If you are just blogging, you might have questions like- What amateur blogging mistakes to avoid?
In today’s world, if you want to be successful, it is not enough just to have a good idea. If people don’t know about your idea then it will never be realized. This is why blogs are so important for entrepreneurs and small business owners alike.
They can help you get the word out about what you do and make connections with potential customers or partners that would otherwise go unnoticed.
But this doesn’t mean they come easy—in fact, there are a number of mistakes new bloggers often make which keep them from getting the success they deserve.
Making money from blogging seems the ultimate goal for many. You often hear six-figure blog or seven-figure blog stories and look at bloggers traveling the world, having a beer with a picture of a laptop on the table.
Well, it all seems overwhelming and you want to make a blog too. Trust me, that doesn’t sound so easy!
Making money with a blog is a hefty task and you need to create strategies and planning along with good research before creating content for the audiences.
Furthermore, investing your money into your blog doesn’t guarantee any success. The success starts with no expectations. You should not expect anything out of your blog when starting.
That’s what amateur blogging is all about! But, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start if you are thinking of starting your blog.
In this article, will be sharing about amateur blogging and the common mistakes about it.
What is Amateur Blogging?
Amateur blogging is when you blog just for the sake of it. It is not really meant to help you grow your business or build your personal brand.
However, that doesn’t mean amateur blogging can’t be successful! However, the term “amateur” means someone who has no formal training in a field and this means it is very likely that such a blogger will make mistakes.
An amateur blog is usually for personal use and the blogger is not really aware of the revenue or considers it as a full-time job.
They just start blogging, expecting help from the internet gods when in reality you need to work towards your goal and be consistent in your blogging.
It needs to start as a hobby. You should like doing it because you find some pleasure in it. If not, why do you write constantly?
So all of your writing comes from your pleasure in expressing an opinion or something interesting about a certain topic or anything that comes your way and then posting it online.
Is Income an essential component of Amateur blogging?
Many amateur bloggers start blogs as a full-time passive income expecting higher returns from the first month. The truth is you can’t make money just from an amateur blog! Never!
Before you start, you should consider some income-generating strategies which will help you make money from your blog.
Let me tell you something; it takes time to get the word out about your blog and build an audience who is truly interested in what you do. A few months ago, I saw a post on Facebook where someone was thinking of quitting blogging because they didn’t make any money in the past few months.
But I don’t think she’s an amateur blogger! She was thinking about it too much and wasn’t very active when she started blogging, which means it will take her less time to get a stable income from her blog.
Another point is most amateur bloggers expect a lot of returns in a short time. This is not going to happen. You need to focus on the long term and your work will pay off for sure!
Besides this, there are various other mistakes that amateur bloggers may commit. Thus, we have listed these common mistakes that most amateur bloggers make during their blogging days.
Common Mistakes that Every Blogger Should Avoid:
1) Not knowing your audience.
When you start blogging, you should know what type of topics are suitable for your audience and who will be interested in reading them. You don’t really need to know your target market, however!
Targeting the right kind of audience is not that important when starting out with a blog; this comes later after blogging for a few months.
All you need to do is make sure your blog is focused on ONE WORD that describes the kind of topics you write about. This will help you narrow down your audience and know where they are coming from.
2) Using a free platform
Sure, using a free platform is very tempting. However, this indicates that you are not serious about your blog and most likely it will be abandoned soon after starting.
Using a paid blogging platform like GoDaddy or WordPress (which has its own hosting) will make you look professional to the eyes of your audience.
There are so many reasons why you should not go for a free platform.
First, they don’t really offer much in terms of customization and good SEO practices that you will need to use to boost up your blog. Second, it is very difficult to manage everything from one place.
Generally, the free platforms aren’t reliable and there is no proper help desk. You will need to figure out a lot yourself and in most cases, you won’t be able to troubleshoot any problem on your own because there isn’t much support available for free blogging services.
3) Not niching down
It is important to create a blog that covers ONE WORD! I have seen so many amateur bloggers who are not niching down and they will eventually go nowhere.
You need to narrow your niche (or topic) after you start blogging for at least one year. If you haven’t narrowed it within one year of starting, chances are you won’t be able to go anywhere with your blog.
A good trick is to read other blogs in the same niche and keep a track of what they are doing. This will help you narrow down the topic for your blog eventually.
4) Having a long domain name
You don’t want your blog title to be too long. It makes it difficult for readers to remember your blog and eventually they will give up!
Most amateur bloggers believe that creating a long domain name is a good practice. It is always going to hurt your brand in the long run.
What you want to do is make sure your blog title is short and meaningful. A good approach would be to read the blogs in the same niche and take a look at their domain names.
Most bloggers use their name as their own domain name. This is a great way to build a brand identity.
5) Not having an SSL
SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer. It will make your blog secure and ensure that the data is sent safely to your visitors.
Google hates sites without SSL certificates. And, why not? It wants the user to navigate to sites that are secured and free of any malware.
With the expired domain, your visitors are likely going to bounce back and that definitely hurts the SEO.
It must be secured in all aspects so that users can trust the site.
All you need to do is install an SSL Certificate in your hosting account. There are numerous online tutorials that can help you understand how to go about this process if it gets too overwhelming.
6) Not changing the permalink structure
Most amateur bloggers forget or do not have knowledge about changing the permalink structure. By default, the permalink structure shows the plain text or might not contain the page.
Even if you have submitted the sitemap, the permalink structure makes it easier for the search robots to crawl the page.
It is a good practice to change the permalinks at the beginning only. Once you have a lot of posts on your blog, changing the structure may cause 404 issues.
7) Writing blog posts that are personal
Most amateur bloggers want to write about the things they have been through or what they think about a topic. It actually depends on one niche to another about how much emotional touch you want to give to your content.
Your audience wanted information and shareable stuff that will make them look like experts in the niche and help them grow their business.
The content that you are feeding to your audience should be helpful and actionable. Avoid writing about things that are personal or common.
8) Not posting consistently
Posting on a regular basis reflects your passion for the blog and the niche. If you don’t post for a month, then it is very difficult for people to remember your blog later on!
They will just forget about you after some time even if you have good content up on the site!
If blogging is your full-time business, then you need to maintain consistency in terms of quality and posting frequency. This helps users engage with the site and builds trust among readers.
9) Giving up too soon
Starting a blog requires time and patience. Blogging is not an overnight process.
If you want to be successful in the blogging industry, then you need to put your best foot forward on a daily basis. The more you practice the better you get!
People give up way too easily believing that people like overnight success stories and if they haven’t succeeded after two years of blogging then blogging isn’t for them!
Truth is that most established bloggers spent 2 or 3 years before making progress with their blog or business. So, keep practicing every day to become great at what you do overtime!
10) Not implementing SEO from the beginning
There is no right or wrong time to implement SEO. It is a learning process and you need to go with what you know and learn more about it as and when you encounter new opportunities.
That being said, there are some mistakes that most bloggers make which doesn’t allow them to have a proper SEO implementation from the beginning.
Not utilizing images properly is one of them. Most amateur bloggers put an image into their post that actually does not add any value to the content or title.
You should always look beyond using a stock photo for your images and pick up something related to what you are writing about.
This can contribute meaningfully to your post and can also help you rank for the relevant keywords. If you are using WordPress, then it is recommended to use SEO-friendly plugins like Yoast SEO which will do all the hard work of optimizing your images with proper titles and descriptions.
11) Not doing keyword research
You may have the best content in the world which will get you a huge readership!
But, if it is not targeted towards a search keyword then you are going to lose out on traffic.
Most amateur bloggers ignore doing proper keyword research and publish whatever they think is relevant. But, that thought process is flawed because even if you just type a random keyword in the search box, you will get relevant content on the first page.
It is completely up to you which keyword should be your focus area. You can use various tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, SEMRush, etc., or go with other suggested keywords that are related to your niche!
12) Not interlinking properly
New bloggers tend to link their other posts on the blog which are not related to the current post. This doesn’t go well because people who are reading your blog will lose interest if you switch topics too frequently.
You should always link back to the previous post when there is a relevant topic that links with it. It can be something as simple as a “continue reading” section.
This will also improve user engagement and help you with your SEO implementation!
Conclusion:
If you want to create a successful blog, then it is important that you avoid the following amateur blogging mistakes.
However, if you can follow this list of dos and don’ts for amateur bloggers – namely by doing keyword research and linking properly- then chances are that people will find your content valuable enough to share with others!
