Do Not Make This #1 Fatal Blogging Mistake

by Robb Sutton

There is one fatal blogging mistake that I have seen most beginning (and some experienced) bloggers go through. At some point in time with their blogs, the blogger decides that it would be a great idea to start talking about blogging on their blog about gardening. The typical mind frame hits that hits the following thought process: “A lot of bloggers follow my blog, so it must be a good idea to talk about my other passion as well! Besides…I see other bloggers have success with talking about blogging…so why can’t I?!”

This is a trap! Let’s walk through it a little bit so you can see why you shouldn’t talk about blogging (or advertising rates, statistics or anything else off topic) on your blog about gardening…

The Blogger With Blinders

Horse with Blinders On - Blogging BlindersBefore you ever started a blog on your given subject, you had a passion for your niche. You bought products related to your niche, talked to your friends about it and got completely immersed in the atmosphere. One day, you came across blogging as another way to release that passion on the world and now you are making a little bit of coin at the same time. It is a beautiful thing and one of the main reasons I love this form of passion outlet and business building.

But you fall into a trap…

You just found another passion that you want to talk about so you start talking about it on your gardening blog. Like a horse with blinders on, your view of your favorite activity/subject matter is now skewed through your new found, exciting passion of blogging. While you may think that there are bloggers following you on your gardening blog that would like what you have to say about blogging, there is one fact that will never change.

Even bloggers go to blogging blogs to read about blogging and gardening blogs to read about gardening (or any other niche).

When you start going way off topic on your blog, you are not only putting off your current readers who have no interest in blogging, but you are also putting off your readers that do blog! It is a double edged sword that cuts your blog to pieces. If you are going to go slightly off topic and try to expand your subject matter. Writing about “How to have the greenest grass on the block” would be a much better topic to dive into as it will strengthen your brand and expand your offerings.

Another Harsh Fact For Bloggers That You Should LOVE!

Want another harsh fact that you should absolutely fall in love with is the #2 reason you should never talk about blogging on your blog about gardening?

98% of people want to consume the products and services you create, not create their own.

What do you think the ratio of Wal-Mart shoppers is to business owners in the United States? Statistically, it is almost immeasurable. For the blogger, that is a great thing. That means there are more people out there that want to help build your business than become your competition. So…why do you want to teach them how to do the exact same thing on your blog about gardening?

There is an underlying desire within blogging to help others blog (why do you think I started this site!), but there is a time and place for it. If you really want to help people with their blogging or get them started blogging, you need to either do it privately or on a different site. Keep your brand and content focused for true success and leave the talking about blogging for blogs that are focused on that subject matter.

Oh yeah…1 more thing…before you run off starting a blog about blogging because you have also gotten blinders on that are telling you that is the only way to make money online…the highest profit, biggest revenue generating blogs I know…have nothing to do with blogging. They just never talk about it…and you can take that to the bank.

Resist Image by gwen | Horse Blinders Image by аrtofdreaming

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13 comments

Aaron Mielke May 13, 2010 - 10:23 am

Ouch!

😉

Interesting stuff, and it makes sense. If I got to a mountain biking blog, I want to read some reviews or latest news, maybe even find a good deal…not read a post about blogging.

Point taken, lesson learned.

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Robb Sutton May 14, 2010 - 6:39 am

It’s all good! We have all had that temptation at one point in time.

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Jillian May 13, 2010 - 11:00 am

I’ve been wondering if I fall into this trap. My blog is about making money online, which is kind of a wide arc. Maybe I’ll pare things down a bit as I go. 🙂

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Robb Sutton May 14, 2010 - 6:40 am

That is a wide arc! Are you writing about making money online by blogging or just in general? You might want to nail down a real purpose and then expand over time instead of trying to tackle everything at once.

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Srinivas Rao May 13, 2010 - 11:23 am

Robb,

This is something that I wrestled with. I have a self help blog, and I found that I was writing about blogging from time to time only to realize my audience of email subscribers is interested in self help, and not blogging. So, I’ve been conscious of limiting my articles on blogging to once a week or to use them as guest posts on other blogs.

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Robb Sutton May 14, 2010 - 6:41 am

It’s interesting how that works out isn’t it?! Keep up the great work man…you are doing some really cool things.

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Jarrod@ Optimistic Journey May 13, 2010 - 12:30 pm

It all comes down to staying true to your topic. I’m in the field of personal development/optimism and I follow a lot of people who write about blogs. ie- Robb Sutton but I use that information to learn not to inspire me to write about blogging on my Personal Development site.

Thanks for honing in on this Robb You’re helping a lot of people!!

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Robb Sutton May 14, 2010 - 6:41 am

Thanks Jarrod! I on a mission to try to help as many as I can.

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Richard Scott May 14, 2010 - 9:22 am

Great points. That is something I won’t do. Mix my niches. It wouldn’t feel right. It wouldn’t look right. It would only confuse people and they would say WTF! lol I have been thinking about a blog about blogging, but I don’t think I could come up with anything unique, and anything that 5000 other blogs haven’t talked about at some time or another. I’ll stick with what I know and what I know best. 🙂

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A Sitting Duck May 16, 2010 - 5:38 am

Hi Robb,

Because it takes ages to make an animation I blog about “How to go viral” to fill in the time and keep the traffic running.

Should I just stick to illustrations and tweet in-between instead?…

Thanks

David

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Joe Boyle May 16, 2010 - 12:44 pm

I agree. Staying on tune with your niche is the absolute key to getting anywhere. Although you said not to post one or two off topic posts, I believe it is okay to occasionally do so. I, however, believe that when people, as I have seen, go ahead and pick out a domain name like “bloghelpforfree.com” and blog about golf are putting themselves at a complete handicap.

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alex May 16, 2010 - 6:16 pm

And on that note, if you are going to be blogging about blogging, best to actually have one or two successful blogs so that you have real life experience to talk about and not reprocessed ham that appears on a lot of these how to blog blogs. (not yours of course Robb!)

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Kathy May 20, 2010 - 6:52 pm

I’m a humor writer, so I can sometimes get away with blogging about blogging if I “funny it up.” Then it still fits my niche.

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