As someone who has been blogging for several years, I know how easy it can be to start slacking off on my blogging duties. But I also realize that if you want to be a successful blogger, you have to keep working at it, because as soon as you get comfortable, another blog will pop up to try to take your place and steal your readers.

So, to help out myself and my fellow bloggers, I’ve come up with some of the ways we tend to slack off over time. By identifying these dangerous mistakes, hopefully we can all avoid them and continue to grow our blogs.

1. Decreased posting frequency—When you’ve been writing on a daily basis for years, it can be difficult to keep up the pace. Over time, a lot of bloggers start to write less and less, because they’re burned out. I’m not saying you need to write every single day, but I am saying that decreasing your posting frequency can be a slippery slope that leads to you writing less and less until you’ve reached the point that you’re losing readers and your blog rarely gets updated.

2. Uninspired content—After writing hundreds or thousands of posts, it can be pretty hard to find fresh topics to write about. This can lead to rehashed, uninspired content that readers won’t respond to. The best way to combat this is to make sure you stay in tune with the latest news and developments in your industry, and you should push yourself to keep learning new things so you’ll have something new to write about.

3. Less blog promotion—When you first start your blog, you have to promote it like crazy just to get people to read it. Over time, your readers start helping you promote your blog by ReTweeting your content, submitting it to voting websites, emailing it to their friends, etc. However, that doesn’t mean you’re promotional duties are over. There are always more readers to be had, and you need to keep working to spread the word about your blog.

4. Forgetting to moderate comments—If your readers’ comments take days to get approved, they’re going to eventually stop commenting. Blogging is supposed to have a conversational element to it, and to capitalize on that, you need to moderate your comments on a regular basis.

5. Not taking the time to respond to comments—Speaking of comments, approving them isn’t enough. Now, as your blog starts to grow, you’ll start getting more and more comments. Responding to them all can be time-consuming, but you should do your best to be active in your comments section. This helps to build relationships with your readers, keeping them coming back.

Have you ever slacked off on blogging? Share your experiences by leaving a comment.

If you’re a blogger, then you’re probably always on the look out for easy topics to write about so that you can build more content on your blog. The more content you have on your blog, the more potential you have for increase traffic and subscribers.

So, how do you get content for free you might be asking? Well, there are quite a few ways, but in this post I’ll reveal one. This is exactly what I suggested to one of my clients over a year ago. And today, he has more traffic than he can shake a stick at. In the near future I’ll even reveal some more ways to get content for free. In the mean time, let’s talk about this proven method first.

First thing, you need a blog. If you don’t have a blog… install one or have someone do it for you. Try to match the blog theme to your regular site theme. Quite honestly, it would be helpful if you already have an established site or blog, because getting this free content is going to come direct from the people who visit your site.

If you don’t have a source of traffic, then you’re going to need to find one. If you have a lot of friends in an online community, social network, or forum, that can work too. This group of friends or people you know, all need to share the same interest. An example would be gardening.

Now basically how it works is like this, you need to send out an email or instant message or group message to all your friends within your network or online group. I am sure you can now see what already having a blog or website plays to your advantage. But, once again, if you don’t already have a site, it’s ok… the important thing to have is a large group of friends.

The email that you’re going to send to your group is more of an announcement letting them know that you’re going to be running a large QnA on your new website, and that they are invited to participate.

You can further explain that their participating will earn them traffic to their own website over time. In order to participate, only two things are needed. They need to ask you a question and provide a lot of details or explanation, and secondly, they need to give you permission to publish their question on your website. After that, you have free content for your blog.

Now, you might be wondering about “Answers” to the questions being asked. This part is simple. At the bottom of the post, encourage others to use the comment form to supply their answers. You can also explain that answering questions can help boost traffic to the person’s website who answers the question. If all else fails, bite the bullet and answer the question yourself.

The key to remember is to explain to the group that you’re contacting is to “Include Details” in their question. You want them to explain everything, or at least provide you with about 250 to 500 words. Also, because you have raw material being sent to you via email for free, you can now afford time to edit the content and shape it up a little bit and even do some SEO on it.

All in all, most people don’t understand the value of content like we do. It cracks me up when I see people texting each other or using instant messenger. I say to myself, I sure wish they would do that on my blog! I love free content and even crazy instant messenger chat content has some value to it.

What are some other things you can think of to get free and unique content? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Over the years, WordPress has quickly become the most popular open source publishing platform online. All this popularity appeals to hackers. Learn how to keep your WordPress blog secure.

Keep WordPress Updated. First and foremost, if you want to keep your WordPress blog as safe and secure as possible, keep it up to date. WordPress makes this easy for you to do by providing you with ‘one click’ automatic updates. Also, warning message will flash on your dashboard letting you know that your blog is out-of-date.

Limit Your Plugins. While plugins are pretty cool, they can also cause a security risk. Many plugin developers aren’t very skilled programmers, and sometimes they can write code that opens up security holes in your blog. Also, some plugins can create conflicts within your database and cause your blog to even crash. If you find a plugin that you like, you should do your research. Read what other people are saying about the plugin first. You may find that you pass on quite a few plugins after reading what others have said about them.

Usernames and Passwords. You should change and even delete your default username ‘admin’ to something different. If you have been using the default user for awhile, you will need to import your posts to the newly created user before deleting. Your password should be very complicated. Don’t worry about forgetting it. As long as you have your email address included in your profile, you can easily have the system generate a new password and email it. Change your password often, and seriously… make it very hard to figure out. Use a mixture of uppercase / lowercase letter, numbers, and even strange symbols.

Web hosting and Server Software. This is something not many people think of. Even if you’re being proactive against attacks, if your web host isn’t, then you can easily get attacked simply by their neglect. Make sure your web host is using current software. If you’re a HostGator.com or SEOHosting.com customer, you can count on your server software being top notch.

Backup, Backup, Backup! You should make daily backups of your server as well as your WordPress blog. If something bad happens to your blog, your host provider can provide a lot of help if you have a backup copy of your blog. Most server software, such as HostGator.com’s and SEOHosting.com’s include backup software.

What are some things that I missed? What else can be done towards keeping WordPress safe?