9 Biggest Cardinal Sins In A Blogging Website – And How To Avoid Them

So you want to create a blogging website. Perhaps you came across a website that was a champion of Affiliate Marketing. Maybe like this one? You decided you’d like to give it a try.

The main purpose of a Blogging Website is to write about a niche you are passionate about. With the idea of helping others meet a need or solve a problem using a product or service in your niche. And earn some money in the process.

How do people find your articles? And when they do, what makes them read your content and follow your call to action?

In this article I am not going to answer the first question. I have already written articles on this website on how to do that such as. Click this title to get to that article.

How To Get Started In Affiliate Marketing Steo By Step.

There is so much material and training written about setting up ones online marketing business and the steps necessary to get traffic to your website. When visitors do click your articles, don’t assume they are going to read what you wrote.

If you have the following design flaws, your visitors will click out faster than they clicked in!

I shall go through each of these flaws from the most to least important. At the end of each I will provide brief tips on how to avoid these flaws and thereby keep your visitors engaged long enough to make a buying decision.

Your eventual goal should be for them to click your affiliate link to get to the store’s website that you signed up to be an affiliate of.

1 – Hard To Read Font

An important objective of your blog post is for your visitor to read it easily. After all, it is your content that is the focus of your website. If you select a font that is fancy or difficult to read because of too small font size, you will be defeating this objective.

Choosing the wrong color and shade of the font can also make it difficult to read.

The other mistake is to select a theme where the gray shade of the font makes it difficult to read. Most themes do not permit changing the default font in their free offerings.

The solution is to select a theme where the default font shade of gray is dark enough to be read easily. Alternatively, pick a theme that allows the user to have control on the font used.

We erroneously think that one needs a colorful font contrasting with a background of a different color to stand out. This actually is a distraction.

If you study blog websites of entrepreneurs who are extremely successful, you will notice that the colors of choice are a dark gray font on a white background. And the size of the font makes it easy to read sitting at the normal distance from the screen.

This is especially important to mobile devices where your website visitor may be trying to read your blog outdoors.

Do not make this first Cardinal Sin of making it difficult to read your content.

2 – To Many Distractions

What is your primary purpose of your website? If it is to engage your visitor to help them make a buying decision about the product or service you wrote about. Why dazzle them with flashing ads and special offers etc.?

Avoid this Cardinal Sin so that the focus is on your valuable content.

You stand a better chance of achieving your objective if there is a feeling of calm on your web page so that your visitor can focus on your content.

The only distractions that makes sense is one add your visitor to your Email list. And another that invites the reader to share this article in their social media. I’d like to know if you found the social media pop up distracting. It is easy to get rid off. I show what it looks below:

You can collect Email addresses in several ways. The most effective way is to use a pop up form that offers your reader something of value for free in exchange for their name and Email address.

Your timing for this pop up is critical. It should not appear too soon. Or too late on the reading process. I suggest timing how long it takes a normal reader to read your first two or three paragraphs before presenting your pop up offer.

It is extremely important that this offer is relevant to the content. Usually it will be an eBook of some kind. The intention of this post is not to discuss this area, but I will share a couple of examples with you.

If your site is to help your reader learn how to create websites, then share with them an eBook on how to get their website indexed on Google as well as ranked high in the search engines.

If your passion is skin care and nutritional supplements, offer an eBook on a study about how our food supplies are short in the nutrients we need, and that taking quality supplements can restore that balance that is important to maintaining good health.

Always include a disclaimer that the data is not intended to diagnose or cure diseases, and is for information purposes only.

I think you get the idea. Use your imagination to think what freebie would entice you to provide your name and email address in exchange for.

3 – Using Large Blocks Of Paragraphs

The rules for writing blog posts are quite different to writing an essay for an exam. When you come across a blog post that has large paragraphs, what do you do? You may get bored and leave that website.

Never use more than three lines in a paragraph. If Possible, limit it to two. Here is the reason.

Your content should deliver valuable information in every sentence and paragraph. You want your reader to quickly pick up what point you are making. It is easier to absorb the information fed in small bites. By using small paragraphs, it is far easier to achieve this objective.

That doesn’t mean NEVER using paragraphs that extend to four and five lines. Use common sense. If you want to keep your reader focused on a specific point and every sentence in that paragraph ties into each other, then do that.

Also, keep your sentences short and to the point. If you find a single sentence runs into two or more lines, edit it. This is one of the easier Cardinal Sins to overcome.

4 – Poor Use Of Headings And Sub-Headings

When you start to read a blog post do you try to get a feel for the overall message by scanning the headings and sub-headings first? In fact, a common practice is to use these to create a Table of Contents.

Consider your blog post as a mini book. And each major heading is the start of a new mini chapter. This is your tool to organize your content logically where you take the role of a tour guide. Each heading is like a new destination. They help your reader navigate through your content logically and easily.

Don’t make this Cardinal Sin of letting your visitor get lost!

Just like it is a good idea to use short paragraphs, it is also wise to limit how large each section under a heading is. And it is OK to vary the size of each section. Strangely, this helps to keep the reader engaged.

5 – Ineffective Use Of Pictorial Aids

The worst sin is if you use no pictures or graphics at all. Have you come across blog posts that are all script? What did you do? Did you grit your teeth and continue reading, or did you click away from that website?

It is OK for a novel not to have pictures. Because they create pictures using descriptive words.

You have heard of this saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. Use pictures and graphics strategically to enhance and add emphasis to your story. What comes to mind when you see the following picture? Does it shout out Coronavirus?

Include pictures of people when possible. For example, if you are discussing a product, not only show pictures of the product but also show pictures of people using that product. It adds a personal touch to your article.

Where you place your pictures is important. Here are three easy options to avoid making this Cardinal Sin.

1. A fairly large picture between the heading and the first paragraph.
2. A smaller picture that is to the left or right of the paragraph.
3. A larger picture before the next heading.

Try not to be repetitive in the pattern you use in their placement. And not all sections need to have a picture if it is not necessary.

6 – Lack Of Customer Engagement

Have you found blog posts where the author doesn’t ask you a single question? They write as if the focus is on them and how good a job they are doing helping you. May not be in words, but in their writing approach. How does that make you feel?

To me that would border on arrogance.

One of the most effective ways to engage your reader is to write in a conversational style. Another would be to use story telling. Both can coexist together. And ALWAYS ASK QUESTIONS.

When you do, place a thought-provoking picture after the question to encourage your reader to pause to answer your question in their minds. This also stimulate the brain

You may have heard that one effective sales technique is to ask a series of pertinent questions where the correct answer is always YES. Your customer get into the habit of saying yes. Hence, when you ask for the sale, their minds will make them say yes more often than not.

Not engaging your reader is one of the worst Cardinal Sins. You do not want to miss the opportunity of concerting your visitor into a customer.

7 – Poor Relevancy

It can be very off-putting when you read material that is not related to the keyword that prompted you to select that article. Or, it doesn’t provide you with the complete information you need to make a buying decision.

Writing content that will be valuable to a potential customer means you need to do the research. You must know exactly what your target market is looking for.

Then you have to become an expert on that product and deliver a thorough review as if you actually owned the product yourself and used it.

Do not make this Cardinal Sin of not being relevant to your reader.

When you are a new to affiliate marketing, you cannot afford to buy every product you review. Nor should you. When you evolve to have a large following and significant sales, things change. You may want to find a company that will either give you or lend you that product to use and provide a review.

The ideal situation would be to buy the product yourself so that you can truly give an unbiased review. Like Consumer Reports. However, that is unlikely to happen.

Hence, you will have to conduct your research online. And that takes time and dedication. This may be hard work, but in order to write relevant content you have to do this. It’s part of your JOB. Even though you are your own boss.

8 – No or Confusing Call To Action (CTA)

OK you’ve done a smashing job with your content. You’ve followed everything I have mentioned above. Perhaps you used additional tips you picked up elsewhere.

The article is dotted with affiliate links and banners. You feel confident that after having read your article, your visitor will click one of these links and go on to purchase the product. And hey, you’ll earn a commission.

But will they? Will your reader do what you expect? Without realizing it you could be making this Cardinal Sin.

We are all humans. We need a little push to take that action. At the end of your article, you MUST encourage your reader to take action. Not only that, you have to instruct your visitor that they need to click that ink or banner to get to the affiliate company where they can purchase that product. It may seem obvious to you, but not for everyone.

The action you want may not always be to gain an affiliate sale. It may be more important to you to capture their contact information. This leads me to the 9th and final Cardinal Sin.

9 – You Fail To Capture Contact Information

Not everyone will take action now and click that link to purchase that product. If they leave your site and decide to purchase that product later, why would they return to your site?

The chances are they will have forgotten about you and go to whatever site they find at that moment they are ready to purchase. Or they may go to the company directly, thereby denying you of a commission.

Don’t expect loyalty. Unless, your website gets well-known to be remembered. And even then, there is no guarantee that visitor will come back to you.

This shortcoming could easily have been rectified by using an Email Marketing system like aWeber or Mailchimp I talked about an Email Capture pop up form for this purpose in the 2nd section above.

If you are using WordPress for your website, you can get a plugin to create an Email Capture mechanism to work with an Autoresponder system like AWeber and Mailchimp. Of course, you will need to subscribe to these systems in order to automate the process of adding the contact information to your database.

Once there, you can use these systems to do your magic of regular, timed automatic sending of Emails. Email marketing can be a lucrative form of online marketing. It may take time to set this up. Make sure you do and not make the Cardinal Sin of leaving this out.

How to do this effectively will be a subject of another blog post.

There you have it. Have you made any of these Cardinal Sins in your writing for profit?

What Next?

You nave a website designed for blogging about topics in a niche you are passionate about. How do you get visitors to click on your valuable posts within your website?

This is called traffic, If you already have at least 50,000 visitors a month on your website, you are doing something right. Continue to do that. Follow the tips I have provided. And watch your business soar!

What if you do not have 50K visitors a month. What if its less than 200 or so? What are you going to do about growing traffic? You have to become really good at Internet Marketing to be successful in creating and profiting from an online business.

Will you carry on reading if I provide you a solution?

OK! Great!

Internet Marketing Is Not Intuitive

Read that title several times. You cannot wing it and expect to be successful any time soon. There is a lot of information available online on how to do Internet Marketing, especially on YouTube.

Tell me, what is your plan to search for all the training you will need to become a successful Internet Marketer? How will you pick the online Internet Marketing Guru who will take you to the promised land?

Let me share a secret with you. When people offer services online for free, how do you think they are able to earn money for their business? After all, they created their YouTube Channel or their Blog for a purpose. It is to earn money for themselves. And they do that by educating others and are able to be get compensated in the process.

The FREE materials offered do offer good value mostly. But they are only a small piece of the puzzle, They almost always invite you to join their premium training course either for a monthly fee. Or using an a-la-carte method where you pay for individual training modules as you need them.

If you take this route, sure you could become successful. But it also can be confusing and very time-consuming. The chances are you will hop from one guru to another and hope for the best.

Basing your future on just hope is not the way to go.

One Stop Shop For Setting Up Your Online Busines

What if you could get everything you needed at a one stop shop? That included getting trained for every aspect of harnessing the Internet in your online business.

As well as all the tools you need to create a website that helps you avoid the 9 Cardinal Sins listed above.

Plus a source where you can buy your own domain for your website and have it hosted on a secure and fast server.

I’m not going to list everything you need here, but it is a lot. You can get all of this at a company called Wealthy Affiliate. It has been in business for over 15 years. More than 2 million entrepreneurs have taken their training.

I am going to offer you the opportunity to check out Wealthy Affiliate at no cost to you. Join our community of entrepreneurs as a starter member using only your name and Email address.

Starter Member For Free

Starter members are provided with just enough exposure to the training and tools as well as the community to help them decide if they wish to become Premium members.

If you tried to stitch together all the training, tools and services Weathy Affiliate offers in one place, it would cost you several hundred dollars a month in fees. Wealthy Affiliate charges its Premium members a low monthly fee of $49. There are no upsells. And once in, that fee is guaranteed for the life of your membership. Even if there are future price increases.

Once you become a starter member, you can remain as such for as long as you wish.

Since Wealthy Affiliate teaches its members to become experts at affiliate marketing, it only makes sense that it offers its own Affiliate Program.

For example, if you decided to join as a starter member using my links, and later upgraded to Premium, I will earn an affiliate commission.

Do you know that as a starter member you also have the option to market the Wealthy Affiliate Program and earn a commission too? Granted, starter members can earn only half the commission of a Premium Member. Don’t you think that is still amazing?

You will not be alone. I will be there to guide you for one whole week. After that week you will have to fend for yourself. Until you become a Premium Member. I hope you feel that is a fair deal.

However, once you learn how easy it is to create your website, set it up to rank high in the search engines, and promote it through Social Media and Email Marketing, I feel confident it won’t be long before you upgrade to Premium.

I spoke earlier about the importance of a call to action. Here is my call to action to you. Click the banner below and see what wonderful things await you! See you on the other side.

Cheers.

Edwin