I have been blogging for quite some time now. And half of those times, I did not know that there were rules and guidelines on how to manage a blog site. All I knew was that I just have to post something that might be of interest or something that I just suddenly thought about and then hit publish.
And so, I never got many results with my blog’s popularity. It was still invisible to the world.
He told me that I was doing everything wrong. Of course, I did not believe it at first. I thought he was just discouraging me or something. But the more we talked, the better it made sense. He pointed me all the wrong things I have been doing with my blog like:
It was all about me
My ego was kind of hurt but he was right. Who wants to know what I had for breakfast on my blog? Who wants to know what I did when I went to the mall? Nobody because I am still a nobody in the blogging world.
Not reaching out nor promoting
After every post I publish, that was it. No more follow ups. No more promoting. And no more mentioning anywhere online.
Thinking that people will automatically find my blog just because I posted something was too arrogant of me.
Hardly posting anything
My friend told me that I should be posting at least 3 times a week.
I hardly post anything in a month.
No focused topics
He said that my writing was good but the problem was not focusing on details and ones that are too broad. People will always want something that can teach them a thing or two, or help them with their inquiries. And without good information to back up all my claims and my story, there is no reason for my audiences to stay or return.
Disregarding the audience’s interest
Like I said, it was all about me.
And I was always focused on what interests me and not what my audiences looked for. I even disregarded some of the suggestions from them in the comment sections.
Yes, such arrogance, I know.
Compromised quality
I could write casually and even throw some jokes on the side but since I did not incorporate viable information within my articles, my blog overall is just an empty thing.
Good headline, bad content
He told me that I was overly sensationalizing the title of the posts but the content was shallow and some of them were even irrelevant.
And so, what I got for most of the time were angry comments and annoyed audiences.
Not engaging with audiences
Getting a comment for your article is already a reason to be grateful about. That means they were compelled to react or share their thoughts.
But I was too proud and not a care in what my audiences have to say so I ignored them all. Every query and every compliment for my posts just went with the wind.
Choosing a wrong topic for the right niche
Since I pretty much got my ideas through my random thoughts, my output was mostly unrelated with my niche.
And no matter how I tried on making my audiences entertained, I ended up empty-handed and the majority of my works were unappreciated and unnoticed.
Too obsessed with perfection
I thought that my best means writing something perfect. But my friend told me that there was never such a thing as perfect. That is why I hardly posted anything in a month because I preferred most of my writing to be flawless as much as I can.
And since flawlessness cannot be acquired, the result of my output was most of the time zero. And if I ever got something to post about, that was just because I was too tired to revise it again and did not want to waste an article that I have already invested in.
My friend was right and after he told me those “honest” things about how I did my blog, I researched and taught myself more about blogging.
In your experience as a blogger, what are the things that you did wrong when you were starting up?