Are you struggling to get traffic to your website? With millions of blog posts published on a daily basis, getting noticed in blogging can be a challenge.
You can get ahead of this by avoiding the biggest mistakes most blog posts make. Many bloggers that come to me with questions don’t have a content strategy or haven’t clearly defined their target audience.
These are two obvious blogging mistakes but there’s more!
If you are looking to create a successful blog, I have good news! In this post, I have 5 of the top blogging mistakes and how to fix them.
Believe me, I’ve made many of these mistakes and want to spare you from making them too!
Top Blogging Mistakes and How to Fix Them
When you started your blog, you came into it with passion and excitement! While that’s important, you likely found out that passion doesn’t bring traffic to your blog.
Like anything else, learning how to be the best blogger takes skills that anyone can learn.
Let’s dive into some mistakes you may be making with your blog. I’ll also give you tips on how to fix the mistakes.
Mistake 1: You Don’t know who you are Writing For
One of the biggest mistakes I see from new bloggers is they don’t know who they are writing for.
If you are starting out with blogging, you may be writing articles about whatever floats your boat that day.
That content plan doesn’t work because you are the only person we know for sure will enjoy reading your blog post.
What you can do instead:
Figure out for whom you are creating this blog post. Knowing who your target audience is will give you the tools you need to create the content that they will keep reading and coming back for more.
You can avoid this blogging mistake by doing the following:
- Identify your niche market. Narrowing down who are you are blogging for will help you identify the type of content to capture their attention.
- Do keyword research. Discover what your target audience is searching for online so you can focus in on the topics that are most meaningful to them.
- Participate in forums and groups. Join online groups in your niche market to find out what questions people ask and what their pain points are.
Mistake 2: You don’t Include Imagery or Video in your Blog Posts
Do you love reading blog posts with no images? Neither does anyone else. Understand that most people read blogs on their mobile devices.
If you aren’t including imagery, then your visitor is sorting through huge blocks of text with nothing else engaging to keep their attention.
What you can do instead:
Start including images that make sense in your blog posts. This is one of the key blogging tips for beginners.
If you don’t know where to find images, read my post about the top free stock photo sites.
You can also edit the imagery using online tools
- PicMonkey – Create beautiful images with PicMonkey’s powerful photo editing and graphic design software.
- Canva – Use Canva’s drag-and-drop feature and professional layouts to design consistently stunning graphics.
Another way to capture the attention of your readers is to include YouTube videos. These can be yours or someone else’s (preferably yours.)
It’s very simple. Just repurpose your blog content into a video and post it on YouTube. Use my top tips to optimize your video.
When you embed that video in your blog post, your content will be more interesting for your readers. Also include a link back to your blog from the video description. You’ll be getting traffic from an additional source: YouTube.
Mistake 3: Not Being Consistent
Are you posting to your blog whenever you feel the urge? That’s a huge blogging mistake.
Posting 4 articles this week and one the next is not good plan for your blog.
What you can do instead:
Don’t make the mistake of blogging when you feel like it. I know, a lot of bloggers say they can’t think of what to write.
Here’s a couple of tips to help you be more a more consistent blogger:
- Keep a content calendar and stick with it.
- Do your keyword research in bulk so you always have a lot of topics on hand.
- Use the HubSpot blog topic generator. Seriously, it’s so much fun and will give you a ton of ideas. Just enter up to three nouns within your blog topic and go!
You’ll get a week’s worth of relevant blog topics to get your creative juices flowing.
Mistake 4: Not Structuring your Blog Posts
Are you writing big blocks of text in blog posts with no structure? You can avoid this mistake easily and get some SEO juice at the same time.
People mostly scan articles and if you don’t include navigational elements like subheads, it makes it more difficult for people to scan through and find out if they want to read it.
What you can do instead:
Break up your content into manageable chunks of information. Create subheadings that support your main title.
For example, you are reading a blog post now with subheadings that break up the content. Imagine if they were not there?
Also create bullet or numbered lists to make it simple for readers to get through the information.
The good news is …
Google indexes many elements in your blog post including subheadings. You’ll be doing yourself a favor by avoiding the mistake of not structuring your blog posts properly.
Mistake 5: You Don’t Collect emails
OK, I confess. When I was a blogging beginner, I made the mistake of not collecting emails in a subscriber list.
I fixed that blogging mistake a long time ago but missed on a lot of subscribers!
If people come to your blog and do nothing, you won’t see them again. You need a way to build a relationship with them.
What you can do instead:
Start an email marketing campaign. I know that sounds complicated but it’s not. Just get an email marketing provider, include a form on your website for a person to sign up for your newsletter.
Voila! Now you have a way to continue building a relationship with your readers outside of your blog.
I recommend these two email providers:
As you get more skilled at email marketing, you can start creating giveaway freebies in exchange for a person’s email address.
Final Thoughts
Blogging mistakes are normal, especially for beginners. The fact that you are reading this tells me that you are willing to learn and implement new skills to move forward.
What was the biggest mistake in blogging that you made and how did you fix it?
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