Words that Damage Trust in Your Blog
These words may be correct English but nonetheless they make you appear like an idiot when you use them on your blog. Why? They have obviously negative or hidden meaning that influences your readers. Thus they damage trust in you and your blog or site.
- if - If this is true I'm probably not lying. Sentences starting with "if" sound awful but the "if" makes you sound strange even in the middle of a sentence. Why? Saying "if" means that you do not trust yourself. You are not writing the truth. You are not sure. The rest of the text only applies if...
- tips - Did you mean ideas, techniques or advice? Tips means only shallow advice, low quality techniques and stale ideas everybody knows already. Why not being specific? Tips are for waiters not bloggers.
- insane - What's even more amazing than awesome? It's insane! More and more bloggers try to outperform their peers by adding superlatives to their post headlines. Who wants to read about insane web design? Not me. When it's great, outstanding or fantastic say it but don't act crazy and call it "insane" just to sound better. Insanity is nothing to be proud of.
- basic/s - Whenever you cover the basics or write about the basic this or that it's either an excuse for not being an expert yet or just proof that you don't believe in yourself. Telling your audience that something is only basic means half of them won't read it at all. Nobody wants to share basics on the social Web. People you target with your basics would prefer to read "advanced blogging techniques" instead of "basic blog tips".
- daily - Do you really plan to blog daily, 7 times a week, even on holidays? Then don't call your blog Daily something. Otherwise the first day you don't publish a post you out yourself as a liar or at least unreliable.
- Amazon - Many people on the Web do not notice but I and other Web savvy readers do, whenever you add a link to Amazon in a post I know that you are trying to sell something to me and the link is an affiliate link you earn money on.
- Wikipedia - In a recent post someone on TechCrunch has written "according to Wikipedia". Wikipedia is no source you can cite. Wikipedia is just the lazy bloggers' source. Also, even in case the cited article is worth being cited, next week someone might have already changed it. Moreover it shows that you have no clue about that topic and had to look up Wikipedia. At least when googling do not click the first result and find another more reputable source.
- expert - Do you consider yourself an expert? Maybe you write that you are a social media or SEO expert. In most cases you aren't. When you have to proclaim yourself that you are you most probably aren't one. Don't call yourself guru, star or genius either.
Are there more words that damage trust? Tell me about them. I might add them to the post and will credit you as the source.
It’s amazing how many blogs I have read that violate almost every single one of these!
I wonder if there is a blog post out there somewhere that vilolates them all in one single post? I bet there is…
Hey Mike, indeed these mistakes are quite common. You can get away with them when you are TechCrunch etc. but for new or less known bloggers it may mean life or death.
I also wonder if a blog makes all these mistakes. Maybe I’ll search for all the keywords.
In conversation, I’ve found that whenever someone feels the need to say “Honestly,…” such as “I honestly didn’t think you’d want to come to the party” or “Honestly, changing your title element won’t make much difference to SEO” they are not telling the truth.
Why else feel the compulsion to preface your statement with honestly – is everything else you say dishonest?
I may not be so prevalent in blogging, but – honestly…
Hey Phil, yes you are right. It also sounds redundant or the other way around suggest that you usually lie if you have to stress the honesty in certain cases.
I like your opinion on the word tips and tend to agree with it:
“tips – Did you mean ideas, techniques or advice? Tips means only shallow advice, low quality techniques and stale ideas everybody knows already. Why not being specific? Tips are for waiters not bloggers.”
But there is a market in writing for idiots too. :) I’d be curious to see a test comparing two similar articles using tips versus ideas in the title (like Tips for Brewing Stronger Pale Ales vs Ideas for Brewing Strong Pale Ales, and see which would gets more clicks. Of course it depends on your audience, and I like to think us home brewers are pretty smart, so maybe we’d go for the ideas article.
Hi,
Blogging can definitely make or break our business. And I know, it’s not difficult to fall victim to those mistakes, so I thank you for putting this out. Some of us might be guilty of making some of these, but I believe it’s never too late to make that shift.
Thanks,
Judy
“According to Wikipedia.”
LOL!
That’s like saying “According to a wino.”