I have good news today.
If you feel like your blog and/or social media accounts are a mess, it’s never too late to turn things around. I know this because I’ve made a ton of mistakes throughout the years, and here I am – with two thriving blogs and 22,000 + followers in various places.
Maybe you’ve made some mistakes too, but don’t despair. This list I’ve curated is a personal “fail” list and since I had so much to say on the matter, it’ll be divided into two parts. I’ve done everything below on this blog or my personal one sometime in the past, so I’m speaking from personal experience.
1. Nicheless wandering blog with an identity crisis
First, the bad news. The experts are correct – a niche blog will usually be more successful (and easier to manage) than one without. That said, there are exceptions to every rule. We also have to define “successful”. My personal blog is nicheless, no matter how many times I’ve tried to fit it in a category (and believe me – I’ve tried). My end solution is simply to embrace what is, rather than what isn’t. It’ll never be 1/4 as successful as Fabulous Blogging, but that’s not the purpose.
Possible solution: Rather than trying to make your nicheless blog something it isn’t, consider starting a new niche blog as an experiment. See how it feels after six months or a year. If you do this, you might feel more permission to just let your nicheless one be as it is. One side benefit for me? My Fabulous Blogging success has made my personal blog more popular.
Other posts I’ve written that may help:
- What to do when your blog isn’t working
- The difficulty of building a brand
- What kind of blog do you have?
- The number one reason you’re stuck trying to find your niche
2. Getting “big” on WP.com and Blogger rather than just starting out with self-hosted
My personal blog started on WP.com (and I had no idea the difference between the WP.com and WP.org for like, three years). Fabulous Blogging started on Blogger because I didn’t believe I could succeed and shouldn’t spend the dough. I moved both eventually and despite some momentary drops in traffic, neither blog died because I didn’t migrate perfectly. In fact, I made a crap ton of mistakes (which is how I learned to migrate blogs correctly).
Possible solution: The solution here is simple. Migrate if you’re ready to take the plunge and hire someone if you’re scared. And if you aren’t ready, don’t stress about staying on a free platform. Migration experts can move even HUGE blogs. One exception? If you are on Weebly, Joomla, or Typepad, bite the bullet and migrate because they aren’t as easy as Blogger or WP.com.
Other posts I’ve written that may help:
- Move from Blogger to WordPress yourself
- Move from Blogger to WordPress with me!
- Moving a blog checklist
3. Posting too frequently on my blog and annoying my readers
There were times in my mom blogging days that I posted three times in a day. AND? I also had the Jetpack subscription module on, so three separate emails went out. *Groan* Sure I lost some subscribers, but my fans endured my poor email etiquette and stuck with me.
Possible solution: The first thing you can do is write to your heart’s content, but DRAFT your posts rather than impulsively publishing. Another solution might be to look at what you’re writing, and see if it might be better for social media rather than an entire post? Finally, make sure you have an email notification system that allows you to manage how many emails get sent out rather than it auto-delivering.
Other posts I’ve written that may help:
- Most bloggers think about social media the wrong way
- Why people misuse the rule “content is king”
- An epic MailChimp tutorial
4. Writing content that isn’t evergreen
At one point on my personal blog, I had over 700 posts and maybe 150 were evergreen. Everything else was time sensitive and/or not conducive to online sharing. I didn’t make my words work for me for longer than a day….or two if I could hold back from posting twice in a day. In a way, I don’t really consider this a failure since it was in all that writing that I learned how to write consistently, but it might have been better suited to a journal than a blog.
Possible solution: Keep your blog for the evergreen stuff, or things that are noteworthy. If all you have to post is an image of you and your kids at the zoo with a few hundred words, just put it on social media. Save your blog for the best of the best. This will benefit you in a couple ways. First, you’ll have less posts to recycle and revive every couple years. Two, your archives will be a treasure trove of great content, rather than a cluttered mess that would need a fairy godmother to fish out the good stuff.
Other posts I’ve written that may help:
- What can we learn from viral posts?
- Five types of blog posts you should be writing
- I’m an overwhelmed blogger
5. Using my kid’s full names as well as their photos
I hesitate to call this a fail because I personally don’t feel that this is necessarily a harmful thing. But before you stone me for saying that, I can acknowledge that in many cases, a first name is sufficient and playing it safe. It’s difficult to change course once you’ve revealed their identities, but there are a few clean up tasks you can do if you all of a sudden want to make them anonymous.
Possible solution: For your photos, make sure your image names, URLS, and captions don’t have identifying information. Watermark them if you’re concerned about copyright issues.
With regards to names in text, just go through and delete anything with a full name (or change it). When I Google my kids’ names, I get only two results in total. This is astounding given my carelessness through the years on the blog and social media. The good news is that Google is getting smarter everyday, and unless the post is really about them, it probably won’t make the first page of results. While it’s true that the Internet is forever, deleting content will at least make it harder for the average person to find information about your children.
Finally, consider changing your name on social media and on email. Eventually your last name will fall in ranking, automatically “hiding” your children’s information as well.
Other posts I’ve written that may help:
- Why I’m not concerned about online privacy
6. Taking photos illegally from other sites
For the first three years of blogging, I had no idea that using Google images was illegal. It wasn’t until I was in a content writing/SEO course that I smartened up. Despite hundreds (gulp) of illegally used images, I’ve never been contacted or sued. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t fix your blog – you should. But try not to panic.
Possible solution: Just delete the images from your media library. If you’ve just used the image URL in your post, you’ll have to go post by post. Then use Photopin or Canva! Better yet, get that smartphone working and take your own photos.
Other posts I’ve written that may help:
7. Changing my theme too many times
Any early Fabulous Blogging fans out there? I think I changed themes 5,634,677 times when I first went self-hosted. This caused a litany of problems, not the least of which had to do with a sluggish database. Between that and the plugins (below), I did have to rebuild my database eventually. But the larger problem was my inability to simply “do it right” the first time. I didn’t want to spend money on a good theme so I shopped around the free stuff and never really felt satisfied.
Possible solution: Go with Genesis or Prophoto. If you’re not ready for that, stick to a simple responsive WordPress designed theme that will deliver your content and keep your site running smoothly. The WordPress 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 are all good choices until you’re ready for a permanent theme.
Other posts I’ve written that may help:
- Identify the design elements in your website
- Why I love Prophoto
- 13 things I learned about blog design from a perfectionist
8. Installing so many plugins that my site gets throttled by my hosting company
All my advice about plugin management is a direct result of my failure in this area. What I didn’t realize was that even ONE plugin can make a site haywire. It wasn’t just the quantity of plugins, but the quality as well. It meant having to learn how to do things without a plugin first (if I could). Then it meant trying to figure out my blog’s mission and vision, and only install a plugin that helps me achieve that goal.
Possible solution: Deactivate all your plugins and run your site without them for 24 hours. Do you notice a difference in speed? Then you can add back one plugin at a time, giving it 24 hours to perform. If at any point your site starts acting sluggish, you know you need to find an alternate solution.
Other posts I’ve written that may help:
- Basic plugins that everyone can use
- Everything you need (and don’t) with the Jetpack plugin
- Set up WordPress Like a Boss
9. Negative press
This is probably the hardest one to write about. Back in 2011, I had an explosive and emotional reunion with my long-lost biological father. Since I was a blogger at the time, when the reunion got “complicated” – my instinct was to write about it. And I did. Honestly. The good things that came out of it are hard to measure, but I know that I reached thousands of other adoptees who were hurting just like me. For about a year I ran a blog, forum, traveled across the country and the world, and received a lot of press. I even wrote a book (that I still get emails for, even though it’s currently unpublished).
So why do I call it a failure when there was a lot of good? The online world doesn’t forget news stories easily and so googling my name reveals things I’d rather forget (yes, I know all of you are now going to google me, but you could just take my word for it). There are also articles that took my words out of context, or stories that don’t reflect how I feel about it now that I’ve had time to grieve and process the whole ordeal.
Here’s the good news. If you wrote something on your blog you don’t want there, you can delete it. And if you write on another blog, you can ask them to delete it. But if you are on the news or any national publication, it’ll be hard to erase so think long and hard before you accept an interview.
Possible solution: It’s not 100%, but there are things you can do to make your google presence a bit shinier. Start with BrandYourself.com and do the tasks they advise. I have in effect pushed up the results I want, and pushed down the ones I’m not so fond of. Like I said, it’s not 100%.
The other solution? Embrace all the parts of you – even the imperfect ones. People much prefer honesty over perfection.
Other posts I’ve written that may help:
- 10 reasons people might be judging you and why that’s a blessing
- When you’re a blogger and the crap hits the fan in your personal life
10. Leaving comments just for the sake of getting more followers
This is just a waste of time. I spent hours reading and commenting on other blogs and in turn, inflated my following with bloggers who “followed me back” because I interacted with their posts. But the minute I stopped, so did they – and my traffic went back down. It’s true that commenting will lead to more exposure, but stick to blogs that are in your niche or the ones that really interest you. Say something interesting in your comment and add to the conversation. Otherwise, don’t waste hours of your life hoping for better numbers if you leave comment droppings all over the Internet.
Possible solution: If you have blogger friends you want to support, share their content (if it fits with your streams). Also, try to drum up non-blogging readers. Bloggers are a great network, but it’s like a teacher always teaching other teachers. You need some students too!
Other posts I’ve written that may help:
- Ways to market your blog to non-bloggy people
- Everything you need to know about the blog comment debate
I’ll follow up soon with the next 10 failures I’ve got under my belt, and how I recovered.
(And hopefully between now and then, I haven’t made ten more)
