Is your first blog got failed? Have you thought why? Today we would tell you about 20 Amateur Blogger Mistakes which most of the new bloggers make?
After reading this blog post, I am sure if you will avoid these blogging mistakes your blog will also become successful.
Although starting a blog might be easy; however, it requires a thorough professional discipline for making your blog a grand success.
Nowadays hundreds of blogs are launched every day, but most of them fail to get the cherished goal for which they were launched.
They die a premature death.
So a million dollar question is how to make your blog a success.
Moreover, it is seen that amateur bloggers go on to make many mistakes on their blogs.
In fact, they seem to be negligence of the fact that they have made a mistake.
However, a mistake is, after all, a mistake that can cost them the success of their blog(s).
The important thing is that they should realize their mistakes and go on to prevent them from happening in future.
Getting to know the common blogging mistakes that every amateur blogger makes can help new bloggers to avoid these mistakes from happening with their blogs.
And that’s exactly what I am going to present you in this post.
Herein, I have listed 20 Amateur Blogger Mistakes You Should Avoid.
If you avoid these amateur blogger mistakes, you can eventually make your blog reach the pinnacle of success.
Although there’s no definite success formula for blogging, still pursuing the right and essential things in blogging and avoiding amateur blogging mistakes can make your blog a grand success.
So, the foremost thing you need to do is to stop making mistakes that most of the new bloggers make.
Here, we have listed and illustrated 20 Amateur Blogger Mistakes you should avoid making these blogging mistakes so that your blog becomes popular and as well as successful.
So, let’s get down and see what these amateur blogger mistakes that you should avoid are.
Here’s the list for you:
Table of Contents
20 Common Amateur Blogger Mistakes
1. Not Deciding The Single Niche
To start with you need to decide the niche first in which you want to blog. Not deciding single niche is perhaps the biggest mistake made by most amateur bloggers.
So if, you are starting a new blog, decide a single niche rather than choosing multiple niches.
Your readers should be aptly clear about what they can get from your blog. It should be a niche that you like to write and know well.
A single niche also helps search engines to position your blog and thus can direct visitors to your blog looking for topics in the niche you write.
In short, you should not spoil your blog by choosing to write on multiple niches.
However, if you have mastery over multiple niches, then it is always advisable to start separate blogs for each of the niches.
2. Not Writing Regular
Starting a new blog is not the end of it.
You need to fuel your blog, by writing regular content for it.
Well, you can decide the frequency you want to have for your blog.
You can choose to write daily, biweekly, weekly, and monthly or can choose whatever frequency is suitable for you.
Once you decide on the frequency, you should stick to it.
Not writing regular content for your blog, you tend to lose visitors and affect your search engine rankings too.
A blog with no fresh content becomes stagnant and is equivalent to a dead blog.
Writing regular content is a vital element for successful blogging.
It helps to keep a regular flow of traffic of visitors to your site or blog.
3. Not Writing Quality Content
Writing regular content is not enough.
In fact, you require writing quality content for your blogs.
Moreover, the content you write should not be copied. You should thoroughly research the topic before you begin to write the content for your blog.
This way you not only tend to create unique content but also useful content for your readers that are not found on other blogs.
Herein, the style of writing also matters.
Your content should be easy to read for your visitors. Your visitors should be able to drive value out of your content.
Remember that quality comes first and matters the most to your readers or visitors. Quality content is the main influencer for your visitors.
They will invariably patronize and like your blog once they realize that you always dish out quality content to them.
4. Writing Just For Search Engines
Although every blogger wants that their blog should rank high on the search engine results page, one should still not write just for search engines.
On the contrary, you should write for your readers. Overstuffing your content with keywords spoils the flow and relevancy of the content.
Though your content can rank on the search engines, it is of no value to the visitors as they simply fail to understand what the content delivers to them.
Writing just for search engines, you tend to diminish the real value of your content. So make a point not to write just for search engines.
5. Robotic Approach
Most amateur bloggers go on to make this grave mistake.
They treat their readers as robots.
They do not make use of personalistic words such as ‘You’ and ‘I.’
Always remember and take note of the fact that the two persons in the blog post are the writer and the reader.
So, the “I” and “You” factor are very much important to the success of your blog.
By using such words, you tend to build a worthy relationship with your readers.
Your readers tend to identify themselves when they read personality words such as “You” or “I.”
The personalistic approach helps the blogger to build a positive effect on their readers.
It helps to build an abstract relationship with the readers. It even encourages your readers to return to your blog.
6. Not Linking to Others
Most amateur bloggers think twice before linking to others.
However, you should keep in mind that blogging is all about “Give and Take.”
When you don’t link to others, you cannot expect others to link to you.
In fact, linking to relevant content in your niche on your blog goes on to help you a lot in building relationships with other bloggers.
It even encourages other bloggers to link to you.
7. Building Too Many Backlinks
Most amateur bloggers hold the misconception that building backlinks are the best way to ranking their sites in Google SERPs.
Well, it might be true to a certain extent, but there’s a point that you have to keep in mind.
Most newbie bloggers make the mistake of building tonnes of backlinks right away as soon as they launch their blog with a couple of posts.
In fact, it is not the right approach.
On the contrary, you should first focus on producing great content.
Follow it up by building 2-3 Dofollow backlinks.
You can even go for getting 20-50 Nofollow comment links by regularly commenting.
When you go for excessive blog promotion for backlink purposes, you can get a huge hike in rankings.
However, it’s only a temporary effect. It fades within a month, at the maximum. Then you have to hunt for recovery guides.
Instead, a better approach is to start building backlinks when you have about 70-100 unique blog posts.
Till then you should keep the building of backlinks to MINIMUM.
8. Sharing Only Your Stuff
Almost every newbie blogger goes on to share their stuff that is their blog posts.
However, they think twice before sharing other bloggers’ blog posts.
And that’s where they make a mistake.
In fact, as a newbie blogger, you should keep in mind that blogging works on GIVE AND TAKE principle.
From the very initial phase of your blogging career, you should make efforts to build relationships with other bloggers.
You should leave insightful comments on other popular blogs as well as go on and share other popular stuff in your niche.
The 70-30 rule is applicable for newbie bloggers.
70% of the stuff you share should be of other bloggers with whom you wish to build a relationship with.
However, later on in your blogging career, you can follow 50-50 rule.
9. Ignoring List Building
List Building is recognized as one of the best methods for quantifying your loyal readership.
However, most amateur bloggers fail to do list building.
In fact, traffic from lists and email marketing is very much substantial when compared with any sort of traffic. That said you have to do it correctly.
Moreover, in case you get penalized from Google, then also, you can get a decent amount of traffic and revenue through email marketing.
So, list building should be practiced from the very beginning itself as soon as you start your blog.
You should begin collecting your reader’s email addresses as soon as you launch your blog. It will help you to have a great list and hence traffic.
I too ignored list building when I started my blog. However, I soon realized the importance of list building, and then I started to build the list.
10. Failing to Choose a Custom Domain Name
By just seeing a blog, you can make out whether it’s a professional blogger or an amateur blogger.
In most of the cases, an amateur blogger creates a blog on some free blogging platform like blogger, WordPress.com, or other platforms.
Here are 8 Best Free Blogging Platforms.
However, it’s a good solution to go for the custom domain name and get the same registered in your name.
Once this is done, you can host your domain by using the right content management system (CMS).
Moreover, it’s not a big investment to get a custom domain and host your blog.
By having your custom domain and hosting, you get complete control on your blog, and it does not look like an amateur blog.
11. Not Doing Keyword Research
Keywords are one of the most important factors for writing a blog.
You need to figure out the keywords that your readers are looking for.
Moreover, you should focus on long-tailed keywords as these keywords can be easily ranked in the search engines.
However, keyword research is the last priority of amateur bloggers.
You should avoid this common mistake committed by most amateur bloggers and should focus on proper keyword research for your domain.
Plus, you should also do keyword research of your competitors that will offer you a good idea of upcoming trends and keywords.
It will help you in creating new posts.
Doing proper keyword is a must if you intend to get high ranking on Google SERPs.
Find Best Keyword Research Tools
12. Floppy Blog Design
It is another grave mistake done by amateur bloggers at the start of their blogging career.
They end up using free inbuilt themes (WordPress being the CMS) or go and download a free WordPress theme.
Although the theme apparently might look appealing, it lacks the class, touch, and appeal of a premium theme.
Moreover, a premium theme loads faster, is responsive, SEO optimized, safe, and mobile friendly.
So, there are obvious advantages with a premium theme for a blog/website.
The look of your website or blog is an important factor in retaining the attention of your visitors.
So, focus your efforts on having a great blog design rather than ending up with an average or amateur design for your blog.
Best Premium WordPress Themes Provider
13. Falling for Plagiarism
For most newbie bloggers, writing posts is a much tedious task.
So, they usually copy posts from other famous blogs in their niche, go on to make few modifications and publish it on their site.
This is known as Plagiarism.
It is a major issue with the majority of newbie bloggers.
In fact, search engines hate plagiarism. Doing plagiarism is like committing SEO suicide.
So, you should make efforts and come with original content because it’s the only way to succeed in blogging.
However, if you feel the necessity, you should always give due reference to the source when you quote someone’s content on your blog.
14. Inability To Connect With The Readers
What’s the similarity between a flop movie and an amateur blog?
Well, it’s the inability to connect with the audiences.
Your blog readers are the audiences for whom you write the posts on your blog.
So, you should write in such a way that the readers go on to enjoy reading your blog.
Quality of a post is not only what you are offering to your readers, but it’s also how you present the content to your readers.
At least, make sure that the post is easy to read.
Make use of short sentences and interesting titles. Even using infographics and images goes a long way in making your post readable for your audiences.
You should not make lengthy paragraphs as the readers might be tempted to skip the matter.
So, when you write a blog post, be sure to connect with your readers.
That’s the best way to bring the readers back (again and again) to your blog.
It’s only when they find your content interesting, they will be lured to come back to your site/blog again.
15. No Optimization of On-Page SEO
On-Page SEO Optimization is another important factor for blogging success.
No Optimization of on-page SEO is a fatal ignorance if you genuinely require succeeding in the world of blogging.
On-Page SEO involves a number of tasks such as proper headings, title tags, the font size of the content, doing bold, italics, or underlining, proper formatting of the of the points in your content, setting up image size, and many other related tasks.
You can do on-Page Optimization from the dashboard of your Content Management System.
By doing On-Page Optimization, you can rank your content higher in SERPs and thereby stand to gain a lot of traffic to your blog or site.
On Page SEO: How to do it right!
16. Not Promoting on Social Media
If you are not promoting your blog on social media channels, you are missing out on a vital source of traffic of visitors.
Social Media (such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) has the potential of bringing a large volume of traffic to your blog or site.
You just require to actively promoting your blog on these Social media sites.
Not promoting on social media sites is one of the biggest mistakes done by amateur bloggers and should be avoided at all costs.
17. No Efforts On Link Building
Link Building is a vital factor in the overall search engine optimization.
The more backlinks you have on your post, the greater preference you get in search engine results which means higher rankings and more traffic to your blog.
No efforts on link building mean you are losing out traffic to your site.
Although Link Building requires continuous efforts, the rewards are enormous regarding greater reach to your targeted audience.
18. Not Replying To Comments
As a blogger, you post content on your blog and provide an opportunity to your readers to give their feedback through comments.
You invariably have a comments section below each of your blog post.
Comments are valuable to you as it shows the response of your readers, their interest in your blog posts, and their level of participation.
Comments help you to improve your content as they are usually filled with suggestions and new ideas from your readers.
However, this is not the end of it as you need to reply to the comments posted on your blogs.
Not replying to comments you tend to discourage your readers from further commenting.
They might even decide not to visit your blog. Not replying to comments has a negative impact on the popularity of your blog and the traffic count for your blog might fall drastically.
Thus, you should develop the discipline of replying to the comments posted on your blog so that your blog remains popular with your audience and as well as increase the traffic to your blog.
19. Not Building Relationship With Other Bloggers
Relationship with other bloggers plays an important role in the promotion and success of your blog.
Fellow bloggers with whom who have a good relationship can write about your posts, can post their comments on your blog, like your posts, provide you useful and quality backlinks, can use social media channels (such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+) to spread your posts.
Thus, they can increase your reach to a wider audience.
Building relationship with other bloggers is also good from SEO point of as they can give a link to your blog which will help you to improve your site rankings in the SERPs.
So if you are not building a relationship with other bloggers, you stand to lose a lot. Building relationship with other bloggers is thus very critical for the success of your blog.
You should make full efforts to build a relationship with other bloggers as soon as you start your blog.
20. Thinking Blogging Will Make Some Quick Money
Many people start blogging just because they have the false notion that, by blogging, they can make quick money.
In fact, this is not possible.
On the contrary, blogging requires time and persistent efforts to yield results.
All dependents on how much visitors you get. It takes focused efforts to popularize your blog.
Blogging is not just about setting up a blog but also encompasses a lot of other dimensions to it.
Blogging does not provide a quick money making system.
Having said this, there is an enormous scope of earning from blogging.
There are hundreds of bloggers who are earning the fantastic amount of money by blogging. But, as also already said, this will surely take time and your continuous dedication.
Conclusion
If you want to have a successful blogging career, want to popularize your blog, have a large audience base, want to increase the traffic of visitors to your site, and then you should not make any of the above amateur blogger mistakes.
This post on 20 Amateur Blogger Mistakes You Should Avoid can be your guiding force and show you the things you should not do to become a successful blogger.
All-in-all, do not make the Blogging Mistakes most of the Amateur Bloggers Make.
Happy Blogging!!
