For any website owner, most should now understand the importance of blogging and how high quality content can affect your ranking.
Yet there are a number of common mistakes we still see many bloggers do, even the full time bloggers, which could be losing visitors and preventing you from reaching even bigger visitor numbers.
Most of these mistakes are structural, and the changes are if you are a novice blogger most likely you’re going to find yourself guilty of a few of these, but don’t panic, most are very easy to fix and you’ll find it wont take long to redeem yourself.
Blog Mistake #1 – Not choosing the solid niche.
While you want your blog posts to be interesting and not too much of the same, if you expand your post topic range too much you might find your posts diluting your rankings in your key niches that you are aiming for success in.
If you have a travel blog for example, stick solely to travel topics. Don’t go off on tangents about mental health, diet tips, etc or you’ll not only lose rankings but probably followers as well. If you have other topics you are passionate about it would be better to create unique niche blog sites for these rather than all in the one site.
Blog Mistake #2 – Lack of consistency
For many bloggers when they first start our they are fresh and excited about their new venture, so they tend to add a lot of posts all at once and then lose steam and don’t post much at all, or post a bunch one week and then nothing for a month or so. Blogging is like going to the gym..you’ll get the best results if you pace yourself and remain consistent. Create a blog planner for yourself so that you post consistently. This will allow you to focus on the quality of the content rather than rushing or feeling pressured to post more.
Having a schedule for your blogs will also be appreciated by your regular followers that become familiar with the days you release a new post.
Blog Mistake #3 – Don’t quit!
When someone starts a new blog site they are all excited and many will for some reason dream of seeing hundreds of people visiting the site. Unfortunately blogging is rarely like this, and overnight success rarely happens in the blogging world.
Many bloggers with dreams of making nig dollars from banner ads and affiliate links on their site become discouraged easily when they dont get the visitors they expected, and quit before they even give their website time to gain traction.
At first, put the extra effect in. Do at least two blog posts per week, share it on your social media channels, engage with your social followers to drive them to ready and share your posts. Do anything but not quit. If you give it a chance you ‘ll find success.
Blog Mistake #4 – Quantity is important.
It is common knowledge that your blog posts should be around 300 to 400 words to have an impact on Google, but ultimately what Google really wants is content of value for its readers. There is no point writing a long winded article of little value or substance, or one filled with keyword stuffed content. Make the content unique, make it concise and of value to your readers. This is the best way to create ‘authority level’ posts which rank beautifully.
Blog Mistake #5 – Don’t make the blog about you.
One of the biggest mistakes that bloggers an social media marketing influencers make is to write their content about themselves rather than give their audience real value. Unless you’re famous or lead a super exciting life, no one really cares about what you do, they are interested in the services you provide. MAke the content interesting abd about something they can relate to and you’ll find it will attract more shares, likes and comments.
Blog Mistake #5 – Create Headlines, not dead lines
With so many articles now online, you have to make it stand out from the crowd, and this starts with a great headline. When you visit any good news website online or the top posts on Youtube you’ll notice many use ‘click bait’ titles that are designed to get your attention and curiosity so that you want to read the post. Provocative headlines work great, and they should include something in it that offers a visual impulse to want to read the article, such as a call to action.
Blog Mistake #6 – Connect with the audience.
Without an audience your blog has no value, so allow and encourage your audience to comment on the posts, and engage with them. Thank them for their comments, (good or bad). And always respond if anyone has queries. You could also use this as an opportunity to invite them to your mailing list, where you can upsell them to other services you might have.
Blog Mistake #7 – Promoting the Blog Posts
Writing new blogs is great, but if people don’t know about them it is pointless, and yet so many bloggers don’t promote their posts.
When you have written your blog post, jump on your social media channels and promote it, with a link back to your post. Even do a paid promotion on Facebook if if the post needs extra attention for a call to action to something on the post.
But find a happy medium with the promoting. You don’t want to over-promote it so that it looks like a self promotion. The im is to post it for awareness and get it shared.
If your post is really filled with value you might want to spend some premium dollars on promoting it to multiple digital news sites using a services such as prweb.com, which will see your post promoted across hundreds of popular article based sites.
Once you have promoted your post you want to ensure you then follow up with a related article or make sure you respond and engage with your readers.
Blog Mistake #8 – Lack of engagement with fellow bloggers
One big mistake bloggers make is to keep to themselves and forget to engage with fellow bloggers in the same industry. Some look at them as competitors instead of collaborating with them. There is strength in numbers, so you need to look into joining online communities where your fellow bloggers hang out, get to know them and the shared audience of your niche, and see if there are ways you can collaborate with these bloggers.
At the end of the day, your goal is to help your target audience. They’ll appreciate the collaboration of shared information, and by possibly sharing a post on each others blog posts will give you a wider audience and a different view on the same or similar topics.
Blog Mistake #9 – Forgetting keyword-rich titles
I mentioned earlier about having a captivating title to your article, however also keep in mind that keywords still play a massive part of your organic SEO exposure.
By choosing a keyword-rich title can make the primary difference to your website appearing on the search engines and staying there for the long term. So while you want a title that stands out and is catchy, consider ensuring it contains a few of the keywords both in the title and the permalink URL.
Blog Mistake #10 – Poor writing skills
Not everyone was born to be a writer, and while some bloggers have good intentions, if writing is not your forte, there are other options to produce a well written article.
A quick search around the web will find a number of cost-effective copywriting services, such as CrowdContent.com, where for as little as a few dollars they will turn your article into a quality one worthy of sharing. You can even have these services write the entire article for you based upon your particular topic. Obviously you need to ensure the information supplied is of the same value you would promote yourself, but it allows you to create more high quality articles much faster than having to continually struggle on your own.
With these 10 blogging tips in mind, go out and enjoy your journey and share your passion and knowledge!
