There are things I notice whilst blogging and personally I would try my hardest not to do them. This list is here to help you out and see whether your doing them, and if you are then show them the red light by stopping!

DON’T

• 1. Write like someone else - Always be yourself, this is what people love about blogs. They are unique and provide something different each time. Don’t try to be someone else by posting something you’re totally not confident with.
• 2. Not reply to your visitors - They provide your blog with comments and activity. Let them know you’re reading so they know they’re being listened to. It’s not nice being ignored.
• 3. Copy others content - Be original, write in your own words and no copying, enough said.
• 4. Write something bad about someone - Be nice, if you have a reason to criticize them then yes write a post, but in other another case, no.
• 5. Post a “I’m back post” - If you leave your blog for a whilst (you really shouldn’t be) just write like you normally would.
• 6. Have bad post organization - Continuous writing can be a bore as many people want to be able to read easily. Giving your post subheadings and including images can help attract and keep your readers attention for longer.
• 7. Have posts about other posts - Whole posts that include quotes from another post and just concentrate on what they’ve written is just pointless. It’s already been said once, we don’t need your post on the internet. A link to the post is fine within your lovely written post, it’d be an idea to write your views on that post and create something unique.
• 8. Make sure that you have pages that the reader wants! - This includes pages like about and contact. We want to know who you are and how to contact you if we need to do so. A blog that has no personality is not a blog that is going to be returned to anytime soon.
• 9. Have adverts that basically invade your reader - I want to see content, not adverts. Making your blog cluttered with adverts will reduce load times and distract readers attentions. You don’t have to put them left, right and centre for them to be looked at.
• 10. Be complicated - People like things simple. Try to write for a 10 year old and make things easy to read and understand including your post title.
• 11. Avoid errors on your website - If you have something broken in IE and it works in FireFox, change it so it works in both! I personally use FF but many people still use IE (don’t know why) Having broken parts on your website creates a negative impression and will turn your audience away. The same applies to spelling and grammar, you can quickly check with a word processor before posting!
• 12. Be annoying - There is repeating something and then there is plain annoying. Make sure you limit yourself to saying “Sign up here” for example. Some people just don’t want to. Don’t force things on to people or blog about something that others will find annoying. An example I would like to refer to is John Chow’s Rick Roll post, which I was only bothered about losing my music radio station by closing my browser.
• 13. Waste your visitors time - They want the information now, not five miles down the page.
• 14. Finally, write for search engines - Including vast amounts of keywords with links is just not going to look right.

I’ll be writing a “14 Do’s in Blogging” soon.

Here’s a selection of what I’ve learnt whilst blogging but, what would be your don’ts in blogging?

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