Three Blogging Pitfalls

1. One Topic Wonder Blog

When we hear Macaulay Culkin, our mind immediately flashes to an adorable Kevin McCallister and his adventures, hardly ever to the marijuana conviction and the fact that he is well 34. Many blogs are advised to stick strictly to one topic. Sticking to one rote topic may give your blog good branding initially, but feel free to explore different tangents to keep your reader interested.

People Change… Blogs do too… Grow up and deal with it!

I love blogs that keep it real. It gives authenticity and engenders connection between the reader and author. Blogs which are only about one topic and unwilling to budge – much like a Politician elected into power – fail to keep me hooked. Don’t be afraid to put yourselves in your blog, your perspectives, your views, your stands. We welcome them because it gives a warmth to the articles, makes the experience a tad more human, brings a little more rapport. Makes us actually care to read.

2. Quantity over Quality

Like food and sex, people who value quantity over quality, will end up bored and distracted. Well timed posts of good material will attract and retain readership. One blogger advocated that one
should post no less than three times a day to gain regular visitors. Unless you are running a business blog or benefiting monetarily by the ‘number of views’, readers tend to value ‘quality content’.

Atleast like with food and sex, people with good taste value quality. These are the readers you want to interact with. Now, as with Facebook, there are people who would ‘value the worth of the
blog’ through ‘likes’ and ‘ratings’ and ‘comments’. As in WordPress free hosting, you’d have to have an account to ‘like’ and give your details to ‘comment’. Hundreds of readers don’t have WordPress accounts or just do not comment. Never loose heart. You write for YOU.

Visit like minded blogs, participate in discussions, dive headlong into civilised debates, encourage others freely, criticise gently and accept feedback humbly. My suggestion for sustainable successful blogging would be to focus on what you put out there not how much.

3. Never back down

Every blogger faces this dilemma. You blog about something close to your heart. A reader expresses a difference of opinion. This can go down three different routes:

Route A:

• You point out how wrong and uninformed the dissenter is
• Reader stands his ground and calls your intellect to question
• You point out that he better back off if he is not interested and call his parents’ marital status during his conception/birth into question
• Reader posts sarcastic comment calling your sexual orientation into question and adding LOL
• Other readers are torn between supporting you, educating the ‘individual’ and wishing this would continue for some more time because the microwave popcorn is not quite ready yet
• You join your supporters and have a rare ‘jock’ moment, bullying the lone wolf
• Lone wolf posts a bitter message, punctuating it with pointy innuendos and deems that you are a rotten egg
• You call him a misanthrope, remind him that this is ‘YOUR blog’ therefore you shall write what you please and block him
• Other readers pause with mouth open – pop corn en route –  then proceed to congratualte you for your ‘bravery’. You go to bed feeling like a pile of steaming…

Route B

• You invite the reader for a civil debate as you value their opinion and thank them for reading your blog
• Other readers forget the popcorn and chime in with your two – cents
• People congratulate you for the open yet civil platform you’ve managed to create where ideas and opinions can be shared
• You go to bed happy, feeling accomplished and your spouse is probably wondering why it is such a ‘lucky’ night 😉

Route C

• Your comments section reads ‘Comments are closed’
• You are asleep on the couch the laptop balanced on your stomach
• No one made popcorn that night

Remember, no one forces us to share something online. It is unfair to expect everyone to perceive something the exact same way that we do . Something that may be super cute to me, may be just dull and dreary to someone else. Be open to suggestions, feedback, difference of opinion. No one will think any less of you 🙂

Don’t just have a blog… have a voice!

Photo Courtesy: stereotypex dot com , sceptisemia dot com