Six Blogging Tips That I Ignore

Six

Have you ever ignored certain types of blogging advice from blogging experts?

Oh, I have ignored some of their advice (Especially those that I do not agree with).

And, I am making an educated guess, that you probably did the same.

Today, I am going to share with you, six blogging tips that I blatantly ignore along with my reasons for ignoring them (So, without further ado, I am going to get cracking).

1.) Write Drunk, Edit Sober

Some of you have probably seen this advice circulating around the blogosphere (And, some of you have wrongfully attributed this quote to the legendary writer, Ernest Hemingway).

According to Jess Zafarris’s article, Did Hemingway say “write drunk, edit sober”? Nope — he preferred to write sober, the quote probably made its first appearance in Peter De Vries’s novel, Reuben, Reuben.

In the past, I experimented with that concept; I wrote when I was drunk on three separate occasions and it did not work out well for me.

Why?

Because of the following reasons:

• Typing letters on my keyboard became highly inaccurate; I missed a lot of the keys; for example, when my fingers aimed for the letter “I” on the QWERTY keyboard, it ended up hitting the letter that was next to it — the letter “O” (My motor skills were severely affected).
• My mind was a bit cloudy (I was unable to think as fast as when I was sober).
• I felt drowsy (Which resulted in me discontinuing my content creation process and going to sleep instead).

However, I strongly agree with the part about editing sober (A blogger will no doubt do a much better job of editing their blog posts in a coherent state of mind).

Anyone who has any serious consideration of writing when they are drunk should read, Alcohol’s Effects on the Body.

2.) You Must Publish Content On Your Blog Every Day

For the record, I have nothing against anyone for wanting to publish content on their blog every day.

As a matter of fact, if a blogger can publish content on their blog without burning themselves out and have also managed to keep their blog posts at a high quality, it is okay for them to do it.

Realistically speaking, only a small percentage of people are capable of publishing high-quality content on their blog on a daily basis without burning themselves out.

Dear friend, as a blogger, you are supposed to know what you are capable of doing. Therefore, if you know, that you are not the type of person who can keep up with the pace of publishing content daily on your blog, it would be in your best interest to do it a few days a week, weekly, fortnightly, etcetera.

Am I capable of publishing content on my blog on a daily basis?

Yes, I can!

However, I chose to do it weekly because it grants me the ability to do other things with my time; such as:

• Spending quality time with my family.
• Socializing with friends.
• Going on long walks outdoors.
• Reading books.
• Watching a small portion of movies on Netflix.
• Getting quality rest.

Even though blogging is a lot of fun, a person should not allow the blogging process from allowing them to live a balanced life.

So, there is no harm in blogging in moderation.

3.) Do Not Edit While Writing

I will admit that the concept of not editing while writing has its merits (It works for a lot of people).

Some people need to get the idea out of their heads as fast as possible because if they do not, they will end up forgetting it.

However, not everyone is like that; there are people who know exactly what it is that they would like to say to their viewing audience (Therefore, editing while writing does not affect their content creation process).

Do you use grammar checking and spell checking tools like Grammarly and Ginger?

Okay not everyone uses those things. But there are people who do.

Anyone who has ever used the grammar checking and spell checking tools that I spoke about, know that it points out grammatical and spelling issues while they are writing (And, they can rectify those issues by hovering their cursor on the area that the tool highlighted and clicking on the recommended suggestion).

Technically, that in itself is editing while writing.

In my opinion, it saves the blogger a lot of time — time that could be spent on finding or creating an image for their blog post.

Also, I have adopted the habit of proofreading a paragraph as soon as it is typed (That too falls into the category of editing while writing).

Why do I do it?

I do it because I would rather complete the editing process as fast as possible.

And, to be on the safe side, I would proofread the article that I wrote in its entirety the following day with the intentions of catching any typographical errors or grammatical errors.

And, when I am satisfied with my article, it is scheduled to be published on Saturday at 19:30 Greenwich Mean Time.

Does the concept of not editing while you are writing apply to you?

Well, if it does, that is your particular thing (The process is neither right nor wrong).

And, as you have learned, that concept does not apply to me (It is one of those blogging rules that I enjoy breaking).

4.) You Should Only Write About Topics That People Are Searching For

Huh?

I should only write about topics that people are searching for?

Who the hell came up with that rule?

Even though my content is SEO-friendly, I write about the topics that I am genuinely interested in (I would not have it any other way).

Dear friend, my sole purpose is not to write for search engines on the world wide web.

It so happens, that people are interested in the things that I write about (Hmm. Maybe, I should consider myself lucky).

Besides, I am a personal blogger (And, that grants me a lot of freedom to write whatever it is that comes to my mind and to publish it on my blog).

I do not have to say to you, “I threw that blogging tip into the trash can ages ago,” because you intuitively know that it is a whole lot of crap.

5.) You Must Stick With A Niche

In all honesty, sticking to a niche is ideal for business-related blogs.

In regards to personal blogs, sticking to a niche will also work. However, personal blogs are flexible; any blogger can get away with publishing miscellaneous content on their blog.

In my case, I enjoy dealing with miscellaneous content on Renard’s World (I would lose my mind if I had to deal with a single niche).

Hey, I am not the only personal blogger who deals with miscellaneous content on their blog; other personal bloggers do it too (And, it is somewhat the norm in the blogosphere).

No offence to those of you who would rather stick to a niche.

It is just that I find that sticking with a niche is limiting.

If I wanted to stick with a niche, I would have created a business-related blog on the self-hosted version of WordPress.

6.) The Best Times For Publishing Blog Posts

Ironically, blogging experts can never agree with each other when it comes to the best times for publishing blog posts.

In my case, I do get a reasonable number of incoming views to my blog posts on the same day that they are posted. However, the majority of the incoming views to my blog posts happen a few days after they are published.

I genuinely believe that things are different for each blogger and they more or less write about things that work for them.

Realistically speaking, people will read blog posts at a time that is convenient for them.

So, I have discarded the rule that pertains to the best times for publishing blog posts from my rulebook.

Final Thoughts

From an honest perspective, we bloggers only follow those blogging tips that make sense to us and those that we know that work for us. Therefore, it is only fair that I blatantly reject those that I strongly disagree with.

In my blog post, This Is What I Think About Blogging, I pointed out to my readers that blogging rules are not set in stone; they are really guidelines (Which any blogger is free to follow or disregard).

Are there any blogging tips circulating on the internet that you disagree with?

If your answer happens to be, “Yes,” please tell me all about them via the comments section of my blog.

And, as always, thank you for reading!

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