You check your traffic every day but all you find are tumbleweeds blowing across the landscape of your blog. Well, there’s a reason you’re not building readership. Your blog sucks. Most do, and all for the same reasons. The same 7 reasons.

1. Your articles are boring – Remember that thick book we all have to go through during high school? Hint: Textbooks. Aren’t they the most boring thing we ever come across. Why? There’s no life in the writing. It’s robotic. Write like you talk or you’re going to make your readers fall asleep. Yep, just the same way we did back then.

2. Your blog revolves around you – Unless you are a celebrity, no one cares about what’s been going on with your life. Instead of personal ramblings, you’re way more likely to gain loyal readers by sharing tips that can help solve their problems.

3. You’re repeating what others are saying – So what’s the whole point of reading your blog? I’m not saying you shouldn’t gain insight on what to write by reading other blogs, but always make sure to put your OWN two cent on the matter. Not a blatant copy paste of other peoples work.

4. Oh no, not your favorite music on auto-play! – So as soon as I access your blog, the ukulele string quartet starts playing? I’d rather hear an accordion band. Don’t add music to your site. Half the people won’t like it and the other half will find it’s a distraction.

5. Nothing but a wall of text – I’ve written many articles on what makes a good articles. Not once is this point missed out. It’s that important. And remember to put some relevant pictures to go along with your articles. It may take some time to find one, but it’s well worth the effort.

6. You post once a month – A week, that’s the most it will take for your readers to remember your blog no matter how good and funny your articles may be. This is not true for seasoned blogs, but definitely true for new blogs. I recommend three posts for every new bloggers out there, to keep the momentum going.

7. Your blog design is lame – I’m sure you heard of the importance of having a good first impression. That applies to blog, unfortunately. If your design is unprofessional and clumsy, chances are, they are not going to read what you have to say. It’s sad, I know.

What’s your opinion? Have any to share?

Nik Imran is the author of IMakeABlog, a blog that provides guide on how to make a blog. If you have no clue as to what constitute a blog, you can check his article where he answers the most basic question in elaborate fashion. What is a blog?

Blogging success is dependent on the amount of subscribers your blog has. In short, a blog without a good number of subscribers is bad for business. So be sure to use these simple tips to gain more subscribers today.

1. Have clear focus – Unless your blog has a clear focus, it’s going to be hard to convince people to subscribe. Think of it this way – They won’t know what to expect from your post. If you write about ten different topics, the chances are likely that they are going to pass on subscribing to your blog.

2. Write valuable content – Content is king. No matter how your blog design rocks, if your blog’s articles do not offer value to your readers, they are most likely not going to visit your blog again. In order to grow your blog, offer as many value to your readers.

3. Publish new posts frequently and consistently – If you pay attention to the blogosphere, most big blogs post on a daily basis. This is not a coincidence. When you post daily, the chances of your articles landing the interest of readers will increase. Secondly, it will indicate that your blog is active. I’m not saying that you should post daily as it can be very time consuming for individual bloggers. Try to seek a minimum of 3 posting a week for the best visitors – subscribers conversion.

4. As few steps as possible – People are lazy in general. If your rss subscription requires more than 2 steps, the chances are likely that your readers will hesitate to subscribe. Make sure you make it as easy as possible for your readers to subscribe.

5. Encourage readers to subscribe at the bottom of every post – Apart from having an RSS icon and email subscription form above the fold, it is also important to place them below each single post. Why? Because right after people finish reading your articles, they will look for something to do next, and subscribing to your blog is a good option. Additionally, if the article they just read was really good, they will be on the right mindset to subscribe and receive more of your articles in the future.

6. Use an email subscription form – For most bloggers, an email subscription form will convert better than a simple “Subscribe via email” link. That is because Internet users are used to seeing those forms around, and typing their email address there is quite intuitive. The top of your sidebar is a good spot to place one.

7. Run a contest – Contests are very popular on the blogosphere. If you have a somewhat popular blog, in fact, it is not difficult to raise some prizes and create one. By making subscribing to your RSS feed a requirement to participate, you could quickly boost the number of subscribers that you have. If you want to control who is going to take this action, use the email subscription method.

8. Use icons to offer subscription on the most popular RSS readers – One practical thing that you can do to reduce the number of steps required to subscribe to your feed is to use RSS reader specific icons (e.g., “Add to Google Reader” or “Subscribe on Bloglines”). Just analyze the most common RSS readers among your subscribers and add those icons to the sidebar.

Nik Imran is the author of IMakeABlog, a blog that provides guide on how to make a blog. If you are interested in creating a blog, be sure to check out his guide on how to choose domain name.

I’ve seen many bloggers who gave up or seriously slow down their activity because they feel like they are not getting anywhere, when in my opinion they are on the right track. Hopefully if you are doing the right things and making progress you will recognize your growth and accomplishments, but not all do. Here are 10 signs that your blog is on the right track.

1. Growing subscriber count – I’ll admit I made this mistake with my first blog. I expect subscribers to grow huge within 2 months. When I said large, I’m talking about at least 10k subscribers. That’s not realistic. It does happen to bloggers, don’t get me wrong, but it’s rare. As long as you have a growing subscriber count, you’re making progress.

2. Increasing numbers of inbound links – Links determine your search engine rankings. It makes it easy for people to find your site. There’s only two ways you can increase your links. It’s either you write long useful articles or you do guest blogging. Personally, I recommend both.

3. Increasing Numbers of Valuable Comments – If your blog is receiving a decent amount of thought-provoking comments, that is a good sign that people are reading and paying attention to you. Comments are the lifeblood of blogs, and those that have a lot of valuable comments from readers become even more useful for readers.

4. Increasing visitors and pageviews – Many bloggers are stats junkies. While growth in traffic isn’t always representative of meeting or surpassing your blogging goals, it certainly isn’t a bad thing. There are many channels for you to market your blog and increase your visitors. Guest posting and making use of social media is some of the ways to reach out to new readers. If you make use of these channels, over time your blog stats will increase as more and more readers visit and subscribe to your blog.

5. Consistent posting – Consistent posting is perhaps one of the most important element to blogging success. For new bloggers, in order for your visitors to pay attention to your blog, it’s vital for you to provide new articles for them to read. If your blog looks dead, the chances are, they won’t subscribe. If you are posting consistently, you’re already one step ahead of the vast majority of bloggers.

6. Improving quality of articles – Though this may be a subjective issue, but I think most bloggers can make good comparison through going through their older posts. If the quality of your articles improves overtime, which it should, you’re on the right track.

7. An increasing network of bloggers – Making friends with other bloggers are crucial for blogging success. You can hardly find any successful bloggers that does not start off making connection with other bloggers. This is because; you are more likely to get links and blogging opportunities from this connection, not to mention comments.

Nik Imran is the author of IMakeABlog, a blog that provides guide on how to create a blog. If you are interested in building your own blog, check out his guide on how to install wordpress.

Do you have a checklist of things to do when you log into your admin section of your blog? Sometimes, we tend to forget things. Due to having busy life schedule, this is very normal for everyone. When it comes to blogging however, there are many things that we should try to keep in mind. I must admit that I tend to forget some of this myself, so hopefully this post will also serve as a checklist to go through once in a while.

1. Backup your blog regularly – I don’t think I can stress this enough. If there is one thing you should take from the tips listed here, it’s this one. And I speak from experience. Waking up early in the morning only to find your blog crashed and you have no backup data, is like having your soul mate killed right in front of you, and there is nothing you could do about it.

2. Link to older posts – Linking to older posts can increase your traffic and search engine rankings. Additionally, it can also give more information for the readers that want to go deeper into certain subjects. If you have been blogging for months already you probably have a vast and rich archive, so use it.

3. Network – Ask 10 successful blogger and at least 7 of them will answer you this; “The key to blogging success is networking with other bloggers”. Sometimes, who you know is more important that what you know. There are many ways to network. Things like commenting on other blogs, guest posting and befriends them in social media.

4. Proofread – If you browse around the blogosphere you will notice that the vast majority of the bloggers do not proofread. Confusions with its and it’s, your and you’re, and their and they’re are very common. So the next time you finish writing a post or article, remember to proofread it.

5. Answer to comments – When you started blogging I am pretty sure that you got excited with the first few comments that arrived. You would even take the time to answer to each of them individually. That approach helps to create loyal readers and to build a community around them. Even if your blog is much more popular now, do not neglect the comments. At the very minimum you want to answer the people that post direct questions to you.

6. Answer your e-mails – E-mails can get overwhelming at times. I’m not going to lie to you and say I reply to all of them. That would be wasting too much of my time. However, I always make sure to reply to any genuine inquiries and questions that relate to my blogs topic. It might be the difference between an upset visitor and a faithful reader.

7. Upgrade WordPress – Common sense, yet many bloggers are reluctant to upgrade their WordPress software. Some people deliberately choose to use older versions. That could be possible if you know what you are doing (i.e. if you know to patch the security holes).

Nik Imran is the blogger of IMakeABlog, a blog that provides guide on how to make a blog. If you are interested in creating a blog, be sure to check out his guide on how to choose domain name.

Business blogging can be exceptionally rewarding. When done correctly, a successful blog can bring attention to your business, can attract new customers, and can turn your current customer base into the type of fans that companies like Apple, Netflix, and Ben and Jerry’s have: people who will not only buy your product or service, but evangelize it to their peers. Of course, like anything, there is a right way to go about starting a business blog and a wrong way.

1. Writing for search engines before humans – You can always tell when a blogger discovers Search Engine Optimization for the first time. Suddenly titles don’t make sense, keywords appear in posts for no real reason, links to other pages on the blog that are irrelevant to the post keep being used. Learn SEO – but keep your readers as your #1 priority.

2. Putting off starting a blog – When it comes to blogging, I firmly believe in a shotgun approach. Instead of worrying too much on finding the right moment, it’s better to take action straight away, and plan later.

3. Not reaching out to new readers – Successful blogging involves time, effort, and reaching out to fellow bloggers / publishers / authors (whatever you prefer). Intead of waiting for readers to find you, reach out to them by guest posting, writing comment on other blogs, participate in forum discussion and so on.

4. Having a domain name owned by a weblog service – Having a weblog address ending in blogspot.com, typepad.com, etc. will soon be the equivalent of having an @aol.com email address or a Geocities website: the mark of a nave beginner who shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

5. Neglecting your article headlines – No matter how good your articles are, if you have terrible headlines, the chances are, your article won’t be read. Why? Because that’s the first thing that catches the readers attention.

6. Not posting regularly – Think about the blogs you read on a regular basis – how many of them publish only sporadically? Most successful blogs put out new content at least a couple of times per week and try to stick to a regular schedule. Consistently putting out quality content will keep readers returning and over time it will help you build a community and turn your customers into fans.

7. Assuming it’s easy – Blogging takes real effort and man-hours into organizing thoughts and even coming up with schedules as to what you’re writing and when you’ll publish the posts. Taking into account the networking, reading, and commenting on other blogs takes time, it’s not something you should do half-heartedly.

New bloggers are bound to make mistakes, one way or another. Although theoretically speaking, it’s best to learn from other people’s mistakes, but reality is always harsher. The best thing you can do is to avoid as many mistakes as possible, and don’t be harsh on yourself when you make one.

Nik Imran is the writer of I Make A Blog, a blog that provides guide on How To Make Blog. Besides providing steps on setting up blog, the blog also provides blogging tips.