11 Common Blogging Mistakes to Avoid as a New Blogger

byBrendaMZ

6.9K followers

Updated 1 year ago

(cover photo: a kid making a mistake with a question? oops)

11 Common Blogging Mistakes to Avoid as a New Blogger

Did you put in a lot of hours of effort into your blog only to find it needs to get the traction you hoped for? If you are new here at Wealthy Affiliate and are learning how to blog.

I can tell you that mistakes hold you back from reaching your full potential if you don't try.

Success depends on taking the initiative to prevent yourself from making these common blogging mistakes as a new blogger.

In this post, I identify 11 common blogging mistakes and how to avoid them.

Let's go!

1. Lack of Focus

As a new blogger, you may be caught up in the thrill and excitement of writing for your audience. Your enthusiasm is understandable. I assure you that it does not guarantee your success. It will overwhelm you if you lack the focus and start thinking of the big picture.

Suppose you wrote a blog post with too many topics about affiliate marketing that led you to ramble on and on. That will cause your readers to need clarification and a clearer idea of where you are going with your article.

How to Avoid:

• Set small clear goals.

• You can focus on the topic you are passionate about.

• Pick one or two issues to focus on.

You can slowly build your blog post by focusing on a few problems at a time and then build it out from there, which will help you gain more confidence in your writing abilities. You will want to learn how to write for your audience.

2. Not Knowing Your Audience

If you, as a new blogger, do not know whom you are writing for, your blog posts will be less effective and unsuccessful.

Scenario One: Let's say that you are writing for stay-at-home moms. What do you write about? You write about topics related to parenting, homemaking, and child care.

Scenario Two: You are a small business owner wanting to write to other small business owners. What kind of content are you going to write? You will write about some practical tips and advice for business owners and how they can succeed.

As you can see, it is vital to know your audience, which will help you write better content that appeals to them.

How to Avoid:

1. Identify your target audience
2. Analyze and learn more about your audience
3. Determine how content can cater to their interests, needs, wants, and preferences.
4. Go deeper on the topic.

You'll be able to make a big difference in your blog's success if you spend time figuring out who your target audience is before you begin writing your blog posts.

If you do not consistently publish your blog post, your website will lose traction in the search engine.

3. Not Being Consistent

In the beginning, as a new blogger, it is easy to get excited and want to post as much as possible. However, this quickly becomes overwhelming and can lead to burnout and cause you to stop writing.

Suppose you have already decided on your brand. You want people to learn more about the niche you are passionate about. You wrote in your blog daily, then stopped being consistent with the posting schedule. Your readers will lose interest and look elsewhere.

Sometimes we all face life uncertainties, and things happen beyond our control that the blog posts might be delayed. That is ok; it happens.

How to Avoid:

• Keep to a set schedule.
• Aim for one or two posts each week- if you can do more than that, that would be great.
• Take your time with your post.

Once you get into a regular blog posting schedule, keeping up with your posts will be easier.

Finding a balance that works for you and staying with a posting schedule you can maintain is better for your readers.

You want to keep your readers engaged and coming back for more. A little bit of promotion can go a long way in helping you grow your blog readership.

4. Not Promoting Your Blog

Early on, new bloggers often make the mistake of not promoting their blogs. If you're not promoting your blog, you must do more to ensure its success. Getting your blog out there to gain traffic and an audience would be best.

Suppose you write in your blog for months and do nothing to promote it; what happens? Nothing. You wait to get organic traffic: no sales or sign-ups.

Most bloggers know it takes time for your new website to grow in search engine results. While waiting for that, some promotional and marketing suggestions can help you gain more traffic and attract an audience to read your blog post.

How to Avoid:

It would be best if you were utilizing the following:

1. Promote your blog through Social Media-please; share content on the most prominent social media platforms.
2. Use hashtags and other ways to reach out to promote your blog.
3. Guest Posting on other relevant blogs and websites.
4. Get your brand name out there in front of new people.
5. The best one is word-of-mouth promotion. Tell your friends, family, and anyone who will listen to your blog why they should check it out.
6. Create a small business card and pass out your card to everyone you know with your website URL. This is a great way to do word-of-mouth advertising.

If you choose any of these methods, could you ensure you're consistent in your efforts and promote your blog regularly? Getting sales and sign-ups to your email list takes little patience.

5. Not Being Patient

Building an audience and finding your voice as a blogger takes time and patience. If you are patient, you will see the fruits of your labor growing. If you're not patient, you'll blog before seeing any results. Likely give up

Scenario One. As a new blogger, you got excited and wrote many articles. You wrote 100 articles in the first 60 days and got nowhere. You became discouraged quickly because there were yet to result. You lost your patience and gave up.

Scenario Two: You decided to do everything at once, write and write, with no organization, no keyword research, and not even SEO optimized, yet your blog doesn't get indexed because you were in such a hurry to get a blog post published because you're not patient.

These two scenarios are recipes for disaster. Lack of patience is the root of the problem, and you will not succeed this way.

If you want your blogs to be successful, follow these suggestions:

How to Avoid:

• Be patient

• Be Consistent

• Do the research

• Find the best keywords that match your topic -follow WA training lessons

• Take your time writing your blog post-quality is more important than quantity

• Organize your post to make it SEO optimized

Trying to do everything yourself can lead to frustration and burnout; the goal is to prevent that. Keep at it; eventually, you'll see the fruits of your labor. Honest, it's the truth, Rome wasn't built in a day.

6. Trying to Do It All Yourself

As a new blogger, trying to do everything yourself can be tempting. After all, you want to control your blog and its content. However, trying to do everything yourself can lead to some big mistakes.

Scenario One: You did not plan ahead and just decided to write a last-minute post and publish it.

Scenario Two: You became overwhelmed because now you are pressed for time. You want to write 20 blog posts today, but you're putting pressure on yourself by rushing through it and doing everything yourself. There needs to be more time in the day to finish everything.

Scenario Three: You just wrote it, rushed through writing your content, and didn't give any attention, and you published it anyway.

All these situations cause you and your online business to suffer because you were trying to do too much simultaneously. It also leads to you missing out on learning how to make your blog grow. All of which can lead to burnout or even quitting altogether.

How to Avoid:

Understandably, you want to control every aspect of your blog, but it’s impossible to do everything yourself.

If you feel it's just too much, then I suggest you think about finding other people to help you; you will delegate or outsource:

1. WordPress Issues: Unless you’re a professional designer, you will unlikely have the skills or time to create a beautiful, branded blog design. Hire a skilled WordPress designer to help you create a custom theme for your site.

2. Hire a Writer: If writing isn’t your strong suit, there’s no shame in hiring a freelance writer (or two) to help produce high-quality content for your blog. This will free up your time to focus on other aspects of running your site.

3. Editing: Even if you consider yourself a good writer, it’s helpful to have someone else edit your work before you hit “publish.” A fresh set of eyes can catch errors and typos you may have missed.

4. Promotion: For your blog to succeed, you must promote your content regularly. This can be time-consuming and frustrating if you’re unfamiliar with effective promotion strategies.

Doing all this requires some networking; if you are not using networking, that can lead to results that get you nowhere.

7. Not networking

When you first start blogging, it can be easy to get caught up in your little world and forget that other people are networking with their blogs too.

If you did not do any networking, you missed that opportunity to grow and attract new readers to your blog post. Do you think your site will get any sales or sign-ups to your email list?

Your site will only be successful if you network with other people and other bloggers in your niche.

How to Avoid:

• Please take the time to reach out to others in your niche and build relationships with them. You'll be glad you did!

• Connecting with other bloggers and building relationships is essential to be successful.

• Comment on other blogs: This is a great way to get started because it gets your name out there and shows that you're interested in what others are writing about.

• Join social media groups: Many Facebook and Twitter chats are devoted to blogging. Joining these can help you meet other bloggers and learn from them.

• Attend conferences: If you can attend a blogging conference, do it! This is a great way to meet other bloggers face-to-face and form lasting relationships.

Consider working with a virtual assistant or social media expert who can help get the word out about your brand and your blog post.

8. Not Taking Advantage of Social Media

In the early stages of blogging, it is common for many bloggers to avoid or refrain from using social media.

Suppose you are timid and afraid of using social media because you do not want your face to be shown, especially on YouTube. What happens?

If you’re not active on social media, you’re missing out on potential readers- who could be interested in your blog. Promoting your blog on social media can reach a larger audience and get more people to read your content.

You won’t build a strong connection with your readers- Social media is the best way to connect with your readers and build relationships with them. If you’re not active on social media, you’ll miss opportunities to interact with and connect with your readers.

You won’t be able to promote your content as effectively. If you want people to read your blog posts, you must enable them effectively. And one of the best ways to promote your content is through social media. By sharing your blog posts on social media, you can reach more people and get more eyes on your content.

Here are a few tips for using social media to your advantage:

1. Use hashtags to reach a broader audience on Twitter and Instagram.
2. Share your blog posts on Facebook groups and other online communities.
3. Engage with other social media users, comment on their posts, and start conversations with them.

Don't just self-promote your blog on social media; ensure you share high-quality content that interests your followers.

1. Follow relevant accounts and influencers in your niche to stay up-to-date on trends and opportunities.
2. Be active on multiple platforms. While it's essential to focus your efforts on one or two platform
3. Following these tips ensures you're making the most of social media as a new blogger. You don't want to be giving up too soon.

9. Giving Up Too Soon

If you're new to blogging, it's easy to get discouraged when waiting to see immediate results. Remembering success as a blogger takes time. Giving up too soon is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.

Suppose you threw your hands up and forgot it because nothing is working. Now you are feeling discouraged and need help figuring out what to do. You may put much effort into your first few posts, but no one is interested.

Doing that means you are giving up too soon. Nothing gets accomplished.

How to Avoid:

• Please don't hesitate to take a step back and look at your strategy.

• Are you promoting your blog on social media?

• Are you guest posting on other blogs?

These are just a few of the many things you can do to get your blog out there and in front of potential readers.

Keep pursuing your dream of being a successful blogger!

With some patience and perseverance, you'll eventually see the fruits of your labor pay off. You will be glad you didn't give up too soon, but not having fun with it can ruin your chances of seeing your brand grow.

10. Not Having Fun

One of the most common mistakes that new bloggers make is not having fun with their content. This can lead to several problems,

Scenario One: You write content, and you find your writing tedious; you feel that no one wants to read it

Scenario Two: You think blogging is a chore, it is too hard, and you don't want to do it because you do not think it's fun or enjoyable.

Scenario Three: you blogged for many months, nothing happened, and you felt burned out and frustrated, so it's no longer fun.

If you need more fun with your blog and going through a phase of disinterest, there are plenty of ways to get your creativity and motivation back.

How to avoid:

1. Take a step back and reassess why you're blogging in the first place.
2. Look for something you enjoy about blogging, read other blogger experiences here at WA, and learn from them.
3. Experiment with different types of content, try new writing techniques
4. Take a break from blogging altogether.

When you return, you will feel energized enough to find topics that are fun for you. Please look at your writing quality; making reading easy for your readers is essential.

11. Poor Writing Quality

One of the most common blogging mistakes new bloggers make is producing content of poor quality. This can be due to several factors, such as rushing to get content published without taking the time to proofread and edit or simply needing strong writing skills.

Suppose you rush to get content published without taking the time to proofread and edit for grammar. What happens?

I can tell you that poorly written content with grammar and spelling errors and choppy or difficult-to-read sentences will turn off readers and make your blog look unprofessional.

If you aren't a strong writer, that's ok, no worries just do your best to write content that resonates with your audience.

How to Avoid:

1. You're able to improve them before starting a blog or else enlisting the help of a professional editor or copywriter.

2. Please take the time to proofread and edit your posts before hitting publish.

3. English isn't your first language; there's no shame in getting someone else to help you with the editing process.

The important thing is that your readers can understand what you're trying to say and that they can avoid getting tripped up by avoidable errors.

Whatever the case, please ensure that every blog content you write is well-written and error-free before publishing.

Final Thoughts

It can be easy to make mistakes when you are new to blogging, but with this article's help, I hope you can avoid some of these common pitfalls. You now understand better what it takes to succeed as a blogger and how to prevent yourself from making costly errors.

-BrendaMZ

PS. Additional Resources

The Science Behind Procrastination

How to Schedule Your Blog Post from Scratch to Conclusion

How To Schedule A Blog Post On WordPress