Blogs are the choice of online information seekers. If you host quality content on your website and you update regularly, people who visit once and got quality information will tend to return again and again to your blog (quality traffic!😉 ). That is what makes quality content an indispensable contributor to your blogs success.
Have your visitors in mind. It is the content of your blog that people are attracted to. Not the advertisements. I was shocked when I discovered that some websites have been stealing contents from my posts and pasting them on their blogs. I have visited three different sites that did this (I will not paste their URL here because I do not want to give them more publicity). When I visited the sites, I was amused to discover that they were solely set-up for the purpose of displaying Google Ad-sense. To me, that was absolute rubbish. I will never click adverts on such site, and I guess so many other visitors will not either.
Online Readers love solution providers and detest aggressive marketing. A discerning visitor reading posts on your site may know within a few minutes whether your contents are original or not. The natural flow that is expected to exists between the different posts of a blogger will be missing. In blogging, it is expected that you be personal, natural and unique in your style of presenting information. Copying others content will only make your articles sound incoherent and boring.
Being personal and non-formal in your writing is no license for spelling errors and grammatical blunders. If English is not your mother’s tongue, let your readers know. That is why I tell everybody I am a Naija (Nigerian). Even at that, there is no harm in using online resources to improve on your writing skill. One of the visitors to my site commented that he loved my post but I need to improve on my writing skill. I took that as a good criticism and I am working on it 😉 .
It is not wrong to use borrowed articles but ensure you acknowledge the source of the article. Also, ensure that borrowed articles constitute a very small percentage of your site content. Instead of copying and pasting others work, read two or three different articles written by others on the same topic and then sit down to write down your own views. Those articles should be used as a catalyst for the flow of your own unique thought on the subject. Remember, you learn to WRITE by writing, not COPYING and PASTING.
Hey, say something about yourself, if you have nothing to write about. Jot down any crazy idea that comes into your head and tell your readers about it. Simply ensure it is classified under your personal musings or ramblings, so that it is not mistaken for some expert advice on the subject matter. Some of my blogging ideas comes from questions or ideas raised by visitors to my blog.
Visit other blogs and drop quality comments. Contribute meaningfully to the discussion raised by the blogger. Read others contribution to the topic. That will most times start as a catalyst for you to write a post airing your view on the subject matter on your own blog. Take special note of comments dropped by visitors to your site, they often provide hint on topics you should write on.
Stop thinking about money. Think about providing quality content that will make your site visitors happy. When they are happy, they will return again and again to your blog. You will not beg or cajole them before they start using the adverts on your blog to make their purchase. After establishing a relationship with them by providing information they needed they will most likely reciprocate by patronizing your adverts.
Stop assuming that you can outsmart the online community. They know the difference between quality content and junk. Quality content will contribute in a very significant way to the success of your blog.
Thanks for reading the long post! I sure will love to read your views (compliments and criticisms are all welcome). I want to learn from you 😉 . Enjoy!
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Tags: Blogging, Tips & Tricks
This is one of the best posts about blogging I’ve seen in a while!
I’m really tired of seeing the word alot a lot (it’s 2 separate words, you know) and the intentional plagiarism that fills entire scrapper sites built for ads (note that’s ads, not adds). The content I put on my own site is often the result of hours of research, hard work, and countless edits; so seeing it magically appear and credited to someone else on one of those sites always manages to unnerve me.
And while you touched on how articles out there should be a catalyst (and not the content) for bloggers’ postings, I’d also add that simply regurgitating exactly what another author said in your own words is a great way to please a college professor who’s happy just to know you’ve understood what you’ve read… but a very boring way for your visitors, who’ve likely already read a million posts covering that same article or piece of news, to spend a Saturday afternoon.
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