Blogging for Beginners
There are blogging mistakes that every blogger who just started usually makes. Read about these 20+ typical beginner blogging mistakes and eliminate them.
Later on, one way or another we learn how to avoid them again.
I’m not an exception to the rule, but I’m more experienced and smarter now. I now know what matters, how to prepare my content for my readers and what I can do, to make my blogs successive.
Are you like me or you are just getting started?
Are you a beginner blogger, who have just taken the first steps and now is wondering what a beginner should look out for blogging? Or you have launched your blog, published a few posts and just would like to learn how to increase the traffic to your site?
No matter where you are with blogs and blogging you are in the right place! Today we’ll have a look at the blogger’s mistakes.
When I first started my blog on the internet years ago, I thought it would be easier. I assumed that I would write a few articles and later, gradually more visitors would come to me.
The disillusionment followed, however — on time.
Almost no one was interested in my old blog posts, my recent posts and normally-no comments were left.
Actually, the blog traffic was minimal.
Creating your first blog is not as difficult as many people think, but it’s not as easy as some others assume, either. You have decided on a hosting provider and have chosen a blog name.
But what happens next?
In my blog post today I will share with you some basic blog tips that make blogging simpler and successful for all beginners.
Let’s have a look at the typical rookies’ bloggers mistakes together.
A Note
Incidentally, the following blog tips were not subject to any order and I only randomly put them down them.
Later on, I changed my decision and decided to arrange them in some order.
No matter how much your knowledge is, it is not necessary to attempt these mistakes I did in the past but to try to avoid them.
Bypassing the most common beginner bloggers mistakes is a guarantee that the way to your success as a blogger will be shorter and I’m sure about it.
Mistakes in Blogging
My advice is carefully to review all of my mistakes and try to avoid them.It’s said that a wise person learns from his mistakes. A wiser one learns from others’ mistakes.
NB: The wisest person of all learns from others’s successes.
1.Have Fun with Blogging
I can not stress it enough: to be successful with your blog, you should enjoy your work, it should be a pleasure for you to write and share, and this aspect is one of the essential elements of blogging.
For this reason, I put it as a number one on my list of tips for bloggers. The most important key element for successful blogging is to enjoy blogging.
For my reasons I started blogging and was also a beginner. At the time, I had to write about health therapy that neither enthused nor interested me.
I gave up this job after a few weeks. My articles were terrible, and you could tell that I did not enjoy writing about the actual topics.
I didn’t get fun, and this reflected equally to my blogging success and my readers’ numbers that did not rise at all and added frustration to me, big time.
No matter if you are a professional blogger, a beginner, or write blog posts occasionally, if you do not enjoy the actual blogging and not make it fun to you, it will be challenging to stay on the line in a long run.
2. Find Your Niche
Most beginners start blogging on without having chosen a particular niche of interest.
Such a start is not a bad thing and not a problem at all.
Sometimes it is even better to start with blogging this way. However, it is often better to commit yourself to a specific topic or range of subjects rather than writing about Everything and the World.
For example, this blog post is about blogging, published on a website with other blogs, some of them not related to blogging.
There are dedicated blogs and websites for beginners in the computer industry, for example.
Or in the education sector. The possibilities are gigantic, so find and decide which is the niche of your dreams.
The advantage is obvious: The more individual and rare your blog is, the more interesting it is for your visitors and often lands faster in RSS Feeds.
3. Find Your Style of Writing
Some bloggers have their way of blogging behind the scenes. Some of their blogs are read-only but funny and entertaining.
I mention this not as advice to imitate other bloggers or to state that anonymous blogging is something that I like and approve.
No.
I only would like to point out how important is to find your style of public behavior as a blogger, which includes the writing style.
I recently wrote a guest article on another blog and used a pseudonym because I wanted to support it only privately because the orientation fascinates me.
In the comments, I could often read that the visitors knew who wrote the post.
A personal writing style can enhance a blog and make it unique.
4. Write Unique Content
There are many lines of text about the exceptional content yet.
Even too many.
This sentence appears in various guides, blogs, articles and books, and just beginners could face a problem of finding out what unique or exclusive content is at all.
I don’t mean to reinvent the wheel, by mentioning here “unique content“.
I want to use the chance and to state that such type of content is also related to the abilities to manage to expose your content differently and in a better way than the previously published material on same topics.
Let’s take this blog post as an example.
Countless articles are written so far about blogging for beginners, but in my opinion, these are often very limited and scarce to a few tips.
I tried here to gather beginners in their knowledge and give more detailed, explanatory and useful tips for them. Hence a helpful article takes on the concrete question of the audience or visitors and tries to clarify it step by step.
It is always essential to consider all factors and available information, not just half of what is meant to share or discuss on a particular subject.
The complete, valuable articles, are usually linked more frequently by other bloggers and readers, and this helps to get more visitors and a broader audience.
Over time, when Internet users start to find your valuable blog on the first pages of Google, your website or weblog will gain popularity.
5. Be a Consistent Blogger
Blogging is often a motivation for beginners.
At first, it all looks gorgeous, and almost every day new articles appear on your brand new blog.
After some time, this regularity subsides, sometimes because hardly any visitors arrive. However, consistency is an essential aspect of blogging.
For example, feed subscribers love regular updates with tips, tricks or hints. It’s not about writing useless, endless volumes of blog articles, but finding your rhythm and maintaining it.
How often should a new blog post be created and what I would suggest as a publishing frequency is a question I was asked once in a forum about blogs and blogging.
Here is a brief description of my answer from that time about the recommended “rate of blogging.”
Blogging is not about publishing hundreds of posts in a short amount of time. It is crucial to show a recognizable consistency to your audience instead.
The regularity in writing is necessary for every blogger, but for the newbie bloggers, has to be a habit, speaking frankly.
6. Ensure your Blog looks Great
Take good care of your Website’s Design, general appearance, and user-friendliness.
New bloggers tend to quickly choose and grab the first best theme that offers their blog software.
However, it makes sense to look twice, even if there is suitable themes or design layouts for your new blog.
If I make an online diary for children, it may not make sense to choose a black business appearance, and the other way around, a banker may find it weird when I present him to tender rose colors.
Sometimes it makes sense to look at the other blogs in this area and maybe learn a little from other people’s experience.
It’s not about imitating or copying other websites, but you can learn very quickly what matters to your visitors and what is the general trend in a particular niche.
Anyone who deals with targeted groups very well can estimate what the targeted visitors would prefer or want.
Ideally, your blog reflects that in look and appearance.
Think about functionality and ensure your blog is as much as possible user-friendly and straightforward.
You should consult with friends or other bloggers to get different points of you.
When you have your audience, this is the best group of people to ask for an opinion.
7.Set achievable Goals and Follow them
As a beginner, at some point, you will seek and try to find out if your blog is to be considered booming, compared to other blogs in the same niche.
In simple words-where, your blog stands out in the crowded blogosphere. It is difficult to give a general answer and therefore it makes sense to set and pursue your own goals.
Did you get the first comment on your blog? Congratulations! How about tackling the next ten opinions?
May you also want to publish a certain number of articles every week?
Get to the point.
I always set myself a certain number of visitors, which I try to reach in a staggered period.
This goal helps me with new blog projects, stay as a pole and motivates me for a long time.
Goals are important, and many newbies in blogging become quickly demotivated because somehow it didn’t work as well as expected with blogging.
Therefore, it is good to set small and achievable goals and then celebrate the achievements.
Step by step.
8. Make Plans
I already wrote that it is essential for beginners to set themselves small intermediate goals and follow them.
Establishing and pursuing targets is required to achieve success.
When we set our personal goals, we should prepare them properly and not just assume that we will maybe reach them.
Therefore we have to make plans and have these plans ready.
For example, I plan most of my blog articles over an extended period.
I prepare the first drafts and think in advance what my next posts will be about and what new topics I want to choose for my blog.
Doing so saves me a lot of time, and it is often easier to work through a list than to sit idle in front of the monitor and wonder what is going to be next.
It’s many times easier to reach your goals if you plan your next steps well.
Here is the best time to say that planning should involve consideration of some not expected events, such as situations where you can’t access your blog, or you lose the draft of your latest, unfinished yet post.
9.Meet the Expectations of Your Audience
It took me some time to understand and to learn how to avoid this rookie mistake in the future and how to align my blog with the interests of my visitors and readers.
I have summarized for you in this article how to find out what your readers expect from you and your blog, what is essential and what signals are vital so that you can fulfill the expectations of your readers.
It makes sense — especially in a new blog — to pay proper attention to what your audience exactly wants.
Beginners often run a blog only from their perspective. And that’s good too because only then they can make blogs that are kind of unique.
But it is also good to consider and serve the interests of the blog visitors.
It all depends if you do blogging for living or just for fun.
10. Read other Blogs
If you have decided on a particular niche or area, it makes sense to look at the competition as well.
Which other blogs are there in your area?
What are the topics written by other bloggers? What are the blog titles that make your competitors more successful than you?
Beginners, in particular, tend to be blindfolded while blogging, but that is something typical.
If you read other blogs from your area, you can act create better-targeted content and find more appropriate and better topics for your readers. Bloggers who read other blogs, learn what happens in their niche, finds new ideas for blog articles and also improve their writing style.
So reading a lot is good, because it helps you to be up to date with everything.
11. Get involved
When I started my first blog, I thought that visitors would come sometime.
I presumed same about the lonely comments fields under my posts. But let’s be honest:
When you read a blog, how often do we leave a comment to other bloggers, how often do we discuss with other people on the Internet?
The answer is usually: Not much.
Therefore, it makes sense when read blogs to leave a comment to other bloggers.
I don’t mean comments like “Great” and “Thanks,” but some reasonable and valuable comments on the topic.
Especially with similar sites, it makes a lot of sense to talk about current blog articles and to take part in conversations.
The beginners make a mistake not to participate actively in the blogosphere and miss lots of potentials.
On one side, participating in discussions on other blogs promotes the exchange of thoughts and ideas, and on the other, some new visitors who have read your opinion, posted somewhere can come to your blog if you comment on other bloggers.
12.Earn Links
If you read the first blog articles about how to do blogging successfully or writing blog articles, you will sooner or later come across the term SEO.
The term SEO means Search Engine Optimization, and it’s about positioning your blog well on Google and other search engines.
I will mention a bit more about SEO later in this post.
One of the first mistakes I made and learned from is not to link to others, especially on thematically-related blogs, as it strengthens the competitors on the Internet. This mistake is one of these beginners in blogging have to avoid.
Your blog is found by links or by searches made by Internet users via search engines, which is also related to linking from other sites and blogs.
Other bloggers will refer to you and your weblog more often if you also link to their articles and participate in their blogs.
The latter has nothing to do with black hat techniques of link exchange.
So get known, increase the reputation of your blog and earn links.
13.Build a Niche Network
In one of the points above I already explained why linking and commenting on other blogs is so important.
But even behind the scenes, you can do a lot to bring your blog forward and draw attention to your new blog.
If you have met online a few competitors, after some time, you can try to connect even more closely with them.
Maybe you’ll give each other an interview, write a guest article in the event of time constraints or recommend someone else’s blog post.
A functioning niche network is priceless and has already saved me a lot of time on many projects.
If you know your area yet, you can connect and exchange ideas with others. In the future, this can help you to participate in some shared projects or to share visitors with similar interests.
14. Don’t be Selfish
Many beginners set up a blog to make money on the Internet at some point. Of course, it is possible to monetize your blog, and this is quite normal. But good things take time, so be patient.
It rarely happens that we set up a blog, and after a few minutes, the cashier rings.
As new in blogging, you should increasingly focus on creating good content and reach your readers in the first place.
It is strange and most of all dissuasive for the audience, if every link on your weblog is only a partner link and every article is about a product.
Also-as explained above-blogs and bloggers do not succeed overnight, and it may take time for your project to run as it is with everything else, by the way. It is much better to get along without advertising and to focus on lovely and unique blog posts.
So we create the necessary confidence to earn money later. And don’t worry-the benefits and money will come after time if you are persuasive enough.
15. Don’t Worry about the Mistakes
Beginners with blogging as any others inexperienced newcomers don’t have to know everything.
That is why there are such articles as the one you are reading on here. But I’m continually learning and trying to grasp new things about my areas of blogging.
Mistakes are human and normal.
That’s why it’s important not to do everything the right way, to play around a bit. Experiments help us to gain experience.
What kind of blog articles are better? How does such a blog software work?
If you lose yourself in too many details, you can quickly forget the basics. Namely to bring your blog forward and to provide new and exceptional content.
It’s no shame to be a blogger and a learner.
It is not a crime to make mistakes. It is only necessary to learn from your mistakes and to get rid of the reputation of a beginner quickly.
16. Use Your Social Network
Everyone knows Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest and the absolute success of these social networks.
More and more people are connecting, exchanging content and enriching the Internet.
Social networking sites can generate vast streams of visitors. Ideally, you should use at least some of these websites as well.
My recommendation here is to use as many social networks as possible to handle.
The latter is not advice for clogging your accounts and connections with boring and irrelevant messages — even if memos are helpful — but about getting closer to your audience and earning new visitors by utilizing this great possibility.
Using your social network and social connections wisely will help you to gain more visitors and build sizeable auditory for your blog site.
The potential of the social web is enormous, and beginners in particular often overlook this aspect.
It is quite simple, and you should also use this opportunity!
17. Do not be Afraid to Write
Many newcomers are worried that their first articles are not good enough to be published online.
And of course, it is often a scary step to make your thoughts public, especially at the very beginning of your career as a blogger.
But that is nonsense and completely unfounded.
Most bloggers who start blogging are not big names in their field, and it is quite usual that an article does appeal to every reader.
At same time, it does not do any good to worry unnecessarily before you even start. Especially newbies wonder if their articles are good enough and if the readers are satisfied with it.
Here we are again with the aspect of the mistakes, and it just makes no sense to ask yourself endless questions, if you are good enough, or not.
Go for it and try it!
It is almost impossible to write perfect blog posts, and very few of them meet these standards.
If only perfectionists outlasted in the blogosphere, the Web would be dull and probably empty in a few hours.
18.Search Engine Optimization
Everywhere you read that SEO is the alpha and omega for new blogs. Of course, that’s true, but you should not overdo it.
Many beginners try to link the first weblog as often as possible so that visitors come through Google and other search engines.
SEO for blogs is a crucial aspect, and on the Internet, you will also find a lot of hints on how you can optimize your blog meaningfully.
But it is unnecessary, as an absolute newbie, to do everything to work for search engines.
You must try out the other necessary things we already discussed earlier, in the best way you can, and then the links will come by themselves.
Consider the basics.
Initially, your focus should be on creating exciting and unique articles, and then gradually devote to the specifics and learn further about SEO.
19. Keep up to date with the latest Technologies
Over time you will install more plugins on your blog, and WordPress or other systems will continue to evolve.
To eliminate potential security vulnerabilities and ensure functionality, you should always keep our blog software up to date.
And it is not only about the security of your site-some of the updates provide better performance, others-new gadgets, etc. , but sometimes it makes perfect sense not to click on updates, for some time.
If, for example, a new version of WordPress appears we could check first in advance whether the whole thing went off smoothly with other bloggers. Another option is to ask Google.
Keeping your blog and its system and modules up-to-date is extremely important to ensure its proper functioning. However, you should be careful not to shoot anything in the background.
20. Keep at It.
Practice makes perfect — from newbie blogger to pro blogger.
I now operate around ten pages on the Internet. I earn money with most of them, while others I do because I enjoy it.
However, I had to get used to the matter for years and experiment a lot.
In the meantime, I learned where to find new topics, what to look for and what my readers expect. But that takes time.
If you are an absolute beginner, you should try a lot of things to find your way around your area of expertise.
With time you will develop- and I can promise — eminence in your blogging niche because dealing seriously with any subject eventually bears fruit.
Remember-your eyes and mind do not get trained and experienced overnight, but whoever deals with a product, an area and of course a blog over an extended period, is always, always better in it.
21. Avoid Anonymity
When I find a new blog, I would like to know who is behind it.
On the one hand, I’m just curious, and on another, it’s exciting to know who we’re dealing.
Many beginners stay in the shade of anonymity and resist to come into the foreground. They hardly value their personality and hide behind pseudonyms.
That’s a pity since blogs — after all, we still have to deal with a kind of online diary — are a very personal kind of website.
Also, if we try to make money from a blog or to be a specialist in our field, it can be beneficial if we link blogging to a real name.
Anyone who shows who she or he is, can build trust in his readers and thus fuel the discussion in their contributions and benefit from the return of the audience.
22. Show Respect to Your regular Audience
Many newcomers are very happy when they read the very first comments on their blogs or the first e-mails as a response to their post land in their inbox.
The initial euphoria, however, often follows a total disinterest.
To boost the communication among your blog articles it makes sense to respond to the existing opinions and questions.
After all, ideally it should be visible you mostly write for the worthy, regular visitors, of your blog.
Are there opinions on an article? What is the feedback? Do my readers bother with something? Go for it!
I do not mean that we have to answer every comment or continue all discussions till forever. But you should at least show your regular readers and audience some attention and respect.
For you, as a blogger, it should not matter if they write something or not.
Usually, the rewarded bloggers are those who respect their readers.
23. Be Patient
Many beginners hope for blogging success overnight.
I don’t want to disappoint someone, but such a boom it’s unlikely to occur in real life.
I run numerous websites that deal with very different topics. So I write about shopping, about blogging and also about software and other things.
When you open a new blog, it’s usually the case that it’s entirely unknown. Therefore, it makes sense to pay attention to the entry-level tips from this article and continue to be patient with yourself and your blog.
I’m running a blog that took almost a year to show significant success and visible traffic.
Patience is the alpha and omega of blogging. If a weblog has become known over the years, you can quickly make new projects known about them. But the beginning is hard.
Get ready for it.
24. Share content from other Weblogs.
If you offer the opportunity to share together with your blog articles from other places, this can help you a lot, and I don’t mean to build a fan page of your competitors on your site.
Sharing various, but still relevant content is just another option for others to help with the promotion of your new blog.
25. Be Different and Creative
I mentioned earlier in this post about the importance of developing and having a unique and very own style of writing and also about the significance of the general look of your blog.
These two are among the essential points for you to follow.
Now I will share something else.
There are different ways for the newbies to stand out from the crowd as bloggers and their blogs to be different than many others.
One of these, relatively easy and achievable ways includes all the media used on your blog.
The press comprises all different types of files such as images, videos, infographics, podcasts; you name it.
Hopefully, the Internet is full of free to use files on your website without breaking the laws, but the best way of using these types of data is when they are your own, and ideally-created by you.
It’s clear that if every blogger starts creating his photos, or videos, there will be no time for blogging, but when this is an option, you should go for it for two understandable reasons.
The first reason is no one better than you know how you would like to present a content-an item or a thesis and express yourself on your blog. Same is valid for the photos used in the blog posts.
When you can and have the possibility, create your photos, infographics, and other supplements yourself because you know what your particular blog post needs best.
Yes, you can use as many other bloggers do, free and ready to use images of any type, but then you will not be different than others.
The second reason is related to your auditory and SEO at the same time. Here my point is both your auditory and the SEO of your weblog will benefit from new, unpublished by then and on other places information, or in other words-brand new content.
Everyone loves not only to read but also to see and listen to new content, and this is how the World works, since forever.
Blogging for Beginners — Is This All?
I could give more blog tips for beginners, but that would probably be somewhat useless, as it would increasingly turn to more and more details and maybe sharing of things that are not that exciting.
Besides, on the Internet, you can also find many other blog tips, and I want to recommend newcomers in the blogosphere to check them too.
I will be pleased if you leave a comment and leave your very own beginner tip to enrich this blog article further.
And don’t forget — blogging is fun if you tackle the matter appropriately.
Have a nice Blogging!