While good blogs are dime a dozen, there are often common but easily fixable mistakes that bloggers tend to make.

Last week, we focused on creating blogging strategies that will help brands gain trust and rapport with consumers.

Below are some of the common faux pas you should avoid when blogging:

Not having an email link or contact page. Sometimes, readers might want to contact you, but not leave a comment on your blog. If you are worried about getting your email address spammed, a simple contact page can prevent that. Otherwise, you can write your email address in this form: "name at domain dot com". This will prevent spam bots from finding your email address.

Blog without a contact. While most bloggers give an easy and accessible way to either contact them via email or leave a comment, I noticed that some blogs do not allow the readers to leave comments. This sends a bad message to customers because it seems like the company does not want to hear from its customers. More than anything else, blogs are communication tools. If a blog is used only to share information but does not allow communication between the company and its customers, its success and popularity will suffer. Many blogs that are without a comment feature have low page rankings and are also likely to have less returning visitors.

Not having an RSS feed. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and it is a way for people to read a blog without always having to visit the blog. They can view the entries through websites such as bloglines.com and feedster.com. RSS feeds are extremely important because most people will read your blog via RSS feeds. You are more likely to pick up regular readers if you have an RSS feed.

Not updating often enough. The more often you update, the more popular your blog will become. Many blog readers like to read their favourite blogs on a daily basis. If you do not blog regularly, you run the risk of losing readers.

Not linking to other blogs. Always have a blogroll. If someone is interested in reading your blog, he or she would likely be interested in reading the other blogs you like to read too. Blogging is all about community. Linking to other blogs also sends a positive message to customers because it shows that you are involved in the community.

Not using trackbacks
Trackbacks are also important. You can find a trackback link at the bottom of a post, usually next to the permalink and comments link.

Trackbacking is a system that notifies a blogger that another blog has written an article about one of his or her blog posts. For instance, if you decide you wish to write a post about someone else's blog article, you would use a trackback. If you were writing a trackback article, you would go to original article and search for their article's trackback URL. You would then insert that trackback URL into your own blog management system trackback notification system. When the new article is saved with the trackback URL, a notification to the original blog will cause that blog's management system to insert a link to your post to appear on the other next to the original article. The blogger will also receive a notification usually by email that someone blogged about his or her blog, and sent a trackback.

It is a great way to see what kinds of other blog posts your posts have inspired. Trackbacks are also an excellent way to start a community, find blogs to read and get people to read your blog. They are often looked at differently than comments, and they have certain advantages over leaving comments. They are a non-intrusive way of letting a blogger know you are interested in what he or she has to say. You can interact and acknowledge interesting blog posts this way. Using trackbacks can be highly beneficial for the traffic you see on your blog.

Use blogs as an additional channel to effectively to communicate with your target audience and generate value for them.

Gary Gopinathan is founder and director of G.S. Quantum Multimedia (GSQM) .