A Blog Anniversary: Learning From Your Past Mistakes

eMom’s Wendy Piersall write an endearing post recent, “The Top 10 Blogging Mistakes I Made in My First Year”. In it, she admits her failures and the things she should have done differently. Here’s one I love:

I blogged 7 days a week

When I first started, I hadn’t found my rhythm – nor did I have any experience to let me know that business blogs take a break on the weekends. 😉 I also hadn’t figured out how to future post – so I felt obligated to write 7 days a week.

I rarely write on the weekends now – and if I do – they are future posted. If I’m going to write about work-life balance, I’d better practice what I preach, eh?

The ability to use future posts makes it easy to work ahead so you can travel, work, and enjoy some life beyond blogging. I find that I come back to my blogs refreshed and recharged, and definitely ready to keep on working for you, my readers, with a smile on my face.

Engtech, now Internet Duct Tape, shares “What I learned in my first year of blogging” and offers some other tips you might want to know and admire.

Two key things I learned over time were to avoid the echo chamber and stop repeating news stories with a slight spin, and to write new content instead of always linking to other people and blockquoting. Being able to link to other people is the greatest strength of the Internet, but if that is all I want to do then there are better tools than a WordPress blog (like StumbleUpon or Tumblr).

…One of the dangers of having some small success with blogging (or any activity) is letting it go to your head. I’ve been guilty of it in the past, and I honestly don’t know that I would have gone this far with //engtech if there wasn’t the ego validation of seeing that “hey, people are reading what I write.” Searching for that validation can be self-defeating and lead to a dilution of ideas as you try to look for mass appeal. The goal is to write and created something that some people will love and other people will hate; aiming for the middle ground of mild contentment always leads to something forgettable.

Along with a list of accomplishments, Engtech adds a not so great accomplishment: a gain of about 10 lbs in weight. Welcome to the joy of blogging. 😉

As I head for my second year anniversary with WordPress.com, I, too, am contemplating the lessons I’ve learned over the past two years. Now, I’ve been blogging before it was called blogging, so the lessons won’t be as “big” as those who are new to blogging. Still, I’m thinking about it and wondering how to honor my second year here.

Last year, I did a month long review and summary of the events and blog posts over the past year. I vowed not to repeat another month long blogging series, but time glosses over the pain and suffering (and hemorrhoids) of such life events and I did a month long series on WordPress Plugins in January. See, even the experts never learn.

So I’m not sure what I will do this year, and you might have some suggestions. In the interim, Wendy points to an interesting blog writing project by Daily Blog Tips on Mistakes Bloggers Make, which is, in itself, a way of reviewing past lessons learned on our blogs and helping others not repeat our mistakes.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.