Seven ways, because lists of ten are overdone, and seven was all that was needed (without losing quality, or having to think really, really hard).

1. Over-monetizing

Sure, everyone wants to make thousands of dollars a month from their blog, but that parallels elementry school kids saying they want to grow up and play professional football. It could happen, but the odds are stacked against you. People come to your blog for information. Without good content, there’s no reason for them to stick around. Blogs are much more useful to use them a promotion medium. Use your blog to gain weight in search engines and recognition in the community. That’ll help you much more than a few dollars a day from Adsense. For instance, if you build a blog up, then use it to promote a new product you launch down the line. You’re already starting ahead, since you can use your blog’s weight to give your new website a jump-start. Think Google… first build a quality site people will use and benefit from, then the monetizing aspect comes later on. One of the internet’s few exceptions to this rule is John Chow. There’s a man who monitized his blog inside and out, but still maintained a high level of quality.

2. Attention Whoring

There’s a few sides of this that tie together. First off all, there are those who attack a well known player in the industry for no reason other than the quick burst of attention and controversy they’ll get. Bad idea. The blogsphere exists through friendships and trust, and if you are blacklisted, it’s near impossible to grow your blog’s influence. Another side of this is people who brag or gloat on their blogs. There is a level of confidence that’s required, but we don’t need to read a 10 page post about how your name was mentioned in Hicksville’s Newspaper last week. Readers are selfish and greedy… post about what information they came looking for and they’ll be much happier (and maybe even keep reading your blog). On the opposite side of this, one example of an attention whore who can get away with it is, of course, Shoemoney. From the famous picture of his Adsense check, to his latest MyBlogLog drama, it’s hard to deny Shoemoney loves attention… but with a blog as interesting and high quality as he has… he deserves it!

3. Personal Life Rambling

A blog is a public tool that is not supposed to be used as a diary. I couldn’t care less that your fish turned four years old today. Don’t constantly clutter my RSS reader with irrelevant posts, as there’s no quicker way for me to drop your feed. Obviously, an occasional post about a major landmark in your life is fine and interesting, but a large number of blogger have gotten their blog confused with a diary. They market it as an Internet SEO and SEM blog, but they make one post a month about SEO. There is about 50 blogs I read everyday (through Google Reader), and one of the quickest ways to get nicked from my subscribed list is to consistently post about unrelated material. A perfect example of this, however one who can hardly be criticized for it, is Google’s own Matt Cutts.

4. Not Updating

One of the biggest aspects in distinguishing a successful blog from a dud is a fairly large readerbase… and readers can’t read your blog if you never update. This is one we’ve always been guilty of at one point or another, especially when first getting started, but if you take up the responsibility of writing a blog, and you actually want it to be successful, you can’t neglect it. Depending on your niche, at least one or two updates a week should be the barebones minimum. There are a few blogs I consider exceptions to this however… who rarely post, but when they do, I make a point of reading every word of their posts our of pure respect for the authors. Among those are Boogy BonBon and Lee Dodd.

5. Posting Junk

Following the previous point, no one is going to subscribe and read your blog if there is few posts of real quality. Sure, posting quick jokes or interesting websites can be fun on occasion, but without good, solid content, what do readers get out of your blog? If they can spend the time to read your blog, you can at least spend a little time yourself and give them something worthwhile to read. One example, is the blog I setup to post whatever junk I don’t want to post here, Decomprehension. Separating the impulsive posts from the quality posts allows me to be get more out there, and maintain the integrity and quality of this blog.

6. Limiting RSS to Snippets

As the number of quality blogs online increase, it’s becoming more and more popular to keep up to date with your favorites via an RSS reader. One of the biggest things I can’t stand about blogs are people who are so scared of giving away free content, they truncate their RSS feeds to a quick blurb. My style of reading blogs is skimming the RSS, then if an article seems interesting, I will usually open that post’s page in a normal browser window and read the entire thing plus comments. However when an author limits it to three to four sentences of a three page post, it’s near impossible to tell if the article is worth reading or not. For those worried about duplicate content, Google is very good about snatching up new posts via RSS (or HTML, depending on how much Googlebot likes your site), and flagging you as the content originator. It is extremely rare for Googlebot to make a mistake in a cross-site duplicate content issue. If your reasoning behind limiting RSS feeds is because less people will see and click on your ads, reread item number one… it’s much better to get a loyal reader than to make a few extra cents. One example of a blog who does this, however is an exception to the rule, is Aaron Wall’s SEO Book. He drives me crazy with his handicap RSS feed, however I still make a point of reading his every post.

7. Not Being Unique

There are millions of blogs out there (55 million according to Technorati), and every one is fighting for readers and rankings. What sets you apart? If you just syndicate every popular story to hit Search Engine Watch or Slashdot, what sets you apart from the other 54 million doing the same thing? Of course, occasional story quoting (with sources cited and your own personal thoughts appended) is fine, but blogs that do nothing but this everyday will have a difficult time getting themselves known. Don’t misunderstand me, by all means reference other bloggers and engage the community, however I’m speaking of blogs that syndk8 99% of their content and show no original, provoking thought or creative effort. To truly shine in the blogsphere you need to consistently write high quality, unique posts. Instead of copying all the time, you should be the one aiming to be quoted and linked.

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