I have to confess that I hardly read any blogs in the money making online niche, because there is so much stuff written that will put me on the wrong path again, and I really want to stick to what I am doing right now and follow my own plan.

I noticed though that a lot of what is written out there is basically really bad advice, passed on from one blogger to the next and you can tell that whoever wrote it almost totally copied it from somebody else without adding any personal view or experience.

Now, this wouldn’t be bad if the information to start off with was sound advice, but I unfortunately have seen my share of wrong information on quite a few blogs these past months, which is what got me to the title of this post.

Would you read your own blog, seriously?

I mean, if your blog weren’t yours but somebody else’s, would you sign up for the rss or bookmark that blog to keep following all that the blogger was writing? Do you ever sit back and go through old posts, changing things that aren’t valid (anymore) or just delete posts for the sake of improving the content of your blog?

I have several blogs but not one of them is as “personal” as this one, this blog is my baby so to say, the blog I use to write down my thoughts, my findings, my experiences in the crazy mmo niche, and it is the blog that I promote under my own name, so I feel a big responsibility towards my readers, to provide posts that are entertaining and informative, posts that at times could help other people making money online or refer to great articles that I think need to be read if you are serious about your business online.

Like I said, I have several other blogs as well, in all sorts of niches that on one level or another are important to me and try to provide information on them that is worth reading if you are looking for information in that particular niche. However I must admit that not all information provided on there is solely written by me basically because I just don’t have the time to write everything myself. I do make sure though that everything on there is well researched and helpful for the reader, in other words I try to provide quality on all of my blogs.

Back to the initial question and more important, why I occasionally ask myself whether I would read my own blogs or not (if I would allow myself the time to spend reading blogs). I think that as a blogger or website owner, we have a responsibility towards our readers over what we put out in the world.

So I signed up for FirePow the other day, wanting to take my business to another level and adding more blogs to my portfolio in order to grow my business. It has been 3 weeks so far and once the first month is over I will surely share my experiences and thoughts with you guys.

There is one thing though that I wanted to mention right now. FirePow is a pretty powerful tool that can give your business a real big push into the right direction. Not only allows it to create a new blog within a matter of minutes, including the installation of wordpress and a theme (all is done from within one admin panel with a few clicks) but it also allows to pull content from 10 different resources so that you can instantly create blogs with content and cut down on research time in a big way. It also allows you to access all your blogs from one control panel without having to go to all different admin panels, another big time saver.

Probably the best of all though are the promotional tools it offers, a social bookmarking tool that will bookmark all your posts automatically, promotion through yahoo answers from within the admin panel as well plus a vast amount of blogs you can put a short post on, linking back to the blog you want to promote. Everything is explained through FirePow´s videos and it didn´t take a lot of time to learn quite a few nifty tricks to speed up business growth.

All in all pretty good I would say, especially if you go full into the whole process and take advantage of all tools, but like I said, a full review will be published once my first month is over.

The one thing that kept lingering on my mind was whether or not I would read the recently created blogs myself and for some reason I felt I was in way over my head to keep up with all that I am doing already. More about that in the near future as well but right now I want to finally get to the point:

I believe that 80% to 90% of all the bloggers out there would not read there own blog because they suck, and even that number might be on the low side!

Don’t get me wrong here, not saying they intentionally build bad blogs, but I think a lot of bloggers out there aren’t critical enough when it comes to their own work and what they publish on their blogs and if they were forced to read their blog for a month or two, they’d run away screaming!

So that was my thought for today, start reading your own blog through the eyes of your readers and ask yourself:

Would you read your own blog?

Since I am still looking to change my theme and improve my blog overall, I thought I should focus on mistakes to avoid, apart from just looking for a new theme.

So I started to look around for telltale signs that show a blogger is new to blogosphere. A lot of these mistakes can really work against all the efforts one puts in a blog without even realizing that that is why bounce rates go up and visitors just seem to ignore what you yourself believe is “the best blog on earth”.

Who the hell am I to come up with a list of newbie mistakes?

I will be the first one to admit that I am guilty of making (or having made) the following mistakes. But eventhough this blog is new, I consider myself to be an intelligent person capable of learning from my own mistakes and mistakes I see other people making.

I am using this blog in order to become a better blogger and in order to do so I have to look with a critical eye, not just at my blog but also at the ones around me. Some highly successful, some quite the contrary. There is a lot to learn from looking around with your eyes wide open especially if you are willing to step out off your own safety zone.

So here is a list of mistakes I have seen around me or committed myself.

1. Starting your blog on a free platform. Been there, done that. So I can completely understand why so many people choose to start off without spending some money on their blog. If you are at all serious about blogging, and I am not referring to making money with it, but if you just remotely like blogging and all it comes along, do yourself a favour and spend some money on your own domain and hosting. You will find that in time it will pay off, offering more possibilities and less chance you will one day find your blog deleted. Just ask any blogger using their own domain about this and they will tell you the same!
2. Buying your own domain but then uploading it in the default wordpress folder. Make sure your blog is on the main domain and not on yourdomain.com/wordpress unless you want to create a blog to support your existing business, by putting it in a blog folder (yourbusiness.com/blog).
3. Keeping the default template. You should at least put some effort in making your blogtheme stand out from the rest so your returning visitors will recognize which blog they landed on. And it really makes you look like a lazy bastard!
4. Not updating the blogroll the way it came when you downloaded the blogging platform. At least spend the minute it takes to delete it in order to add links you support in the future.
5. Not deleting the default first post and comment. Do you really think the “hello world” post will make for a great first impression?
6. Make your blog look like it never survived the seventies. Even if you can’t design your own theme or can’t afford to have a custom design, there are thousands of good-looking free templates available which will make your blog look like you know what you are doing.
7. Confuse the hell out of your readers by changing your theme too frequently. There is nothing wrong with changing your theme once in a while but if you change it continuously over a short period of time, you are just showing off all flaws and mistakes you are committing in the process.
8. Not changing the default permalink, making your blog title look like www.domainname.com/?=191 (if you ever get to making that many posts).
9. Making your posts hard or even impossible to read. Make sure your visitor can actually read what you are writing. So unless you have a really good reason to use that dark background with small unreadable fonts, just don’t.
10. Sending your posts of in the world in one huge block of packed together words. This should be a no-brainer really, but make sure your posts are easy digestible. Break your post up in small bites; use lists if needed, white spaces and headlines. Make it a real treat for the eye and easily scanable for your visitor.
11. Using background music. This is a very effective way to have your visitor close their browser and never come back to your blog. If you really feel you should share your all-time favourite song, give your visitor the option to start listening themselves.
12. Using audio ads. You might think this is a neat way to earn an extra buck but you can be sure you will end up with no traffic at all.
13. Use advertisement blocks within your post instead of an appealing picture that will illustrate what the post is about and capture the attention of your reader.
14. Overcrowding your blog with ads, banners and text links. It is not only a real pain for the eye, it will send out the message to your visitor that you are only looking to make a buck off of them.
15. Using oversized pictures that take forever to load. Your visitor might just not have the time and patience to wait 5 minutes to see it. And unless you want to share your 342 holiday pictures with your family, don’t make your blog look like a picture album without any content.
16. Flash and blink your visitor away. Keep the use of flashy, blinking and moving things to an absolute minimum if you want your reader to hang around and read comfortably.
17. Not adding an About page and a way to contact you. Think about what signal that sends to your reader, you want them to read your stuff but prefer to hide who you are? People are curious, if they like what you are writing, they will want to know who is doing that writing.
18. Forgetting to create a sitemap for the search engines. While you are at it, you might as well think about creating a sitemap for your visitors!
19. Not using an inside link structure. Make sure you refer to posts you have already written a while back, use a plug-in to offer related post to your reader, make it easy for them to find popular posts on your blog.
20. Not analysing your statistics. Next time you look at your stats, have a closer look at how people found your site through search engines, you might be surprised!
21. Making it hard to leave comments on your posts. People don’t like having to sign up in order to leave a comment and will just move on.
22. Not installing a spam filter. And if it is installed, not making sure to check what has been filtered occasionally.
23. Under using plugins. Plugins are a great way to improve your blog, interaction with your visitors, usability etc and are set up and working in a breeze. Here is a list of 17 plugins you should check out.
24. Not responding at all to the comments people have left. If you do decide to admit comments on your blog, it sends out a positive signal to respond when somebody has taken the time to reply.
25. Going out to create backlinks by spamming other blogs with “great post” comments filled with urls to your blog. There is nothing more annoying for a blogger to feel like their blog is used for nothing more than self-promotion.
26. Not linking out enough. You can’t expect nor make others link to your blog if you don’t show your willingness to send some link juice their way first.
27. Not delivering what you promise. Don’t make your readers think they can expect something next time they visit and find it is just not there.
28. Losing the focus. Starting out blogging about a certain subject and then changing it or starting to blog about a zillion other things.
29. Worse even, admitting you have no clue about what you are doing. People don’t like reading about failure. They will only return if they feel that what is offered is of any value to them.
30. Copying another blogger. There is a lot to learn from reading other blogs, but completely copying what they are doing will not be appreciated. Make your blog your own, finding your own style.
31. Blogging about nothing in particular. Internet users are after information and want to read something interesting and entertaining, they don’t want to waste their time!
32. Not proofreading your posts. Don’t just write and hit the publish button. Read and reread your post before publishing it, run it through a grammar and spelling check. The language most used online is English, but if your English really sucks, you better write in your native language or find a way to improve your English fast. By the way, that last bit also goes for English natives… if I am able to pick up on a huge amount of silly mistakes I will just think you are a lazy bastard for not proofreading!
33. Not correcting mistakes. If at any time you find mistakes in your already published your posts, make sure you edit them. If you see the mistake, you can bet your reader will too.
34. Blogging about something you have no knowledge of. This will show through your posts and make your texts worthless and boring. Besides, if you choose to blog about something you have absolutely no passion for, your blog will end up in the 1-month blog cemetery.
35. Making your titles absolutely suck. A title should give your reader a basic idea of what the post is about and capture their attention straight away. Using a lousy title will make sure your post won’t be read at all.
36. Forgetting the purpose of blogging. You are writing for others to read, and even though there is a certain level of therapeutic value in writing, if your blog is about computer skills or car parts your readers won’t want to know about your latest break-up.
37. Not using bloggers ethic. If you are after to get the attention of a big shot blogger, make sure you do it in a positive and constructive way rather than just attacking them and making you look like an ass.
38. Not making your posts stand out. Writing in a complicated or dry way will make you lose the attention of your readers. Same goes for writing just for the sake of meeting your deadline of the one-post-per-day “rule”
39. Promoting your blog too soon. Make sure you have at least some interesting content before putting a lot of effort in creating links to your site in order to capture the attention of the first visitors to your blog.
40. Relying only on entrecard to get traffic for your blog. Even though entrecard is a great system in order to get your blog going and out into the world, you must use other ways to build up traffic.
41. Forgetting to enter in blog carnivals. Blog carnivals are a not only great way to get your traffic going but you can also submit older posts to get them out of the dust.
42. Not using the signature feature in forums. If you are an active member in a forum, there is no reason why you should not put your blog into your signature. After all, you are proud enough of your blog to share it with your forum companions, right?
43. Making it hard to subscribe to your blog. Put your subscription form about the main fold and offer a full feed or the possibility to choose between partial or full feed. Stephen Cronin made a nice plugin to offer the choice, but I haven´t yet started using it myself.
44. Showing your stats too soon. People tend to think twice to sign up for your reader if only 5 or 6 other readers have signed up before them. And really, there is nothing to brag about if your sitemeter only shows 89 visitors! So instead of posting your RSS count too soon, focus on writing good articles first.
45. Not posting consistently. There is a lot to be said for posting daily. There is a lot to be said for posting only every other day or even for posting thrice daily. Find what best works for you and stick to it. If you are a new blogger with only 1 unique visitor daily this might not really be important, but once your audience is starting to build up, they will be expecting something off of you.
46. Overusing the category feature. Creating a new category will make you stand out like a newbie, apart from creating confusing. Think about it, would you really like to sift through 76 categories on a blog in order to find what you like to read?
47. Making it impossible for your reader to find information they came looking for. Make sure you blog it is easy to navigate your blog.

Everybody has his or her own pet peeves so I am sure this list is far from complete, so before I am off in order to correct some of the above mistakes I am still guilty of:

What are the mistakes you would like to add to this list?

As a result of drastically wanting to change my life, I have started to put all my time and effort into learning about blogging and working hard on improving my own knowledge and skills. Over the last half year I have been doing a lot of research online, reading material of successful bloggers and people who are only just starting out, but what I mostly found was posts on how rich and happy they already were or on how rich and happy they wanted to become, without really sharing what to do in order to become succesful.

Some blogs sparked the light of hope and wanting to achieve things for myself, other blogs actually got me down and discouraged, thinking I would never make it.

A lot of material I came across felt like yet another post on the same, over and over again. The funny thing is that, once in a certain circle, you keep bumping in to the same bloggers, the same comments and the same blogs over and over again, which is curious if you come to think of the amount of blogs out there and diversity of interests all over the world.

But last night, when I was just about to reach my cut off time and ready to turn off my computer, I ran into a blog I wish I had found before. A blog packed with so many great posts and original content that it had me up and reading till 5 am this morning. A blog so inspirational that it had me going back when I finally woke up today.

Going back to its first post, dating the 12th of February 2007, I realised it has not even been online for a year and when it was started, it kind of felt it hadn´t found its own voice yet, although I believe the owner of the blog, Courtney Tuttle had his vision and goals well worked out.

I was searching for mistakes newbie bloggers make, because earlier that day I had seen a post of a Blogger Biggy making fun of newbies with a patronising and denigrating tone to it, an attitude I can´t stand in people. In retrospect, I actually am grateful he ticked me off, for it was because of that post that I came across Courts Internet Marketing School.

If I could only read one blog, this would definitely be the One, for it goes way beyond other blogs, offering sound advice, inspiration, motivation and tools to improve and keep improving my work. His list of 102 Ways to Make your Blog a backlink Superstar should be obligated material to read for any blogger out there who has a true desire to improve their blog.

So, if you could only read one blog, which one would it be?