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Are you following these blogging myths?
Blogging is a great way to promote your company and display your expertise. There’s so much information available for free on the internet that can help you get started immediately and blog your way towards success. Most of this information is good, but there are some bits of information which have been repeated time after time and it isn’t absolutely necessary that you blindly follow it, because if you blindly follow it, it could affect the reputation of your blog.
Below is a list of 6 blogging myths you shouldn’t blindly follow:-
1. Using Images: It’s normally advised that you use images in every post you publish on your blog. You don’t have to follow this rule all the time. Follow it only if you feel that your post needs it. For e.g. I don’t think this post requires one, but my other post on how to write tweets definitely requires one. Some blogs like Social Media Examiner use lots of pictures in their posts and it works for them and other blogs like Seth Godin’s Blog, is run by Seth Godin who doesn’t use any images in his blog and he still manages to receive lots of traffic and it’s shared between users through social media.
2. Long Posts: Some people claim that every blog post needs to be long so that they give the reader something to read. But this isn’t true for every blog. This works for some posts while it doesn’t for some. For e.g. take Seth Godin’s blog, there are normally no images on his posts and still people enjoy reading and sharing his posts – It’s one of the top ranked sites on Adage 150.
3. Post at a certain day or time: You’re normally advised to post on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, as these are considered to be days when blogs receive a lot of traffic. Well they are high trafficked days on the internet, but not all websites receive high amounts of traffic on these specific days. Everybody has different types of audiences who will visit the websites on different days. For e.g. My White Paper Blog receives high traffic during the weekdays and my personal blog receives more traffic on the weekends generally, therefore, I post on the best traffic days on my blogs – on the weekdays on The White Paper Blog and on the Weekends on my personal blog and sometimes I alter days.
4. Newsletters: The above factor of having different audiences applies to newsletters too. You shouldn’t just send them on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, because you have been advised to do so. You need to do them on days when your audience would be free to read them.
5. Don’t include links to other websites: I have seen some people who do their best to remove dofollow links from posts and comments on their blog. They think having links on their blog that lead to other websites will affect their search engine visibility. But actually this isn’t true. It’s better to link with other websites as this could increase your search engine visibility and will help you build relationships with other websites you link to.
6. Never use Pop-Overs: Many people ask you not to use pop-overs because it might distract website visitors. Actually this isn’t entirely true – pop-overs can actually triple signups to your newsletters and newsletters play an important in increasing your website traffic. If you feel that your pop-overs are popping up every time and are a huge distraction. Then you can get your pop-overs to only turn up only the first time, when visitors visit your website. Email software services like Aweber have this option.
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Hope you find the tips useful? Have you got any other blogging myths, you think people shouldn’t blindly follow? Please share them with us in the comments box below.
Mitt Ray is the CEO and Director of Social Marketing Writing and Imittcopy. He is also the author of the book Living With Ogres. Connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Linkedin.
