blogging mistakes for beginners

 Blogging mistakes for beginners 

New bloggers tend to make many mistakes. Making mistakes is unavoidable. It works like this- one makes a mistake, learns from mistake and moves on. Some mistakes are harmless. While some small mistakes, in the long run can do unimaginable damage to a blog. We’re about to discuss a list of such mistakes.

blogging mistakes for beginners 

I must admit that I’ve committed the mistakes that I’ve mentioned here. Slowly, I realized the mistakes and took corrective measures. I managed to recover. But some mistakes very much ruined my blog! It took considerable amount of time to recover from the effect of those mistakes.

Smart people learn from others’ mistakes.

I’ve put together this list with the aim of helping others. I suggest the visitors of my blog to follow the quotes above. Learn from my mistakes and avoid them altogether! This post will be of great help to new bloggers. But existing bloggers can go through it and see if they’ve ignored any mistakes. It is better to start the repairing process early!

List of blogging mistakes bengginors do  

1 Not Choosing a Specific Niche

I was unaware of this ‘niche’ thing when I started out blogging. I started a blog using WordPress. The categories of my blog consisted a wide array of topics. It ranged from sports to health tips to NEWS! In short, my blog didn’t had any specific niche.

While that blog attracted some traffic, it wasn’t successful. Some posts got good traffic, while others remained unexplored by visitors! The bounce rate was sky high! Some categories I created used to remain unattended even by me.

Soon, I realized that choosing a niche is very important. If you are blogging for fun, you may go for a non-niche, personal blog. It won’t make a difference. But if you are really serious about blogging, selecting a niche is an important part

Having a niche enhances the growth and reputation of a blog (provided that you publish quality content). Advertisement services also prefer publishing ads on such sites, because they get targeted audience. Further, niche blogs also have good scope when it comes to other monetization opportunities like affiliate sales.

2 Selecting Poor Host providers

In the beginning, I wasn’t much serious about blogging. Naturally, I was unwilling to spend much money towards it. So, I began hunting for the cheapest hosting service I could lay my hands upon.

I zeroed in on one such provider. I purchased the package. What followed afterwards was nightmare! Hidden charges started popping head slowly. The service was poor. I kept complaining, but no one would listen! Fed up, I changed my blog’s hosting provider.

Lots of data contained in my blog was lost during the transfer process. This is what happens when you go for cheap alternatives.

3 Using only free themes for long time

I told you before that I was unwilling to shell out much money at the start. I was content with free themes. I agree that in the beginning, one should try out free themes. But the key is to move on to a premium theme once you build little traffic. They are much more stable, secure and professional looking.

4 Frequently changing themes and layout

Since I had been using free themes for a long time on my blog, I had this habit of changing the theme frequently.

Later, I realized that it is better to keep a stable design and theme. A blog is like a brand. It needs to be built from ground zero. It is not recommended to keep changing its design frequently.

blogging mistakes for beginners 

5 Not Learning from others

When it comes to blogging, new concepts are introduced every day. Bloggers are basically perpetual students. They keep learning new things each day.

I made the fatal mistake of not visiting sites offering ‘blogging wisdom’. This went on for months. At last, I decided to learn from other bloggers and started visiting their blogs.

Had I taken this decision a bit early, I could have nurtured my blog from the beginning. I took the right decision a bit too late. I recommend new bloggers to visit helpful blogs regularly and learn from experienced bloggers. There is no shame in learning from others.

6 Overdoing SEO

In the above point, I described how I decided (very late) to learn from others. Once I started visiting blog’s sharing blogging tips, I came to know of SEO.

Soon, I realized its importance. I think I took it a bit too seriously. The very next day, I started concentrating more on SEO rather than content. Stuffing keywords felt more important than writing for the readers.

The result was that my blog got punished for over optimization. This happened when Google rolled out new updates. I recommend new bloggers to keep SEO to a minimum. Write for readers. Address the fundamentals of SEO. But never overdo it.

7 Avoiding Google Webmaster Tools

Yes, I avoided them for long. I never thought that these tools were so important. It was after reading an article that I realized the importance of using Google Webmaster Tools.

A blogger can’t succeed without his blog being Google friendly. Google Webmaster Tools exists for this purpose- to make sites/blogs Google friendly. New bloggers should use it from the very start and submit sitemap, look for crawl errors etc.

8 Not Promoting my blog and blog posts

Promoting a blog and its contents is as important as publishing them. I realized this fact a bit late. I think new bloggers should devote more time promoting their blog and its content. It takes some time for Search Engines to index your blog. So, it becomes necessary to drive traffic from other sources.

Blog posts can be shared on Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc. Thus, your blog gets exposure and visitors. Even after you start getting traffic from search engines, don’t stop sharing and promoting content on social sites. More traffic is always welcome!

9 Not networking with other bloggers

This is the age of networking. A blogger should network with other bloggers who belong to his/her niche. You may use social networking sites for this purpose. Another way is by commenting constructively and regularly on others’ blogs.

10 Too much blogging, resulting in burnout

When I got in the thick of things, I kept churning out blog posts after posts and kept publishing. I considered it very important to get 2-3 posts published a day. For achieving this target, I pushed myself harder.

Not only did it affect my health negatively, the blog posts often lacked in quality. I learnt that it is necessary to update a blog regularly. But it is not necessary to publish posts daily. I realized that it is better to write a quality post once in two days, rather than publishing four average quality articles in the same duration.

Right now, I’m having a pile of articles ready to be published. That’s why I’m updating this blog daily.

Your turn to say

I guess new bloggers and existing bloggers find this article useful. It is better to find out flaws and mistakes early on and repair the damage done by them. Further, one must learn from mistakes and use that experience to educate others. Feel free to comment your suggestion and feedback.