This guest post is by Leanne of IronicMom.com.

Although Shakespeare wouldn’t have known words like Twitter, social media, and blogging, he no doubt would’ve embraced these new terms. After all, he coined an estimated 1700 words and had a lot of fun playing with language.

But what do you get when you take Shakespeare’s words out of context and apply them to blogging? You get sage advice that has—in its own way—survived more than 400 years.

Here are words from the Bard, applied to blogging.

On the length of posts

Brevity is the soul of wit.
(Hamlet)

Translation: Keep posts and paragraphs short.

On posting too infrequently

I wasted time, and now time doth waste me.
(Richard II)

Translation: Post regularly, or your blog’s energy and following will wither away.

On finding images

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.
(Hamlet)

Translation: Ensure your image is related to your content; if it’s not obvious, use a caption make the connection.

On the importance of blog design

The apparel oft proclaims the man.
(Hamlet)

Translation: Appearance is important. If you wouldn’t wear 35 accessories, don’t put that many on your blog.

On content

More matter, with less art.
(Hamlet)

Translation: Photos and images are important, but fantastic content is what keeps readers returning.

On avoiding controversial topics

Boldness be my friend!
(Cymbeline)

Translation: Don’t be overly afraid of divisive topics; they can attract and engage readers. Deal with them maturely, and invite readers to disagree.

On commenting

They do not love that do not show their love.
(Two Gentleman of Verona)

Translation: Ensure you read and comment intelligently on other people’s posts. Blogging is about building relationships, and—if you’re genuine—commenting is the best way to do so.

On dealing with hostile comments

I am not bound to please thee with my answers.
(The Merchant of Venice)

Translation: Hostile comments are rarely fun to deal with. It’s usually best to remember that you don’t have to please; instead, aim to critique the idea, rather than the person.

On being preoccupied with statistics

All that glitters is not gold.
(The Merchant of Venice)

Translation: While stats do indeed glitter, they don’t tell the whole story of a blog’s success. Check them, use them to improve your blog, but don’t let them distract you from writing and building community.

On verifying your sources

Lord, what fools these mortals be.
(A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

Translation: Don’t immediately trust what other people have put on the Web. For example, there are several quotations from seemingly reputable sites that are attributed to Shakespeare; cross-referencing revealed the quotes aren’t all his.

On the need to proofread

What’s done can’t be undone.
(Macbeth)

Translation: Think before you hit publish; ideally, leave your post 24 hours and reread it again.

On helping other bloggers

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.
(The Merchant of Venice)

Translation: Find someone less established to help out; this is the spirit of blogging.

Leanne’s motto is “If you can’t laugh at yourself, laugh at your kids”; you can read her attempt to survive parenting at IronicMom.com. Leanne also co-created the website, WordBitches, where she and two friends use sass to motivate each
other to write 500 words each day.

This guest post is by Chris, The TrafficBlogger.

Depending on your situation as a blogger, hope could be your ticket to success, or cause you to quit blogging within the month. Dictionary definition-wise, hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had, or that events will turn out for the best. Think about how this could be a great or terrible thing for you as a blogger.

False hope (bad!)

There are two very different types of hope for online marketers—and all bloggers need to start thinking of themselves as marketers if they want to be successful.

The first type of hope is a false kind. It is the kind of hope that makes you think spending hours online was worth it because you earned a few pennies for your efforts. A false sense of hope is not only dangerous, but it also wastes your time and, more often than not, your audience’s time as well. I’d rather you failed at something miserably and attempted to make changes, rather than have mediocre success and consider it a reason to keep on failing.

False hope is so dangerous because it leads to complacency and plateauing.

False hope was something that pervaded my every effort online when I first started Internet marketing three years ago. A typical example would be AdWords and affiliate marketing. I would set up ads on Google AdWords for a few dollars each and have the accumulated traffic sent to websites designed to sell a particular product.

Since I was seeing some money come in from this effort I felt that I was successful, but I was actually failing horribly. For every $5 I spent on AdWords advertising, I made $7.

As someone just starting out I felt that a few dollars each day was successful and this feeling led to a false sense of hope which made me complacent instead of aggressive in my internet marketing endeavors. Nowadays I spend $1 and make $30, which is a far cry from the good old days of sitting back and thinking I knew everything about making money online.

Motivational hope (good!)

Failure is a great thing. It’s a reason to have hope, not to lose it.

It is through failure that we achieve success. As a computer programmer, I know what it’s like to find every possible route that doesn’t work—until eventually you track down the solution to your problem. This is how you should view failure: as closing off another dead end, which, in turn, helps you get closer to the correct answer.

When you fail, have hope in the fact that you have saved yourself from the false sense of hope I mentioned earlier, and replaced it with the motivational hope that will one day see you achieve financial success through your efforts.

Don’t take mediocre success as good enough. Keep failing until you get it right.

Taking your failure and spinning it into a motivational tool is part of becoming successful in life—not just online. Failing can push us further towards success, but we have to first recognize failure, and then convert it into motivation. The secret to doing this is to never be satisfied with your own efforts, and therefore to work constantly to improve upon your strategies. Personally, I am never satiated with the fruits of my labor and this forces me to constantly look for a better way to do what I do on a daily basis.

In three years I managed to create a system for blogging that actually builds relationships, captures leads, and sells products consistently. That’s three years of constantly working towards improving upon my own system and being my own biggest critic.

A great example of this is in my posting style. Look at the way you first started blogging, and compare it to the way you do today. Personally, I use more bulleted lists, bolded key points, big headings and concise content. I interact with my audience on a daily basis with not just posts, but social media and a few thousand words per day. I also work hard to get feedback and suggestions from my audience through various collection methods.

Rewind to three years ago? I was happy writing a paragraph a day! Only once I changed my attitude from being excited about my performance, to realizing that I was failing, was I able to begin improving my blogging business.

Are you a hopeful blogger?

The good kind of hope keeps you swinging for the fences, tearing down bad ideas, and trying out new ones until you tweak and split test to the point where even you are happy with the results. A person who is motivated by failure will always be looking to improve upon their current business strategies.

Are you this kind of person, or do you sit back and relax because you feel that you are doing “well enough”?

Chris writes for The TrafficBlogger, as well as writing books on how to drive traffic to your blog.