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9 of The Worst Blog Writing Pit Falls To Avoid

by | Dec 7, 2014 | Content Marketing

How difficult is it to blog like a pro? The rules are simple, right? You can just write about topics that you’re familiar with, update the blog regularly and interact with your audience if you get any comments. Unfortunately, being successful requires a bit more than adherence to these very general rules. Many bloggers and copywriters have had to learn this the hard way. We’re here to help you not do that.

Blogging pit falls come in all possible shapes and sizes but some could be more detrimental to brand establishment than others. We’ve compiled a list of some truly bizarre and funny blog writing errors. This is your opportunity to learn from the mistakes of others rather than experience the consequences of such shortcomings on your own.

1. Both Bad: Too Short, Too Long

How would you react to a blog post that is 150-word long? Yes, some bloggers do think that the length is sufficient to present an idea and back it up with some evidence.

How about the exact opposite – a blog post that exceeds 4,000 words? Who has time for that, right? Discovering the golden standard when it comes to blog post length involves staying away from the extremely short and the boringly long.

Some of the best ranking pieces online are 2,416-words long. Blog post length that falls below 200 words can seriously jeopardize the search engine ranking of the blog or the website. Just think about it – how much can you say in 200 words? These will add up to just a few paragraphs, which is totally insufficient to present an interesting idea, develop it and support it with evidence.

On the other hand, it’s important to refrain from getting carried away. Say what you need to say and stop. The audience doesn’t have time for all of your ideas and the concepts that you want to share with the world. It’s best to break it up in several different blog posts than to overdo a single one. This approach will also enable you to link the posts to each other, thus helping the audience explore more of your content and visit a bigger number of pages.

2. Not Breaking It Up: The Large Chunk of Text & Other Bad Styling

Imagine searching for a topic of interest and coming across a title that sounds promising. You follow the link and come to a page featuring a large, uninterrupted chunk of text. It goes on and on for the next 1,000 words. Even if the content is great, chances are that you’ll give up on the piece after struggling through the second lengthy sentence.

Poor formatting, large paragraphs and endless sentences interfere with readability and make it impossible for the audience to reach the end of the text. Many people will get bored with this kind of structure even when it comes on a printed page. Trying to go through the endless paragraph on a screen is going to be even more challenging.

Here’s a simple visual example that will shed some light on why formatting is so important for the readability of blog posts:

blog formatting

Formatting does make a difference with the second style being much easier on the eye and encouraging scanning through the text. Think about it the next time you feel the urge to write a lengthy paragraph that is full of convoluted, complex sentences.

Another example of bad styling is consistently bolded text. Bold and capitalized text can be used to put some emphasis on the most important parts of the text. When every second word comes in a bold font and the author uses capital letters to share an exciting idea, however, the reader feels as if the content is “screaming for attention. Need a visual example? Here’s one:

bold text

Words in bold and italic look different from the rest of the text, which is why the eye of the reader is immediately drawn to these parts of the content. Abuse in terms of text formatting, however, accomplishes the exact opposite – it confuses the reader and leads to the lack of focus.

Using subtitles and pull quotes is a much better idea in terms of creating structure. The same applies to bulleted and numbered lists. This example expands the idea of how bad a large chunk of text is. In essence, formatting is as important as having quality content. Even the most brilliant article will become virtually unreadable because of poor formatting.

While we are still discussing this point, it’s a good idea to mention the importance of font selection and text color. Fancy fonts may look great on an ad but they will do very little for the audience. Avoid gothic, handwritten and funky fonts because they’ll often make the text unreadable. The same applies to white text on black background. Try reading an entire article this way and you’ll know what we mean:

reverse type

3. Doing Too Much Self-Promotion & Blogging Selfishly

It may seem bizarre that some people would still attempt to sell through every aspect of their online presence. Excessively promotional and spammy blog posts are still a major problem that newbies deal with. Unfortunately, this problem can lead to the devastating loss of visitors.

When looking for content, people want to read something informative, original or entertaining. Having a call to action at the end of the post or discretely mentioning a product or two is acceptable, as long as the text provides a lot of valuable information. According to Hubspot, excessive focus on promotion, especially if it comes with a misleading title, is a certain way of aggravating the audience and making sure that people are never going to come back to the blog.

Now what do I mean by blogging selfishly? I mean blogging only about the titles you care about without considering your audience. Just like writing a cliché blog posting is a really bad idea, trying to go for something exceptionally niche and industry-specific isn’t going to be good either. Remember that you’re writing for an audience – choose a topic that the audience would like to read about.

A “dear diary” blog is one such example. Most people have a life that’s somewhat similar to yours. This is why a large portion of the audience isn’t going to be interested in what you ate for breakfast and how you spent 45 minutes in a traffic jam on the way to work. If you have a cause or you’re tracing a life-changing journey, you definitely have something to share with the world. Choose something that is focused and that you’re passionate about. Your daily rant isn’t going to get your blog anywhere, unless you’re exceptionally funny and talented.

Focusing on a bizarre conspiracy that probably a dozen people are familiar with is another bad idea. Your collection of matchboxes is probably not the best thing to focus your blog on, either. Chances are that the number of people who will appreciate it and its diversity is somewhat limited.

Think of business topics that relate to your industry and will also appeal to your audience.

4. Not Socializing Your Blog Enough

I just talked about not being self-promoting. However, that means to not promote yourself on your blog. But you should most certainly promote your blog posts on social media. A lot of people don’t get to this point effectively.

Did you know you should be posting at least 14 times a day on Twitter? One way to get out those tweets is to socialize your blog. Your blog can be published on social media soon as you write it, and then again in a few days, and then yet again in a month’s time. This is how to correctly repurpose your written content.  Try to write a new creative blurb every time you post your blog again on social media.

5. One of the Biggest Blog Writing Pit Falls: No Images and Multimedia

Text is a good thing but too much text and no visuals can seriously decrease audience engagement.

Images add a bit of spice to blog posts. In addition, you have so many possibilities to choose among – there are photographs, illustrations, diagrams, infographics and even cartoons. An image can be used to convey a bit of additional meaning and diversify the text. It’s also a great opportunity to draw the reader into the topic and make that person pay attention to your content.

Keep in mind that bad images and no images will help you achieve the same effect – discourage the reader from exploring your content. Look for quality and make sure that the pictures you choose are licensed for Creative Commons use.

6. Being The Anonymous Creator

While some people love getting all the credit for the content they produce, others prefer to share opinions and ideas in complete anonymity. Though Internet makes it easy to write and keep the author’s name hidden, this approach does very little for reputation establishment.

Even if the blog is personal, the reputation of the author can contribute to the popularity of the content and add to its credibility. A piece that’s signed by Mr. or Mrs. Anonymous is never going to be taken seriously. The rule is valid even for a truly informative, well-researched and clever piece.

Celebrity bloggers sign all of their posts, even the controversial ones. Anonymity does make authors braver than usual but it strips them of amazing opportunities for turning blogging into a serious endeavor.

7. Ridiculous Titles and Domain Names

Your blog’s URL and the title of each post will both be determining for the success of your blogging endeavors. Titles are the first pieces of text that visitors see and these will often determine whether people are going to explore your content or look for information elsewhere.

An URL similar to www.penisland.com (Pen Island, what were you thinking about) is certainly far from a good idea or it’s probably going to drive the wrong crowd to your blog. Think about it before buying anything and let a friend go through your picks. Sometimes, it’s going to be quite difficult to figure out why your idea is not the best in terms of making a statement that the audience is going to enjoy.

The very same rule applies to title writing for blog posts.

Always following a formula for title creation or making the title intentionally misleading are two major mistakes that you should avoid. Stay away from Cosmopolitan-style titles that list five ways to do something or the amazing secrets of something else. Unless you have an amazing secret to share, keep that phrase out of your title.

8. Excessive Reliance on the Spelling and Grammar Checker

Most text creation software programs have spelling and grammar checkers. Using those to do basic editing is a good idea but becoming excessively reliant on the software to do the job of an editor could lead to some serious blogging disasters.

This rule is valid for bloggers, as well as for other web-based media outlets. Through the years, we’ve witnessed some hilarious mistakes from some leading media. Words have been replaced by others that are mistake-free but either make the sentence illogical or add a completely different meaning.

Wondering about the worst spelling mistakes that even grammar checkers cannot find? Many bloggers seem to be having problems with accept and except, passed and past, then and than, as well as who’s and whose.

9. Disabling All Comments

Everybody gets annoyed by hate comments and spam every now and then. The anonymity that the online realm provides makes so many people brave and willing to write aggressive and overly negative posts. So many bloggers get so tired dealing with these kinds of comments that they disable the option altogether.

And while you definitely need to filter out the spam, you should never close the door on comments.

How can you make a blog better if you don’t get any feedback from the audience? In addition, the discussion can give you the inspiration to write a follow-up posting or to explore the topic from a different angle.

As a blogger, you’ll have to work hard on creating a safe environment that encourages the exchange of ideas and opinions. This aspect of blogging does require a lot of hard work, especially if you discuss controversial topics or issues that all people have an opinion about (politics, society, relationships). Still, people love to interact with authors and blogs provide the perfect opportunity. Disabling comments will quickly decrease engagement and potentially affect the manner in which the audience perceives your content.

In essence, you need to remain true to yourself, work on your language skills and figure out what the audience wants for your blogging efforts to be successful. Here are several additional tips that can help you make the most of the opportunity and avoid major blog writing errors:

  • Always choose topics that you’re passionate about – the audience will know if you’re faking it.
  • Format the content in the best possible way and make it easy to scan. Multimedia can help you make an even more convincing statement.
  • Spend enough time crafting the perfect headline and opening statement – these will draw the audience in.
  • Pay attention to feedback and use it as a source of inspiration.

Finally, remember to break the rules every now and then. Some of the best ideas are generated by people who are brave enough to experiment and do their own thing occasionally. If you get the audience’s approval, you’re probably going in the right direction.

Photo credit: DragonImages / iStock