Every Amature blogger makes mistakes on their blog.
They don’t even realize that some of these mistakes are very serious which can ruin their blogging career.
I’m going to list 15 common Amateur Blogger Mistakes.
Avoid these blogging mistakes to take your blog to the next level. Otherwise, your blog will look like amateur blogs.
When I started my blogging journey. At that time, I also made lots of mistakes and I learned from it.
That’s why I decided to write this article about common blogging mistakes so that you don’t make awful mistakes like me and become a successful blogger.
Believe me that If you’ll avoid these mistakes that every amateur blogger makes then you’ll see a J curve in your blog’s growth.
NOTE: I’ve shared lots of unique tips which will help you to avoid these mistakes.
So, Must read this article till the end.
Also Read:
- Blogging Mistake 1: Think that Traffic Will Come Automatically
- Mistake 2: Writing Articles Without doing Keyword Research
- Mistake 3: Not Building the Email List
- Mistake 4: Terrible Blog Design
- Mistake 5: Ignoring Article Layout Process
- Mistake 6: Copying Other Blogger Content
- Mistake 7: Not Worrying About Improving Website Speed
- Mistake 8: Using Cheap & Low-Quality Hosting
- Mistake 9: Not Using WordPress
- Mistake 10: Publishing Thin Content
- Mistake 11: Link Building Mistake
- Mistake 12: Scare to Build Own Community
- Mistake 13: Avoiding Affiliate Marketing
- Mistake 14: Scare to Invest in their Blog
Blogging Mistake 1: Think that Traffic Will Come Automatically
This is the most common blogging mistake amateur bloggers make. After publishing their article, they think that they will start getting traffic automatically.
They don’t share their articles on Facebook, Twitter and other social media.
If you are making the same mistake then I’ll suggest you avoid this mistake asap.
How to Avoid this blogging mistake?
Now, let’s discuss what you can do to get traffic to your site.
After publishing your article. Do the following thing to get a good amount of traffic:
- Share your article on Facebook, Twitter and other social media.
- Comment on other high authority sites related to your niche and add your new article link in the website URL field.
- Go to Quora.com and other question-answer sites and find some relevant questions then write a good answer and add your new blog post link naturally.
- You can also create a pinnable image and pin it on Pinterest.
- Mention professional bloggers in your article and inform them about it. There is a huge chance that they will share your article with their audience and you’ll get a good amount of traffic.
Also watch this video, where 10 Expert Blogger revealed how to drive traffic to a new website both with and without SEO.
I hope that these simple tips will help you to avoid this blogging mistake.
Mistake 2: Writing Articles Without doing Keyword Research
Keyword research is a very crucial step in SEO.
Why? Because even if you’ve written an in-depth guide but you are targeting the wrong keyword then it’s not going to rank.
I noticed that many amateur bloggers start writing their article without doing any keyword research.
Because they don’t know how to do the keyword research. Also, many newbie bloggers don’t know anything about LSI keywords.
So, don’t make this silly mistake. Before writing your article, spend some time in keyword research and find easy to rank long-tail keywords, related keywords and some LSI keywords.
How to Avoid this Mistake?
I know that you are making this mistake because you don’t know how to do keyword research in the right way.
Just follow these quick step by step guides to find easy to rank long-tail keywords.
STEP 1: Click here to open the SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool and enter your target keyword. Suppose, you want to find long-tail keywords related to “weight loss”. Then enter “weight loss” end press enter.
As you can see in the below screenshot that it’s showing 4,51,000+ keywords. But we want only easy to rank long-tail keywords
STEP 2: Click on the “Advanced Filter” tab and apply the following condition
a) Word Count: We want to find long-tail keywords i.e. the keywords which have a minimum of 4 words in it. That’s why I applied 4 in minimum value.
b) Volume: We want only those long-tail keywords which have at least 100 monthly search volume. That’s why I applied 100 in minimum value.
c) KD (Keyword Difficulty): Keyword Difficulty should be as low as possible. KD tells us how difficult it is to rank for any keyword. I’ve entered a max value of KD=40.
STEP 3: As you can see that After applying the above condition, it’s showing me easy to rank long-tail keywords.
In this way, you can find easy to rank long-tail keywords and avoid your most common blogging mistake as an amateur blogger.
BONUS: Click here to get 14-days free trial of SEMrush.
Mistake 3: Not Building the Email List
More than 50% of beginner bloggers are doing this mistake that they don’t focus on building their email list.
Remember, If you are not converting your blog visitors into your audience then it’s just traffic which visits your site, read your article and leave your site.
“If you are not building your email list then you are not building your business.”
Suppose, someone has visited your site for the first time from a search engine or social media. Then there is a huge chance that after leaving your site he/she will forget the name of your site and may never return to your site.
Let me explain the power of email list building through a basic example:
Suppose, you are getting 100+ traffic every day and out of these 100 visitors, 10 people are subscribing to your email list every day.
Then after 1 year, you’ll have 365*10= 3650 subscribers.
It means that even if you are getting only 10 subscribers every day then you can build an email list of 3,600+ people within a year.
After that, whenever you’ll publish a new article, you only need to send an email to your subscribers and you can expect a good amount of traffic immediately.
If you are building your list then it means that you are converting your traffic into your audience.
And according to research, For every $1 spend in email marketing, you can expect an average return of $40.
That’s why I always say that if you are not building your email list then you are not building your business.
Here are some amazing benefits of building an email list:
- It’s the traffic You own. You don’t have any control on Google & Social media traffic. Google can ban your site and your social media account can be deleted if you break any of their terms & condition. But the traffic you have in your email list is the traffic you own.
- Whenever you publish a new article you can send an email to your subscribers about it. It’ll help you to get a good amount of traffic instantly.
- You can promote the affiliate product whenever you want.
- If you have any product or service then you can sell it to your email subscribers easily.
- You can create automation and sell your product or affiliate product totally in automation through the email marketing funnel.
I hope that you understood the power of building your email list.
How to Avoid this List Building Mistake?
Start building your email list from day-1.
If you are thinking that you’ll start building your email list when you start getting 50-100 daily traffic then it’s the biggest mistake of your blogging journey.
If you don’t have a budget then I’ll recommend you to use ConvertKit. It’s free up to 1000 subscribers.
And one more thing that if you think that you’ll just add a signup form in your website and people will start subscribing to your list then, believe me, it’s not going to happen.
Why? Because if you’ll not offer something for free in return of your visitors email address then they will not subscribe to your email list.
So, create any free book, free course or anything else and then tell your site visitor that they will get this free ebook or course if they will subscribe to your list.
It will help you to build your email list in the fastest way
To collect emails of your subscribers you need Thrive Leads. It’s almost free because it charges a small one time fee of $67.
With the help of this tool, you can show popup box, slide-in forms, exit-intent popup etc to collect the email address of your visitors.
Thrive leads will automatically transfer email addresses of your subscribers in ConvertKit.
I hope now you understood how to avoid this most common mistake which every amateur blogger makes.
Mistake 4: Terrible Blog Design
Many beginner bloggers use the free theme in their blog.
If you are also using free theme then I can understand that you have a low budget that’s why you are using a free theme on your site.
But Did you know that many of these free themes are poorly coded which can affect your website speed?
And according to Google, site speed is an important ranking factor.
Also, Free theme doesn’t look good. It can hurt the UX of your site and we all know that User Experience (UX) is also a Google ranking factor.
So, because of bad UX and poor site speed, your article will not rank high in Google even if it’s better than the top-ranking sites.
I did the same mistake when I started my blogging journey. But after 4-5 months, I realize that it was affecting UX of my site and increased my site load time.
Due to this issue of a free theme, Ranking of my articles decreased.
So, I purchased the Focus blog theme in 2017 which is a lightweight theme and it provides a very good layout.
After 1-2 months of installing this premium theme, I noticed a good improvement in my article ranking.
Currently, I’m using Kadence Them which is far better than GeneratePress and Focus blog theme.
And the best part? you can get 10% discount on Kadence WP Theme using our exclusive coupon code.
Here are some major disadvantages of Free Theme:
- Majority of these free themes are embedded with spammy website links & malicious code. Due to this, your site may be hacked easily.
- Almost every free themes are poorly coded which can increase your site speed. And due to this, your website ranking will affect.
- You’ll rarely get updates on the free themes.
- Free themes have limited customization option
- You’ll not get any support.
- Free themes don’t look good It’ll hurt the UX (User Experience) of your site. And you know very well that UX is also a Google ranking factor.
I hope that you understood what are the risks of using a free theme on your website.
That’s why I called that it’s the deadliest mistake that every amateur blogger makes.
How to Avoid this Mistake?
Don’t take any risk with your website security and speed.
At least purchase a premium theme because premium themes are always lightweight, loads super fast, provide lots of customization option, improve UX of your site and secure as compared to free theme.
Here is the list of some best WordPress Theme:
1. GeneratePress Theme: GeneratePress is one of the best WordPress themes I have ever used. It’s lightweight and provides lots of customization options. I’m using the same theme on this website. Its very lightweight theme that’s why It loads lightning fast.
2. Astra Theme: Astra theme is also a good theme. It’s the fastest growing WordPress theme. This theme was released in May 2017. Currently, it powers more than 1,000,000 websites. It’s also a lightweight theme and has lots of customization options.
3. Elegant Theme: Elegant theme also provides good design and customization options. This theme is installed on more than 700,000 websites. The best thing about Elegant is that they offer all premium themes and plugins at $89.
4. Thrive Themes: Thrive Themes are very famous for providing amazing themes and plugins. I used their Focus blog theme on this website. Currently, I’m using some of their amazing plugins like Thrive Leads, Thrive Architect and many more.
You’ll be glad to know that they launched Thrive Theme Builder plugin. With the help of this plugin, you can design the theme yourself as per your requirement. You don’t need any coding knowledge for this. You can simply drag and drop elements to design your theme.
Mistake 5: Ignoring Article Layout Process
I noticed that one common mistake that almost every amateur blogger makes is that they don’t prepare the layout of their article.
Due to this silly mistake, it takes them lots of time to write articles. Because after writing a few paragraphs they think like what should I write next and after writing 1-2 more paragraph they again thing like what should l write next.
If you are writing your articles like this then, believe me, it’ll take a hell lot of time to write even a single article.
How to Avoid this Mistake?
Prepare the layout of article. It’ll help you write blog post faster.
Before start writing your article, follow these step by step guide:
- STEP 1: Enter your target keyword on Google and check the top 10 ranking articles. It’ll help you to understand the search intent. Google is ranking this article because they are providing something which searchers want.
- STEP 2: Check their heading structure i.e. which type of heading (h1, h2, h3 etc) they are using and what topics they have covered in their article.
- STEP 3: Find what are the topics they forgot to cover in their article and must add that topic in your article to create better content than top 10 ranking articles.
- STEP 4: Prepare a list of all the keywords for which these articles are ranking and target use them in your article. You can steal the keywords of these top 10 article using SEMrush tool. Here is a step by step guide on it.
- STEP 5: After checking all these things prepare the layout of your article with Dynalist.io tool. It’s completely free.
I hope that these tips will help you to fix this most common mistake that almost every amateur bloggers make.
Mistake 6: Copying Other Blogger Content
I also did this mistake. Yes, you heard right.
When I started my blogging journey then I used to copy other bloggers articles and thinking that it’ll start ranking and I’ll get a good amount of traffic from Google.
But very soon I realize that it’s a dangerous activity. Due to this, Google can ban my site from the search engine.
Many beginner bloggers do this mistake because they don’t know what Plagiarism is.
If you will copy other website content (which is already ranking in Google) and publish it in your site then Google will treat it as Plagiarism content.
Google hates this type of websites which copy others content.
How to Avoid this Silly Mistake?
Many Newbie bloggers copy content from another website because they think that it’s very difficult to write an article.
They don’t know how to write a well researched and good article.
If you are one of them then I’ll recommend you to read this simple 9 steps guide. It’ll help you to write well researched and Good blog post faster.
Secret Tip: You can use Jasper to write your articles. It can write original contents for you. Click here to know more about it.
Mistake 7: Not Worrying About Improving Website Speed
Many amateur blogger don’t worry about improving their website speed.
Website speed is one of the important Google Ranking Factors. If you want higher ranking on Google then you should focus on improving your website speed.
In 2010, Google officially announced that website speed is an important ranking factor.
And after that, In 2018, Google again stated that page speed is a ranking factor for mobile searches.
So, I hope now you understood that improving page speed is very crucial to improve the ranking on Google.
How to Fix this Awful Blogging Mistake?
You can improve the website speed by doing the 4 simple things:
- Use a Good Web hosting like SiteGround. But they increased their price. If you can’t afford SiteGround then here is a list of some best affordable SiteGround alternatives. Must check this alternatives if you can’t afford SiteGround hosting.
- Remove Unnecessary plugins.
- Install WPRocket Cache Plugin
- Compress and resize images before uploading in your website.
These 4 simple things can improve your website speed easily.
But I’ll recommend you to also read this detailed step by step guide to get site speed under 1 second.
Just click on the above link to read step by step guide on improving website speed.
Mistake 8: Using Cheap & Low-Quality Hosting
This is another common mistake that almost every amateur blogger makes that they always spend money on cheap and worst web hosting.
If you are also doing this mistake then you need to understand that Hosting can make or break their site. So, don’t spend your money on these worst web hosting companies.
Whenever you are planning to purchase hosting. You need to check the following things:
- Support should be awesome
- They should provide good uptime
- It should provide daily automatic backup feature
- Good storage and bandwidth
- It should provide good site speed
How to avoid this mistake?
I can understand that if you are using cheap hosting then it means that you have a low budget.
But there are some good web hostings which are providing the best hosting at a very affordable price. And the best thing is that many of these hosting is providing monthly payment options.
Here is the list of the best month to month web hostings. So, must check this list to ensure that you are using the right web hosting.
Mistake 9: Not Using WordPress
I also start my blogging journey with a free Blogspot blog. Because at times I just want to make money without investing money.
But soon I realized that I was making a big mistake and I moved my entire blog to WordPress.
You may think that if I’m getting everything for free then why should I care about using WordPress.
Right?
So, let me tell some of the major disadvantages of using Blogger Platform:
- You Don’t Own Your Blog: It’s one of the serious issues with the Blogger platform that you are not the owner of your blog. Blogger.com own your content.
- Websites Can be Deleted Without Any Warning: If you break any terms and conditions of blogger.com even by mistake then they have rights to delete your site without any warning. The same thing happened with one of my Facebook group members.
- Branding: Did you know any company or a successful blogger who is using the Blogspot platform. I know that your answer is a big “NO’. So, if you are not a hobby blogger and want to be a successful blogger then must think about moving to WordPress.
- Backlinks: It’s very difficult to build a backlink for your site if you are using the Blogger platform. Because sites hosted on Blogger don’t look professional. So, no one wants to give backlinks to these sites.
How to Avoid this Mistake?
I’ll recommend you to move your blog from Blogger to WordPress ASAP.
You may ask me what will happen with my organic traffic if I move my site to WordPress.
Don’t worry! You can move your site to WordPress without losing your organic traffic.
Read this Guide: How to Migrate from Blogger to WordPress without losing Organic Traffic.
So, just click on the above link and read this step by step guide.
Using the Free Blogger platform is the most common Amateur blogger mistake. Even I did this mistake.
Mistake 10: Publishing Thin Content
It’s also a common mistake that every amateur blogger makes. They think that they will publish 500 or 700 words articles and it’ll start ranking.
So, I’ll recommend you publish detailed guides on your blog. Because quality content always wins.
I know that you’ll ask me that what’s the ideal word count for any article?
My answer is simple. There is not any fixed number for this. But you can implement a simple strategy that I’m personally using to calculate what should be the word count of my article.
Follow My Simple Strategy to Find the Word Count for New Article:
- STEP 1: Enter your target keyword on Google and copy the URL of the top 10 ranking articles.
- STEP 2: Open the WordCounter website and paste the URL one by one. It’ll tell you to the word count of these articles.
- STEP 3: Now, calculate the average word count of these top 10 articles.
- STEP 4: Publish 50% more word count article. For example, if the average word count of these top 10 ranking article is 1000 words then you should publish 50% more words article i.e. 1500 words article.
I hope that this simple strategy of mine will help you to decide the word count to your next article.
Mistake 11: Link Building Mistake
We all know that Backlink is one of the most important ranking factors.
But it doesn’t mean that you should start building backlinks from day-1.
In the first 5-6 months, Instead of focusing on the backlink, focus on creating high-quality articles for your blog.
And when you’ll publish at least 20-30 articles then start building backlinks naturally through guest posts, blogger outreach etc.
The other mistake that every amateur blogger makes is that they only focus on building the do-follow backlinks for their website. It’s a wrong approach.
You should build both do follow and no follow backlinks. If you’ll build only do-follow backlinks then it’ll look unnatural and you may face problems.
Here is the list of some most common link building methods:
- Guest Posting
- Broken link building
- HARO
- Skyscraper technique.
- Giving testimonial to other bloggers
- Blog Commenting (Nofollow link)
- Write Answers on Quora and naturally add your link. (Nofollow link)
I want to say it again that build both nofollow and dofollow links. If you build only do-follow link then it’ll look unnatural. So, don’t make this mistake
Mistake 12: Scare to Build Own Community
Many beginners bloggers scare to build their community.
They think like:
- If I’ll create my Facebook group or anything else then why will people join my group?
- It’ll take too long to get even 100 members.
- Professional bloggers have thousands of members and I have to start with 0 members etc.
First, you need to understand that everyone starts at 0.
Back In 2017, when I started my blogging journey then I decided to create my own Facebook group.
At that time, No one knew me. But I knew one simple thing that It’ll take some time to grow it and If I’ll provide value then people will join and invite their friends.
So, I start proving values to my Facebook Community and You know what now it’s a group of 32,700+ bloggers.
This simple decision of creating my Facebook community changed my life. Click here to join “Blogging Lift VIP Group”.
So, don’t scare to build your community. Start Your Facebook group today because it’s the best way to connect with your followers.
I also started with 0 members and now my Facebook group has 32,700+ members.
I hope this simple story of mine encourages you to start your community.
Mistake 13: Avoiding Affiliate Marketing
More than 60% of people who start their blog don’t even know what affiliate marketing is.
They think that Google Adsense is the only way to make money from the website.
You can make 10x more money from the same traffic if you are doing affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is a way of making money by selling someone else’s product.
I’m not saying that Google Adsense is not bad. It’s a good way of making money if and only if you are getting huge traffic on your site.
Because According to some experts, to make $100 through Adsense you need approx 100,000 traffic.
But if you are doing affiliate marketing and getting only 100-200 quality traffic then you can make more than $100 easily.
I hope you understood why you should do affiliate marketing.
Must read this affiliate marketing guide for more info. It’ll help you.
Mistake 14: Scare to Invest in their Blog
It’s the most common mistake that almost every amateur blogger makes.
Even when I started my blogging journey then I was scared to invest in blogs. But when I start investing in some necessary tools and plugin then start seeing good results in my blog’s growth and earning.
Because some of these plugins help me a professional look to give my site a professional look.
After that, I realize that blogging is a pure business. And if we want to make money from our blog then we should invest money in it. And from that day, I start investing money on blogging tools and plugins whenever required.
I know that you just started your blogging journey so you don’t want to invest money in all premium tools and plugin.
But At least invest money in these 6 crucial blogging tools & plugin.
- GeneratePress Theme: It’s a premium lightweight theme. I’m using the same theme on this website.
- Thrive Architect (One Time Fee): I use this tool to write attractive blog posts like this. It allows adding the content box, button, pros and con box, table, table of content, countdown timer etc in our blog post.
- Thrive Leads (One Time Fee): It’s the best email marketing tool. I use this tool to show popups on my site to collect the email address of my subscribers.
- Grammarly: It’s the best tool which helps me to avoid grammar and spelling mistakes from my article.
- SEMrush: I use this tool to find easy to rank long-tail keywords. This tool helped me a lot to improve my article ranking.
- Social Snap: I use this tool to show attractive social sharing buttons in my article. It helped me a lot to increase my social shares.
Must use all these 6 tools. It’ll help you to take your blog to the next level.
Final Words About Common Blogging Mistakes
I tried to share some of the most common mistakes that every amateur blogger makes.
And I also shared how they can avoid these common blogging mistakes to be a successful blogger.
So, go back and read these amateur blogger mistakes. If you skip any of these. Otherwise, your blog will be look like amateur-blogs.
If I forget to cover any other blogging mistake then let me know via comment below.
And “If you found this article helpful then please let me know via comment below.”
And don’t forget to share it on social media.
Thanks in Advance! ♥