So you’re gonna turn ‘pro’ in 2006. Join the club. Just make sure you avoid these big, bad traps first…

Trap 1 – You’ll start reading far too many other blogs.

Don’t get bogged down in what’s happening across the web. Take an interest, yes, but don’t let it rule your working day. Get rid of at least half of your RSS subscriptions. And check the rest no more that once a day. Don’t spend hours browsing other blogs. And quit analysing the hell out of what other people have written. Just get your head down and concentrate on developing your own stuff. Try to forget that other blogs exist for at least a few hours of the day. There are no rules, so do things how you want to do them. Be yourself. Find your own path. Wax on. Wax off. That’s what’s important.

Trap 2 – You’ll worry about speaking your mind.

Don’t. Just don’t. Who cares if someone disagrees with what you say? Who cares if your point of view is controversial? Who cares if you get edgy comments from people who think differently? Or from people who claim to know more than you? Remember, there’ll always be someone who tries to be louder, brasher, bolder, and more knowledgeable than anyone else. Including you. And it’s generally these people who fall flat on their arses first. So speak up. Be honest. Be brave. And get your point out there.

Trap 3 – You’ll spend half your time trying to keep up with someone else.

Think about it – there’s very little chance that you’re the only blogger covering your particular topic. And there’s every chance that they’ve got more time to spend writing posts than you. It’s a fact of life. So why try to keep up if you know it’s not going to happen? Writing more posts just to match the pace means that all you’ll do is dilute the quality of your content. It’s a downward spiral, I tell you. But I’m not suggesting you give up. However, what I will suggest is that you think about how you might develop your own angle, view, treatment, or tone of voice on your particular topic so that you stand out in other ways. Just do it sooner, rather than later.

Trap 4 – You’ll get pissed off that your blogs aren’t making much money.

Before that happens, ask yourself these questions. Did you start your blog with the intention of making money? And if so, how long ago did you start it? If it was more than 12-18 months ago, and you’ve spent all that time working hard on generating content (and monetizing it), and you’re still not reaping any rewards, then yep, it probably is time to stop. But if you’ve only just started because you’ve heard that people can make six figures, or even if you’ve been blogging for up to six months, it’s going to take time before that cash-ometer starts filling up. And lots of it. In some cases, it might take up to a year or two. Patience is definitely a virtue.

Trap 5 – You’ll want to start more and more (and more) blogs.

Hey, everyone’s an entrepreneur – why go out and get a real job in the real world, when you can do it all in your bedsit wearing your spiderman pyjamas? So c’mon everyone. Let’s all set ourselves a target of launching at least one new blog every week in 2006. Why? Because writing blogs is easy, isn’t it? A couple of posts a day on 5, 10, maybe 50 blogs and in 3 months, you’ll be loaded, right? Wrong. The trick is to limit how much you take on. It’s all subjective, but the more you stretch yourself out over multiple blogs, the less time you’ll have to spend on each. And I’m not just talking about writing them – you need to market, monetize, and maintain them, too. Plus, if you might have a family, a real job, and a bunch of other stuff that all puts huge demands on your time. I know it’s tempting to launch as many sites as you can, but make sure you know your limits.

Once writing becomes boring, or it feels like a chore, or it takes up too much of your time, you’ll lose interest. And the whole lot could sink without trace almost as quick as you can click that Wordpress ‘5 minute install’ button.