The worst blogging advice we have received

You must move from the darkness into the light if you want to be successful as a blogger

The army of aspiring-to-be-successful bloggers are constantly looking for ways to make it big.

We often scan through articles upon articles instructing us on how to become successful by 'experts' who claim to have the surest and most effective secrets, tricks and tips for us.

Perhaps the most widespread of these pieces of advice is: "If you write original quality content, traffic will come by itself and you can also boost it with the use of social media and some basic Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

If this were true, how come there are millions of frustrated bloggers out there and only few very successful ones?

The answer is simple, the advice just does not cut it. There is a need to review the prevailing common wisdom about what it takes to be successful from the perspective of the blogger giving out useful knowledge or information to the public to actually meeting their needs and solving problems.

If you want to be a successful blogger, you have to solve people's problems or meet their needs. Linda Ikeji is the most successful blogger in Nigeria because she meets the need of Nigerians to be updated with the latest news and gossip about celebrities. The nearest bloggers that are successful in Nigeria follow the same trend be it Ladun Liadi, Olu Famous and more.

I am not claiming you have to rely on gossip to be successful but I am saying you must meet a need, be it available job information, news and tips about how to use phones, computers and other gadgets, healthcare, security, entrepreneurship etc.

The blogging community calls this creating your niche but I see this as limiting. It makes it seem like our readers are robots that can only implement what they have been programmed to do. Human beings are dynamic, if you are looking to engage a lot more people, your blog has to be dynamic too.

It is when you have achieved the right balance between creating unique content and providing solutions to people that social media promotion and SEO will be more effective and worth the effort.

Feel free to engage me on this post. Let me know whether you agree or not.