The other day I was sitting in Barnes and Noble working—as I usually do—and I picked up a book about blogging.
I didn’t have high expectations, after all, it’s a book… about blogging.
But hey, I figured I’d thumb through it and see what type of advice people who write books about blogging peddle.
And let me tell you…
It was worse than I thought. Much worse.
The Problem With Bad Blogging Advice
Look—I’m not trying to put myself on a pedestal here, but when I see people give bad advice, I get frustrated.
You see, there are people out there who take that advice, and run with it.
And when the advice doesn’t pan out—it’s bad advice, after all—the people who ran with it feel cheated.
Then what happens?
Since these people are “new” to blogging, they may think that all people who peddle advice are cheats.
Or worse, they may quit blogging altogether while thinking “there’s no way it can work for anyone.”
Is that good for the blogging community?
Absolutely not.
“Okay, So What Was The Bad Blogging Advice?”
That’s the thing…
The entire book was horrible.
But here are some key pieces of advice that drove me insane:
Bad Blogging Advice Example #1: Update Your Blog Daily
Hilarious.
And their reason why you should update daily?
“Because all the top blogs do it… and sometimes they do it more than once a day.”
Here’s the truth:
Just this year—2011—I built two separate blogs.
First, I revitalized the DIYthemes blog from a dormant blog to a blog with around 24,000 RSS readers, and a highly-engaged email list.
Then, I built Social Triggers from scratch to a leading marketing blog with around 14,000 RSS readers in 9 months.
How often do I update these two blogs?
DIYthemes publishes 1-3 times each week.
Social Triggers publishes 1-3 times each month.
And that’s it.
Am I saying you need to update as little as I did?
No.
I’m saying you don’t NEED to update your blog daily.
Tip: Blogs need content, but you don’t have to break your back creating it. In most niches, updating a blog with 1-3 HIGHLY VALUABLE content pieces each month is enough.
Bad Blogging Advice Example #2: Promote Your Content On Social Media
Social media is a huge source of traffic for blogs like DIYthemes and Social Triggers, but here’s the problem:
When you’re just starting a blog, and you have 100 followers on Twitter and 100 likes on Facebook, social media will not work for you.
Yes, you’ll share your content with your followers, but how much traffic will you get?
10 hits?
5 hits?
Probably not even that much, heh.
And that’s why I believe social media is a waste of time for new bloggers.
Tip: When you’re first starting your blog, focus on building your email list and reaching out to likeminded bloggers individually by email. Introduce yourself, and just say hello. Don’t invest time in social media until you’ve built a base audience.
Bad Blogging Advice Example #3: Submit Your Blog to Search Engines
Yes, I actually saw that as a recommendation in a book about blogging that was published recently.
Submitting your site to search engines was a huge deal… like a decade ago.
If you spend money or time on search engine submissions, you’ve wasted valuable time and money.
Right now search engines have advanced, and they’ll find your blog without you submitting it to their search engine.
Tip: If you’re trying to improve your blog’s seo, we prepared the beginner’s guide to WordPress SEO here on DIYthemes, and I suggest you go through it.
The Bottom Line…
When you read advice about blogging, or advice about anything for that matter, you’ve got to take it with a grain of salt.
But here’s one thing you should know for certain:
When looking for mentors, focus on people who have achieved the goals you’d like to achieve.
After all, they’ve done it, and that means they know what they’re doing.
Now I pass it to you…
What do you think?
