Guest Speaker: Chris Garrett

Liz left a comment on my blog about bloggers who talk down to their readers. It got me thinking (as Liz’s comments do). I don’t think it was aimed at me but at the same time don’t want people to think I believe I have all the answers.

I firmly believe we are all learning, and should make every effort to. We all have experiences to share. Experience is gained through doing things wrong as much as getting things right. Sometimes I think we learn more from goofs than successes. I expect we have all made some mistakes that others could avoid.

The biggest blunder I have made quite a few times is switching blog URLs. My sites have broken links through switching domains, changing hosts or changing software platform Whatever the cause the end result was breaking the paths people were using to find me. In the early days it meant broken bookmarks and links. More recently having to start over with zero feed readers. You should always make the effort to keep consistant URLs. If necessary redirect the old to the new.

Another major mistake was at the launch of performancing. I posted too much too fast. Readers couldn’t keep up with it and I burned out. At times I was posting four long posts a day. Our readers would have been just as happy with one day, perhaps more so. Yes when you launch a blog it is important to have a good archive of posts but this was overkill.

My most recent mistake was going off on a self-righteous rant. It’s not my style. I can’t even do it very well. There are very few occasions where I regret posting, even fewer where I go back and change a post once it has gone out to feed, but this one didn’t sit well with me at all so I edited it. My lesson here was to never post angry.

What blogging blunders have you made? Share your “shame” in the comments …

Thank you, Chris!
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Visit Chris’ Blog Chrisg.com where he keeps us all thinking straight on the ideas of new media –Me “Liz” Strauss
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Let’s open the Q&A . . .

I’ll go first, my second week at Successful Blog, I asked a programmer with limited SEO to help me do a simple series on search engines. I had no idea what I was talking about, and didn’t realize that his ways were no longer current. I learned a lot about SEO, negative feedback, keeping cool under fire, and why you should stick to what you know.

Who’s next?

During the Virtual Conference today, you can take $100 off registration to SOBCon 07.