Let’s get straight to the point: There’s a lot of bad blogging advice out there.
I know what it’s like to be a new blogger trying to figure things out. If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably spent hours with a dozen tabs open reading article after article about how to blog. It can be totally overwhelming!
Unfortunately, a lot of the “common wisdom” and advice given to new bloggers isn’t that great, and following it can actually hurt your blog’s growth.
What makes some blogging advice bad?
- It’s outdated and it doesn’t work anymore
- It’s irrelevant or missing the point
- It’s technically or factually incorrect
I am writing this post to share some of the worst advice given to new bloggers… and what you should do instead if you want to succeed at blogging.
Bad Advice #1: You Should Be Blogging Every Day
New bloggers hear this all the time. That when you’re first starting out, you should be publishing a blog post every single day to get your content out there and build an audience. However, this is so untrue!
The old saying quality over quantity applies here. If you write one high-quality, helpful, and valuable post per week and spend time promoting it, you will be a lot better off than writing five sloppy, disorganized blog posts per week.
Bad Advice #2: You Need To Be On Every Social Media Platform
When you first start your blog, you might be tempted to make accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, and Google+ for your blog.
Common advice given to new bloggers dictates that being active on social media is the only way to get your blog out there and start growing.
But the truth is, being present on every single social media platform isn’t necessary for your blog to be successful. In fact, you might end up spreading yourself too thin and getting burnt out if you attempt to do this.
Instead, it’s best to find one or two platforms that work for you and hone in on those. For me, this is Pinterest. It drives the most traffic to my blog, so I focus most of my energy there.
If you aren’t seeing much traffic from a certain social platform, it might be time to reevaluate your strategy and focus on more productive platforms instead.
Bad Advice #3: If You Write It, They Will Come
There’s a saying “Content is king” that gets thrown around a lot. Essentially, the belief is that if you write amazing, valuable content, people will find it and read it.
But the truth is, that’s not how blogging works anymore. Maybe it was true ten years ago, but the blogging landscape has changed and it’s a lot more competitive now.
You can write the best blog posts ever, but if you don’t have a smart promotional strategy, no one will ever see them.
Instead, try following the 80/20 rule: Spend 20 percent of your time creating content for your blog, and 80 percent of your time promoting it.
Bad Advice #4: Don’t Write Long Posts
Some common blogging advice I hear all the time is that people these days have a short attention span so you shouldn’t write posts long blog posts. Keep them short and sweet instead.
However, this is very untrue! Long blog posts (2,000+ words) are great for SEO and helping your blog rank in Google. Long blog posts are also a good way to establish your authority on a topic and create cornerstone content for your blog.
Of course, all of your blog posts don’t need to be that long, and it’s okay to have a mix of longer and short posts. When writing longer blog posts, be sure to break up the text with headings, short paragraphs, bulleted lists, and images. No one wants to read a giant wall of text.
Bad Advice #5: It’s Too Late To Start Blogging
This is one common refrain I’ve been hearing all the time recently. That if you didn’t start blogging 5 or 7 or 10 years ago, you’re out of luck and there’s no way you’ll make it as a new blogger because there are just too many blogs out there and the market is over-saturated.
For a while, this scared me, especially because a lot of my favourite bloggers had been blogging for years. I thought I would never stand out from the crowd or be successful.
But I decided to take the plunge and start a blog anyway, and less than two years later I am now earning a full-time income from blogging!
It’s absolutely not too late to start blogging. Yes, there might be ten thousand other blogs out there with the same topic as yours, but YOU have a unique voice and can put a spin on your content like no one else can.
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