I love the blogging community and I am very grateful for the great advice published by so many people. In the lead up to ProBlogger and at the conference itself, I know that I am going to come across even more advice.
But there are times when my inner cynic tends to come out. Sometimes “blogging rules” are much like “parenting rules” – you cannot follow them all as they contradict each other and their generalist nature doesn’t actually suit your particular baby. Also, sometimes the advice is crap. So I thought I’d write my own list of (firmly tongue in cheek) blogging advice.
If you aren’t a blogger and would like a laugh, why not check out this post: Things I suspect I should have already known
My super-cynical, very good blogging tips for a super, awesome blog:
- How to drive more traffic to your blog posts
Write a blog post about how to drive more traffic to blog posts. - How to go viral / get a million hits / make loads of money (in your first week of blogging)
Of course it’s possible to do all that in your first few weeks of blogging. It’s also possible that my six year old will soon announce that his favourite food is broccoli and he’d rather do his maths homework than play MineCraft. It’s all possible, just not probable. So, I am not going to hold my breath – maybe you shouldn’t either. One way though that you can drive more traffic to your blog, is by using a good web host provider. If this is something you don’t have, but you are interested in learning more about then hostingfoundry.com knows the industry and can help provide you with more information. - How to promote yourself
Lots of Facebook blogging groups don’t allow promotion outside of weekly blog shares. This makes sense, because if everyone did it, then it wouldn’t be useful for anyone. However, you can always get around this rule by prefacing your blatant promotion with: “I’m not sure if this is allowed within the rules, admin please delete if not”. Admins love that sort of thing. - How to get LOADS more comments
Turn off your spam filter.
Respond to all your comments.
You should respond to comments anyway. But it comes with the extra bonus of looking like you have twice as many comments. Extra points for replying to SPAM comments with any measure of relevance and/or articulation. - Blogging advice rolled into one: Write consistently, every day is best and none of it should be filler – it should always be your best work. Provide excellent, in-depth content but fit it into 400 – 600 words. Always give your reader something of value. For example, sites similar to Wisdoms of Health provide regular information about the latest events and happenings in the world fitness and health, benefiting a lot of people. Don’t just talk about yourself and what’s happening in your life. At the same time, make sure that you inject some of yourself into your blog posts. Use images as much as you can but don’t use stock images. Use your own images but makes sure that they are well lit, well composed and beautiful. Perhaps invest in a photography course. Write varied and interesting posts but don’t step outside your niche. Don’t write about the same things every one else does. You can check google trends to see what people are wanting to read about. Like everyone else is doing. Understand all the social media channels and how they work. Use all of them to promote your blog. Be sure to organize a blog for seo, so it reaches a wider audience and ranks higher in the searches. This can be done by creating original content (photos), using keywords in the headings and/or correcting punctuation in your posts.
Make sure that you don’t just promote your blog but engage with your readers. Engage with other pages too – you need to share that love. But don’t spend so much time on social media that you neglect your blog. In your spare time, spend hours and hours creating a valuable e-book and give it away for free to encourage subscribers to your list. It’s very important to have a list. That way you can send out e-newsletters that get caught in spam filters. Don’t spend so much time that on your blog that you don’t have a life outside of your blog. Got all that?
In all seriousness, I do love blogging and I will put my inner cynic away.
Here are my actual blogging tips
Be Kind.
To yourself and others.
Be realistic with your expectations.
Of yourself of and others.
You are not your blog.
Your stats are not a barometer of your value.
Your life is more important that your blog.
Bahahah I love it!! So freaking true.
Glad you liked it – can’t wait to catch up soon!
Hilarious!! Number 3 – cracks me up whenever I see this at the beginning of a post. I think I have done it once before after checking all the freaking rules but still putting it on there because isn’t that just how you start a post. Bahahaha!
And Number 5 – Does your head in doesn’t it!?!
Funny stuff! See you at PB for more rules. 🙂
It really does your head in! I think there are definitely times when that little disclosure is appropriate – but there are plenty of times it seems misused.
Love this Robyna – I’ve read so much what to wear, what not to wear, what to do, what not to do these past weeks I feel like my head might explode!
It’s a bit like that isn’t it? Please don’t allow your head to explode before Friday – looking forward to catching up 🙂
I love your actual tips. I know I’m guilty of some of these things, but I totally get your point, thanks for a giggle.
I think I have been too, to be honest. But what’s blogging if we can’t have a giggle out ourselves?
I’m one of those people that HATES being told what to do – so I’m with you on the advice thing, take bits of what you want from it! Will be nice to finally meet you 🙂
So looking forward to it lovely!
Great post. Nice to see a post that reminds me of why most of us blog in the first place!
Thanks Bronnie – I think the trick is not to take ALL of the advice (which is hard for me – I tend to like following rules!)
This appeals to me tremendously – I’ve mostly come to peace with the fact that I am a good writer but a shithouse blogger.
I think you are awesome at both – mostly because you don’t play by the rules and you still manage to smash it!
Bahaha, gold! So funny because it’s so god damn true!
Thanks Sarah – I am glad I am not the only who thinks so!
Echoing everyone else, but love this! How rare and awesome to hear someone say “be kind” instead of SEO BLAH BLAH BLAH. 🙂
It’s all about being kind really isn’t it? In everything? I think so, anyways.
I love this!!! I’m one of those people that loves to read and research so I read a ton of posts and eBooks, listen to podcasts and Periscopes… and seriously – if I took all the advice I’d be going around in circles!!
The ‘How to Go Viral’ drives me bonkers – you can’t predict that stuff, if you could, everyone would be doing it. As well as the ‘how to be the best blogger in the world within a week and have more page views than HuffPost’ – yeah right. It just doesn’t work that way.
I love blogging – I love all the hard work that comes with it and the sense of achievement it gives me. Having one post go viral does not make you a good blogger… it makes you lucky. I’ve seen some pretty poorly written posts go crazy…
Can’t wait to meet you at PB 🙂
Exactly. It’s so much about luck. I know a few bloggers who have gone viral and really thought it wasn’t that great – they didn’t get a lot of new, engaged readers and they had to defend themselves and their opinions.
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tehehehehe… it’s funny cos it’s true.
Yep. 🙂 Glad I’m not the only one to think so.
So glad someone pointed this out, so many contradictory things floating around my head was starting to spin. You could add be on all social media but only use one. :/
Even at ProBlogger we were told to pursue the social media channel we really love with passion, but still don’t put your eggs all in one basket and maintain at least three separate presences. We are told a lot of contradictory things!