One of the first things a blogger will do when faced with the dilemma of growing his or her blog is research. As you search, you realize that you keep coming across the same advice over and over again. This may lead you to believe, " if so many people are vouching for the same piece of advice, then it must surely work, right?" Unfortunately, the answer in some cases may be "no."  Here's what wont work with regards to blogging.

“Focus on short & sweet blog posts”

There’s nothing wrong with posting longer blogs, and there is no magic number of words that you should be aiming for. This should be your rule of thum: use the words you need to tell your story (or to get your point across). If that ends up being 350 words, fine; if it ends up being 100 words, that's alright as well. Just make sure that your prose is tight (no confusing tangents or extra words) and that you try to break up the length with white space.

"All it takes to succeed is quality content"

This only works if you already have a large reputation. But most of us don't, so we need to market our content and patiently build a following. Blog marketing can easily be more time consuming than writing posts, and that's ok. Great content takes time to write. It starts with a killer headline and ends with a powerful call to action. Throw in the content that needs to go between the two, and a mini-quest for the perfect images, and you’re looking at a LOT of time and energy devoted to creating great blog content.

Writing great content takes planning. Great content not only imparts knowledge but it solves your readers’ problems. It gives them viable solutions. Take some time to go through your blog analytics. What are the people who are landing on your blog searching for? What answers are they looking for? I’ve found that the posts I write based on conclusions from my search analytics are the ones that remain evergreen and keep the traffic flowing in.

"Images aren't important."

Images draw people in. They arouse curiosity and drive home key points. They clarify complex ideas. Furthermore, if you artfully handle images and captions, you will create SEO and conversion opportunities

"Promote Your Content On Social Media"

Of course, social media is a huge source of traffic for many blogs, but here's the problem: When you or your company is just starting a blog, and you have 100 followers on Twitter and 100 likes on Facebook, social media will not work for you. Yes, you'll share your content with your followers, but how much traffic will you get? Probably not even that much. Instead, when you're first starting your blog, focus on building your email list and reaching out to likeminded bloggers individually by email. Introduce yourself, and just say hello. Don't invest time in social media until you have built a base audience.

“Be Controversial”

There is one trending thought nowadays – that you have to shock people and to never fear to be original. Unfortunately, here is some blogger's way of being original and striking in their posts: they expose views that oppose almost everyone else’s; they are offending, rude and ultimately unpopular. Eventually it makes no sense to shock people through a radical view on things or through an offensive stance. While it could get you some great traffic at first (people do react to such posts), numbers won't stay up for long. No one draws anything pleasant or helpful when reading controversial opinions that barely have anything to do with the reality. If you want to find popularity through controversy, make sure you can defend your views and reply with sound arguments to any opposing question. Otherwise, when readers comment and contradict you, you will just make a fool of yourself, like many 'controversial' bloggers have.