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Lets face it, the Internet is full of Blogging "Gurus" who teach you about Blogging without knowing anything! Isn't it the case? Everyone is trying to be the next pro-blogger or Darren Rowse and in the process, recommending what they think "should work" and not what "works".
Many techniques they recommend are completely useless. Here are 10 such recommendations you should never follow!
1. Keyword Names: This is widely seen across blogosphere and to be honest, it irritates me. Who wants to read a post comment by Daily _____ Blog or Niche_____ or worst, Blogging With Success. What does this technique achieve? Two things:
- Makes You Look Link-Hungry and Greedy!
- Makes the blog owner less interested in your comment.
Personally, my chances of replying are much more when I see something as a name that resembles a name. No problems if you have 'ABC @this blog', at least name is there but 'My Blog' is just irritating!
2. Automatic Systems: Saw the ads about "Automatic" systems (you will never ever find those on this blog!) who promise to take your blog on auto-pilot and make you rich quickly? They even promise you "unique" content! Have you ever thought where this "unique" content comes from? Answer: RSS feeds and article directories. Is it unique?
How can you expect people to come to your blog to read something that's already on 100 other blogs?
3. Comment on Own Posts: This one sets me laughing whenever I read it somewhere. The recommended technique is simple: "Comment on Your Own Posts with Different Names and Continue until you reach there". This is the ultimate time waster! Better spend time on something more useful like writing good content.
4. Offer Partial Feeds: Offer partial feeds with a ' read more' link and readers will have to come to your blog! More bad advice! Instead, readers will unsubscribe!
5. Use This/That Service/Theme to Boost Traffic: Ever read, "This System will boost Traffic", "Use this theme and your profits will increase"! If you ever encounter such advice, I can bet you will find affiliate links around!
No system, service or theme can boost your traffic. The content is core of any blog and ultimately, it will attract visitors, not themes and systems!
6. Traffic Exchanges: Another time killer, traffic exchanges are good for nothing. Why? Because such visitors never come to read content! They are on your blog to earn credits for their own site. They have a fixed time for which they will visit and will leave. They will not comment, subscribe or anything!
7. Buying Traffic: One step ahead of traffic exchanges, buying traffic is another useless advice. Most of these services promise to send thousands of visitors to your blog for just a few dollars. What kind of traffic do you recieve? Well, your website is sent to traffic exchanges, loaded in iFrames and many more deceptive techniques that send anything but "targeted traffic"
8. Keep Submitting: "Submit Your Blog to Search Engines Every Three Months" I do not remember where I read it but a guru did recommend it. This is time-waster because once your blog is indexed, search engines will automatically crawl it periodically. You do not need to submit again and again. It's OK to submit your blog at start but submitting again is just time waster.
9. Reciprocal Link Directories: Submitting to all directories is another "recommended" thing. While it does not hurt to submit to free directories, submitting to reciprocal link directories is good for nothing. Why? Because reciprocal directories require you add a link to them. The link is usually placed in sidebar and sidebar is present on all pages. So, you are linking to them from all your blog posts and in return, you are getting linked from only one page? Who benefits? You or directory?
10. Read Articles about Your Niche: Reading articles is next good thing to nothing! You can read hundreds of articles about becoming a better blogger but in the end, you will not remember even titles of most of them, let alone the content. Do not waste time reading articles. Learn from them! Follow the Steps! Do the things mentioned in article instead of just reading it!
This is not the final list of such useless advice and you will find more of these on other experts' blogs. If you have read any, feel free to share in comments section!
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
I am ashamed to admit that I recently started using the Keyword Names and Offer Partial Feeds. Luckily it has been less than a week and I have already changed my ways, as of 5 minutes ago. Unfortunately, I do not remember where I read this, so I cannot unsubscribe from that feed or newsletter.
Great advice for us newbies.
Many people advice this to combat content theft (read more here: http://bloggingwithsuccess.net/find-fight-content-thieves )
While this can be a good strategy in this case, you will lose many good subscribers. Instead, taking other anti-scraping measures is the best thing to do.
Solid list. Another thing they recommend is e-mailing bloggers and asking them to exchange links. This is a complete waste of time when you can easily be building your own links through free one-way link directories, submitting to article directories, and commenting.
It makes me want to throw up that people are actually listening to these people.
First, link exchange is a waste of time. Second, wasting time on it is a bigger wastage! So, it is best to avoid them.
I agree with one way links point. Add Guest Posting to equation and you can build links pretty fast!
That is a good post. I started laughing when you said that people actually pretend they are others when making comments on thier own blog.
I can’t believe a Guru would reccomend that. So Funny
Any one can be a self Proclaimed Guru.
Seems funny but it’s true. I once encountered a post that had 30 comments and in commentators there were John Chow and Darren Rowse.
I don’t know much about Chow but Darren does not comment on blog posts! He shares posts on his blog or Twitter profile!
Clearly, the owner was faking because all other posts had no or 1-2 comments!
Hi,
I have a few things to mention here about your points above:
1. Comment on Own Posts – I have never done this and will never. That is like cheating, not cool.
2. Traffic Exchanges – I use Entrecard and I must admit that using this program has made me connect with many other bloggers with the same interest or who offer me important info. I don’t know if I will be using Entrecard for long, but I have met a lot of people.
3. Buying Traffic – I would never do that. I work extremely hard for my money and won’t waste it. I would rather look at my site and try to change things to get more visitors via search engines.
4. Partial feeds – I use to give partial feeds and had a site review suggesting maybe looking into why I give full feeds. My reason for full feeds is that a user can view the entire post and if they like it then they will visit and comment, maybe even look at other posts.
I think you have nailed the point here that we need to some how think out of the box and don’t always follow the BIG boys. I would say that we have to learn from our mistakes and try and be unique in our own way. Thanks for sharing this info, it was a great read
Well, every blog is unique. I fully agree with you that we should not “blindly” follow big boys but use own lessons to improve blogs.
Hi there,
A very interesting post. Every though I would agree with most of the points you have mentioned some of them don’t really agree to. It depends on the perspective you are looking at. You also mentioned “Everyone is trying to be the next pro-blogger or Darren Rowse and in the process, recommending what they think “should work” and not what “works“. A very important point to note is that if every one gave out their secret then nothing would make them stand out or make them be better than others. As per my study over the recent years, top bloggers don’t give away everything, but just that little bit of information that will get the readers coming back for more.
Cheers,
Eddie Gear
Most top bloggers do not offer everything. That’s right. Mostly, you will need to buy their book to learn more.
But recently, I have seen many people using 80-20 system. That is, they give 80% of content and sell rest 20%. This is beneficial for both us and them.
A good example is Yaro Starak. Even his free reports run into 50+ pages, more than many books!
Right !
It’s a really corrupted attitude to write meaningful things on ones blog and then do really low and shameful choices to drive traffic and just consider readers as numbers.
I agree. It’s a real effort not to choose the easiest (still uneffective) way but it’s definitely worth it.
Nice post the internet is full of advice some woeks some don’t blogging takes time to get going unless you comes up with a brand new idea that grabs the public very brilliant post
yeah i agree with Mr.I, because most of bloggers doesn’t want to share their secrets to others but little bit
Bravo! I learned things from points 1,6,7, and 9. Thanks Mr. I.
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