Major Mistakes You Should Avoid As A Blogger

One afternoon while sitting in traffic I felt very idle. I was wondering what I would do with my phone in hand waiting for someone to text me or call me.

You know those moments when you’re craving for attention but not in a whinny kind of way, you just want someone to talk to to pass time.

I hadn’t thought about the books I had downloaded on phone, which is quite embarrassing, as I had them for this purpose. So an email was forwarded to me and it had one of Biko Zulu’s blog posts . This post kept me busy until I was sucked in to his other works after rushing to his website. No, I am not a member of the famous ‘first to comment’ team.

But, It had me thinking about how when we were in primary school we’d take 40 minutes to come up with an essay and then that determined how creative we were or were not. If you could not write, then you were never going to be a writer. we put extra time and care then into our compositions than we do now in our blogs. We made sure we did not make the mistakes we make today.

Some of the mistakes we did then, we still do now, and let’s say we’ve matured in our mistakes. One mistake we do is trying to be perfect. We struggle with our insecurities and so before we post, we edit and over edit until we stray from the main idea of the blog post. Trying to keep things simple works in your favor in that you get the message across and at the same time give the reader an easy read they can appreciate. Stop trying to be perfect.

When writing we sometimes, if not most times, get carried away with what we are talking about. This is in the case especially when we are telling stories in that our imaginations run with us and we end up putting down too much unnecessary information. Try planning ahead, write down your plot and your structures for your beginning, body and ending. When Chinua Achebe wrote the famous, Things Fall Apart , the message,to me, was the effects of colonialism and Christianity. He wanted the idea to hit home so he added characters that were close to the family setting knowing that this would more likely get the message across so that even the ending of the book still delivered the message he wanted to pass. From the beginning to end, we see a well seasoned pot stirred, from the introduction, to his plot, to the execution, he really thought this book out. (like he does all of the rest of course, don’t come for me).

When writing, we want many people subscribed to the mailing list. We want them eager to read our blog and sharing it as much as often on whatever platform they are on. Always ask people to subscribe to your blog, have an email list or a way for people to sign-up to receive updated about your blog posts this makes sure that they remain your audience

When picking a theme or a lay-out, you always spend too much time and effort on this exercise when what you need to spend time on is content. How you can come up with new content to sustain our 1 million subscribers right? (this is confessing to possess). So you end up with a beautiful layout but nothing to show in terms of your work. Most bloggers do this because they end up having to compare their blog to other bloggers’ websites. Stop comparing your content and work as an original. Do your own thing!

This brings to mind the fact that you should do your own thing! Don’t get caught up in the hype over a certain topic of discussion making waves. We all remember the time ladies received word that they should wash their men? The outrage that came from this confession was not worth the millions of ‘keyboard action’ it received. When writing just follow your genre and style and write what makes you happy. Don’t struggle to keep up with the Jonese’s.