Blogging Myths Busted

The mirage of blogging keeps on attracting more and more people each day and with it, bloggers and online publishers hurry to launch debates on tips and best practices.

There is no secret that some of these blogging tips available on many blogs out there are written out of the desire to catch a profitable train or only to align with a publishing trend.

Some of these blogs only offer tips based on myths, without a reference or statistic background. What are these myths and my arguments against them?

Post at least once a day

This is my personal favorite. Not because posting daily would be a bad thing for your blog, but because it can’t be applied to every blogger. Posting junk only because you want to make a post every day will turn against you sooner or later. Post whenever you have something meaningful or important to say.

Posting takes 10 minutes

First of all, posting takes a few seconds “Write – Write Post – “Lorem ipsum” – Publish”.
If you’re writing on a specific subject, creating a “worth reading” post takes more than 10 minutes. It takes time to find information, resources, reference and develop an opinion. Again, this myth is not generally applicable since not all blogs out there are personal blogs, or blogs created only to follow the trend, and abandoned after one month.

Setting up a blog takes a few minutes

Technically it does, but then you will have “Just another WordPress weblog”. Your blog, personal or professional, has to have an identity of its own. Get a new theme, customize it yourself or get someone to help you with that. There are hundreds of resourceful websites available online, most of them free. Why not taking advantage of it?

There are too many blogs

Not by far. Only a small percentage of them are well targeted, maintained and promoted. If you’re serious about it, there always place for one more. It only takes a bit of study and dedication.

Publishing RSS feeds will affect your traffic

Then consider writing something more interesting and intriguing. Establish a relation with your readers, engage them in discussions and they’ll come to your site, looking to post a comment or read others’ thoughts on you post. Further more, I invite you to take a look at some of the world’s most famous blogs, check their traffic level and their number of subscribers.

Keep publishing and Google will do the rest to get you traffic

You can be an undiscovered genius, but by following this myth you have every chance of remaining undiscovered. Promote yourself, interact with other bloggers in your niche, engage in comments and participate actively in social networks. While search engines can generate enough traffic for your blog, the above mentioned methods will help you get loyal readers.

Offer some free stuff

It pretty much depends on what you are offering. Is it unique? Is it a “must have” or at least helpful? Is it high quality? Answer yourself these questions and if you don’t have at least a positive answer, reconsider your “give away”.

Criticize or insult a famous blogger

Yes, I’ve heard this one too. People love fights, but unless you are 110% sure of what you’re saying or better qualified than him/her, you’re just another easy target, soon to be victim. Talking “crap” is like walking on thin ice. Be careful!

Bottom line is: Nothing is generally applicable. Document yourself, experiment, find out what works best for you and make a difference between tips and laws.

Photo credit to Steve Woods.

This article has 7 comments

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  MoneyLizard

  May 29th, 2008

  Another good post… the insult a famous blogger one kills me, because if they are famous and doing things right with their blog, they will have followers and you will have just shot yourself in the foot by many eyes.

  -MoneyLizard
  http://www.blog-class-room.com
• 

  Alex, Blogsessive

  May 29th, 2008

  Well, sometimes it’s good to have the guts to point out certain things that go wrong (only with the right arguments), but most times it’s better to care about how you can become better.
• 

  BlogoHelp

  October 17th, 2008

  Perfect! It’s really interesting article from my point of view… I’ve translated it for my blog – hope, it’s not prohibited?.. Ofcourse, I’ve emphasized that it’s just a translation from this blog…
• 

  Alex, Blogsessive

  October 18th, 2008

  It’s OK to translate, but at least a back link to the original article would be appreciated.
• 

  Irfan

  October 24th, 2008

  WoW. Great! Today, I build a new blog using wordpress. So, tips above are very useful to me.
  (I’m beginner at this language)
• 

  Ronblogger

  October 14th, 2009

  Hi i like your list of myths there,but i think with the #1 there’s nothing wrong on posting everyday as long as you only post quality and helpful content

  Regards,
  Ron
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  The Straight Dope Dad

  December 3rd, 2009

  The first myth “daily posting” is probably the most important. I have no idea why people feel it’s worthwhile to tell me what they had for breakfast. I just don’t care. I also don’t care if you have one post or a thousand. I want quality. That’s it. The most frustrating are the blogs that have a mixture of brilliant essays and mundane daily comments (eg: Dude, I’m so tired today…maybe I’ll post tomorrow…later!). Dude, don’t publish you internal monologue! Keep that to yourself. Then I have to spend additional time weeding through the fluff to get to the meat.

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