Blogging is so popular in this day and age, and many people are joining the blogging world, even when they know just little about it; while others follow and study the blogging industry with caution and skepticism and as a result, they have predetermined ideas and false concepts of how blogging actually works. Here are 10 common blogging myths that people have believing but are not true.
However, certain factors are important to grasp and will shape your greatness when you dive into blogging. They are what you hear, see or perceive about blogging, in addition to the reasons that made you want to start a blog. Some of the things you hear about blogging are the basic truth, while others may be fictitious, misconceptions, or overhyped.
Today, we’ll be talking about just 10 of these common myths about blogging and hopefully, by the end of the article, you’ll look at blogging through a different lens.
Table of Contents
10 Blogging Myths
1. If You’re Not A Good writer, then you can’t blog
Of course, blogging is for writers, because you have to
write to get your points across to your audience, but you don’t have to write
perfect sentences in order to achieve that.
Having a bachelor’s degree in English or Literature will be an added advantage, but not a necessity in blogging. I am a perfect example, of someone who started blogging without an English qualification. In fact, my high school English teacher might laugh at you if you tell me I have a blog, and she’ll laugh even louder if you tell her I have more than one blog and I am a published author. Why? English and Literature were simply not the best subjects, I actually took home a number of D’s on my reports from those two subjects when I was in high school.
What is necessary for you as a blogger, is to be able to get your points across to your audience, in a simple and understandable manner. You also need captivating communication skills that’ll mandate your readers to open, as well as keep reading your blog posts, any additional writing skills will be a bonus, apart from creating a professional image for yourself.
2. You Must Create A Post on Daily Basis
Many people are made to believe that writing a blog post has to be done on a daily basis, and the more you skip days, the more unlikely you are to make it in blogging, but this is just another myth.
Writing few blogs a week should be enough to get you where you want to reach in blogging, as long as you have the right strategy in place and your topics are channeled to the right audiences. You can even reduce that to one good post a month. What’s most important is quality rather than quantity.
3. If You Aren’t Succeeding In The First Months After You Start Blogging, Then Blogging Is Not For You
Whether you’re blogging for passion, fame, or money, the bitter truth about it is that; the industry is very saturated, with thousands of new and professional bloggers creating thousands of new blogs daily.
To succeed, you need to beat up several blogs that are already in place and show your audience that your blog is the real deal for them. So you don’t always see success straight after you start your blog. Patience and consistency are the names of the game.
The road to success in regards to blogging has to be walked with patience, as you watch your daily visitors turn from tens to hundreds and then thousands to more. So expect some months of hardworking before arriving at success in blogging.
4. Your Posts Shouldn’t Exceed 500 Words in Length
Many people consider writing lengthy posts as a total waste of time and effort, as readers aren’t in any way interested in reading from the top to the bottom, but this is totally false.
Your readers could choose to read your blogs from daybreak today, provided you know your stuff and it provides value to them. I have in many times read tens of blog posts at a time from a single blog I come across, and this is because I find their posts to be so interesting that I couldn’t afford to leave without reading forward, and this is exactly what happens in many cases.
Provided your articles are informative, engaging as well as adding value to your readers, they won’t mind reading a few thousand words from your post. In fact, a little SEO secret most bloggers don’t is that when ranking blogs, Google takes into account the length of your posts because it assumes the more you have to write, the more knowledgeable you are about the topic and the more value you have to offer to visitors coming from their search engine.
5. If You Promote Your Competitor’s Blog, You’ll Lose Readers
Feeling intimidated by a fellow blogger who has attained a
greater status than you, sounds very normal, but this often comes from a lack
of understanding. Sharing his/her blog
posts will not do you any more harm than good. It’ll only your readers that
you’re eager to help them get more information, even if it means taking them to
other people’s blogs.
If you’re reading much about blogging, you’ll get to know that writing a guest blog is essential in optimizing your blog’s ranking for search engines, and the people that do allow you to write on their blogs have to be from a similar niche with you, that makes you their competitor as well.
In that case, they’ll still be eager to share your blog with their audiences and promote your blog, and you can also do this in return. You both benefit by gaining each other’s readers and followers as well as increasing your bogs’ rankings from the links’ effects on SEO. This is the beauty of blogging that no other business can afford to do.
6. When You Build A Blog, Traffic Will Come Naturally
This is sadly not true.
When you buy a domain, pay for hosting and get your blog online with quite numerous posts, don’t expect anyone to read them other than you unless you actively market your blog to people and work on your SEO to build organic traffic.
To get people to read your blog posts in the first place, you need to let them know that your blog is live and that it can help them get their problems solved or entertain them. And you can achieve this by submitting your blog and posts to search engines and other social media networking sites in a strategic manner.
7. You Will Be Very Rich Without Doing Much and Will Travel The World For Free
LOL. I used to believe this blogging myth myself before I began my journey as a blogger. I used to see the glamorous lives lived by bloggers and would admire their “traveling around the world” lifestyles. What I didn’t know was that most bloggers portray a certain lifestyle on social media to keep up appearances but in real life, they don’t actually live such glamorous lives. I didn’t know that most of them use 9-5 job salaries to travel the world a number of times until they build an audience big enough to attract brand sponsorships.
You need to work very hard to be successful as a blogger and quit your job to earn a full-time income from it. There’s a lot of patience required when you first start and results are not looking like those of successful bloggers you’ve been looking up to. And the money only starts rolling in much later.
8. The Coolest Design Will Get You More Visitors
Blogs with cool designs may look better visually, but this
happens to be of no effect in getting it out there, while simple designs with
easier navigation are more preferable for readers.
This doesn’t mean that your design has to be poor, old-fashioned, or hard to navigate. You should just not waste much of your time trying to impress your audience from your designs or by using those neon color designs, but just keep the looks simple and easier for your audience to read as well as to scroll to other posts on the blog.
9. It is Preferable To Start Blogging out of a Free Domain, Instead of Purchasing One
Blogs are built out of professionalism, and going on free domains won’t be a great idea. The moment you start blogging, your domain name becomes your personality or brand and that’s what you’ll be recognized for, in the future.
Moreover, unlike your blog designs that can be redesigned or tweaked at your convenience, domains usually remain unaltered, except when you’re giving up for another which will be like starting your blogging journey afresh. Literally, and also in terms of your SEO.
Most “free” domains are actually subdomains of the hosting site you’re using. This negatively affects your search engine ranking and when you decide to switch to a premium domain -even if you had managed to build its ranking or even share the same name, you will be starting from scratch.
So it’s more advisable to invest in a domain from the beginning so that you can start building a positive ranking on it from the start. You can get a premium domain for free for one year only (not a free subdomain*) when you buy hosting from here or here.
10. Getting My Link Everywhere Will Help My Blog Immensely
Some people go to the extent of writing their links on social media comments even if they’re going against the rules or spam.
Once your site is subjected as being spammy, there’s a greater possibility that search engines and the social media networks you use for spamming will delist your site, and you won’t like it when they do that because it’ll be of great loss and you may need to give it up in the long run, for lack of readers. Not worth losing all your hard work.
There are many myths about blogging, and a number are what
keep people with blogging ideas from actually starting blogs. The good news is
that most of these are just myths that you should stop believing.
What are some blogging myths you used to believe about blogging or bloggers?