KEEMANXP Dot Com

Two days ago, one of my friends whom i met during a small gathering we had, showed her great interest in starting her own blog and asked me for tips on whether there are things that she need to avoid when starting one. So this post is written after some recollection of my very own mistakes when starting my blog since 2005. I do need to mention that I’m not a so-called blog money-making guru or expert that can tell you how to drive traffics to your blog. This purely my humble experience in the blogosphere and until now i must say, the learning process never ends.

So here are the 5 mistakes that beginning bloggers should avoid:

1. Blogging out of lust for money

This is perhaps one of the biggest mistakes that most beginning bloggers commit (i included). Most beginning bloggers are tempted to jump into the blogosphere mainly because they think they can earn a lot of money from doing it. To tell you the truth, you can earn more by selling fried bananas (pisang goreng) or rojak by the road side than waiting for your Adsense, Nuffnang, Advertles, GrabMyAds, etc ads to start giving you reasonable sum. For frequent blog readers, you should realise that top bloggers that are driving a lot of traffics are mainly driven by passion and interest than monetary alone. Start blogging what matters to you and let monetary income be secondary. Stop buying those useless e-Books that tells you how you can earn RM10,000 in a month just by blogging.

2. Neglecting your article headlines

Some bloggers spend a lot of time writing good articles to be shared but most of the time they forget how important the headline and title are. The key is, if your headlines doesn’t catch my attention, the chances are i won’t be reading your post or article. This takes some practice, and having analytics software like StatPress would help because it lists all the common keywords from search engines that drive people to your blog post. Notice the words that they “click” and you’ll know how to do an interesting headline! Well, Ben Yoskovitz’s article on how to write eye-popping headlines is a MUST READ for beginners.

3. Do not write as if you’re lecturing

I have to admit that during my early years in blogging, i often write like robots! Most of my post in my early blogs are like academic writing or lectures. Then i realise no wonder nobody’s reading it apart from university students who are trying to look for “cut-and-paste” resources for their assignments. So writing from first person point of view and at the same time using conversational methods is important! In short, write or type as if you’re talking to your readers or audience. And to add on, it is highly advisable to write more posts that can generate comments from your readers. Make it a habit to include some questions in your article or blog posts and seek answers from your readers. From there, your readers will feel appreciated. Am i right? What do you think? (Doing it now…haha)

4. The Pay per Post thingy….

Truly, when i bump into blogs that are flooded with paid reviews or the “pay-per-post” thingy, 8 times out of 10, i won’t go back again. Paid reviews sometimes can be so “artificial” that you can sense that you’re somehow being “cheated” for the blogger to earn some extra bucks. Some never even tried the product but can do a magnificent review just to earn that money. Those who put passions into making genuine reviews can attract loyal followers. One local example would be Hongkiat.com. (Note: HK did not pay me to add his link here. :p )

5. Not Being Original!

It is totally clear that original content can generate better readerships at least for most bloggers. If you keep track of your page views for all the posts in your blog, you’ll realise how amazing your original piece of writing can generate more page views than cut and paste contents like this one as expressed by Simon. Of course, being original also means higher commitment to your blog. For some, posting their sexy pics is the easiest way to drive traffic, and some even resort to posting “fake pictures” just to grab attention. Unless your readers are mainly sex-craving beings, such “strategy” won’t last long and would not cover a wider scope of readership. 🙂

Well, those are the 5 common mistakes that I think most beginning bloggers do, and of course they are more things to be avoided when blogging such as choosing the right template or design as well as content formatting. If you have interesting ones to share, feel free to post in the comment sections. I’m sure i’ll be learning from you as well….Happy Blogging!