Blogging is a great way to spread your message across the internet in a fun and interactive method.
Blogging has become ever more popular in the digital world today.
Creating a blog is not as simple as you may think.
It does require you to follow the right strategies and know your game plan.
To tell you the truth, when I first started with blogging I did make a lot of mistakes and learned from them.
I am here to give you the right short-cuts and stop making those blogging mistakes.
So, below I am laying the 19 Blogging Mistakes you might be making today.
1. You Don’t Plan Out Your Blog
To be a professional blogger you need to get your thinking idea juice running.
A good blogger is always a creative thinker.
You should be constantly open to absorb new blogging post ideas, whether you are surfing the net, traveling, socializing with people at an event, or just about anything you do in your day-to-day life.
If you don’t know what you want to blog about it’s like driving an Uber cab without any direction.
So, keep that goal and strategy in place when you plan out writing your blog.
Having a clear blogging strategy is the most valuable asset for any blogger.
Knowing what you want and how you want to execute it will help you to stay focused.
2. Not Knowing Your Blogging Niche
Your blogging niche simply refers to the specific area of interest which you want to write articles about.
As a blogger, you should develop a niche that is in popularity and something which you are passionate about writing.
For instance, if a financial investment blogger is interested in wealth management, he should not waste his time and energy writing about Real Estate Markets.
I hope you understand what I am trying to imply here?
A Couple of points which you should take into consideration when locating your blog niche –
- You need to understand what your readers want
- You need to drill down to your niche level
- Selecting a niche after analyzing your competition
- Do that keyword analysis
- Follow a niche which you are passionate about and money will start to flow in (Passion Over Money)
3. You Are Not Being Consistent With Your Blog Posting Schedule
As I have mentioned earlier, blogging is challenging and requires you to be consistent.
For your blog to stand a chance of success, you have to be consistent with your blog posting schedules.
And I can’t stress enough how important this is for new bloggers.
Consistency has been referred to as the fundamental law of blogging.
Note: When I talk about being consistent with your blog posts doesn’t mean you will just throw in some garbage or unrelated post to your blog. You need to work on providing quality content to your readers. Provide a solution to something which will make your visitors come back to your blog occassionaly and be your loyal audience.
I like to stick to publishing 2 blog post topics a week.
You can even do it more.
It all comes down to your frequency level of blogging.
There’s some misinformation going around the net that you need to publish your blog post daily.
That’s not true!
The key to producing new content consistently is Planning.
When you start with blogging you need to plan out in advance what kind of content you want to write about for your upcoming blog posts.
Resource Article: The Best 2019 Content Calender Template to Get Organized All Year
4. You Are Not Thinking Like a Professional Blogger
My main purpose of having my blog is to serve a purpose, i.e. helping my audience know more about affiliate marketing, social media marketing, making money online, and how to run a successful blogging business.
All professional bloggers have a business plan.
As a professional blogger, you need to focus on the following –
- How your content will help other readers?
- How would you monetize your blog?
- Do you have a target audience in mind
5. Not Investing Your Time Reading Other People’s Blogs
Bloggers who run a successful blogging business are usually great readers.
This helps to expand their knowledge base and give them a better insight into various topics they want to blog about for their upcoming blog posts.
You should also invest your time reading other people’s blogs related to your niche.
This will give you a good foundation on the best ways to improve your blog and help you build a big list of followers that will make your blog a success.
6. You Are Not Focusing On Creating Attractive and High-Quality Content
Remember, a while back I mentioned focus on quality over quantity.
When you put out your content, the uniqueness, authenticity, and quality of your work will determine how your readers will rate your content.
It’s better to invest your time and effort to write an in-debt blog post that matters to your readers.
This may involve you taking time to do your research work, write, and edit.
Pro Tip: Its always a good idea to write your content around some trending topic which is related to your niche. This way you will attract more visitors.
It’s always a good idea to keep your content very transparent as this will help your audience to know you well and build trust.
Your readers will keep coming back to your blog to gain more knowledge and valuable insight.
Use some case studies about your experiences and then channel them into informative content.
7. You Are Not Using That Catchy Title
I can’t stress how important it is for you to have that Catchy Title.
The first thing visitors do when they visit your blog is to check your blog post title.
This is a very critical process before you start writing your next upcoming blog post.
A catchy blog post title helps to attract your reader’s attention and make them want to read your blog article.
If your article title is not strong and interesting, then you have already lost your reader’s attention.
8. You Are Not Inserting Those Relevant High-Resolution Images
Let’s be honest here, readers love to read a blog article having a few visual images in it.
This will allow your readers to engage better with your content.
Reading a full-text based article without images makes it very boring for your readers to read your blog content.
Images are used to draw your readers into the post itself.
It’s important to have an image that relates to your article and feature it prominently.
Note: Never insert images on your blog post having copyright restrictions. You may fall into bad trouble and a lawsuit could be filed against you.
You can use Unsplash or Shutterstock to download high-resolution stock images and use them in your blog post.
Shutterstock provides you over 70 million stock photos.
9. You Are Trying To Perfect Your Blog
Instead of growing a blog, many bloggers fail in this process by investing too much of their time perfecting their blog.
It also stops you from helping other people.
Especially, when you are a new blogger, you should try to avoid perfecting your blog.
No one expects your work to be the next masterpiece and it’s only achieved over some time when you become a highly experienced professional blogger in the blogging world.
If you are a perfectionist then you shouldn’t even think about blogging.
Remember everything takes time to be perfect and that Rome was not built in a day!
10. You Are Over Populating Your Blog With Too Many Banner Ads
There is a big misconception among many bloggers that if you put a lot of banner ads on your blog you will start making money from it overnight.
This is wrong!
Especially if you are thinking of placing a lot of banner ads in blog content.
This will irritate your readers and they will quickly realize that you are spamming your content with ads.
I am not against placing banner ads on my blog and even a few on my blog content.
But I do it moderately.
What will happen if you place too many ads on your blog?
Using too many ads may affect your search engine ranking according to Google Algorithm.
11. You Are Only Focusing On Writing Long Posts
It’s not always about writing those 1500 plus words blog posts.
Though, I am not discouraging you to do so.
But a lot of bloggers feel that most readers are always keen to read a lengthy content and then make the mistake of overlooking the quality of the content.
For your blog to be a success, focus on creating content that is simple but yet concise with a lot of relevant information.
Be straight to the point in a way that moves your readers to ponder and show what they read.
12. Not Doing A Good Job of Keeping Your Readers Engaged
For any blog to be successful you need to have two-way communication with your audience.
What do I mean by saying this?
Ensure that you interact consistently with your readers and with other bloggers who are interested in your blog.
Some simple ways of doing this are by replying to their comments on your posts and taking their suggestions and improving on it.
You should always reach out to other bloggers and people who have commented on your post.
Sometimes, I like to comment on other people’s blog posts and get their opinion.
To take it to the next level, you can always contact these bloggers directly and request them to do a Q&A session.
Pro Tip: You can conduct the Q&A session face-to-face having someone to record with a camera or a phone. If living in different locations, you can do a Skype video chat and record the entire Q&A session, using tools such as Camtasia
This would be a great PR exposure for growing your blog.
When someone comments on your blog post, you should always take your time and respond to them thoughtfully.
The same goes when you comment on someone’s blog post.
Don’t just comment by saying, “great post”, “awesome”, etc.
But it’s always a good notion to comment genuinely as to why you liked reading their blog post and how it has helped you get a few pointers across your mind.
I hope you understand what I am trying to say here :-)
13. You Are Skipping Out On Your SEO
Most bloggers make the mistake of skipping out on doing their blog SEO.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the critical tools in driving traffic to your blog and most blogs that are successful are SEO friendly.
SEO will make sure that your blog is optimized for search results so it can be ranked higher in Google Search Results and grab the attention of your audience.
Never underestimate the power of SEO.
Resource Article: 6 Best Ways To Increase The SEO Ranking Of Your Website
You should know each blog post that you publish utilizes SEO best practices.
If you are using the WordPress platform, then you should install the Yoast SEO plugin.
It’s free to install!
You should use the right keywords which you want to focus about in your blog content which should include the following –
- a descriptive, keyword-rich title
- your Header 1, Header 2, and Header 3 tags
- a focus keyword
- meta tags (which you can insert in your Yoast SEO)
The main point here is to keep your blog keyword-rich.
14. You Are Not Proof Reading Your Blog Before Publishing It
Before hitting that “Publish” button have you checked your final piece of work.
Most bloggers fail to do this process and readers can easily spot a lot of grammatical errors, punctuation errors, and so on.
Pro Tip: Always a good idea to read out your draft post aloud so you know what you have exactly written. Reading your draft post silently will not do the justice.
If you are not sure about fixing your content, I would recommend you to install Grammarly.
If you are using your blog on a WordPress platform, then you can install this free plugin.
You can use the free version or the paid version of Grammarly.
I like to stick with the free version!
15. You Are Not Inserting Those Links
Instead of just saying to your readers “Click Here”, it’s better to link specific keywords in your content to your other blog articles.
I call this as inter-linking your blog pages.
I have gone through a few blog posts of other bloggers and it’s kind of Spammy to see when they mention “Click Here”.
By properly linking your blog posts, your audience will have a great reading experience.
Pro Tip: For all relevant blog articles that you have linked through to, include a link back to your new blog (use keyword-rich anchor text)
Keeping your blog posts interlinked helps to keep your reader’s stick longer to your blog.
This helps to create better backlinks which are important for your blog SEO.
16. You Are Not Adding That Personal Touch
Are you emotionally connecting with your audience?
A good blogger is always able to connect with his/her audience on an emotional level with their blog.
A good example would be to share a personal experience with your readers when you are trying to convey them a point.
Here are some techniques you can implement –
- Ask questions to your readers that will get them thinking
- Tell them what valuable information you will give them
- Share an emotional story – remember that personal touch factor which I talked about 🙂
- Share a quote – a great way to summarize what you have to say and making an emotional connection with your audience.
- Put in some interesting statistics or facts people want to know about
Try to use more of “I” and “You” to connect better with your readers
17. You Are Skipping Out On Social Media For Your Blog
To increase your blog popularity and followers, you must enhance how visible you are on social media.
Social media platforms are growing in popularity every day.
With the popularity of social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, you will be able to grow the level of engagement for your blog.
This helps to reach more audience exposure.
Make sure to add those Social Sharing Buttons to your blog.
Just make sure not to overpopulate your page with social sharing buttons, or you may drive users away.
18. Not Focusing On Guest Posting
I can’t stress how important it is to do guest posting for other people’s blogs.
So, why you should be doing Guest Posting?
Guest posting allows you to generate a lot of quality backlinks.
Finally,
19. You Are Not Highlighting Your Recent Posts
New visitors who visit your blog for the first time would like to see a list of your recently written posts.
This will allow your audience to have an idea about what recent topics you have focused on.
They would like to read your most popular piece of work.
I like to display my most recent posts on the sidebar section of my blog.
Make a good experience for your audience to find your most recent posts.
To Conclude…
No one is perfect when first starting with a blog.
Bloggers learn from their mistakes and it’s a part of the blogging learning process.
The above points which I have mentioned are just a few of the blogging mistakes which you may be making.
I have not laid down the complete list.
Just remember that your journey towards blogging success should start with careful planning.
To be a good blogger requires you to have experience and it’s all a process of having those trials and errors.
I hope you enjoyed reading my blog post.
Let me know your thoughts or suggestions in the comments below.
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My name is Sujoy Mukherji. I am an Internet Marketer, Entrepreneur & Professional Blogger. Founder of the Affiliate Hub Blog.