1. Keyword Spamming Many new users tend to spam their keywords throughout the article, while this has the potential to increase their Google rank, it also poses a chance to get banned from Google's ranks as well. Use your keywords, but in intelligent and effective places.



2. Too Many Links

While linking to other sites, blogs, and articles is great for creating a fan base and community, too many links can draw attention away from your article. If you have too many links, the reader will be too busy on the 12 links in your article, rather than the CONTENT of your article, thus creating boredom and possibly losing a reader.

3. Ad Farming

Yes, monetizing a blog is about profit, but having too many ads is like having too many links, it will draw your reader away from the whole objective of your posts and possibly disinterest them with the fact that there are ads all over your blog. Try to distribute your ads evenly, and with AdSense, customize the colors to blend in with your layout.

4. Spamming, or Splogging

Quite possibly the number 1 taboo of blogging, spam-blogging. Spam-blogging is stealing content from other Blogs in an attempt to get traffic, considering someone else wrote it and got traffic for THEIR Blog. This is very low, and quite frankly cowardly. If you cannot write your own intelligent and insightful content, do not become a blogger. Splogging is the exact same thing as plagiarism. The stealing of someone else's intelligent property and presenting it as your own. If you reference someone in a post, that's fine, but be sure to link to their blog and/or post as well as crediting their work/excerpt in your post.

5. Shorties

Shorties, as I like to call them, are stubs of posts. 2-3 paragraphs doesn't really constitute for a real Blog post, I suggest setting a 4 paragraph minimum to all your posts to guarantee that all of your content is meaty with information. If you have a Shorty every once in a while that isn't that big of a deal because sometimes a topic is too broad or too specific to write a larger post, just make sure you convey whatever point it was that you were trying to get across.

6. Topic Clustering

Topic clustering is a term used to describe blogs that have too many topics discussed at once. It is understandable if you have multiple interests and would like to write about all of them, but in reality, most people come to a Blog for a specific topic that interests them, so try to choose one main focus for your Blog. This can be helpful when trying to increase PageRank.

7. Bad Layout Design

Bad Layout Design can ruin even the most informative of Blogs. If the colors are too harsh on the eyes, for example, red text over a gray background, or neon green on a navy background, the reader will instantly be turned off of whatever your Blog is about and leave, it's that simple. Make sure your color scheme does not hurt the eyes and make sure all of your content is organized logically. If your reader cannot easily navigate to where they want to go, they will become frustrated and leave. It doesn't matter if what you wrote got the Pulitzer prize, if it's horrible to look at, it won't be worth it for the reader.

8. Grammar and punctuation

Proofreading your own work is one of the hardest things to do because in your mind, your way of writing is already set in stone, so your brain tends to overlook small errors because they've been made so frequently. Examine your posts carefully, make sure your ideas flow smoothly, and be sure to make use of transitions if you are switching topics or advancing a topic. I know this seems fairly elementary but you would be surprised at the amount of errors that can be found on many popular Blogs.

9. Content Flow

I know that we all have periods of time where we "just don't wanna'", but if you plan on operating a monetized Blog, you MUST CONSTANTLY ADD MORE CONTENT. There are no exceptions to this rule, I would recommend at least 1 post per day, if not 2 or more. Now remember, do not sacrifice quality for quantity! Don't write sloppy, uninformative articles for the sake of pumping out 6 of them, make sure you have new content all the time, and make sure it is relevant and well written.

10. Politeness and Responsiveness

Another rule that would seem quite elementary, but yet again gets broken all the time. If someone comments one of your posts or send you an e-mail, respond and be polite! Even if they were constructively criticizing, or even rudely criticizing! You must always show politeness and expediency when responding to your readers. You have to keep them interested, if they ask a question and get no response for weeks, what kind of active Blogger are you? That's multiple readers lost because you couldn't put in a few minutes to respond to a reader.

Hopefully with these rules here as a reference, you new bloggers and veteran bloggers alike can avoid making these mistakes and make profitable monetized Blogs. If you have any questions, comments, or just want to say hello, leave a comment!