Guides Before Following Blogging Guides
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There are many blogs about blogging or teaches you the art of blogging and it is definitely a saturated niche. They feed you with different kind of tutorials everyday unless you are only sticking to only one blogging guide blog.
I have seen bloggers that have been following blogging guides or tips blindly. Sometimes the blogging guides and tips provided are of great quality but when applied by another blogger, it turns his/her blog into a mess.
Examples of blogging tips and guides applied wrongly
- Podcasts with sub-standard quality
This is the one example I cannot stand. A different way of presenting your contents, such as in the form of audio is great but what if your pronunciation of the language is not good? What if the audio produced with low quality softwares are noisy and unclear?
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Catchy title with lousy contents
I have said in Don’t Murder Your Articles With Catchy Titles that catchy title only works with good and relevant contents. Despite this, I still got trapped by some attractive titles but I ended up with a sigh. Readers felt cheated when they visit what is really behind the rock and this is certainly not good for you!
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Comment without a strategy
Comment marketing or commenting on other blogs are recommended in nearly all blogging guides to get traffic, especially after the success achieved by Caroline Middlebrook. The guides ask you to comment but did they really give you a strategy like Creating a Stunning and Memorable First Time Visit, 10 Tips on Participation in Conversations and 6 Arts of Commenting on Articles? This has resulted too many spam comments done by bloggers being spotted all over the blogosphere.
Steps to apply guides and tips correctly
Collaborate. When you have read up something over at a blog, try to do a Google search or a search on another blogging guide blog that you read for similar contents. If the guide provided is being used and recommended by most bloggers, it can give you a guarantee on the guide.
Evaluate. Is this the tool or the step you need to improve what you want to improve? Is it suitable for your blog or your niche? Link the method to your blog. The suitability and compatibility need to be considered before the method can be implemented.
If not, this method can be a waste of time. Moreover, the time that you will need to unclutter your blog will be a long one if you have find the method or add-ons to be inappropriate for your blog.
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Innovate. Before you start to implement the method to your blog, try to think hard on how the method can perform much more better on your blog. You will need a little creativity and observation to get this step done perfectly. Only a tweak or two will help you optimizing the method to give the best result for your blog.
Performance tracking. Always track how your new method is performing. If it is a new way to get more traffic to your blog, go to your traffic counter and analyze whether the method has worked for you. For example, if you have tried out comment marketing to get traffic, the percentage of referral traffic should have been rising.
Photo by ryanrocketship
Leverage. Once you have been satisfied with the results, it is time for you to bring it to another level or to use it to make greater things happen for you. You can further optimize the method for better results, teach it on your blog or to sell it in the form of e-book, making yourself quick bucks.
My conclusion on following blogging guides
Despite I am blogging on blogging with this blogging tips and guides blog, I do read many other blogging blogs out there to learn new things, get traffic and to network. When I discover a new thing, I use the steps above to improve my blog quality instead of decreasing it.
What I am highlighting here is that there is no one-for-all guide in everything. Even a free theme that you like needs customization if you want to use it on your blog. Innovation is a must and blind usage of methods on your blog might kill it faster than ever.
Your opinion and feedback
What do you think about the guide that I have pointed out above? Have you seen an example of either you or others blindly implemented a blogging guide? Share with me. Also, what is your best innovation out of a blogging guide?
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I think alot of people fail to do Performance Tracking in-depth. They try something new, realize it doesn’t work and try something else. But they don’t focus on why it didn’t work. I think performance tracking is very important and should be done on a regular basis.
Or some people didn’t give their methods enough time for it to work. Some people wants results as soon as possible. Which is a wrong way to do it.
I agree man!! MEthods defintely need time and patients is nt exactly something that many ppl have!
@ Chris and kljs
That is indeed true. People switch things too fast. It’s like you just try out a new ad platform, finding it not making any money at the first few days and you have decided to take it off your blog.
Things need time to perform and sometimes, the BIG DAY might be the day after you remove the thing.
@ abi
Patience can be nurtured though. I started out blogging as an impatient boy but the Internet and its users tame me.
I guess it also comes down to the reasons your blogging for. If you’re solely blogging for money which I highly advise not to, then you’re most likely to get impatient and keep switching around strategies. Patience patience patiencee
“What do you think about the guide that I have pointed out above?”
Good?
As others have already mentioned, patience is very important if one decides to get one’s feet wet in the blogsphere.
“Have you seen an example of either you or others blindly implemented a blogging guide?”
Erm, I think I blindly implemented the nofollow free guide before?
kljs reminded me the consequences of going up against Google and I reconsidered my actions.
@ Chris
If you are patient, you can beat off other competitors very easily as well since there are not much patient people around.
@ Deimos
Nah, that is not blindly, many blogs implemented it as well. Until now, that issue is not being clarified by Google other than the indirect method of notifying.
Nowadays, people just follow blogging tips blindly, sometimes without even realizing that it’s just being a time waste. Most people don’t do the tracking part, i.e., they don’t track the results and the outcome and whether or not it benefited them in any way. And as a result, they end up wasting their time.
I never follow any blogging tips blindly, be it from a blogging guru. I always test and track myself and drop the idea if it doesn’t work…
What I read from blogging gurus sometimes is that the tips suited big blogs like theirs but when applied to a new blog, the tips will not work/ This is why the tracking part, as you said, is important.