MYTH: A WIDELY HELD, BUT FALSE BELIEF OR IDEA.
Think any of them exist in the blogging world? Um, yes. In fact, I would argue that blogging myths travel farther, faster, and wider than other industries because blogging is a mode of digital communication. As a professional in the field, I come up against false blogging beliefs all the time. And here’s the thing about a myth….
They begin with a grain of truth.You’ve heard the old saying, “A lie is bad, the truth is the best, but a half-lie is the worst.” The following blog mythshave in them some truth. That’s what makes them so spreadable. After all, if it was completely bogus, no one would believe it!
MYTH #1 | IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME
No they won’t. Building and writing are only a small part of blogging. With millions of blog posts published everyday, the only way to get your work seen is to develop a concrete strategy to share and market your content.
Resources to get you debunked:
- Getting Organized with a Calendar
- Clawing your Way to an online Presence
- Three Things Every Blogger Has to Do Right Now
MYTH #2 | BLOG POSTS 300-700 WORDS ARE BEST
This myth has grown because of the explosion of memes, tumblr blogs that have no writing (and just images), plus of course – Twitter. With an audience that has the patience of a fruit fly, you have to get in and get out right? The truth is that blogs with helpful and evergreen content — these are the posts that will get indexed by Google search engines. That’s where and how the traffic comes pouring in. Social sharing only works as hard as you do. SEO helps your posts work for you long after you’ve finished promoting the post.
Resources to get you debunked:
- How Long Should Your Blog Post Be? Data Driven Answers
- Why People Misuse Content is King
- How Long Should a Blog Post Be?
MYTH #3 | BLOGGING IS ABOUT WRITING
Yes..and no. Blogging is actually about education and entertainment. Think of a blog/blogger like an owner of a museum or school. It’s your job to produce content that is relevant, helpful, and entertaining. It is also your job to lead your readers to other people’s helpful content on the same topic. It’s your job to make someone’s life better or more meaningful. Writing is part of this equation, but if I had to think of one word to encompass blogging, it wouldn’t be writing.
Blogging is about curation.
Resources to get you debunked:
MYTH #4 | TOO MANY PLUGINS CAN RUIN A BLOG
This one is tricky, because on the one hand it is true. But did you know that it only takes onE plugin to ruin a blog? That’s right. one line of misplaced code and your whole blog will break. Be very careful about the plugins you install. Even if someone raves about it, you don’t know how it’s going to interact with YOUR theme and the other plugins you have already installed. And guess what? Even if the plugin gave you no trouble for months, it can all of a sudden not work with your theme or WordPress (especially if there is an update).
Resources to get you debunked:
MYTH #5 | SINCE THERE ARE SO MANY FREE WORDPRESS THEMES, YOU DON’T NEED TO PAY FOR onE
There are some great free themes, starting with the WordPress default themes. If you know code, you can make that bad boy do anything you want. Of course, you’ll need to create a custom child theme so it can handle updates without breaking. But at the end of the day, you’re essentially creating your own theme. Free is sort of deceptive because the time and know-how it takes to create a customized child theme from the free templates isn’t really free. You learned those tricks somewhere!
If you don’t know code, buy a theme. A good one. A lightweight one. A responsive one and/or mobile friendly one. Don’t try to be frugal. There’s a reason Genesis, Prophoto, and Thesis cost money. It’s because they come with rock solid customer support, not to mention a host of features that will keep you from a ton of frustration and headache. You get what you pay for.
Resources to get you debunked:
MYTH #6 | GOOGLE + IS A GHOST TOWN, IT’S NOT WORTH INVESTING IN AS A LIFESTYLE BLOGGER
With Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, why do you need yet another social platform? Many bloggers assume that their audience is just not there, so it makes no sense to invest. There are a couple problems with that theory – this being the biggest one -
Go back in time (to the birth of Pinterest, Twitter, or Facebook). Before the world was using it. Wouldn’t you have loved to already be established on the platform? one of the pioneers who paved the way? If you’re going to make it on the Interwebz, you must be willing to go where the crowd isn’t…yet.
Resources to get you debunked:
MYTH #7 | I TRY TO AVOID SHARING COMPETITOR’S BLOGS SO I DON’T LOSE READERS
It’s normal and natural to feel intimidated by someone who has a better blog or bigger audience. But sharing your competitor’s blog posts does two things. one, it helps spread the good blog karma online. Don’t believe me? Start sharing those who write in your niche. Secondly, it shows your readers and followers that you are determined to help them, even if it means going to someone other than you.
Resources to get you debunked:
- Why other Bloggers in Your Niche are Not Your Competition
- Tap into the Power of People
- Competition: It Isn’t What You Think
- 7 Tips for Finding Blogging BFF’s
MYTH #8 | I PUT ALL MY BLOG POSTS on onE PINTEREST BOARD CALLED MY BLOGS SO PEOPLE WILL FIND AND SHARE THEM
No no no. Don’t do this. It’s lame. If people want to find a cess pool of your blog posts, they should simply come to your BLOG! Pinterest is about exploring the topics you love. Take your Pinterest boards and create categories of interests. Sprinkle relevant posts among other helpful (and visually engaging content).
Resources to get you debunked:
MYTH #9 | TAGS on WORDPRESS ARE GOOD FOR SEO
Tags have little to do with SEO, especially today. Tags are an organizational tool on WordPress. When you choose relevant keywords, you can then use these tags in a tag cloud, on your menu bar, or in your post meta. The point of tags is to help your readers find related posts that might be interesting to them. If you are tagging your posts with 8000 keywords, stop. It’s better to have three or four tags that link to other posts.
Resources to get you debunked:
- Everything you Need to Know about Categories and Tags on WordPress
- SEO and Categories and Tags on WordPress (this article references WP.com but the part about tags is applicable to self-hosted blogs too)
MYTH #10 | THERE ARE CERTAIN TIMES THAT ARE BEST TO SHARE on SOCIAL MEDIA
There is truth to this myth insomuch as there are certain times that YOUR particular blog post or social share might do better. The problem with all those infographics is that there is no way to make a rule and apply it globally. You have to take into consideration your time zone, you audience, your topics, not to mention the platform you’re using and what else is trending at any given time. You will have to do your own experiments and come up with a plan specific to your blog.
Resources to get you debunked:
MYTH #11 | IT’S BEST TO REMOVE THE DATE FROM YOUR PERMALINK STRUCTURE
SEO experts have touted the idea that removing the date from your URL structure makes for better permalinks. There are a few problems with this line of thinking however. First, when you strip the date from the permalink, your WordPress pages and posts look identical (in terms of structure of the URLs). This can cause slow queries on your database once your site gets large. In plain English, it can make your site S-L-O-W. Secondly, with link shorteners, many people don’t ever see the actual permalink on social shares.
Straight from the horse’s mouth:
For performance reasons, it is not a good idea to start your permalink structure with the category, tag, author, or post_name fields. The reason is that these are text fields, and using them at the beginning of your permalink structure it takes more time for WordPress to distinguish your Post URLs from Page URLs (which always use the text “page slug” as the URL), and to compensate, WordPress stores a lot of extra information in its database (so much that sites with lots of Pages have experienced difficulties). So, it is best to start your permalink structure with a numeric field, such as the year or post ID – WordPress documentation
Resources to get you debunked:
MYTH #12 | I CAN DO JUST FINE WITHOUT SOCIAL MEDIA AUTOMATION TOOLS
If you are just starting you, it might be true that you can manage your social media sharing without using Hootsuite, ViralTag, or Buffer. But as time goes on, it becomes increasingly important to be present, active, and consistent every day. Most of us can’t be online all day long, and this is where social media automation tools make a huge difference. If you are the kind of person who likes to do content curation on one day, scheduling your pins and tweets will keep your profiles active while not annoying your followers with short bursts of activity.
Resources to get you debunked:
- Beginner’s Guide to Hootsuite
- 6 of the Best Automation Tools
- The Importance of ViralTag for Pinterest Automation
MYTH #13 | IF I CAN JUST GET onE INFLUENCER TO SHARE MY POST (AND HAVE IT GO VIRAL), I’LL BE GOLDEN
It’s great when posts go viral or get in the hands of someone with millions of followers. You can get a boost in traffic and a surge of email subscribers. But viral traffic is incredibly short lived. There are lots of bloggers I know who’ve had thousands of shares on posts, but it didn’t turn them into overnight success stories. If your blog isn’t consistently putting out valuable information, if your blog is poorly designed, if you make it too hard to find the answers to your readers questions, a viral hit won’t do much for the long-term success of your blog. It’s better to spend your time working on consistent sharing and building relationships with other bloggers in your niche.
MYTH #14 | HEADINGS IN WORDPRESS ARE FOR MAKING THE TEXT LOOK COOL
It does. But there are more reasons to use headings. For one thing, it makes your blog post easily scannable. You must break your content down into bite-sized pieces and use headings. More importantly though, headings have an SEO value. When Google crawls your site, it looks at the keywords in the headings first, and then in the body of the post. Start using headings!
Resources to get you debunked:
MYTH #15 | IT’S BEST TO START A BLOG WITH A FREE SITE RATHER THAN IMMEDIATELY GET YOUR OWN DOMAIN AND HOSTING
Blogs are not like starter homes. The minute you begin posting online, you are working strategically to build recognition of your name, your brand, and your domain. Moving isn’t impossible (and it’s done all the time), but if I can give one piece of advice to a person who hasn’t started a blog yet, spend $100.00 and get your own domain and hosting account. That’s the one thing you don’t want to change over time – your theme and design can be altered, but changing those foundational pieces is much harder.
Resources to get you debunked:
MYTH #16 | THE LATEST DESIGN WILL HELP GET YOUR BLOG “OUT THERE”
There’s no question that good design can rapidly increase your readership. Good design helps with bounce rate (how quickly someone clicks off your page), email signups, and social shares. The problem is that good design doesn’t do you any good unless you know how to navigate the art of marketing yourself on social media. If people don’t know you exist, the latest and greatest design means nothing.
When you are just starting out, I recommend that you keep things simple. If you have money to spend, spend it on learning how to engage an audience, and worry about cool design later. It DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD HAVE AN UGLY OR POOR FUNCTIONING SITE. In fact, the opposite. Get the cleanest, sharpest look you can. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Then learn how to market yourself. Later, you can add super cool design elements that make you stand out.
Resources to get you debunked:
MYTH #17 | THE NUMBER OF COMMENTS GIVES ME A PULSE on MY READERS
Truth- A blog with a lot of comments means you’ve struck a chord (either positive or negative). But you can’t turn this truth over and assume the same thing about the opposite. A blog without many comments is not necessarily a flop. More and more people are reading blogs on mobile devices (notoriously unfriendly for traditional commenting). If your post doesn’t have a lot of comments, you need to look at other things to measure your impact. Are you increasing your email subscribers each week? How many followers are you gaining? How many social shares do your posts get?
It’s important to remember another dirty little truth about blog comments – some blogs can have a lot of comments and…well…the blog really isn’t that good at all!
Resources to get you debunked:
MYTH #18 | PUTTING MY LINK IN THE COMMENTS on FACEBOOK WILL HELP MORE PEOPLE SEE IT
False. This was a widely held belief when it seemed that Facebook was changing its algorithm to favor text updates rather than links. It’s not true anymore. Be wary of “workaround” ideas for Facebook. They often have you running around in circles without a lot of return on your investment.
Resources to get you debunked:
MYTH #19 | I REFUSE TO FIND A NICHE BECAUSE IT WILL LIMIT ME
I hear this constantly. Heck, I even said it for years with my personal blog. It’s simply not true. Blogs with a niche do better than blogs without. I can’t say it any other way. If you want to rebel, that’s fine. But niche will explode your possibilities, not limit them.
Resources to get you debunked:
- The Number one Reason You’re Stuck Trying to Find Your Niche
- Choosing a Profitable Niche
- Why You Should Start a Niche Blog
MYTH #20 | IT MAKES NO SENSE TO PAY SOMETHING TO HELP ME WITH MY BLOG WHEN I HAVEN’T MONETIZED IT YET
This is like saying, “I want to open my own business, but I won’t spend any money to get it ready.” Good luck with that.
Or, if you are blogging for a hobby, people will say, “I have no intention of making money with it, so I shouldn’t spend money on it.” Okay, fair enough. I’m off to go find a hobby quilter, a hobby collector, a hobby golfer, or a hobby artist that doesn’t spend a dime on their activities or materials.