When it comes to blogging there are so many mistakes to be made, especially when starting out. In this post I will let you know some costly mistake to avoid so you can keep growing your blog the way you should be. Here are to top 10 mistakes bloggers make.
Disclosure: this post may contain affiliate links. That means if you click that link and make a purchase I may receive a commission at no cost to you.
1.Not Investing In Their Blog
Hosting
We are starting out with the mistake of not investing with your blog because it’s a major missed opportunity in my opinion. The first investment you need to make is your hosting site. I use Bluehost and am very happy with it. (Click here to learn more about it). Paying for your website and hosting site is very important because you need to own your site if you’re planning to make money from it. Also, when you sign up with Bluehost you automatically get all features of WordPress. If you just get WordPress on your own you’re missing out on a lot of stuff like plugins.
Scheduling
The next investment I would make is services to help make your life easier like Tailwind. Tailwind is great because you can schedule your pins to it for Pinterest and have them go up automatically everyday without you having to be on it. There are ton’s a platforms like this out there so make sure to find something you like. I made a post talking about if Tailwind is worth the money. You can check that post out here. (If you want to test out Tailwind for free you can do that here).
Knowledge
The last thing I would invest in is knowledge. This is so important because when it comes to blogging there are endless things to learn and things often change as well. One thing I invested in was a Pinterest course and I’m so glad I did, I learned so much from the author. You can use this link to find the exact ebook I bought. When I started blogging I scoured the internet on each topic I could find. That’s when I thought it would be much easier if everything I needed to know was in once place. So I decided to make my “Everything You Need To Know About Blogging” ebook. With this ebook you can learn everything you need to know by reading at your own pace. If your looking for more of an audit type help with a person directly helping you I also offer my services to help you learn and grow your blog. You can learn more about those here.
If you’re interested in looking into the best resources you should check out my friend Kyra’s post on Blogging resources you need!
2.Not Using Other Social Media Sites
This is one mistake I see mostly on new blogs but will also see on seasoned blogs every now and then too. When I find a blog I like I often click on their social media icons to get to know them a little better. However, if you don’t have them listed I can’t find you and won’t follow you. If you don’t have them listed you are losing the potential of new followers. Also, it’s a good idea to try and use the same username on everything so people can keep track of you.
When it comes to getting views on your blog posts you need to share it everywhere you can. You aren’t going to get tons of views by just posting and leaving it. You have all these followers for a reason so make sure you let them know when you have a new post up. A great way to get views to your blog is from social media site like Instagram. If you have over 10,000 Instagram followers you can use the swipe up feature. If you need help increasing your Instagram story views to get those views to your blog check out my post on how to increase them here. If you don’t have 10,000 Instagram followers yet and need help check out my Instagram ebook here.
3.Not Starting An Email List Immediately
An email list is such an important thing to have. These are people who are asking to be notified when you have a blog post go up so if you don’t have one that’s valuable views you’re missing out on. I would suggest to start one right away. I believe I started mine about a month after I started my blog which I’m thankful for because I’ve been slowly growing ever since.
If you’re wondering how to get subscribers to your email list there are tons of different ways. One of them is by having an opt-in. My opt-in is a 5 day blog challenge. When you subscriberto my email list you will get a welcome email which has this blog challenge included in it.
4.Not Engaging With Their Audience
I sometimes go on blogs and see tons of comments with no interaction from the author. This gives off bad vibes to the readers and shows that you don’t care. You should reply to every comment you can. I know this can be time consuming but if you keep on top of it your readers will really appreciate it. You can also interact with tons of your readers and followers on your other social media accounts. Let your readers get to know you and realize that you’re a real person being that computer and that they can trust you.
5.SEO
Now SEO can be very confusing to understand as it can be a little technical but there are so many ways to improve it. First of all I will explain it to you a little bit. If you aren’t sure what SEO is it stand for Search Engine Optimzation. This basically just means is your site trust worthy enough to put high up on Google? So, as you can tell this is very important. If your site can get ranked high on Google you have higher chances to get those blog views.
Plugins
The first tip I have for you is to get the Yoast SEO plugin. This plugin will work with you while creating your blog post and will give it a rank for readability and SEO. If your rank isn’t great it’s hindering the chances of getting seen more. Yoast SEO gives you ideas on how to improve it to a better rank.
Another important plugin is the broken link checker. If you have links that don’t work on your blog this can be seen as spammy and therefor won’t help with improving your SEO. The plugin will find the links for you. Then you just have to go through them and either fix them or remove them.
Site speed is something that you can quickly get a little better. I checked my site speed with Google and noticed it definitely could have been better. I got the WordPress Cache Plugin as well as changed my image sizes. Just doing these 2 things increased my mobile and desktop site speed by 20 points out of 100! Definitely worth the little bit of time for this huge improvement.
The last quick tip I’m going to give you on SEO is backlinks. This just means how people got to your site. So if you comment or guest post on a popular blog with great SEO and that brings someone to your site this improves your SEO. Make sure you don’t go around giving a bunch of spammy comments. Genuine comments with your blog link will go a long way.
6.Comparing Yourself To Other Bloggers
A huge mistake made by mostly new bloggers but include also seasoned bloggers is comparing yourself to other bloggers. This mindset just sets you up for failure and won’t get you anywhere. The first reason this is a huge mistake is that your not going to find anyone in the exact same place as you are with your blog. You can’t compare yourself to someone with years more experience. The second reason this is a mistake is that no one’s blogs are exactly the same. You have different posts and you’re different people. Morale of the story is all of our journeys are different so don’t compare yourself to someone in a different situation than you are in.
7.Expecting Brands To Come To You
This is a huge misconception a log of bloggers have. A lot of bloggers see others working with brands and assuming that the brand found that blogger. This could be the case but is quite unlikely, especially for a smaller blogger. More often than not the brand is contacted by the blogger to work together.
If you think about it, the chances are extremely unlikely that with of all the bloggers there are out there that the brand you want to work with will reach you to to you. I definitely suggest reaching out to them. In my ebook I have lots of information including how to find brands to work with, how to find their contact information, and a sample email to sent to them. I also have both in my ebook and in a blog post how to make a media kit (click here to read that).
8.Legal (privacy policy, disclosure)
This is one I see way too often, bloggers who don’t understand the legal side of things. The first one being you can’t use anyone else’s pictures. Even if you give a link directly to their page. Pictures have to be your own or from a stock site.
Next is not having a privacy policy. Because you do collect information such as emails for your email list you need to clarify to your readers that you will not be distributing any of their information, etc.
And finally probably the one I see the most is bloggers not disclosing when something is a paid promotion, sponsored, or if they just have affiliate links. This absolutely needs to be disclosed. And it has to be disclosed at the start of your post. Do not try to hide it. That is not right and unfortunately a lot of people do that.
9.Bad Quality Pictures
Unfortunately there are a lot of people using bad quality pictures on their blogs. I’m one of those people that when I see a bad quality picture it gives me the impression that everything can be bad quality which turns me off of that blog. I know I’m not the only person who feels that way.
If you feel like you just aren’t getting it right with the pictures for now keep practicing. In the mean time check out a stock photo website like Pexels, or Unspash. These websites are full of free pictures you can use on your website that are great quality. This is one I definitely needed to add to this 10 mistakes bloggers make because it can really affect how your blog is seen.
10.Not Being Consistent
Consistency is so important. I’ve gone onto blogs I like looking to catch up on some posts they’ve written only to realize that they don’t have any new content. First thing you need to do is figure out how often you want to post and then pick a time and day those will go up. For me I post once a week on Mondays at 11:00am mountain time. I write the blog posts in advance and schedule them to go up at that time so my readers always know when to expect a new post from me.
And those are the top 10 mistakes bloggers make. As you can tell by my explanations these are all very important to avoid because they are hindering your blog from growing the way I know it can. If you want to learn about more mistakes you can take a look at my friend Amber’s post Why Most New Bloggers Give Up On Blogging? (Why You Shouldn’t?).
Blogging ebook information here. How to master Instagram ebook information here. Blog and Social Media services options here. By signing up for my email below you will also receive my free 5 day blog challenge.
Hi Brianna. Thank you so much for this. I am a fairly new blogger myself, and I’m still learning the ropes. Thanks a million.
No problem 🙂
Great tips here! I wish I had known them when I started blogging, life would’ve been a lot easier! Thanks for sharing. | lanalikes.com
No problem 🙂