It’s only natural to human beings to make mistakes when they are new to a practice. For amateur bloggers, there are tons of mistakes you could make when blogging. While there are no perfect bloggers from the very beginning, there is no need to fret; you can easily avoid a horde of them.
Moreover, even the ardent bloggers make mistakes here and there in their blogging journey. As long as you are ready to learn from those mistakes, you are well on your way to becoming the blogger you aspire to be.
Below is a sample of 20 of the most common errors you can try to avoid as an amateur blogger:
Table of Contents
Making Backlinks like a ninja
Most newbies in the blogging world have a misconception that backlinks are the only effective tools to ranking high on Google SERPs. While I agree with the fact that they do play a huge role in search rankings, building tons of backlinks on a newly launched blog with only a handful of posts is ridiculous.
For the approximately the first 5-6 months, you should concentrate on producing engaging content, getting 20-50 no follow comment links, and building 2-3 dofollow backlinks. While doing excessive promotion of your blog for backlink purposes may result in a spike in rankings, it is only temporary.
Robotic approach
Newbies in the blogging world should know how to treat their audience like human beings. Unfortunately, most of them treat them like robots; they do not relate to the reader by using personalistic words like “You” and “I”.
Having a personalistic approach helps your blog tap into your readers’ mental schema. That goes a long way in helping you build an abstract relationship with your audience. In turn, your readers will want to come back to your blog for more.
Not linking to others
Most amateur bloggers do not know the power of a blogging network. By knowing and connecting to other amateur or professional bloggers in the same niche, you can learn from one another, collaborate, and motivate each other when feeling down.
The beauty of blogging is that there are always other writers in your niche that you can connect with and walk the journey with. It makes blogging competitive and interesting even to the amateur blogger.
You share only your stuff
Almost every new blogger will only share their blog posts. Most of them are wary of sharing other bloggers’ posts. It is only natural to human beings to show a degree of selfishness. However, as most professional bloggers have already realized, blogging utilizes a give and take principle.
It would largely benefit your blog if from the beginning, you shared insightful comments on a few other blogs in your niche. Additionally, you should periodically share popular posts in your niche on your blog. At the beginning, make sure you share more of other peoples’ posts than yours and you can standardize the ratio as your blog grows.
Ignoring list building
If done correctly, the traffic your blog can enjoy from list building and email marketing is incomparable to any other. List building on blogs should be done from the very launch of the blog. Collect your users’ email addresses as early as possible to help build a quality list and in return traffic.
No passion in niche
It is not surprising for amateur bloggers to choose the wrong niche when starting their blogs. This is mostly because most bloggers do not think it through or they did not know how demanding the blog would be when they first launched it.
It is often not long before the blogger realizes that they do not actually have a passion towards the niche they chose. These blogs are bent to fail, and the whole endeavor ends up as a total waste of time.
To avoid being a victim of this circumstance, it is essential that you pick a niche that you are passionate about from the very beginning or switch to a favorable niche straight away. It is not only stupid, but also unnecessarily expensive to invest your time and efforts towards something that you have no passion for.
Failing to invest money in their blogs
Most amateur bloggers are reluctant when it comes to investing their hard-earned money into their blogs. That is mostly because people do not want to invest their money in something that will not reciprocate right away.
Unfortunately, the rule of nearly all businesses in the world right now is that you have to spend to earn. While most bloggers believe that their writing efforts should be enough, you have to treat blogging like an online business. That includes getting the right blogging tools to grow your blog, which will most likely cost you some money. However, that is the only way any successful blogger turned their ordinary blogs into successful ventures.
Writing to fulfill word count
One of the biggest amateur blogging mistakes people make is focusing on quantity instead of quality. Quality applies to all the aspects of blogging; whether it is getting blog traffic, growing social media following, or writing your blog posts, you do not want to sacrifice quality for high numbers.
Why would you write 10 blog posts in a day if they are only going to drive your readers away? Why would you struggle to get 100,000 followers on twitter if only 1,000 of them are actually engaged in your blog posts? Focus on quality as it will genuinely reflect on the progress of your blog.
Failing to learn about SEO
Search Engine Optimization makes your posts visible high up on Google and other search engine results. Without the proper knowledge on SEO, most amateur bloggers fail to take advantage of the huge traffic on these search engines. That is why most amateur blogs are stalled soon after they are launched.
Learning SEO techniques and implementing them properly on your blog will maximize your organic blog traffic. With keyword research, on-page, and off-page SEO implemented correctly, your blog will be ranking high on Google search engine results in no time.
Inconsistency in posting
Dedication and hard work are virtues you cannot do without when creating a successful blog. That means you will have to post your blogs regularly. It can be quite challenging to provide quality content consistently, especially if the blogger did not choose a niche he or she has a passion about.
While there is no optimal time gap between posts, you should figure out the most appropriate pattern and be consistent with it such that your ardent readers know when to expect the next post from you.
Implementing difficult-to-read fonts
We are all aware that some fonts are both unpleasant for web pages and difficult to read. In my opinion, this is the worst mistake an amateur blogger could make. That’s because the audience will not be willing to read through your post irrespective of how engaging it is. Most amateur bloggers end up making this mistake in an effort to be different from their competition.
It is not wise to sacrifice the readability of your post for your audience just to look different. Find a font that is clear and neat to your visitor’s eyes.
Being scared of exploring new topics
In blogging, it is a mistake to be scared of failure. It will hold you back from experimenting with ingenious channels like introducing YouTube videos and podcasts or even launching online courses. Some of these things may feel like they are beyond the scope of most amateur bloggers. However, the only way you can grow as a blogger is breaking out of your comfort zone and trying out new things.
Spamming their Blogs with ads
Google Adsense, together with other Ad partnerships, makes an incredible way for bloggers to make some income from their blogs. However, spamming your blog posts with Google Ads is bound to have a negative implication on your blog.
Placing ads all over your site may increase ad clicks and eventually increase the income from your blog. However, it will also increase the chances of your readers never returning to your site again. People do not love ads, which is why there are ad-blockers for browsers.
Trying to make money without building a reputation
Without a good online reputation, your sales might remain unsatisfactorily low. Most amateur bloggers expect to make money as soon as they start their blogs. The only problem is that it takes time and effort to build an online reputation.
You can try to accelerate the growth of your blog’s reputation by consistently creating quality content, replying to questions from your audience in time, and interacting with them on social media channels. If your sales are still low, don’t worry. Concentrate your efforts on building your blog’s reputation and your income will eventually be satisfactory.
Ignoring Social Media
While new bloggers may believe that quality content alone is enough to make their blogs successful, this is not true. How else will your audience know of your blog? How do you get organic traffic to your blog page without the help of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the like?
To successfully get your audience to your engaging content, it is wise to share your latest content on social media channels to gain some exposure. Some of the traffic you get from these channels will be converted into readers depending on your blog’s quality, readability, and more.
Conveying the same message repeatedly
This is a habit that even I had to deal with. Most of your readers will not take it well if you post blogs with the same message repeatedly. In the future, they will not be motivated to open your invitation link I their email addresses. That is essentially because they feel they already know what you want to tell them. If it is advice you intend to provide, offer a piece of advice only once.
Your readers have the option to review your post repeatedly so posting the message repeatedly is unnecessary and tedious for your audience.
Failing to pay attention to website themes
A good-looking theme will put you miles ahead of your blogging journey. Though you may be a newbie in blogging, you never want visitors to brand your site “unreliable” or “amateur”. That will lead you to earning little or no income from the blog.
Most new bloggers are consistently trying to use the least money in setting up their blogs. While free themes may seem like the perfect opportunity to save a buck, they are not very customizable and the little features they offer may limit your blog’s potential.
Inefficient Monetization
If you plan on making your blog successful, it is essential to leave no stone unturned. Inconsistent and improper blog monetization will lose you money. Wherever relevant, use affiliate links on one product to various blogs. Most importantly, convince your readers of the efficiency of your products by clearly explaining the features and usefulness of your product instead of simply slamming affiliate products in their faces.
Being too salesy
All webmasters are eager to see their efforts bear fruit. While it might stress you up when your blog does not make you any returns, it does not mean you have to make your posts extremely salesy every time you get a chance.
The primary goal of any blog should be to be as useful to the reader as possible. While it might seem to be taking too long to make a profit, continue providing quality content in your posts and promoting them on social media channels and the money will inevitably come.
Failing to make your blog a priority
The main reason most bloggers only end up fading away while a few make thousands of dollars per month is that they fail to prioritize their blogs. Prioritizing your blog means you will have to sacrifice your TV time, game time, and more to create more time to polish up on quality and promotion.
This is a huge problem for most people who are just starting out their blogging journey. Since most bloggers start out as a hobby, they are reluctant to spend time and money on it. However, to grow your blog into a serious online business, you will need to set aside more time for it. With a blog, simply avoid, nap time and skip out of a few weekend parties and in no time, yours will be a fully-fledged blogging business.
My name is Nate Reiner and I am the editor here at 10Webtools. I have 8 years of experience using 50+ different web tools ranging from podcast, web hosting, email marketing, and much more. I previously managed a team offering support services to a large conglomerate that utilized tens of software solutions. I now run this blog full-time and when I am not reviewing or testing software, I enjoy riding bikes and supporting my clients achieve internet success. You can reach me directly at [email protected]