8 Common Blogging Mistakes to Avoid

Have you thought about the power of creating written content online? If not, then you are way behind all others. I know you want to grow your business online. Then may I present to you the eight common mistakes you need to avoid so that blogging can serve you well in the long run.

From novices to professionals, and small businesses to blue-chip companies alike, many have already extended their reach and marketing online.

With the use of blogging sites, they let their products and services known to a broader audience. Further using it as a tool to communicate. They keep their existing customers updated while showing what they can offer to potential future patrons.

You may have heard it already; many individual bloggers and companies who took their business online have become successful in working with their niche market.

Nowadays, there are lots of internet marketers that can show you reports of their successes. They also attest that if you take blogging as one of your arsenals, you too can have a steady stream of income.

For this reason alone, among all other beneficial things, would it be enough for you to jump up and start blogging right away?

Little did we know that many of these now successful bloggers were once have failed too. They had fallen into some pitfalls of blogging when they first started their own.

Take note; most of these people are so good at running their businesses but miserably failed when they took it inside the internet space.

Question: Why do these people of high caliber, competitive and successful in their fields, fell short with blogging?

Answer: The blogging pitfalls victimized them. Back then, they probably did not know what these are and how to avoid them.

So, here are the common mistakes in blogging that you need to know of and ensure yourself not to fall into their snares.

Not understanding what a niche is

I got myself tangled in this trap when I launched my very first blogging site. I never thought about targeting the right people. Without that in mind, I do not understand who would visit my website and read my posts.

What I did was I learned what I have to learn to build a website. But I skipped the niche research part.

I know I need to think it through if the blog I was about to build is a passion or expertise of mine. But I was too lazy to do that.

The result was crap. And when I look back and reread the articles I wrote for that site, they were crappier!

When you want to start a blog, having a niche is essential. Like what I have mentioned, it should either be your competency or your keen interest.

There is an exemption to the rule, though. If you genuinely want to cater to a particular niche, but you are neither competent nor passionate about it, then you have to double your work.

If you want to give bits of advice on a relationship niche, then you have to learn more about the psychology to keep connections tight between couples. From mental to physical to spiritual bondings, you should be able to provide these.

That same goes for other niches like health and fitness, wealth, etc.

In short, find a niche where you want to work with your blog. Who knows, you could become an authority with your chosen path.

Writing nonsensical topics, another mistake in blogging

As a rookie in the field, we all fall into this category of blogging mistakes on our first tries.

We tend to write things we believe our readers want to read. But that is not a solid truth most times.

To fix this, why not write articles that will answer questions that people look for when searching through the Internet?

To know what to write, consider doing search analysis. Find a problem that begs for an immediate solution.

If you have established a list of clients or followers immediately upon starting your blog, have you ever asked them what they want to know first?

Let’s say you can’t ask them a direct question, and you’re in health and fitness niche. By using Google, type the words “foods to lose weight.” It will give you lots of suggestions. These are the actual topics that people are searching on the Internet.

Some would call it a keyword or key-phrase search. To help you even further with the task, use tools like Ask the Audience or, better yet, Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest.

Gone are the days we consider a blogging site merely as a digital diary of random things.

With the belief that it’s just a daily journal, you’ll have tendencies to write only about yourself and the things surrounding you.

Try avoiding that practice. It will only make you drift away from the blog’s actual purpose and limiting its capability.

Today, believe it or not, a blog is a real business-building tool.

Pretending to be an expert

To be successful in blogging, you have to “Fake it till you make it.” That’s what most fake gurus would tell you.

I’ve written something about this topic in some of my previous posts. But it should also have to be here since many novice bloggers have adopted the faking principles.

We are in an age where social media has become part of our daily lives. It can expose everything. It’s difficult to mask a lie nowadays.

But if you did manage to hide the fact successfully, chances are, you’ll get caught, and consequences will be epic. You know how judgemental and unforgiving the netizens are, right?

You can’t build credibility out of thin air. But it is achievable through proper ways of gaining the necessary know-how and teaching yourself the essentials for your chosen niches. You can undoubtedly gain some level of trustworthiness as time goes by.

Before even starting a blog, though, you need to know some technicalities to build one. You need to research and learn more about how to operate and use its features to full potential.

Get the basic knowledge needed on how to circumnavigate through to your chosen platform to blog. They will prove essential and necessary to bring out your blog’s usefulness for visibility and accessibility over the Internet.

The blog does not reflect the owner and/or the business

If topics, articles, and mostly all the things inside your blog are a mess, everything will be in chaos.

If that happens, your customers or site visitors will notice. They will be quick to find any similarity between your blog and your business.

Search engines will also notice the discrepancies. Before you know it, you will get less and less traffic by the day.

If you are to use a blog as a marketing tool, it should serve as an extension of your business.

Make sure that customers will feel like they are genuinely doing business with you. People visiting your site should feel a comfortable ambiance since it serves as your virtual office.

A blog should reflect the image of your business.

Having no idea about other blogs in the same field

Do you want to have more website visitors? Do you want to at least rank within the top ten sites on the first page every time someone looks for a topic (related to your niche)?

Then spare some time to look at other sites or blogs within the same fields.

See what others have written about the same topics you have.

And by looking through the customer’s perspective, search for problems that these same blog sites are not yet answering.

If you can also check out the strategies that others are using, that would be great! Be always on the knowledge of what is happening on the market.

Collaboration with other bloggers is also an excellent way to boost your learnings and connections.

You will also need some interactions with others. It’s crucial.

Not enough commitment to get through the rough spots

You may know everything from technicalities to motivation needed in blogging, but if they do not commit you to follow through the task at hand, then all will be in vain.

To do blogging means to commit to everything you have to do to grow your business.

Sometimes you will feel like what you’re doing leads to nowhere. To the extent that It will make you want to quit, especially when you are looking at a flat line on your analytics graph. No one seems to care to read even after writing ten or twenty posts.

That’s okay. It is natural to see no tractions in your first few months in blogging.

Just do your job on writing content that gives solutions to other people’s problems within your niche. Focus on the benefits that your readers will gain from the information you will impart.

And also, don’t forget to be consistent with what you are doing.

If clients would try to reach out, let them know that you are reachable. By doing so, will also build your reputation as a good mentor.

Having no appropriate content posted

Blog posts should at least answer people’s questions.

Again, look through your visitors’ perspective. If you visit a site and all you ever see are advertising and marketing about many products, it could be forgivable sometimes.

But couple it with a bunch of ads from headers to footers and all its sidebars, will you expect yourself to stay even if the sites loading time seem to take forever? I know you’ll get bored, go away, and probably never to come back again.

I also know that it’s enticing to have ads within our sites. Who wouldn’t want to earn money through them?

But enough with the sales pitches, spare them all the hassles.

Focus on writing something that answers queries, rather than pure product offerings. Find other related topics you can talk about, and it will amaze you when you see your analytics go up.

Blogging is a set-and-forget kind of project

From the words of other top marketers, “the internet is a fast-changing space.”

Like Google Chrome that you are using, it gets updated weekly, if not daily.

Since your blog operates within the internet space, how many times do you visit it in a week?

At least once should be the answer if you are an average blogger.

But if you are using WordPress, then you should do it much more often. One reason is that this platform gets frequent updates along with the plugins you are using. Most of the time, they don’t get updated by themselves. For that reason alone, they always need your interventions.

Another part of your blog that always needs your constant attention is your articles. What’s trending today could be obsolete next week.

It’s a sin not to keep your posts up to date. If you neglect this part, expect to lose part of the traffic you’ve been getting.

To Conclude

In the early days of your career, It’s imperative to know of these blogging mistakes.

Be cautious, though. Some of these traps are like a magnet. You know you have to avoid them, but it always attracts your attention and makes you ignore the consequences.

In contrast, once you have avoided the snares, implement the things needed to keep them at bay.

One more thing — be decisive at all times. Don’t just stay on the fence when you are blogging.

If you plan to do nothing significant about your blog, why have one in the first place?