Overtime, running a blog can really be a fulfilling way to express yourself and could even be pretty profitable. The only problem is, when you’re new to blogging, you are more at risk of doing something that could lower the success factor of your blog. While we would all love to blog and get millions of viewers right away, that won’t happen. So to help make your blog as best as possible, here are some pitfalls you should avoid.
Having Multiple Niches
A common mistake when a new blog is made is that it is not niche specific. Having multiple niches may actually hurt your blog because you will be attracting different audiences for 2 or more different niches. If you are looking to write about different niches, then your best bet would be to create a separate blog. Although it might seem like it would be too much work to handle 2 or more blogs, it will be much better for you in the long run.
No Marketing Strategy
You should approach your blog as if it were a business. The only way a business can get successful is if it can attract enough customers. Your blog will only be successful if it can attract readers, so you should already have some type of marketing strategy in place prior to starting. There are a lot of different online marketing strategies, so you will just need to find one that is best for you and will attract your target demographic. While you might want to just start the blog without any marketing efforts, the sooner you start your marketing campaign, the sooner you will see the amount of traffic that you deserve.
Quantity Over Quality
New bloggers seem to think that their blog can’t be successful unless they have a lot of content, so they focus on making a lot of pages instead of focusing on making quality pages. This can really hurt the blog in many different ways. First, people don’t like bad content, so they won’t stay on your site or come back in the future. Second, your blog’s brand will be compromised and your public image will be worse. Third, your competition will win. All bloggers have some type of competition, and the blogger who has the best content will usually win. So Instead of focusing on how much content you have, focus on how good the content is.
Irrelevant Content
Once you have your blog for a while and start to attract more and more people, you should never give them something they don’t want. If they are used to getting information about the niche they are interested in, don’t give them some content that is completely irrelevant. Newer bloggers might have a life experience or encounter something that they thought was great, so they automatically think they should share it with their audience. Avoid that type of thinking because it will eventually push your readers away. They will most likely not care about the topic.
Not Responding to Comments
New blogs can get overwhelming, they need so much work, so you might not have enough time to respond to comments or messages. This is a big mistake. When you start out, every reader is important, and you should let them that that. If you respond to all of the comments you get, it shows your readership that you understand and care about what they have to say. They will get the impression that you respect their opinions and they will be much more loyal to your blog.
Bad Branding Techniques
Branding is a big part of blogs. Like I said earlier, you should look at your blog like a business. Every successful company has a brand, which can be either good or bad. When you don’t think about your brand, you might end up posting something or saying something that could give your blog a bad reputation. If you start to think about your blog with everything you do, you will have a good image in no time, which will attract more people and increase your overall authority within your niche.
Using Minimal SEO Techniques
Search engine optimization is one of the most important aspects of a blog. With each page, you have the chance at ranking high on specific search terms, which will then bring you plenty of traffic. There are a lot of aspects to think about when talking about SEO, but the important part is to understand it and implement it as soon as possible. The faster your content starts to rank higher, the faster you’ll see new streams of traffic getting to your site. Even though you might know the basics of SEO, it is important to learn as much as you can about it.
No Competition Research
All blogs have competition, it doesn’t matter what niche you are in. You will need to figure out ways to attract visitors in a unique way that is more effective than your competitors. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, you’ll need to know everything you can about how they are marketing their blog, what content they are making, and other reasons they might be successful.
These are only just some of the mistakes that can be made, but they are very important to avoid. Every blog is different, so just always try and make the best decisions possible.
infographics by: wordviewediting.com | image credit: lghmarketstrategy.com
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Sagar Rai
Hi Ness,
Widespread mistake every newbie blogger must avoid.
TRAFFIC.
They run and search for 1 Million Traffic Exchange, 1 Million Backlinks etc.
This is wastage of time. They better use that time on advancing their content value and SEO.
Connor Harley
Having a relevant and sensible blog at all times is very important for readers to keep visiting your blog. And this issue has always been a problem to most bloggers especially the newbies.
Ti Roberts
Really good points mentioned here.
One of my biggest pet pet peeves is when bloggers don’t response to their readers comments. I think that’s so rude. I can understand if you get a lot of comments, but you should always put in the effort to response to most of them.
Thanks for sharing your insights with us.
Dare
Hi Ness,
I learnt the hard way. My first blog ( now dead), was not niche specific, I was generally dishing out information based on my self interest and AdSense/high traffic keyword illusion….at the end, my fingers were burnt.
Anyway, I summoned up the courage and recently launch a new focused blog niche.
It’s always very good to have high quality content on your blog.
saad
One of my biggest pet pet peeves is when bloggers don’t response to their readers comments. I think that’s so rude. I can understand if you get a lot of comments, but you should always put in the effort to response to most of them.
Paul
Hi Ness, niche is something a blogger should always be clear about. If he/she is messing up with niche, I must say the future is in danger. And as far as content is concerned, that is what people come to your blog for, take care of your content.
Kuldeep
Great post man!
This could be the recipe for success in just about every aspect of life, let alone for writing blogs 🙂
Thank you my friend for making it sound so enjoyable and effortless…and fun.
Arbaz
Going with multiple niches was my very first and the biggest mistake I did when I started with blogging. Now I know that working on a single niche is a lot more beneficial then focusing on multiple.
Thanks for the awesome post mate. It really will help people like me 🙂
Charles Omotayo
I couldnt agree more with the listed common mistake to be avoided when starting out at blogging. Indeed, the importance of SEO cannot be overemphasized in blogging so it should be considered critically,
The other points are equally important.
Thanks for sharing….!
Shikha Jain
Great list I did like to add one! ‘You write in block paragraphs and don’t reformat your post to emphasise certain messages’.
It’s true that people reading a post/article will skim through to find key messages. Why not make their life easier (and allow them to read efficiently) by making words bold, italic, using bullet points, increasing text font, in order to allow key points to emerge.
Michael Monturo
Not replying to your readers is a big mistake that many overlook. I totally agree with you on that one.
Overall, new bloggers should definitely follow this article and they’ll be one step closer to success.
Vanessa
Thank you for writing and formatting this article so well. It has really given my brain a boost. I agree with much of this info.
Brian
Thanks for this. I’m planing to make blog in the next few days. Going to bookmark your guide.
I was thinking about to make one with several niches like ‘internet marketing tips’, ‘seo, ‘online advertising and getting traffic’ , Like you said it’s best to choose one niche for one blog, then I also planed to implement the ‘gaming’ and ‘game cheats’ sub-blog with it, but it’s better to make two separated blogs then.
Thanks for the help,
Best regards,
Brian
Naeem Malik
And I did the very first mistake by making a All Rounder blog. I never got more than 4 SERP sent users.
Though I corrected it in my Cydia Blog and I am happy with the results now.
Yes, before this I Having Multiple Niches, But now I need to delete and stay with only 2 blog. As a new blogger, having to much niches blog is not good idea for me
Varyam
Well, I think Multiple Niche point is important and every newbie should avoid it. First write what you know and then after learning keep on expanding. If you are providing knowledge on your blog that is written somewhere else without knowing it that its is true or not then you probably going to fail. And monetizing your blog too early is also bad step for new blog. Well, that what i think. Are your agree with me?
MAX
Great tips here. Indeed, this is an eye opener.. I like the idea of inverted model
where you write the summary first. In
fact, it makes a lot of sense since most
people skim though the blog post then
decide if they want to read further or hit the back button.
Recommended!
Bryce Net
Hi Ness,
I used to make mistakes like these in the past.
Having multiple websites was something that delayed my online success because I had to divide my time to focus on each and every project.
Thus, the quality focus was never desirable.
Thank You
Hi Ness, I agree to everything you said in this post of yours. However, I would like to add one more point to your seven elements of smart content and that would be ‘to keep your content error free’. It is a big turn off to come across content which is either grammatically incorrect or has spelling mistakes, your entire impression gets destroyed in an instant.
GIRI Patel
Hi, I have a blog on educational Admission and Exam Portal, I have also added online money making ideas to this blog, should it related to my niche ? Should I continue to write about online money making guide with my educational blog ? Please provide your valuable suggestion.
Amrish
This post is amazing and with tons of practical advice. I have started a blog without any idea, it wasn’t very successful, but it was an initiation for something bigger and better. Failing is very good way of learning, but these tips are awesome, for avoiding obstacles and time wasting.
Thanks a lot!