT send a ‘form letter’! I make it specific to their site by commenting on their latest or most popular post.
Then I tell them their URL is already on my blogroll. I ask them if they would, review my site and if they find value in it, would they add my site to their blogroll. I have two link catagories on my site – Blogroll and “Friends of LOG (laidoffguy)”. When I get a reply from someone, their site goes from Blogroll to Friends.
Again, I have met some very nice people this way with good social replies. The responses have been about 50% by reaching out this way.
I’d like to hear comments on this method. It seems to work well without commercializing the site.
Jim
http://iwaslaidoff.info
Kevin, reading your post made me realize I have a lot to learn. I am new to the blogging world and am trying to learn how to do the whole thing. I was happy to learn that there are some things I have not done yet…I haven’t yet learned all the bad habits of blogging. I don’t want to break my blog so thank you.
One of the things that makes me run away from blogs is a lot of spelling mistakes. I think to myself, “Wow they couldn’t even take the time to proofread their stuff prior to posting? They must not be that serious about providing great content.” I wouldn’t say that is necessarily a blog promotion strategy but your list is so comprehensive that I couldn’t think of anything else. :) I’ve been guilty of items on this list and it’s good to review this to make sure I stay away from them. The main motto is “Give and you shall receive”
Oh I forgot to add that since I’ve been providing tops news content for my favorite areas on Twitter (fitness, real estate and social media), I have received so many more genuine followers and RT’s. I have been having a great time meeting so many new people on Twitter. I even plan to meet up with some local Tweeps soon. They also see that I genuinely care and don’t just send out tweets to promote myself.
This has to be the best blog promotion article that I have read so far simply because I finally know some of the things NOT to do. It can get a bit confusing when, for example, you read about commenting on forums, however, not knowing that you are overdoing it in some way. Or, thinking that submitting all of your posts to all of the social networks is great, but not realizing that people may get annoyed by your submissions.
This should be part of some type of 10 Commandments for bloggers. Great work.
I jumped the gun after quickly scanning the post, I pretty much am in full agreement with ya on all 10. My only addition is that the rules of the game are always changing.
As media creators, authors, video producers, musicians we have spend considerable time acclimating ourselves to the latest standards of the ever growing social web.
Sorry for skipping the most important part of # 6) above, the second paragraph!
The most annoying thing that I ever faced is the overrapid twits on Twitter. I love the one that gives benefits, but there are some bloggers who twit the links to their blogs for nothing.
I always do the first mistake. And now I realized it’s a big mistake leaving “great comments” in other blogs. Comment section should be a place for discussion, not driving traffic to your site.
One thing that we have to be aware is when we submitting our posts. Subscribers will receive notification upon our submission so please check your entry before posting. If you keep editing and submitting your post, your subscribers’ email will full of notification for your blog. You’ll be a “ping spammer”
Well, sometimes the badges of the social bookmarking helps the readers to spread the words but make sure your content is valuable to be spreaded.
@ Jim,
I think you’re walking a fine line there. I’d keep it to introducing yourself. No asking for links. When you introduce yourself and include a link to your site, the person will naturally visit and look around.
But no respectable blogger is going to add your site to their blogroll on day one. They’re going to want to watch your content and see if you’re going to last through the excruciating “dip” that occurs with blogging that consumes most blogs and fizzles them out.
When they add you, it’s like they’re telling their readers, “this site is great”. They don’t want to do that until they really know you’re great.
On my other blog, The Money Hawk (www.themoneyhawk.com), I have a blogroll in the footer. I added those sites because I believe they are valuable to my readers. None of those sites on my blogroll have a link back to my site (that I know of). And I’ve only spoken to one or two of the authors. It’s there to add value, not to benefit me in any way.
@ Rob,
You have to start somewhere. If you want any free personalized help, shoot me an email.
kgeary83 [at] gmail [dot] com
Great Post! :D
.
.
.
j/k haha Those were a lot of good and spot-on points. Basically, the more people that join a site or app, the more differing ways they’re going to bring to the table to use/misuse it.
It’ll be up to the people who have been there for years to figure out a new way to communicate efficently or move on to the next app.
Hey great post. Kidding. I’m new to blogging and have been reading everything I can to learn how to promote my blog. There are so many strategies it seems and everyone has different opinions about the best ways to promote. This article really broke it down for me – it seems to me the more focus on the content and the VALUE you can provide readers, the better off you’ll be.
So, this kind of comment is bad? Ok, I’l do my best to give a good comment.
Well I agree with some broken stratergies that are common in bloggers these days promoting their blogs through forums and twitter .Comemnts shopuld compliment blog author.
As a new blogger, I knew that I had better get an education quickly before I made people mad, but I didn’t know I was already such a terrible offender! I immediately went through and blocked a bunch of senseless followers on my Twitter.
Patience is what I was lacking.
I like the updates that I get by following some bigger companies, but I definitely am on the lookout for spammers now. I couldn’t believe how many were already following me, trying to sell me things.
Someone asked in a reply post what the line is on sites like Facebook. I think that if you create a genuine page for a fan base to collect, it’s an awesome way for your cusotmers to relate to each other. It should never be a place to try to shove a product or service down someone’s throat. I’m developing a fan base of customers that have already purchased from our company. It’s a site where they can talk about things they have in common due to their purchase…and that’s it.
I waited a long time before jumping into this scene, because I was so scared of offending someone. My advice would be to keep getting educated, and when you learn of your shortcomings correct them immediately. Don’t be too scared of making a mistake that you don’t get involved at all. Posts like this one are here to help those who do have a sincere purpose at heart.
Sometimes I have written “Very good post” or something similar. It is just to show that you liked what they wrote. Some do spam by writing short things like that. Others do write it to show they appreciated the post.
What great information for new bloggers. My blog is 6 months old and I was completely clueless on most of this until about two months ago.
I’m just getting into Twitter and this helped me there as well. You blog is truly a goldmine for newbies in it for the long run.
Thanks!
Thank you for this advice! I have just started to blog in the past couple of weeks and have wondered about all of those issues you mention. I want to be authentic and hold the interest of anyone who comes to my blog; turning them off is not my intent! I am taking it slow and easy while I learn and find my own “style” of blogging. With so many other artists blogging now I don’t really expect to be
“discovered” but finding some like minded friends is a
great reward – anything else is icing on the cake. Cheers.
This post was great! I just started my blog and thankfully I haven’t done any of these. Also, thanks for the tip on meaningful comments. I definitely need to work on that. Thanks again for the post!
So many rules to keep track of with blogging and social media. How do you keep track of it all? And they seem to change on a daily basis!. That’s why I’m glad there are blogs like yours to keep us all straight! And seriously I do mean that, I’ve learned alot from this blog in the past few months especially in participating in 31DBBB.
I agree that to much promotion is boring, people just get tired of seeing it. I question myself daily on if I’m doing enough or doing to much. How often do you think it’s appropriate to actually promote your own blog, website or other social media sites you can be found on?
Okay, at the risk of being trite, may I just say that this really IS a great post. As I read it last night (in bed, on my blackberry, I’m ashamed to admit) I found myself examining my own blog strategy. I’ve struggled with the structure of it and have come dangerously close to taking the easy road of copying some other successful blog in terms of style and layout. I am glad that you have validated my hesitation in doing that – now I know that I just need to find my own voice and create my own unique style.The people who like it will come back and those who don’t, won’t – and that’s perfectly okay!
Thanks!
I really enjoyed this post. It is just what I have been looking for. I really like the last point in particular about contributing to others projects and giving “sincere, relevant, and valuable” content and/or feedback.
I agree 100% with that. It is kind of like blog karma. You get what you put in, you get back what you give. Plus you earn a few followers and friends in the process.
Good stuff!
This post really emphasised on KISS, super stuff by the guest writer. Many people do all this and more.
Very good post. Thank you for writing it.
KIDDING. But in all seriousness – great post. I did love reading this! ;) I have been blogging for 2 years now and I love it and I try to keep it real. And honest. I can’t keep up with most of what’s going on out there – I do tweet a lot, (not only about new posts) and I do have a new post up almost daily, because I love to write. Other than that, I’m not blogging for success. I’m doing it because I love it.
I enjoyed this post. So much so that I’m thinking about posting a link to it on my blog as I think others oculd learn from the tips.
The first tip is very good. I try to leave more than a “good post” when I leave comments. And I do leave a lot of comments!
Wow – there are some things here I really need to consider and change. I think my sidebar is cluttered, for one thing.
I’ve also made some of the mistakes mentioned, including writing for google, and joining forums for the wrong reason.
Clean, simple and well written – that’s what I’m aiming for now. I really appreciate this post!
James Hofheins
Excellent list of what not to do. Especially liked, “Making Twitter all about you and your blog”.
This article is so timely for me. I just started blogging a week and a half ago and you have saved me from going overboard, I hope. I have done a few of these things a little bit, like saying great post because I didn’t have the time to say much more.
Thanks.
I am not even sure where to start there is so much great info here. Definitely don’t want to be broken blogger (I consider it spam content and a waste of time for me and the blog owner).
Another thing you mentioned which I couldn’t agree with more are those blogs with sidebars full of advertising for social media/networking and other miscellaneous garbage. Sometimes I get so distracted I lose my train of though of what I just read in the blog.
Great info, appreciate you taking the time to put it out there and hopefully those “”offenders”” will rethink their strategies.
Hi Kevin,
Now, I restrained myself writing a great post! :-) I learnt a lot in my 5 month blogging experience how tricky it is. of course, you amply reflected all the mistakes committed by newbies like me. I’m guilty of placing a good post… come and visit my blog….stuff.
Later I found if I do my part sincerely as you said writing good content things will fall in place.
You’ve rightly said, when Darren writes a post, or any noted blog author writes… it’s better to say: “thanks for the wonderful information” rather than saying a “great post”. The author doesn’t our authentication. But, for a newbie, it’ll do.
Thanks for the great insights! :-)
Solomon