Are you planning to start your blog and look for the mistake every blogger makes at the beginning of the blog? If that is the case then you are at the right place.
In this article, I will discuss all the blogging mistakes an amateur blogger makes so you may avoid those mistakes.
Look, It is very common for everyone to make mistakes but you do not need to repeat the same mistakes.
It is high time to learn from the mistakes of others so you don’t commit those mistakes and increase your chance of making your blog successful.
In this article, I have compiled all the mistakes that a blogger can make.
I am going to list 15 awful amateur blogger mistakes that you can avoid to make your blog successful.
So, sit back, relax, and note down all the mistakes that I have mentioned below so you do not make it.
15 Amateur Blogger Mistakes Which You Should Ignore
1. Using A Free Platform [Domain & Hosting]
Free things attract more people, right? But you need to be aware of that because it might be a mistake for you.
I am talking about the usage of free platforms for your blog.
See, One of the most common blogging mistakes made by new bloggers is to go with free platforms.
Blogging on a free platform – one that doesn’t offer any type of paid service, like a premium theme or a hosting package – does not give you complete ownership of your site, so you need to take steps to protect yourself.
If you are looking for a new blogging platform then the following is something that you must avoid at all costs.
Remember that the blogs that are hosted on free platforms are pretty secure, but if the company shuts down then so will your blog too.
Moreover, you will not get access to all the plugins & themes that will help your blog to grow faster.
Using free-domain: myblog.blogspot.com, myblog.wordpress.com
Does this sound a little unprofessional to you?
See, here as well I am going to tell you the same thing. Using a free domain might affect the performance of your website adversely.
Using a free domain might save you some money but it can be a big failure and you need to avoid that at all costs.
If you are serious about blogging then you need to invest a little amount in that. After all, In the long term, you will be able to generate a good amount of money out of that.
Self-hosted domain: myblog.com, blogpoint.com
Now tell me, Which site name sounds better, this one or the one I mentioned above?
Even if you are a beginner in the field of blogging, I am quite sure that you will mention this site.
And Why is that? Well! I will answer you. It is simply because this sounds more like a professional blog. Doesn’t it?
Now I am very sure that you know which domain you should go for.
Now, let us get back to the point. That is, using free platforms. It is not a sustainable option in the long term.
Having said that, I assume you must be wondering about which platform should you use.
If you ask me, then I highly recommend you go for WordPress as it is the most trusted platform and it is used by many bloggers.
It is also World’s most used CMS platform. Even I use WordPress to manage my blogs.
Make sure you check out for the best web hostings which are providing free domains too if you try their yearly plans.
2. Choosing Wrong Niche
I can’t stress more the importance it is to choose the right niche.
But, before we dive deep into how to choose the right niche, let us understand what is a niche.
Have you ever kept a private journal or diary? Your blog can be like that.
A private journal can be used to keep track of your life, activities, thoughts, and feelings.
Just like the more open diary, it is also private not just physically but in terms of what you want people to see.
The only difference between a blog and a private journal is that in a private journal, you write anything you want and in a blog, you write about a particular niche.
There can be various niches such as – Gaming, Blogging itself can be a niche, Health, Tech, AI apps review, etc.
A gaming blog would relate to video game playing; a health blog covers health-related stuff such as dieting plans
Many beginners have no idea about which niche to choose and they end up choosing a random niche.
Before starting your blog, make sure you know your target audience.
This is the reason why you should start with research about what other blogs that are related to your topic have been producing recently, and then do some analysis to understand their content before creating yours.
Many times it happens that bloggers choose a random niche and start creating content without any research.
Amateur Bloggers also end up creating a multi-niche blog which can be the worst decision ever. It is not sustainable at all and the chances for your blog to rank on Google become almost negligible.
One more thing that you need to keep in mind is that you need to create a blog in the niche that you are interested in.
I have seen many Amateur Bloggers seeking recommendations on what niche to go for and their main consideration is – How much money can this niche generate?
This is another mistake that needs to be avoided.
See, every niche is a successful niche if you have an interest in that and along with that, you need to make sure that you have a considerable amount of knowledge about that niche.
So, let me compile everything I said above for you.
3. Not Building Backlinks
Backlinks are one of the most important parts of a website’s SEO strategy. It is a huge amateur blogging mistake that beginners are unaware of the backlinks.
Building a strong content promotion campaign will take you a long way toward getting your website featured by Google.
If you want to rank in Google, make sure you have a quality article with proper on-page SEO.
If you are wondering what is Backlink then let me clarify it for you.
A backlink is a link pointing to another website. Link building is
critical for seeking engine optimization. Backlinks are also called “incoming links” or “inbound links.”
There are two types of Backlinks.
- Do-follow Backlinks
- No-follow Backlinks
Do-follow Backlinks: The higher the domain authority, the more likely your website is to appear in the search results.
This is called “link juice” and to get more link juice, it’s important to acquire high-quality backlinks.
These high-quality backlinks will pass on the authority of your site as far and wide as possible, helping other sites to rank higher on SERPs.
No Follow Backlinks: Nofollow links do not pass authority onto the website linking to them.
This can cause your webpage to receive a lower ranking in search results by search engines.
Backlinks are signals that your content is trusted and search engines see this as a signal that your webpage or website is worth linking to, and therefore worth appearing on a SERP if many sites link to it.
A site’s ranking position or search visibility can be positively affected by earning these backlinks.
In no way, I am telling you to keep creating as many backlinks as you can. You need to keep it natural and follow a certain ratio for do-follow and no-follow links.
The ideal ratio for a do-follow and a no-follow backlink is 60:40.
If you are lost and do not understand how you should create backlinks then I will tell you the most genuine and best ways to create backlinks.
So, without further ado, let me list them down for you:
- Guest Posting
- Broken link building
- Skyscraper link building
- Give a testimonial
- Infographic link building
While choosing a niche for your blog, Make sure that niche is sustainable, Check your competitors and see what they are writing about, and do a good amount of research on that niche.
And last, I would tell you to make sure that you love learning about that niche because you will have to write about it in the future.
4. Ignoring Keyword Research
I have seen many amateur bloggers who didn’t do keyword research to check what exactly users were searching for.
Instead, they wrote about topics they thought users would find interesting.
This amateur blogging mistake can be so time-consuming and energy-draining that you keep working and get nothing out of it.
Let me tell you a fact, you can write very good quality content about a certain topic and you may still not get views.
Can you guess the reason behind it? It is simply because users are not interested in that keyword.
Then what is the right way to find a keyword? Don’t Panic! I will tell you all about this right away.
First of all, Decide the keyword that you want to target, and then comes the part for research, if the topic you selected has a scope or not. There are various tools for this work.
You can use tools like Semrush to do keyword research.
Step 1: Open Semrush and Signup to create a free account.
Step 2: Now open your Semrush dashboard and tap on the keyword summary, then enter your keyword and click the analyze button to review the data.
Step 3: It now shows you all important keyword data like volume, keyword difficulty, keyword intent, CPC, trend, keyword variation, keyword-related keywords, SERP analysis, and more.
Voila! Your keyword research is done. You can now analyze all the data and come up with a keyword.
5. Unprofessional Website Design
As the owner of a blog/website, your theme should reflect your personality and brand. It keeps visitors interested and lets them know what to expect when they visit your site.
Your website/blog should be different, unique, or beautiful to stand out from the crowd.
First impressions usually last a long time and with so many websites/blogs to choose from it can be easy to move on to the next page.
Whether it’s your website, blog, or social media, your theme should reflect your niche, your services, and most importantly, your personality.
To be effective, a theme must convey your core values and brand message to visitors.
For example – If the niche of your blog is Tech then your website design must be related to tech and if you are into lifestyle, then your niche must be reflected in the design of your website.
Here are a few thighs that you can do to make your website better:
- High Readability
You must have thought of themes, colors, design, etc when you hear the term “blog design”.
These are very important aspects when deciding on a good-looking website but your font is also important.
This is another amateur blogging mistake in that they choose a font that is not readable.
You need to make sure that your blog is easy to read because if it is not easy to read, then no matter how good your content is, it will fail.
- Maintain Consistent Design
Your blog design should be consistent, just like any website.
Your blog will be easier to remember with a consistent design. Since there are so many blogs, this is crucial.
For example, the Backlinko site uses the color “Green”.
As a result, their blog design would look inconsistent if they used stock photos for some posts and illustrations for others.
Keeping a consistent design makes her blog look very professional. Even without the text, you could tell which blog you were on by looking at the design.
- Using Images
Images are another aspect of the blog. Please note that blogs are not just collection of words but it also contains images and graphics.
Images and graphics play a huge part while deciding what your blog is going to look like. This is why not using images and graphics is on our list of Amateur Blogging Mistakes.
If you want your content to be a little more engaging, I recommend including images for a great visual.
Here are some examples to customize your website and make it unique and attractive:
- The feed of your blog
- Featured Images
- WordPress theme (I recommend you to go with Kadance theme)
- Images and Graphics
- Fonts and Typography
6. Not choosing a better Web hosting
If you are using a free hosting service or you do not have a good hosting service then you are making a terrible blog mistake.
I have already mentioned earlier that if you want to start blogging then a little investment won’t harm you at all.
Hosting your domain name on a free platform is not enough for you to become a successful blogger.
And, if you are using platforms like blogger.com then you must be aware that you would not have much control over your domain.
Moreover, you won’t have enough options to customize your website.
There is a high chance for you to lose your content with free hosting.
Running off a free hosting service can be a recipe for disaster. These are the most common mistakes I see bloggers making with their blog hosting.
Speed is one of the best features of blogging. It is essential for accessing your site as fast as possible and if you cannot get that, then switching to another hosting provider is always a good option.
If a company provides you with blazing-fast speeds and other essential features like 24×7 customer support, you should opt for it.
Then which site should a beginner use, I recommend you to start with Bluehost as it has 24×365 support.
There are millions of websites hosted by Bluehost. It is listed in the world’s top 20 web hosts and is recommended by WordPress itself.
Here are some easy steps using which you can buy Bluehost:
Step 1: Go to Bluehost’s Website and from there you will be redirected to the company’s homepage.
Step 2: Choose a hosting plan that suits your needs.
Since you already know what value you’re getting from the site, it becomes easier for you to choose the right plan, no matter how low the price.
Step 3: Another benefit of choosing Bluehost is that you also get a free domain name for a year.
You will get two options: “Create a new domain” and “ Use the one you already own”.
Step 4: Provide account information to purchase Bluehost.
Step 5: At last, Pay for the hosting.
Voila! Congratulations, you have successfully bought a host from Bluehost.
7. Not Doing Internal Linking
Did you know that you should include internal and external links in your posts? Your post should link to relevant posts.
Google may rank your website better if you include links to other websites. Google can use links with descriptive anchor text to determine which pages on your site are important.
Reciprocal links can also improve user experience and increase engagement. Internal linking allows you to distribute link juice throughout your site.
Every time you link to a specific page on your site, that page links to other pages on your site, spreading link juice.
This is why it’s important to get that juice ending up on your revenue pages because an important part of SEO is understanding how that juice flows through your links.
Usage-related posts can increase your time on site and reduce bounce rates.
In other words, the bounce rate is the percentage of users who visit and immediately leave a page.
Visitors can stay on your site longer when you link to content that provides real value. Google bots are used to record the user’s thought process. It takes seconds to find and use all the links on your site.
If you develop a robust and intelligent internal structure, bots will find deeper and less visited pages. Links to other websites can improve your overall ranking and the ranking of other websites.
8. Not Publishing Consistently
Almost every hobby blogger makes this mistake. You choose a niche, choose a domain name and create a blog.
You start writing non-stop and create a handful of posts. Now you wait for traffic to come to your blog. Nothing happens. You write more blog posts. But there’s no traffic.
When you start posting, traffic will be low until Google recognizes your blog. Most new bloggers lose motivation to post that much to write. I don’t see any blogs.
Progress on their blogs. Your posts are less likely to be found if you write less. It’s all about the content. The more posts you write, the more exposure your site gets.
You should keep writing. Remember that blogging requires patience. Having thousands of visitors won’t happen overnight. Don’t worry! Don’t stop writing. Once you create a schedule based on your content planning and know how many posts you plan to publish in a given period, it is time to work on content and relevance.
As a result, you can not only publish your content promptly but also ensure that your content stays in your niche and your readers are not disappointed.
You will reap the following benefits by being consistent with your blog: Brand and Trust: Your subscribers’ expectations will grow and their trust in your blog will increase.
Your blog will get more repeat visitors and you will build a loyal following.
SEO: If you publish your posts regularly, search engines will know when to crawl your blog and index your new content quickly.
Consistency doesn’t happen overnight or over a weekend. You have to work on it.
Now there are tools like Jarvis.ai available in the market that help create quality content in less time. You can use Jarvis.ai to create consistent content for your blog.
9. Not Focusing on Content Quality
If you want traffic, you need to do more than just write a post. Getting on the first page of Google these days is not an easy task, and it’s not even a difficult task. You just have to be patient and do your job.
Quality content will help you improve your conversion rate, reduce your bounce rate and get more visitors.
Who decides the quality of your content? It’s that simple: your users. However, this also makes it a bit more challenging to create good content.
Everyone has different needs. Users are looking for different things. Users know what they want, but you don’t always. Well, not quite.
Make sure your blog post or page is easy to read if you want people to read your entire post.
This means thinking about how you structure your text and how you use words. When there are too many words without a heading, subheading, or paragraph, people tend to freak out.
It’s also important to build trust when users land on your post. If they don’t know much about your blog, you need to show them you can be trusted.
Using clear, user-friendly language will help you do this. Keeping content fresh and relevant is another important element of quality content.
In other words, writing a well-written article is not the last step in the process. Content should be updated regularly to ensure users can find the right information.
Your users will appreciate this as it shows you can keep up to date and provide them with the most accurate information.
Your site needs to match search intent, so make sure it is well-structured and fresh.
10. Not Investing In Blog
Here we come again, discussing the importance of investment in the blog. It is very normal to be hesitant while thinking of investing in your blog.
But you need to invest in tools plugins and learning. Getting things for free is cool and everybody loves it, including me.
There are many programs, tools, and plugins that you get online for free. Will it make sense if you invested in it?
Many times people ask me for a specific resource to learn a certain aspect of blogging and they mention that they want a free resource.
If you too want to see your business grow, don’t make that mistake again, and make sure your money is invested in the right things that will make your business grow. If so, when you start your blog, you should also budget for essential tools and plugins that can help you grow your blog.
Below is a list of recommendations for the tools you should be investing in as a beginner:
- Grammarly (for proofreading)
- Semrush (#1 SEO tool)
- Kadence (One of the best WordPress themes)
- Elementor (for designing your blog)
- WP Rocket (#1 Caching plugin)
In case, you want to know about some affordable resources to use, I have listed them here.
- Traffic Secrets by Russell Brunson where he has shared 20 secrets to get more traffic on your website.
- Zero to 10$ by Anil Agarwal where he shared ways to earn 10,000$ per month through Blogging.
- The Habits of Highly Successful Bloggers – In this book, you will learn about the habits and routines that every successful blogger follows.
11. Not Having a Monetisation Strategy
I have a piece of good news for you! You don’t need extraordinary skills or experience to be a successful blogger.
All you need is consistency and proper planning. While there are many ways to earn money from the blog, you need to be aware of a few things that will help you make money out of your blog.
Not having a monetization strategy is another amateur blogging mistake.
Below are a few ways that you can count on while making a monetization strategy:
- Google Adsense
This is one of the most popular ways of earning from your blog. You will
get a price on every occasion someone clicks on your blog.
However, your revenue depends on a lot of other factors.
- Affiliate Marketing
This is another way that you can use to generate income. There is always a certain company in a certain niche that provides you commission for bringing them, customers.
You can become their affiliate and promote a certain product by using their affiliate link.
Every time someone buys the product using your link, you earn a commission.
- Sponsored Contents
Many bloggers publish sponsored content and the most common type of sponsored content is product reviews or giveaways.
You can charge them in exchange for sharing an honest review about their product on your website.
- Selling Ad Space
Blog owners can offer advertising space to businesses so they can promote their goods and services to your blog’s readers.
The most popular form of blog advertising is banner advertising.
The majority of inexperienced bloggers struggle to make a living from their blogs because they think that blogging alone may bring them money.
- Selling your products
You can even create your product and use your blog to promote it. For example, You can create educational products like ebooks or a course if your niche is education.
Every time someone buys your product, you will receive money from it.
Using multiple ways to earn is the best way to generate a good amount of revenue from your blog.
12. Ignoring SEO
Search Engine Optimization is the only way to make your website rank on google. It is another Amatur Blogger Mistake where beginners do not learn about SEO and start writing articles randomly.
Beginners’ perception of SEO may be one of complexity or even difficulty. Search engine optimization isn’t as difficult as we might imagine, in my experience.
The fundamentals can be learned on your own, although I wouldn’t say it’s too simple.
Your blog entries will generate more organic traffic from search engines like Google if they are more keyword-optimized
A blog that has been properly optimized will rank higher in search results and draw more visitors.
Let me define SEO so you get more clarity about it.
SEO which stands for Search Engine Optimization is a way of optimizing your website so it ranks first on google’s search engine.
In this image, you can see that the articles ranked first to get the most number of clicks so don’t you dare skip SEO while thinking of building a blog.
There are three types of SEO:
- On-Page SEO: It is for optimizing your blog posts and site for search engines.
- Off-Page SEO: This has techniques to promote your websites, and blog posts or boost its search engine rankings.
- Technical SEO: Search engines will index and crawl it easily if your website is technically optimized.
Here are some tools that you can use for SEO purposes:
- Semrush: Users can utilize the competitive analysis tool provided by Semrush to assess their content and the websites of competitors.
- Through reliable measurements, users can find top-performing articles, web pages, and keywords.
- If a premium Semrush plan is out of your price range, you can start with the free plan, which is still quite beneficial.
- Aherf: One of the greatest SEO tools now on the market is Ahrefs, which I highly suggest.
- The tool has the finest user interface out of all the ones on this list, and it’s also the second-fastest crawler (just behind Google).
- Long Tail Pro: You can identify less competitive keywords by using Long Tail Pro. Use these keywords to increase the amount of high-converting visitors to your website, regardless of your niche.
13. Not Building Email List
Building an email list might sound not so important to you but be aware, not building email lists is on our list of Amateur Blogger Mistakes.
In the beginning, you might not have an audience so you may think it is of no use but with time, when you build a small audience, you will feel the need for it. Use a marketing email to turn website visitors into subscribers.
Once someone is on your mailing list, you are free to get in touch with them whenever you wish to tell them about your blog and to advertise the products you find most appealing.
Building email lists will help you attract quality visitors quickly and persuade customers to make purchases from you.
You have complete control over your subscribers, which is one of the best things about email marketing. By offering them useful material, you can convert them into your most devoted clients.
In a study, it turned out that 99% of customers go through their emails daily.
Consumers who receive email offers are 138% more likely to spend money than those who do not.
Email marketing has an ROI (return on investment) of 4400%. That’s amazing! Email conversion rates are at least three times better than those of social media. Emails have an average order value that is at least twice what is found on social media.
You can create a high-quality email with the help of a variety of tools.
My best and most popular tool for generating leads is OptinMonster, and you can manage your email subscribers and turn them into customers with ActiveCampaign.
Email is 40 times more effective than social media at luring new clients, according to McKinsey.
14. Not Building Brand
Having a memorable logo is only one aspect of good branding; it also gives staff purpose and motivation and makes it simpler to attract new clients. So what exactly does branding mean?
In a nutshell, It is everything. Many times we buy products that are expensive because of who made them.
So, you understand how important it is. Right?
Here are some tips for building a brand:
- Select a thoughtful blog name.
- Make sure to select a memorable address.
- Make a slogan for your blog.
- Choose a theme for your blog
- Decide on a color scheme for your blog.
- Create a set of visual aids and images.
- Select a typeface
- Give instructions on how to use various media formats.
- Your blog should have its own identity.
- Decide which subjects you’ll discuss in your blog.
- Choose a display method for your material and give your blog a distinctive voice.
- Select the proper language.
- Schedule your publications.
15. Giving up too early
Amateur Bloggers often hear that some blogger earns $50,000 per month from their blog and they get excited about that.
And when they do not make even 100$, they start comparing themselves with those bloggers.
There is a famous quote said by Theodore Roosevelt – “Comparison steals joy”.
So, when you start your blog that you may have ups and downs in your way. Giving up too early is a major Amateur Blogger Mistake because they lose patience.
Usually, new blogs do not achieve results like that so it is not a good idea to compare yourself to other bloggers.
To be honest, you won’t get anything from your blog for the first 6-12 months and it is very normal.
Beginners frequently abandon their hopes of blogging success when they don’t experience any overnight success.
The majority of bloggers don’t start earning money from their blogs until they’ve been active for 6 to 12 months, but that is the reality.
You are on the correct track if you are producing high-quality, SEO-optimized content, developing a backlink profile of the highest calibre, and advertising your blog on social media.
Do not give up! “The moment you give up, the moment someone else wins,” declared Kobe Bryant.
Faqs Related To Amateur Blogger Mistakes
Why Do Bloggers Fail?
Bloggers who remain unsuccessful in creating quality content fail in this field. When readers do not get any valuable content from the blog, that is when the failure of the blog starts. Quality Content is the main pillar of blogging.
How Do Bloggers Get Paid?
There are many ways through which bloggers make money. The most common ways are ads, affiliate marketing, sponsored content, and the course they sell. The main source of income for most bloggers is Affiliate Marketing.
Final Words About Amateur Blogger Mistakes
That was all the Amateur Blogger’s Mistake and I hope that you now know about all the mistakes that a beginner can make.
All you need to do is to avoid these mistakes. Also, keep in mind that Blogging won’t give you an immediate income, You will have to wait and keep working on your blog for the first few months or even a year.
So, if you want to be successful, always keep these points in your head and keep working on your blog.
If you have any doubts, feel free to comment down below. I will be more than happy to help!
Thank You