10 Commandments of blogging

Blogging is not just about punching down words on your computer and hitting the publish button every day. Blogging is more than an act and as such should be taken seriously.  Over time I have taken some time to study the blogging behaviors of some established bloggers and found out that what made them stand out isn’t much. Just those little things we overlook every day.  So I have decided to compile this post and title it ’10 commandments of blogging’ to bring to you the basic blogging rules every serious blogger should abide by.

I was actually going to look at it from two sides as ‘Dos and Don’ts of blogging’ but then I figured many blogs out there have been concentrating on the do’s of blogging so I have decided to share with you the most important rules that will help your blog survive and succeed.

The Don’ts of blogging:

By the time you finish to the last of the ‘don’t of blogging’ I am going to share with you, you will realize you may have been making one mistake or the other all the while you have been blogging. So let’s get started;

Don’t copy and paste: Avoid lifting contents from other blogs and publishing on your blog, Google will penalize you for double content and you will also be stealing the hard work of the original writer. Plagiarism is a crime and as such should be avoided. Before you publish posts by guest posters ensure to check for plagiarism using the plagiarism checkers I shared on this blog sometime ago.

Don’t sound boring: Sounding boring on your blog posts won’t just turn off your visitors but will ensure they won’t return again. You should develop a writing technique that will interest your visitors and make them want to come back again. The percentage of your returning visitors is an indication of how you sound on your blog posts, if you can convince them to return again, they will surely do.

Don’t have one-sided opinion: No man is all knowing, don’t take a side in your arguments without keeping an open mind to atleast examine the opinion of the other side. Have room for suggestions and corrections, you may be wrong without knowing and it will be very stupid to argue when you are wrong.

Don’t make grammatical mistakes: Avoid grammatical errors in your blog posts, you should type your blog posts with a text editor like Microsoft Word, mistakes will be highlighted and corrections will be suggested to you. That way you reduce grammatical mistakes to its barest minimum. You don’t want to sound like someone who cannot express himself; I will suggest you keep your posts simple so as to avoid falling into such errors.

Don’t use abusive or swear words in your post: Avoid the use of swear or abusive words in your blog post. Any serious minded person reading such posts will easily be turned off and consider you unserious. Sound as professional and authoritative as possible. Don’t even think of censoring such words, simply avoid using them totally.

Don’t use colored post area: Avoid using a colored post area; most visitors prefer white background layouts. Texts could be hidden on a colored background. Someone with sight problem may be disturbed by such post. Make your blog post area a clear background with a dark text color so as to make it easy for your visitors to read your contents without problems.

Don’t mislead your readers: Make proper research about any topic you want to write about and make sure you have all your facts before writing. Don’t publish half-truths in your blog posts because you don’t know much about the topic. Gather the proper facts and ensure to properly lay down your facts in a convincing manner.

Don’t publish because you have to: As much as blogging is tasking you should avoid publishing contents with low quality. Any day I can’t come up with rich or high quality content, I don’t bother publishing that day. You must not publish every day; only publish contents that will add value to your visitors. When i can’t publish i use my time to do some blog commenting and read to enrich my knowledge as well.

Don’t clutter your blog with unnecessary widgets: Avoid the use of unnecessary widgets in your blog’s sidebar. This may distract your readers from your main contents. Only add those widgets you know are very necessary on your sidebar. Use simple layouts with less widget and keep your blog clean and uncluttered.

Don’t use so many ads: Avoid placing ads on every free space on your blog as this could cause your visitors to be ads blind. Most visitors can easily identify ads and a survey has shown that most visitors easily get turned off when they see so many ads on a blog.

Don’t add auto play videos and music on your blog: This could cause your blog a heavy page load time and can as well turn your visitors off. Search engines also dislike blogs with high page load time, and you will lose organic traffic from search engines since your blog will be lowly ranked. Also remember different people have different preferences for music and videos.

Don’t use blackhat SEO methods: Avoid all blackhat SEO methods no matter its promises. Not only will Google and other search engines blacklist you, you will lose your rankings and will as well lose visitors and money. While blackhat methods may produce a short term result, it will always cause you more harm in the long run.

Must Read: Niche Areas Ideal for Blogging

I hope you study and practice the 10 commandments of blogging seriously as this will help improve your blog and ensure you retain your visitors. I hope you find this article interesting enough to share with your friends, use the comment form below to share your views about the 10 commandments of blogging with me. Ensure to subscribe to my RSS feeds if you haven’t done so already.