Major Blogging Mistakes that New Bloggers Should Avoid

In your blogging quest, one thing you should never do is give up solely because you fear to make blogging mistakes.

Making mistakes as a newbie blogger is very common, and it actually shows you’re trying to do new amazing things.

Even the professional bloggers you admire today didn’t get to where they are without committing a mistake or two.

If you are new to blogging, first learn how to start a WordPress blog as that’s the fastest way to get online with a blog.

Why avoid Blogging Mistakes?

Blogging mistakes, when you learn from them, will lead to your growth.

However, it pays to be well-informed and adequately prepared before you start blogging.

Unnecessary mistakes that can affect your blogging future will be avoided in the long run if you do so.

As a new blogger that wants to rise above the crowded world of the internet—to be heard and taken seriously, you should steer clear of these major mistakes:

1. Using a free blogging platform

Unless blogging is something you just want to do to pass the time, don’t even think of starting a free blog.

It’s better you spend money on getting a web hosting service and a domain name than to use a free blog platform like Blogspot, only for you to wake up one day to discover that all your wonderful posts are nowhere to be found.

Not everyone is so lucky to start on a free blog and then successfully switch over to a paid blog after some time.

It’s better to spend money now and have peace of mind. Going back to square one after all the traffic you’ve acquired will be painful and frustrating.

2. Choosing the wrong niche

Money should not be the only thing that will inform your blog niche, as you might end up being disappointed.

You are far more likely to succeed if you focus your blog on topics that you’re experienced in and passionate about. True, a particular niche might have a better potential for drawing traffic and being profitable. However, if you don’t have what it takes to keep the blog rolling, you’re bound to fail.

People want to get solutions to their problems, be inspired and feel happier. They won’t stay hooked to your blog if it’s not giving them what they want.

3. Poor blog design

If your blog isn’t visually appealing to your audience, they might not make a second visit. Your visitors should be impressed on their very first click. It’s common for new bloggers to cluster their sites with lots of colours, widgets and advertisements. That can be very distracting and annoying to your audience.

Keep your blog design attractive and simple, and ensure that your share buttons or pop-up windows aren’t obstructing the view of your articles.

Those pop-ups are sometimes a huge turn-off for readers, and they can also affect your SEO in a negative way.

A better alternative for that is to place a static opt-in window by the side or at the end of articles. Once your content is strong and valuable, your readers will click.

4. Choosing a weak domain name

Your domain name has to be perfect for your blog to have any shot at success. What is the one thing that popular blogs have in common? Good domain names. New bloggers tend to choose the wrong domain name just because the one they desire is not available. Don’t fall into that group, be creative with your domain name.

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Try to keep your domain name as short as possible, easy to remember and avoid using hyphens.

5. Posting substandard content

It’s better you make fewer posts than publish a large amount of content that lacks value.

Quality should be your number one focus, as it is the major thing that will draw people to your site. When the visibility of your site increases as your web ranking goes up, success is just a stone’s throw away. Search engines can only bump your rank if they see that your posts provide real value to users.

You can make quality content available to your readers by adequately researching, having a good understanding of your topic and updating your old posts.

Images and videos are also part of the content, they help make your articles easy to assimilate.

Don’t make the mistake of not including images within your blogs and ensure the images are optimised. You can use WordPress plugins, TinyPNG or WP Smush to optimise your images.

6. Not being unique

It’s not bad to study your competitors or professional bloggers and long to be like them. However, know to draw the line between practicing their methods and imitating them. You will fail miserably if you try to project an image that you are not.

People know when you’re faking it when you’re not really the expert you’re posing as. Keep it real, write more on topics that you are well-grounded in, and have a unique voice.

7. Poor implementation of SEO techniques

You will get a lot of traffic from search engines if you do proper search engine optimisation (SEO).

Your SEO will only be bad if you don’t have enough general knowledge about it. SEO is not as complicated and difficult as many people imagine it to be. It’s all about knowing what Google likes, stuff like rich content, keywords in the title and at the beginning of an article.

8. Not promoting your blog

It’s more than just telling your family and friends about your blog or sharing your posts with them.

Your blog can’t grow just by doing that, you need to extend your reach.

Many new bloggers tend to twiddle their thumbs and wait for Google to start bringing traffic their way but that takes a lot of time. You’ve got to extensively promote your blog on social networks and forums related to your niche.

There’s no way you won’t get to the top of the blogging ladder if you stay conscious of and avoid all of these mistakes.