Blogging has been a big part of my life for the past 4 years, although I first started blogging since before I finished high school. To quote a famous singer about blogging mistakes: Mistakes, I’ve made a few. That’s why I want to share with you my top 15 blogging mistakes to avoid as a newbie blogger.
If you are thinking about starting a blog, then make sure to read the Things you should know before starting a blog article. It can help you decide if you really want to be a blogger.
There are a lot of things that make up a good blog, and of course, there are a lot of blogging mistakes you have to avoid if you want to have a successful blog.
What are the biggest blogging mistakes to avoid as a newbie blogger?
As times passes, you don’t see them as blogging mistakes, but more as learning blogging experiences.
The truth is that there is a lot of trial and error involved in blogging. From the blogging platform to the theme you use for your blog, to the way you choose your blogging topics and blogging titles.
Here are, in my opinion, the biggest blogging mistakes.
1 You don’t research your topics
We all started blogging because it is a a fun and creative hobby to have.
BUT, if you want to achieve the mighty feeling of greatness you get when real people actually read your blog, then you have to write about that others want and need to know.
That’s why you have to do some research before you choose your new topic and start typing.
It took me years to understand this and I can only try my best to not waste time writing about my dog.
2 Your blog post title doesn’t reflect the topic of the blog post
This one is pretty self-explanatory.
People won’t find or click on your link if they don’t understand the topic of the blog post or they don’t see a fast connection between what they’re looking for and your blog article.
People are busy all the time and the internet is always flooding our digital life with ads and marketing messages. We tend to filter everything out and to only read the things we are really interested in.
That’s why the first blogging mistake is so important to avoid. Without a proper research of the topics you’re about to read, chances are that your blog post will be buried under the trillion other internet links that exist in the black hole we call the internet.
3 You try to impress with your writing
Keeping a standard for your writing has to be a priority, but remember that this is a blog we are talking about.
Trying to keep up your writing can be a turn off for some readers, as they expect to read something that resembles a real conversation.
People want to read something that one of their friends would say. They need fast information, delivered in a way that is accesible to them.
Who’s them? This a another big blogging mistakes you have to void!
4 Not knowing who your audience is
Yes, this may or may not sound obvious to you. For me, it was a long time before I realize I have no idea who is meant to read my content.
All of these are connected and need to be fully understand before you write your next blog article.
If you want to have people reading your blog, and returning to your blog, then you need to clearly define your target audience.
This is a technique used by marketers, when they want to design a campaign or product. They start by identifying their ideal target audience. Then they try to identify what their need are, and how they can they meet their audience’s needs.
5 Your blog post is poorly formatted
Let’s say that you managed to avoid all the blogging mistakes mentioned above, but when people lands on your blog, they don’t understand the main points from your blog post, the foot or the titles.
There are so many details that make a great blog, but you can easily lose your reader if they can’t easily read the information, if the structure of the blog post is not appropriate to the kind of information you provide or if the photos are of bad quality or are not inline with your text.
6 Your content is all about you
Unless you are a celebraty with millions of crazy fans on Instagram, then your readers aren’t interested in you. They want to learn how to solve a problem, or in the best case scenario, they want to be entertained.
So if your blog posts have a lot of I do, I write, I think, I want then you have to change it a bit more into You.
People want to read blog post that solve THEIR problems, not YOURS.
7 You don’t have a clear topic for your blog post
Ranting is fine… for your personal social media channel. I ocasionally get mad at the world and rand for a couple of IG stories, too.
That’s fine. But blog post has to start from a clear topic, one that’s clear from the beginning, and that is strongly sustained throughout your entire blog post by arguments.
This is how I started this blog post. It’s obviously about blogging mistakes to avoid. It says so in the title and in the subtitles in the body of the text, and also mentioned in my arguments.
8 Not posting consistently
Consistence is the key for anything you might be after.
You have to post regularly, to show people you are serious about your blogging, to have content on your blog and to become better at blogging. There’s no way around it.
If you like blogging, then it might not be a hard thing to do, but remember not to avoid the blogging mistakes I already mentioned.
Think about about posting at least once per week. Practice will help you create better content and you will soon see improvements.
This blog post about blogging mistakes is part of my 30-day challenge to post everyday.
9 You’re not active on social media
Social media is a good environment that you can use to share your blog post. Yes, not all your friends might be interested to read your blog posts, but some might.
Social media can also help you find like-minded people, join groups where blog post sharing is allowed and reach new readers. I mainly use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
10 Not replying to comments
Comments are a special rewards. If someone read your blog and took the time to write a comment, then you can at least reply.
Don’t be a smart ass, be nice.
11 Not having a niche for your blog
A niche is the main, more general topic that your blog is about.
For instance, I am mostly blogging about female budget travel. But I also blog about personal development and how I achieved it thought travelling. And now I decided to share more about blogging, due to the current travel ban that has been imposed on the entire world in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. I might stick to it if it works out.
Of course, you can have smaller niches you can tackle with, but keep your efforts around one main niche.
Having a niche is great, because there’s a higher change that people will remember your blog when they are searching for something that relates to your niche.
12 Not linking your content
Here’s the answer to why is it so important to blog within a specific niche.
For your blog to become an authority in any field, to make it easier to be found by your read, then you have to have substantial content about that niches and to be able link your blog posts from one piece to another (if it makes any sense).
13 Sacrificing SEO
One of the biggest blogging mistakes is not putting the time into SEO.
What is SEO? It stands for Search Engine Optimizesion and it’s a set of methods you can use to help google find yor content and place it in fron of your potential reader.
SEO can help you reach more organic traffic. And that’s what we all want, because organic also means free. So, Free traffic anyone?
14 Not tracking your progress
Even if you do know and apply a lot of SEO technoques and all the best practices of blogging, that’s not worth much if you are not activly tracking your progress.
You can use Google Analytics for free to see what is working and what is not, to get to understand your audience, to get an idea of what people want to read about and what blog posts are the most visible on Google.
15 Giving up
Giving up is one of the biggest blogging mistake you can make.
As a beginner, you’ll make a ton of mistakes, no matter what you try to do. I sure did. But giving up was not one of them and that lead me to this moment right now, when I can share with others all the things I learnt from blogging for over 10 years.
We tend to think about giving up when things get hard. When we don’t know how to do stuff or how to solve something.
But we also become more knowledgeable as we struggle to learn about new topics and as we practice our craft.
Of course, blogging won’t be easy and there are so many things you need to learn about blogging. But giving up won’t help you become better at blogging, will it?
I was about to fall asleep, but then remembered I have to write a blog post today. And that’s why I wrote about the biggest blogging mistakes you have to avoid as a newbie blogger.
I hope my blogging mistakes guide helps shed some light into the blogging conundrum.
And if you are ready to know more, please sign up to my first FREE live Webinar, which is happening on April 18, at 4 pm UTC.
Great article! I’m going to try to start one on vegan female budget travel and photography and this was very helpful. Also love the rest of the site!
Thank you! There are so many other things that go into blogging, but I couldn’t talk about all of it in just one post. So happy to hear that you’re starting your own blog. I also just set up another Ig account to talk about blogging and put there all my day to day tips about content creation for my blog and social media. So if you’re interested in that, check out https://www.instagram.com/aboutblogging/ – I should probably add this in the post 🙂 And feel free to ask anything blog related 🙂
Great article Iulia thanks for this. I hope it helps many people!
Thank you! I hope it helps!