Avoid These Blogging Mistakes (If You Really Want to Succeed)

I’ve observed something about Nigerians: whenever an
individual tries out a particular business and succeeds at it,
everyone quickly jumps on the bandwagon, hoping to
make quick money.
The same story runs true for blogging. Since it became
well known that the likes of Linda Ikeji are earning huge
figures from blogging, there has been a very sharp
increase in the number of Nigerian bloggers — mediocre
bloggers who jumpstarted blogging with little or no
knowledge of what blogging entails.
But because blogging didn’t give them the overnight riches
they expected from it, many had abandoned their blogs.
Poor guys! They’ve been told that all they needed to do
was set up a simple blog on Blogger.com, publish a few
stolen articles, embed ads at strategic points, and sit back
to watch their bank accounts soar.
And they’ve been told that Linda Ikeji achieved success by
simply doing it that way. But when they faced the harsh
realities of blogging, they hit the roof — frustrated and
disappointed.
In their bid to make quick money from blogging, many of
these losing bloggers make several mistakes. And many
newbies would still fail woefully because they are also (or
will most probably soon start) making the same mistakes.
Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been into
blogging for a while, you must avoid the following mistakes
if you really want to succeed as a blogger.
1. Trying to earn profits overnight
(desperation)
Because of what they’ve learned from greedy, desperate
folks who only want to sell ebooks or certain services,
many newbies go into blogging hoping to start making
money within few days to weeks.
A couple of days back, I landed upon a new blog that
contained less than 10 articles — mostly crappy ones. I
was amused when I observed that the owner had slapped
up Adsense banners everywhere. I needed no other proof
that he isn’t any passionate about blogging; he only wants
to tap from the “cake.” I quickly closed the page because it
looked very sickening. (I’ll soon tell you what drew my
attention to the useless blog in the first place.)
Also, I’ve seen “advertise here” pages on blogs that were
just days to a few weeks old. And I wonder what the
owners of such blogs took blogging to mean. Of course,
only foolish advertisers would pay to have their offers
promoted on a blog that attracts zero or unit visits per
day.
Another blunder by Nigerian bloggers, which I’ve seen
times without number, is their adoption of silly (and
st*pid) tactics for driving traffic to their blogs. Some
would concoct and publish false stories just to catch
people’s interest. Some would use photo-editing software
to design fake pictures and lure people with silly captions.
Some would sprinkle links to their blog on online forums,
other blogs, and social media pages with massive
followership — derailing from the main topic of discussion
most of the time.
What you need to realize
Blogging isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. Growing a blog to
the point where it starts to generate a decent income
takes time. It takes dedication. It takes hard work. And it
takes consistency. Only after you’ve given all of these (and
played by the rules) can you attain success in blogging.
Darren Rowse (Problogger) didn’t start making money
from his blog until after 3 years. Linda Ikeji blogged
consistently for several months before she started earning
a living from her blog. So, if you’ve been told that you can
achieve the same goal much faster than these people did
without investing time, effort, and even money, then
you’ve been taken for a ride. And you’re on a “long thing.”
While it’s true that your success as a blogger hinges largely
on how much traffic you generate, you won’t succeed by
trying too hard to attract traffic the wrong way. (Who
would visit your blog again after discovering that your last
blog post was a bloody lie you concocted just to attract
attention?)
Building a huge audience of loyal followers requires
publishing authentic, unique, and valuable information.
And your traffic will increase gradually with time.
If what you’re looking for is a business that will start
fetching you huge profits within days to weeks, blogging is
certainly not what you’re looking for. And you’d better not
start a blog at all.
2. Plagiarism
You see, when you’re trying to achieve success at a faster
rate than expected, you would most likely resort to
unethical practices just to achieve your goal.
Many Nigerian bloggers publish stolen content on their
blogs. I mean, content that they practically copied and
pasted from other blogs.
In fact, my attention was drawn to the useless blog I
referred to earlier by one of the articles on the blog, which
had been copied directly from a blog I own. When I
discovered this, I only asked myself if blogging was by
force.
What you need to realize
Succeeding as a blogger requires publishing original
content on a consistent basis. Only by doing this can you
build trust and position yourself as an expert in your field.
Only by doing this can you build a large audience of loyal
followers. And only by doing this can you make money
from blogging in the long term.
Google hates duplicate content and penalizes websites and
blogs found publishing content copied from elsewhere.
So, if you’re a sworn plagiarist, you risk having your blog
slapped by Google.
Also, most web hosting providers have zero tolerance for
copyright infringement. If you’re reported and found guilty
of this, you’ll most likely have your blog brought down.
Plagiarism is cruel. It’s the hallmark of lazy, heartless folks.
If you cannot write original articles or hire a freelance
writer to write them for you, then blogging is simply not
for you.
3. Bad grammar
I cringe whenever I read posts by most Nigerian bloggers;
they contain too many errors, mostly unpardonable ones.
I’m not trying to place myself on a pedestal here. Neither
am I trying to come across as a perfectionist. But I’m
trying to emphasize the importance of writing well.
Yes, Nigerians aren’t native English speakers. But that’s no
excuse for you not to write good English, especially as a
blogger. Though you only need to write in clear English
that effectively passes your message across, your writing
shouldn’t contain too many obvious errors that would piss
readers off.
What you should realize
Writing in bad grammar makes you come across as a
slacker. Worse, you won’t be trusted or taken seriously by
your readers. So, it’s very important that you strive to
improve your English grammar and writing skills even
before you start out as a blogger.
Just as you won’t feel safe to buy a product after reading a
review of it that was written in very bad English, your
readers would be skeptical to take any action that would
fetch you money.
To improve your writing skills quickly, you can read books
such as “The Elements of Style” and “Grammatically
Correct.” Also, write frequently (everyday, if possible) and
read articles and other write-ups by very good writers.
In case you didn’t know, one of the reasons why most
Nigerians are bad writers and speakers is that they read
and interact bad English every day (on social media and
online communities). If you spend more of your time
reading online news sites and reputable blogs, you will
learn how to write better because the content on those
sites is always rendered in correct English.
I’ll stop here on these 3 common mistakes. In subsequent
posts (probably one or two), I’ll reveal more mistakes that
are common among Nigerian bloggers and that ruin their
chances of succeeding.
Over to you…
Do you agree or disagree with any of the points I made?
Do you have any questions or comments? Share your
thoughts by leaving a comment. I’ll eagerly respond.