Creating a blog is a great way to advertise your company, showcase your services or just promote your name. However, the great blog experiment may have failed for you thus far.

What are some of the most common blog mistakes new bloggers make?

1. You expect people will visit.

Why? What would draw people to your blog in the first place? Just because it’s on the Internet doesn’t mean that anyone cares. The Internet public may gravitate towards household names like Yahoo or Google, but when it comes to your great new blog, you’re competing with millions of others. You may have great content lined up for your blog, but no one will ever know until you get to networking, advertising and calculating a keyword strategy.

2. You expect people want to read great writing.

This could be true, depending on your subject matter and audience. However, chances are you are speaking on a fairly common subject and want to start some friendly interaction. This does require altering the scientific or academic voice and using a more casual style of writing. You have to imagine conversing with a large number of contemporaries, rather than giving a one-sided lecture to students.

3. Journal Entry #1131

Not a very captivating headline is it? Many blog writers neglect the headlines and focus on content. While it’s a good idea to write interesting original material, don’t underestimate the importance of the headline. This is what captures a reader’s interest and determines whether or not he or she will read the whole article. Try to use punchy words, strong conversational sentences, questions, numbers in the title and any other technique devised to grab attention.

4. You expect blog writing will be a much easier project than it turns out to be.

Blog writing is difficult and takes a major time commitment. It’s a carefully crafted discussion, one deserving of thorough research and commentary. You may find that blogging as an extracurricular activity (in addition to your full time job) doesn’t leave you much time for fun, family time or reading. Don’t start on a project you haven’t quite figured out yet. Plan ahead and be ready to give blogging your all.