Beginners Guide - 14 Blogging Mistakes You Should Avoid As a Newbie

by Unknown | Sunday, March 17, 2013 | Blogging 37 Comments

Everyday, new businesses and blogs are introduced to the blogging world, and it's so obvious that all newbie bloggers are prone to mistakes because someone who never made a mistake never try something new, and the best way to avoid this mistake is to learn from others experience.
It's been a while now that i started blogging, and there are lot's of mistakes i made along the journey, but things are getting better as time goes on. As the old philosophy says "mistakes makes a man perfect", i always try to recognize my mistakes by examining the pro's in my industry and learn from their mistakes as well as correct my lapses.

The list highlighted below may not be all the blogging mistakes you should avoid, but they are the most deadly mistakes that can ruin your blogging career if you don't avoid it starting from now.

1. Duplicate Content

The most common and worst mistake most newbie bloggers made is to steal others people content without crediting the source. They believe that the more content they have the greater their chances of ranking high and famous which is a great lie. Having thousands of low-quality content have no good to offer your blog than getting you penalized by major search engines and also devalued your blog reputation in the eye of your readers.

2. Bad writing

The most sure-fire way to turn off regular and potential readers is: bad writing. Web readers want something they can easily read and digest. Publishing a post that contain grammatical or typo errors will make your post unpleasant to read which will leave a bad impression in your readers. Always use spell-check, research about new ideas and facts and incorporate it into your writing style. Also read over your post before publishing it.

3. No visual media

Beautiful and targeting images on a blog post always grab readers attention and encourage them to read your full blog post. Make sure the images embedded in your post must correspond with the post style and format, and be aware of copyrighted images which can be use against you. It is always a good practice to use a self-created images for your blog's in order to stay on a safe side.

4. Writing out of niche

Every newbie bloggers needs to concentrate on one blogging topic, and before you choose any blogging niche, you need to ask yourself, will i be able to compete with those at the top in this blogging niche? And the answer is yes, only if the understand or willing to learn the in-depth of the niche.
The most popular blogging niche nowadays is tech related blog. But most new bloggers don't know what it takes in order to have a successful blog in that niche, and this makes some of this bungling bloggers to flee into so many unrelated niche just to stay ahead of the game and publish as many as possible post in a day. But if readers find you struggling with your niche, they might feel perplexed and loose confident in you.

5. Inconsistent blogging

People love blogs that is updated on regular basis likewise search engines does too. It is obviously known that most newbie bloggers are consistent at the start and later goes down when they are not making enough out of it. If you rarely update your blog, probably once or twice a month and expect something great out of it, sorry to say, you are day dreaming. Consistency and writing a good quality content in your niche is the key to have a successful blog that generate substantial income.

6. Blogging for money without patience

It is a fact that most bloggers are blogging for money and fame, but you need a lot of patience and determination if you want to succeed as a blogger. Though it may seems to be easy at first, and at a time you will feel like giving up. Does that sound like you? Don't just worry, this are some challenges every bloggers must encounter before they can become a professional and successful blogger. Never give up even if you are the only one reading your blog. Every top blogger's also experience that when they are still a newbie. Blog with passions, and never tired of learning and experimenting.

7. Not having a unique design or logo

This are mostly common among new bloggers. It's very important that you have a unique logo and favicon which can be used to identify your blog. When you open a new tab in your browser, the little icon at the tab section is called favicon, and it makes it easier for readers to identify a page among multiple tab. Using already existing banner or default favicon can make your readers feel depressed about your blog. Also you should detest the use of default template, because this can also be found on several blogs. Try as much as possible to make your own design stand out from the crowd in order to attract your readers first impression.

8. Checking blog statistics every hour

It is always a good idea to know your lapses, but checking your blog statistics every hour can only poison your mind, making you feel that you are doing nothing when you see that you are still having a bad result. It takes a long run before you can start seeing massive traffic and great statistics on your blog. I also did this when am still new to the blogging world.

9. Focusing on backlink instead of quality content

Everyone knows that content is king, SEO is the blogging queen and what effect smart SEO is backlink. Before you can get quality backlinks to your blog, you have to focus on the quality of content you delivered because no higher authority site with appreciable pagerank will link to a low-quality site naturally. Building quality backlink the smart way will make you pally with major search engine especially the big G.
Sure, you can also get high backlinks by buying it from link farms, but this is the most sure-fire way to get your site penalized by search engines.

10. Spamming others blog with comments

It is also a good idea to comment on other blogs in your industry to notify people about your blog existence. But many new bloggers have misinterpret this idea by commenting lot's of small and pointless comments just to get their way to the top commenter list and get some backlink. This won't make you popular, instead it will discourage other from reading your blog. You have to give readers reasons why they have to make a visit.
It's so bad that most newbie bloggers don't want to sight any commentluv enabled or dofollow blog. They will start flooding the blog with worthless comments just to create an awareness and get backlink for their blog which is a very bad act.

11. Not responding thoughtfully to comments

The biggest mistake i believe a blogger can make is not to take time to respond thoughtfully to comments and interact with readers. Responding to queries and suggestions can make a big difference in your community because those who are acknowledged are likely to turn to your potential and loyal readers. Though, some queries may be so challenging, but this is your community, you have to face it. If possible make some research before responding to any tasking comment in order not to devalue yourself. Also, by interacting with readers through comments, you will be able to sense what they are more interested to see in your future posts.

12. Accepting all comments

Though, blog credibility and popularity are usually judged with the existing comments by readers, but that doesn't guaranty that accepting all sort of comments including anonymous comments is safe. Comments like nice post, great tips etc, with hyperlinks has no value to offer a blog than to devalued it. Sometimes most of these links are considered as paid links by Google which can harm your site reputation.

13. No basic SEO knowledge

The dream of every webmasters is to see their content ranking high in search results, but without basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) knowledge, your content is like a waste. To become a successful blogger, you have to learn basic SEO tactics, as a blog major traffic is depended on organic search from search engines. It will be a waste of time and resources to write when no one is reading it.

Some basic SEO techniques you need to understand include:

You can also learn more about basic SEO techniques from SEOmoz beginners SEO guide.

14. No blog promotion

One deadly mistake most bloggers make is they don't promote their content enough. You may have been writing great content that worth sharing, but if you don't promote that content, then you will not reach your targeted audience. If you are relying on motto "publish it, they will come for it" then you are mistaken. There are still many things to do to promote your content. People love to read new and quality posts, why do you have to wait for them to come for it? Feel free to promote your experience, but don't promote your blog if it's still fresh and under construction. It's like advertising a shop that has no stock in it to sell.

Blogging is more than writing and publishing, it also encompass learning and sharing of experience. Learn from those that are ahead of you in your industry. Learn from their mistakes and fortunes, and incorporate it into your blogging career.

What blogging mistakes have you practiced? What did you learn from this post? Please share your views in the comment.

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