Guest Post by Roger Rae
Internet has evolved a lot and with that blogging and blogosphere has completely changed from what it was initially. The early blogging rules of web 1.0 era that every blogger used to follow are not effective these days. We’ve compiled a list of old blogging rules for you which are not as effective as they used to be, so that you can stop wasting your time on them.
You Should Post Everyday – This was (and still it is) the most important rule of blogging. In fact, you can find this rule on every “Top X things to be a Successful Blogger“ list and e-book. Updating your blog daily shows that how serious you are about your blog. More posts mean more content, more love from search engines and eventually more readers. But unfortunately this rule is not effective in current scenario. When millions of pages of content are being added to blogosphere every day, you can’t expect to increase your readership just by increasing the frequency of posting.
The new rule of blogging is to update your blog only when you have something worthy enough to share. Posting anything just for the sake of updating your blog is not better than posting nothing at all. Doing one quality post in a week is much better for you and your readers than updating your blog multiple times a day with low quality posts.
Every post should be at least 500 words – This is the most famous rule of early blogging which is still being followed by most of the bloggers. The followers of this rule focus more on the word count than content. But the new rule is – size doesn’t matter at all, it is the content that matters. The low quality content can’t grab the reader’s attention just because of the word count. Similarly, if the content is of reader’s interest, your readers will still love it even if it is very long.
High traffic means more success – In early days, the only goal of bloggers was to increase their traffic and page views. They used to do everything they could to increase their page views. Although, traffic is still the most important factor in present blogging but the meaning of traffic is completely changed. The success in blogosphere these days doesn’t depend only on traffic. Success now depends on the quality of traffic. To be successful, blogger has to work to build the quality readership for his blog which is interested and passionate about the blog niche.
Good content don’t need marketing – In the early blogging days, bloggers have to focus only on one thing “to generate quality content”. They knew that creating good content will automatically get readers. But as the blogosphere has evolved, this rule is not at all effective. Nowadays, blogger can’t sit back just after creating content and wait for traffic. They have to go out and promote their content amongst their target audience. No matter how great your content is if you are not going to promote it nobody is going to read it.
Roger Rae works for Fortepromo, a promotional products company based in Minnesota.
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Having updated and relevant content that creates discussion should be the focus or any successful blogger. Update as much as possible, multiple times a day if you have the information to share.
Good interesting post, High traffic does not mean success. Quality of the traffic do matters, traffic that convert is the key!
I actually see a lot of good content in some blogs that don’t get read simply because they don’t market it at all. This is actually quite sad. Think of all the information that don’t get out in the mainstream.
How many people are out there everyday obsessing about blogging everyday when they really don’t have much to say? It’s quality folks…and you can’t have that everyday so stop obsessing.
The old saying.. Build it and they will come.. definately right about that not being relevant anymore. You could have an amazing blog post witting there but if noone sees it in the first place what good is it!
Its getting tougher and tougher!
Blog about what you know and are passionate about. That should help you stay inspired.
nice post, i think these rules are pretty important. content really is king, i know people say it isn’t that important but you have to have something worth seeing and something to keep people coming back.
You’re right there is a lot of not so good information floating around for newbies. Blogging has totally changed over time and even the best content won’t bring you anywhere without guestposting, building a good appearance on social media (Twitter, Facebook,…) and promoting your blog through other channels.
Although I am still a big fan of a site with tons of content, off-page work has become more important.
Thanks for the myth busting!
I agree especially with your point that posting every day is not necessarily good for your blog if you are just posting any content.
Posting less frequently like one per week with great quality posts is much better.
I would say that posting every week may not be the best thing to do if you are forcing it either. Posting when you have something to say is the time to do it. Of course the higher the frequency of this occurring the better.
Vance
In the first several months of our blog journal, all what we need is creat high-quality content, which is the basis of our blogging career success.
I love the last part or tip. Even if you have the most awesome content in the world, and there is no one seeing it, then it’s nothing!
Thanks for that, I have certainly noticed that the length of the post has nothing to do with its popularity. And blogging every d**n day will tire you out and risk putting you off bloggin forever…
I have always seen so many early bloggers posting every day to be successful. OK, yeah, if you want a readership in the hundreds of thousands a month and you want to turn your blog into a full-time career, yeah, you do. But let’s get real most of us don’t have time for that. We have businesses to run, families to take care of, and day to day stuff we need to accomplish just to keep our heads above water. So be practical and take it slowly.
Yes, with the help of Fresh Content and Bookmarking it with social networking will be helpful to increase visitors for Blog.
Pretty much my guideline before starting out my blog journey. I just hope to use this and follow it as well as for my blog interest.
I’ve struggled with learning how to market my real estate blog. Even when writing quality posts I wasn’t getting the traffic I felt I deserved. But how do you market your blog? This is the biggest question we all face.
I’m learning right now about the value of making your blog comments dofollow. As a result I changed my real estate blog to dofollow a few days ago.
I also made the time-wasting mistake of think I needed to post everyday. As a result I was posting nonsense borrowed from other sources. No more of that.
From now on I’ll only speak when I have something of value to say.
Agree with this post.
Writing posts everyday doesn’t matter if we write bad quality posts which are not useful at all. Bloggers must work hard to get quality traffic, building links, write good content, SEO the blog, ect… Not funny at all to be a blogger but it is good when we can earn money from it at the end.
It really a misconception that a good number of traffic ie pageviews and uniques is the success of the site. What is more important is converting the traffic and getting the benefits of having a well-trafficked blog.
I think you’ve hit on something really important here – most people still cling to the idea that they have to produce some content all day every day. You are never going to build up trust and integrity with your subscribers by doing this. Imagine if McDonalds started producing loads and loads of products, so every day you went in you weren’t sure what it was going to taste like, or even what you were going to get… you’d soon stop visiting. Same with your blog – people like to taste the same things, albeit with information it has to be new! Keep it on-topic and tasting as good as always.
Blogging to share your information in concert with commentaries from interested readers is a great way to improve your business. This was a great article.
Blogging is sharing useful information. Don’t push yourself on creating a post everyday. Take it one step at a time and creating a content that is up to date and with juicy information. With this great information you’ll post will surely convert to a good traffic and pageviews on your site.
Interesting post. I agree with you on the fact that even if you have great content, you still to promote it. It will “market” itself to an extent, but you have to give it that push out of the door.
- Gillian
This is sure an eye opener for people like me.
I am often depressed coz of not blogging enough. Ur post confirms I am not wrong.
I am new to blogging (2 months). This was very insightful. There is so much to learn about the dos and don’t concerning driving traffic to ones site. I’m grateful I discovered this blog post.
I definitely agree with you! And people don’t have to update their blog daily, even once a week is fine – if they have readers.
This post is great for newbies.
That’s very true. I don’t update my blog everyday… how can I, when I’m working on one post for more than a day!? Good tips, thanks
You’re right on Danny! I’ve been trying to do the last 2 things you’ve mentioned on your blog with limited success.
I tend to believe this is because my blog is about everything or rather just random things that come to mind and i just write about it. Do you think that focusing on only a topic would increase the likelihood of my blog to increase in traffic?
Strongly agree with you: no need to post everyday if we have nothing to say, qualitative posts are the most important no quantity posts! High traffic is nothing if it is not targeted traffic because with traffic exchange program it is very easy to get big traffic!
I have to strongly agree with you on promoting your content to your target market. I fell into the trap of producing great content but forgetting (or not having the time) to go out and comment, guest blog, etc. I now have to find time in my busy life schedule to do this. I wish I had started the habit from day one.
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