Why Being Perfect Can Hurt Your Blog

Blog Traffic Tips Weekly Newsletter

by Yaro Starak – The Blog Traffic King

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I just finished listening to an audio recording between Mike Filsaime and Craig Perrine about forming relationships with your newsletter readers.

Email newsletters, like this one you are reading now, are very similar to blogs. When done well a blog or newsletter will help the author form a relationship with his or her readers. I believe this is key for both successful blogging and newsletter writing.

In the audio recording Mike and Craig talked about making sure you appear like a human and not like a robot. One interesting idea they had referred to the issue of typos – spelling mistakes – and I think this is just as relevant a topic for blogs as it is for newsletters.

ACCEPT IMPERFECTION

This situation happens to me regularly – I will write a long blog post or newsletter article in a flurry of creativity. The content will pour out of me in a matter of minutes and I’ll have a brand new article. Of course while the content may be good, often the grammar and spelling is not perfect.

I use the Google Toolbar to run a spell check through all my blog posts before I publish them, but often mistakes get through, in particular grammar or word selection errors, which a spell check will not pick up.

On many a time the first comment my new blog post receives informs me of an error in my grammar or word selection and I’ll have to go and edit it. Each time this happens I cringe a little but I remind myself it’s more important to be read than it is to be perfect. The fact that people are motivated enough to tell me about my errors is a good thing – they care enough to read my content thoroughly and even respond.

This may not apply to everyone but if you have an ounce of perfectionism in you, like I do, I bet there are times you have held back publishing something to your blog because you want someone else to proofread it for you. You don’t want anything going to the public with errors in it – it will look bad right?

It turns out this thinking could actually be wrong, especially in the case of blogs.

YOU CAN MAKE MISTAKES

We already know blogs are casual in style and represent the person and the personality behind the blog. Surprisingly, humans are well aware that they are not perfect and as a result they are suspicious when another human attempts to be perfect. It’s disconcerting – it feels like a lie – so it can in fact be a good thing when you make mistakes because your imperfection enhances your rapport with your imperfect readers.

We love it when others appear just like us, and let’s face it, who doesn’t make mistakes! In a medium like blogging it is okay to make the OCCASIONAL typo.

In the audio Mike talked about an instance in one of his email newsletters where he tracked a link. He found when he spelt the link incorrectly (like “Cilck Here”) it was clicked three times more often than when it was spelt correctly. The imperfection caught the eye of the reader and as a result was clicked more often.

I’m not suggesting that you deliberately make mistakes in your blog posts (although it is worth testing if you are that way inclined), but I don’t want typos or the desire for perfection to stop you from writing regularly to your blog. Be human and your human readers will establish a stronger relationship with you. Just ignore the few grammar nazis who enjoy telling you about your mistakes – afterall they are just showing they care about you.

Here’s to your blogging success,

Yaro Starak
Blog Traffic King

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