I’ve been talking with a lot of writers lately about social networking. I’ve been asking what are their biggest problems and stumbling blocks.

The answers have been varied. However, most have a common theme. As I’ve asked more questions and gotten to know each situation better, I’m finding the same mistakes being repeated.

These common mistakes are:

• Doing nothing or very little

People hear all these things they need to do. One person tells them they need to be on Twitter, another says LinkedIn, still another tells them they need a blog. They don’t know how to do any of it, and they have no idea where to start. They become overwhelmed and do nothing. › Continue reading…

Lately I’ve been asked lots of questions about blogging. A lot of these questions have to do with getting visitors to the blog. As I’ve been checking these blogs, I’ve been seeing the same simple mistakes. Are you making these mistakes on your blog?

Not putting your name on your blog

I’ve seen several blogs with clever titles. There’s nothing wrong with that. However, you are branding your name as a writer. You should have your name in the header of your blog.

You want to build a relationship with your readers. They want to have a relationship with a person—who has a name. It’s hard to have a relationship with a clever title.

Put your name and your picture on your blog.

Using the default permalink for post titles.

If left to the default, your blog pages will look something like www.mywonderfulblog.com/?page_id=395

WordPress numbers your blog post. The good news is that each separate post is another page on your blog. The bad news is that the page number doesn’t give you any branding advantages.

It’s best to set your permalinks correctly before your first post. When you change permalinks, the links to your existing posts will change, unless you use a redirect script or plugin. However, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

If you set the permalinks to show the category and/ or your blog title, you can highlight your keyw

ords. This will bring you visitors who find your blog while doing web searches for your subjects.

To make a more attractive and useful URL for your posts, in your WordPress blog to to Options/Permalinks.

You will have several choices. The best is to select Custom Structure.

In the box, type /%category%/%postname%/

This will give you a more search-friendly, better looking link for your posts.

Not testing links

I’ve seen people promoting links to specific blog posts. That’s a very good thing to do and will help with your page ranking. However, when I’ve clicked on some of the links, I’ve received an error message.

If you are promoting links to your blog or links in your blog posts. Check out the links to make sure they are working properly. Folks might try your links once, but if they get an error, they may not return.

I will continue this series on blogging. There are more mistakes I want to highlight and advice I want to give you. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, what are some mistakes you’ve seen on the blogs you read? What questions do you have about your own blog?

Leave a comment below, and I’ll answer in the comments or in another post.

Write on,

Lynn

Do you have your own blog?  If you do, are you making the most of it? If not, check out the new blogging challenge from @WritingSpirit, who brings us #writechat every Sunday on Twitter.

One of the best things you can do to advance your writing career is to create your own blog. A blog that you own and control (like this one) is your home on the internet and the hub of all your social networking activities.

If you are just  getting started, it’s all right to host your blog on a third party site such as blogger or WordPress.com. However, you want to move to your own site as soon as you can. › Continue reading…