For Starters: 7 Extremely Common Blogging Mistakes

Jul 23rd, 2007 by Leonid Shalimov | Scroll down for comments

So many blogging mistakes, so little time. I came up with a little list of mistakes or sins that bloggers make everyday. Hell, I’m up on this list as well. Self-improvement is probably one of the hardest things to improve on. Take a step back and look around, then after you’re done with that, look at yourself and ask “What can I do better?“.

1. Cite your sources.

This is probably the biggest common mistake that I have seen. Don’t fall into the trap! Cite and link your sources, give credit where credit is due.

2. Capitalization and punctuation.

Only amateur’s type like thiz yo. People need to take you seriously if they’re going to be frequent readers. This doesn’t mean you can’t put your own personal flare but being grammatically correct should play a role.

3. Spellcheck.

Just like #2, it’s all about professionalism. Install FireFox or a spell-checker. Make sure your blog is error free :).

4. Design flaws.

This is a nit picky one but a lot of times I see bloggers that use plug-ins and scripts that either mess up their layout or are completely out of place. For example, a common mistake I see is a blog design that uses more than 4-5 colors. A good color scheme should consist of a maximum of 4 colors. Sometimes I see blogs with about 10+ colors in their base design, harsh on the eyes.

5. Attacking & Berating others.

If you’re going to call someone out, make sure you’re right. Nothing worse then being embarrassed on your own blog.

6. Too many social bookmarking buttons.

Oh man, I’ve seen some bad ones. A blog I recently visit had 30×30 images for each social bookmarking website (about 40), it took up four lines at the end of each post.

7. User resources for contact and general information.

A lot of blogs don’t have contact or about us pages. Get personal! Let your readers know who you are.

Have any more I’ve missed? Add on to this list by commenting.

Leonid Shalimov posted this article under Self Improvement, Series - For Starters, Blog Improvement on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 1:58 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment or trackback from your own site. View Technorati Linkbacks.