We’ve all learned numerous lessons from our parents over the years but today I was thinking about how I can apply those lessons to blogging. This is a list of everything that, as cheesy as they may sound, are still true.
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1. First impressions are key

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How many times have we been told that first impressions are key? From the first day of school to the first job interview, it has been pounded into our head that looks are essential. Iron your pants! Comb your hair! As frustrating as it is to be constantly nagged about looks, when it comes to blogging, first impressions truly are key. When a new reader visits your site it takes them just a few seconds to decide on whether or not to stay. That is why you need to make your blog as clean and professional as you can - as soon as you can. It would be a shame to lose out on repeat readers and subscribers simply because your blog doesn’t look nice or your content is cluttered.
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Go ahead and take however many hours it may require to clean up your blog and make things look sleek and sharp. Take the time to carefully write your ‘about’ page and take the time to organize a straightforward ‘advertise’ page. Make your ’services’ page plain and to the point. If you can afford it, get yourself a custom blog template. If not, find a free theme that works well with your blog’s niche.
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2. Mind your manners

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For most freelancers, dealing with clients is a daily routine that must be tackled. As bad or rude a client may be, the old rule still holds true that you must mind your manners. Never mistreat a client or forget your thank you’s. Picture this scenario:
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You run a pizza delivery service. You’re delivering a couple of pizzas to a customer one evening. You get to their house and it turns out that they are complete jerks. They tip poorly and they don’t say thank you. You get so frustrated with them that you start swearing at them. Then you leave their house, no big deal. However little do you know that the customer you just served up a nice batch of profanity to is a big corporate man. The next day at work he tells everyone about what horrible service your delivery company has. Boom - you just lost tons of potential customers.
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Ladies and gentlemen, the exact same principle holds true on the internet. If you treat one client poorly you are inviting that client to tell everyone they know to not use your services. That one client has the potential to turn away countless other jobs from you simply because you were a jerk to them. How can you avoid this? It’s really simple and easy - use your manners!
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3. Be honest and straightforward

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Nobody likes having unwanted surprises. Especially when it comes down to money. If you can’t be honest about your prices or your rates and end up throwing out a huge figure at the end of a job, your clients will be angry and frustrated. All it takes is a straightforward approach to doing business - be honest with your prices.
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Money aside, honesty is important for bloggers for two reasons. First, honesty establishes a stronger connection between you and your readers. If you invite your readers into your life and interact with them on a personal level, you can be sure that they will become repeat readers and most likely subscribe to your feed. Second, if a reader doesn’t feel that you are being honest with him or her, they will start questioning what else you may be holding back from them. This is a major turn-away for readers. If they can’t connect with you they will surely leave your blog.
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4. Don’t worry about what happened yesterday - worry about what will happen tomorrow

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As bloggers, it is inevitable that you will have a bad day sooner or later. The trick is to just forget about how bad yesterday was and start focusing on how you can make tomorrow better. Instead of trying to figure out why a post wasn’t successful or why you didn’t get as many visitors that day, start trying to figure out how you can write the next great post and get the most visitors your site has ever had.
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5. Sleep on it

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Artist’s block, writer’s block - we’ve all had it. Sometimes the hardest thing to do as a blogger is trying to figure out what to write about. Sometimes inspiration will hit you - but 90% of the time you will find yourself sitting in front of a blank screen with nothing written on it and several hours gone. What can you do? Sleep on it. There is something about the human brain that helps us solve problems while we sleep. Our brain likes to solve problems! Most of the time, by simply sleeping, you can get a creativity boost that will help you crank out your next killer article.
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6. Don’t procrastinate

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Just like in school, procrastination is never good. Often times it will land you a bad grade. The same is true when you are writing articles for your blog. If you wait until a matter of minutes is left before you need to have that post written you will rush through your writing. When you rush there are guaranteed spelling or grammar mistakes as well as just poor writing. Simple as that. If you expect a post written in 10 minutes to hit the front page of Digg, you’re dead wrong. A professional and creative post requires time and planning.
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7.Stay organized

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When you are dealing with data on the computer, it is so easy to become unorganized. However, with so may tools and programs being used to optimize our computers to keep our files neat and tidy, it is becoming less and less of a problem to stay organized. This doesn’t mean that the computer will do everything for you. I take a couple hours ever week to go through my hard drive and I start filing my different documents into more organized folders and categories. This makes me more productive in my freelancing and web design work because I am not scrambling through my hard drive trying to find that one missing document.
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I would recommend that you devote a couple hours every week to cleaning up your computer and making sure everything is accessible and easy to find.
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8. Keep your room clean

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Ah, keep your room clean. One of the worst rules in the house. If you relate this rule to blogging though, you will find that a clean room will boost your creativity and get those creative juices flowing. A clean work environment will make you feel more organized and structured. Sometimes a little structure in your blogging career is all it takes to really become productive. It is structure that helps us keep our clients in order and manage our different jobs. Structure and a clean room give us less time to worry about cleaning and give us more time to write and actually blog. The more time we have to blog, the more time we have to interact with our readers – the most important aspect of running a blog.
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9. Do your chores

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Blogging isn’t all fun and games. We all have duties and responsibilities that keep our blog up and running. These can range anywhere from writing a daily (or whatever system you use) article to visiting other blogs in your niche. It can range from reading the latest articles by other bloggers and responding to all your comments. If you truly enjoy blogging, none of these tasks should be an issue – it’s like a kid who loves eat on clean dishes being told to clean the dishes. However, they are still chores underneath and if you neglect to stay on top of current issues, keep your blog clean and running smooth, and interact with your readers, there will be no way to keep growing.
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10. Don’t bite off more than you can chew

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If you make a promise – keep it. If you promise your readers to write a post a day – do it. Sure, it’s not a big deal to take a few days off here and there, but generally you must stick to your promise. If you promise your client to have the job done in two days, you darn well better have it done in two days. Never, never bite off more than you can chew. If you can’t deliver – don’t make that promise. Even if you are just 1 day late on that great article, 1 day late on finishing a job for a client – while it may not be a big deal to you, it sure is a big deal to them and it will tarnish your reputation quicker than a wildfire.
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11. Plan ahead

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Don’t expect blogging to be a ‘do it when it needs doing’ type job. It is a job and it needs lots of planning. If you are going to be successful, you have got to lay out a game plan and you must have backup in case something happens. Take a weekend and write yourself 10-20 really great posts. Don’t publish them. If ever a day comes and you are just so busy with work, family, life, all it takes is a couple clicks to get that article out to your readers.
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Keep a calendar for your freelance work. Try to schedule your clients with a time cushion so that if one job turns out to be longer than you first thought, you already have that time buffer to finish it up without making another client suffer. If you can keep a calendar and organize your work so that there are rarely any issues, you will be so much happier in the long run. It will save you a lot of hassle of having to explain to clients why you can’t start working with them for another day and it will eliminate the stress of cramming in two jobs in one day’s time.
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If you have any other lessons you remember learning from you parents, please comment here and let me know. I would love to add your ideas to this list (with a link to you of course).
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