You’re super excited to start your blogging journey, but before you know it, you happen to make a few common blogging mistakes that push you three steps back again. Don’t worry because this post will help you avoid six common blogging mistakes and offer solutions to fix them.
Let’s jump straight into it…
1. Understanding Delayed Gratification
Did you know that 77% of Internet users read blog articles? One common blogging mistake is believing that you’ll get a big piece of this traffic and make money from your blog as soon as you’ve published it.
You need to understand the concept of delayed gratification and be prepared to put in the time and effort without possibly seeing any income during the first months.
This is true, especially if you’re an affiliate marketer that makes a commission from the products and services you’re promoting on your blog. To start making commissions, you’ll need to drive traffic to your blog, which can take a while if you don’t choose the route of paid traffic.
However, understanding this makes it worth putting in the extra effort, knowing you’ll get the gratification later when you have consistent website traffic.
That said, many bloggers give up at this stage but don’t be one of them. Instead, keep working on posting high-quality content and drive more traffic to your blog, so you can reap the rewards later.
2. Using a Self-Hosted Blog Platform
I recommend using a self-hosted blog platform like WordPress.org. Free blogging platforms such as Weebly, Wix, or WordPress.com come with limitations and restrictions.
You won’t have complete control over your blog and be able to monetize it the way you want. But when using WordPress.org, you own your blog and have no restrictions.
Plus, WordPress.org is free to use. You only have to pay for hosting and a domain name. In addition, you may want to use a paid theme to get access to special functionality, but that’s up to you.
3. Capturing Leads on Your Blog
You should always capture leads on your blog and retarget them with email marketing. Don’t just publish blog posts and leave them out in the ether and expect the magic to happen.
Your goal should always be to turn email subscribers into paying customers. And this you can do by including a lead capture form on your blog.
Offer your blog visitors a free gift in exchange for leaving you their email address. For example, downloading a free eBook, attending a course/webinar, a cool giveaway, and so forth.
You can then use an automated email service to send different offers to your subscribers. And here’s where you can make more money from your blog. In fact, email marketing generates, on average, 38x return on investment.
Best of all, you own your email list, so no one can take that away from you. Here are three free email services you can use:
4. Not Spreading Yourself Too Thin
When starting out as a blogger, it’s easy to get overly enthusiastic and blog about too many topics. Covering too many topics makes it harder to attract an audience of loyal readers.
For example, if you write about exercise, travel, and social media marketing strategies, that’s three different audiences. Visitors that are interested in travel content might not be interested in social media marketing strategies. It will be difficult to get people to stay and read more of your content.
Besides, spreading yourself too thin may also confuse search engines. Google might not understand what your blog is about and won’t favor it in search results.
Instead, stick to one niche or topic and become an authority on the subject. This will help you build a loyal audience. And Google will see that your website is providing helpful content and rank it.
5. Performing Keyword Research
Did you know that 68% of online experiences start with a search engine? And the first 5 results for a given search account for 67% of all clicks.
That’s why I can’t state the importance of performing keyword research enough. If you skip this step, you may use keywords with no search volume in your content. This means that no one is interested in your topic, and you won’t get any organic search traffic to your blog.
However, ensuring that a keyword has enough search volume is easy if you use SEO tools like Google Keyword Planner, Semrush, or Ahrefs.
All you need to do is type in your keyword, and these tools will return the monthly search volume and trends. They can even give you tips on related keywords to use when producing more content.
6. Not Giving Up!
As mentioned initially, many bloggers give up before their blog even has a chance to grow. Remember that it takes time to get consistent traffic and loyal readers.
The truth is that your blog isn’t going to be an overnight success. But, if you’re patient and publish blog posts frequently, as well as focus on ways to drive more search traffic and grow your email list, you’ll start seeing results.
I can promise you that.
After all, the more content you publish, the more traffic you’ll get. Just make sure to not sacrifice quality for quantity.
Wrapping Up
Blogging has enormous potential. Whether you’re writing for clients, posting sponsored ads on your blog, or using affiliate marketing, you can make a lot of money. You’ll also experience the freedom of being your own boss and get to decide your hours. It can’t get much better than that. So, keep improving your blogging skills and have faith in your abilities to create a successful blog. I believe in you.
Syed Balkhi is an award-winning entrepreneur and online marketing expert. He is the co-founder of OptinMonster, WPBeginner, MonsterInsights, and WPForms.