My readers may have noticed that I haven’t published many posts recently. It seems such a waste to not have great content for my readers being syndicated out through Twitter when there are so many quality bloggers around.
I get covered up in requests to publish guest posts, but there are serious drawbacks to accepting guest posts from just anyone.
What is publication ready content? I explain that in Common Blogging Mistakes: Editorial Guidelines for Bloggers. The main issues are:
- Images too large and not properly attributed
- Failure to fill in image title, alt-image, and description fields
- SEO fields not completed
- Not using header tags
I elaborate on those issues below. They are why there is not a great post on GrowMap every single day of the week:
BAD FORMATTING
Many word processing programs add all kinds of extraneous formatting that has to be manually removed. Yes, there are “paste as text” and “paste as Word” functions in WordPress, but they do not remove all of that formatting.
Especially bad is if you miss removing the underline function. That made my RSS feed stop working – and RSS feeds are why so many get to see the posts published here.
IMAGES
Many bloggers do not know how to add images or are unfamiliar with copyright issues.
Adding one image for them is not a big deal, but having to delete, resize, reduce, upload and fill in the fields for images takes a lot of time.
One image isn’t so bad. If a post has many images it is a major investment in time.
Bloggers need to understand the issues with image ownership.
See 29 Free Blog Images Sources: Where to Get Royalty Free Photos
HEADER TAGS
Many writers do not know what header tags are or use them incorrectly. Those who write in Word often bold or underline headings.
NEVER USE UNDERLINE. Bold is better than nothing, but you should really be using header tags.
The title of your post is <h1> and you should have one sub-title that is <h2>. The <h2> should contain your target keyword phrase.
You may have more than one <h2> but only for the most important headers. Any additional sub-titles are usually <h3> and sometimes <h4>.
Just highlight the text, and click on the drop-down that usually is defaulted to ‘Paragraph’ and choose the correct header.
If you don’t see a second line of options when you’re in your Visual WordPress dashboard, click the last icon that says ‘Show/Hide Kitchen Sink’ or use the keyboard shortcut Alt + Shift + Z to toggle it on.
GRAMMAR and SPELLING
If you have life experience and wisdom to share, having to edit your writing for grammar and spelling is no big deal.
Many of the best thinkers and those who know how to make money or run businesses are not very good at these things.
Even many famous authors can not write correct English. That is why there are proof readers and editors.
WRITING QUALITY
There are different kinds of writers. Some are good at researching and produce very good content worth publishing.
Best are those who have original strategies to share, but these are pretty rare.
Most of the requests I get to publish content come from writers who just aren’t good enough yet for me to publish their writing as is.
It can take longer for me to rewrite it than it took them in the first place – or than it would take me to write posts myself.
Great writing is based on life experience and practice.
If your native language is not English, you need to find a partner who will edit your ideas so that they are formatted the way a native speaker would write them.
If you want to make a living online, consider learning skills that do not require writing in English.
You might also consider writing for your local audience.
There is much work in social media, graphic creation, and other tasks that are in demand and do not require writing English.
If I were wanting to make a living I would learn a skill others want instead of trying to write.
