10 Signs Your Blog Post Is Going Horribly Wrong

Blogging mistakes happen to all of us.

Fired up by a great content idea, you sit down ready to crank out that killer post. But as you get farther into blogging, your enthusiasm is replaced by a sense of dread.

Clearly, you’re getting bogged down. You’re not sure what the problem is, but the piece is not coming together the way you thought it would.

You put your head down and keep writing, but the dread intensifies faster than your resolve. You now realize that you’ve got a complete mess of a post on your hands.

Do you make these blogging mistakes?

OK, let’s relax, take a deep breath and a step back, and run through this quick 10-part list to see what’s gone wrong.

Or, better yet, keep this list of 10 blogging mistakes handy, so you’ll overcome writer’s block and stay on the right track from the get-go.

1. What’s the point?

The worst thing a reader can be thinking after reaching the conclusion of your post is: “What the heck was that all about?”

Face it, you’ve felt that way after spending valuable time and attention slogging through a post with no point, and you weren’t happy.

Make sure you know what you’re trying to say before you start (especially if you’re writing a list post). That’ll help you avoid common blogging mistakes and take the reader succinctly from Point A to Point B.

2. Who cares?

The worst thing a reader can be thinking early into your post is: “Why should I bother with this?”

Your headline has to clearly state the benefit of reading (more on this in a bit), your blog post introduction has to make the promised benefit even more enticing, and the rest of your post had better deliver the goods if you’re hoping to have a happy reader.

3. Bad chi

In Chinese medicine, a harmonious chi flow throughout the body is the secret to health, and bad or disrupted flow results in illness.

Likewise in writing, bad flow makes for bad narrative and confused readers. Think about the posts you love to read for a moment … each paragraph likely flows into the next, naturally keeping you engaged with the topic.

So, review your drafts to ensure that your sequence of ideas is both logical and compelling, and carries your reader from Point A to Point B on a slippery slope, sentence by sentence.

4. Detail dump

Don’t get me wrong — vague writing is not good for anyone. But overly detailed writing can be just as bad, or worse.

If the reader’s eyes start to glaze over, you’ve made one of the most severe blogging mistakes. Give enough detail to aid in comprehension, but don’t go off on tangents that unnecessarily drill down too deep.

That’s what links are for.

5. The rambling road

Any piece of good writing is as long as it needs to be, but not one word longer.

Still, it’s quite easy to lose an audience’s attention these days, even when they are initially interested in your blog post ideas.

Don’t go on for too long if the topic can’t support the length, which means ruthlessly content editing down to a length that best suits the topic.

If that means breaking the subject into two or more separate posts, so be it. It might even be the best idea for your blog, so you can target different keywords. Speaking of keywords …

6. Robotitis

Do you write for search engines instead of people?

If so, your blog is suffering from “robotitis,” an affliction characterized by boring, keyword-stuffed content that serves only to fill space on the page.

If you actually hope to sell physical or digital products, you need to write better content that actually hooks readers on your story.

7. Copycat content, rather than copywriter content

Are you doing what everyone else in your niche is doing with their blog?

Stop, drop, and roll yourself right out of that mode and learn how to be a copywriter.

You need your own unique selling proposition that’ll attract and hold attention. It’s the intersection of what your audience wants to hear about and the special perspective you have to offer.

8. Weak headlines

Do you agonize over writing a great post, only to slap on a hastily-concocted post title that all but guarantees hardly anyone will read it?

Less-than-compelling headlines destroy more solid blog posts than any other of these blogging mistakes. If your headline doesn’t clearly state why someone should choose your post to read, instead of all the other posts that might look similar, it doesn’t matter how good your writing is.

There is a simple cure, though, that is almost guaranteed to draw more people to your content: Discover how to write headlines.

9. Egocentritus

Do you hope to make money with your blog, and yet rattle on excessively with personal writing? You know … about your dog, your goldfish, and your recent appendectomy?

Your writing voice might be suffering from “egocentritus.”

Try these editing tips to make your blog an audience-focused resource for readers. They’ll help you create the type of engaging content that persuades people to stick around.

10. No email sign-up form

Blogging mistakes don’t get any worse than this one.

Do you leave out an email subscription option on your site?

I can only label this as a disease of the blogging mind. You do all that hard work to get everything else just right, and yet you rely on people to remember to come back on their own?

That’s just self-destructive. Paging Dr. Freud!

Luckily, this one is also easy to fix. Start building your email list and give readers a reason to subscribe to get more content from you.

Blogging mistakes you’ll no longer make

And there you have it … the top blogging mistakes that are easy to make when you’re just starting out.

Have a better idea of why your killer idea might become a mediocre post? Good. Now you know how to avoid it.

If you’d like to learn more about blogging that works, don’t forget to grab our free ebook below.