FIVE BLOGGING MISTAKES TO AVOID
As you venture into the world of blogging, you’re bound to make a few mistakes, and that’s fine. Blogging is a forgiving medium. If you do something wrong, and you can go back and revise it or make improvements as you move forward. That said, if you can avoid making some common mistakes, you’ll give your blog the best chances of success right from the beginning.
One of the best things you can do is read about blogging. There’s a lot of advice out there, and you’ll find plenty of tips on how to write blog posts within your subject area.
Even once you feel comfortable blogging, keep reading, and you’ll be able to keep improving. As you get started, however, keep the following 5 mistakes in mind. Avoiding these can prevent your blog from having trouble getting off the ground, and you’ll have an easier time achieving great results.
1. Copying
This should go without saying, but you should never, never copy material for your blog. It’s immoral and unfair to the person who originally wrote the content. It can also get your blog into trouble. Google will penalize content that it detects as plagiarized, and your search rankings will suffer.
Readers can often detect when you’ve copied content. Anything that you’ve copied and pasted will stand out from the rest of your text and won’t sound like you. This is an easy way to turn readers away.
Of course, you should feel free to use other blogs as inspiration. Reading lots of other posts is a great thing to do. Just make sure that all the writing is your own.
2. Not Revising
Often, by the time you’ve finished writing a post, you’re tired of working on it and just want to click “Publish.” Hold off for just a few minutes though, and make sure you revise first.
Even if you’re a careful writer, a couple of typos and awkward phrases are sure to sneak in. Leaving these in a published post will make you look unprofessional. Take the time to read your post over at least once, and try reading it aloud to make sure everything flows well. If it’s an important post, it can help to have someone else read it. If you’re truly tired of looking at your post, take a break and come back to it later with fresh eyes.
3. Not Promoting Your Blog
Many new bloggers find themselves disappointed when their blog fails to draw in traffic, even if they have high-quality content.
The trick is to spend time promoting your blog regularly. Without promotion, a new blog will have trouble finding readers. Basic promotion includes posting links to new blog posts on all your social media accounts.
You can also help draw in new readers by building up a presence in blogging communities. Don’t just spam comments sections with links to your blog. Make meaningful contributions, and people will want to find out who you are.
4. Not Giving People an Easy Way to Subscribe
You want your blog to have regular readers, so you need to give visitors an easy way to subscribe to your blog posts. You should include a sign-up space on every single page of your blog. That means it should be on your homepage and at the bottom of every post you write. That way, when someone likes a post you write, they can immediately sign up to receive more of your content. If readers have to search for a signup, you’re going to lose out on loyal readers.
5. Posting Irregularly
Posting regularly is one of the best ways to maintain contact with your readers and keep them engaged with your blog. It will also help you to generate more revenue from ads.
It can be tricky to stick to a schedule at first, but you’ll get used to it as you go. There’s no single perfect schedule, but you should probably be posting at least once a week.
When you start your blog, decide on a schedule, work time for writing into your daily schedule, and then stick to it. If you post a day late every once in a while, the world won’t end, but abandoning your blog for a couple of weeks at a time can make you lose any momentum you were gaining.
If you don’t think you’ll be able to post for a while, write a few posts at once and then schedule them to be published automatically. This will help your blog to gain a solid foundation of readers who look forward to reading your posts.
Chapter:
- WHY START A BLOG?
- HOW TO CHOOSE A NICHE FOR YOUR BLOG
- CHOOSING A BLOGGING PLATFORM
- SETTING UP A WORDPRESS BLOG
- HOW TO COME UP WITH IDEAS FOR BLOG CONTENT
- HOW TO WRITE ENGAGING BLOG POSTS
- MONETIZING YOUR BLOG
- FIVE BLOGGING MISTAKES TO AVOID
- GENERATING TRAFFIC TO YOUR BLOG
