I was reading JohnChow.com as part of my morning ritual and noticed that Mr. John Chow wrote up a new blog about his Top 10 Blogging Mistakes. I liked the blog and thought an analysis of his mistakes would make a pretty good post. With permission from John Chow himself, I want to offer my opinions and observations on these mistakes and try to explain why most bloggers commit these mistakes when starting up their new blog. Here is part 1 of 3:
Mistake #1 - Not Updating
This is pretty much the easiest mistake most bloggers make when they begin their blog. Most of the time, new bloggers have this great passion that they want to share with the world and a blog is the easiest and cheapest way for them to do it. Soon after, they run out of material because 1) they post everything in the first few days of their blog 2) there just isn’t that much to write about bug-collecting in the Oregon Trails 3) their ADD has taken over and they’ve developed a new passion. To avoid making this mistake, I offer this analogy:
Imagine a man lost in the desert almost dying of thirst when suddenly he finds you and a big bucket of water. You give him two choices:
1) You can grab the bucket and pour the water down his throat.
or
2) You can cup your hands and let him drink from your hands.
If you picked option No. 2, you’ll be surviving a lot longer in the desert as you will waste less of your water (content) and have plenty in reserve until the man becomes thirsty again where then the magical Arrowhead Man (your inner passion) comes to refill your bucket to make this analogy work. So, just remember that your readers are the thirsty dying person crossing the internet desert and you are the one that determines how much water they get!
Mistake #2 - Blogging Only for Money
When people ask you “what’s your passion?”, one of the things you should never say is “to make money” because that’s such a vague goal that it doesn’t really help you focus your efforts, talents and interests to come up with a genuine blog. A blog that people will be able to feel your love for the passion or topic through their computer screens. Making money will cloud your vision for the site and you might not think about what’s the best interest for the people reading your blog. A big advantage for writing a blog with which you have interest is that you understand the desires and passions of your main demographic. You will understand what they like to look at, what ads they might be interested in and also what topics you the will be interested in.
Mistake #3 - Rushing to Publish your Posts
Much like the real world of journalism, everybody in the blogosphere wants to scoop each other to say they got the story first. And also much like mainstream media - newspapers, radio and tv - they never like making any mistakes in order to maintain a level of professionalism which thereby leads to a level of credibility and trust. Rushing to publish your posts is often times a mistake that is very hard to avoid, so a discipline should be practiced as often as possible to prepare you for the nightmare situations. Give yourself realistic deadlines and schedules so that you don’t have to rush anything. Personally, I sometimes schedule some days when I take the train home to write as much as I can during that time. It’s a good 35-40 minute ride some times, so i can pump out a lot of content. Also, start the habit of copy and pasting your blogs into word or any kind of spell checker to make sure you don’t make those simple spelling errors we all can make.
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“Also, start tthe habit of copy and pasting your blogs into word or any kind of spell checker to make sure you don’t make those simple spelling errors we all can make.”
was that intentional? can’t tell….