The Top 10 Common Mistakes New Bloggers Make
You're finally ready to launch your blog. You've spent months or even years writing articles, creating graphics, and designing the perfect website. And it has to be perfect. You want your brand to stand out in the sea of blogs out there, but you're not sure where to start.
There are a million things you need to do before you hit publish for the first time. But before you spend hours agonizing over every little detail, take a step back and consider the top 10 common mistakes new bloggers make so you can avoid them altogether.
1. You Don't Have a Plan
There's a reason so many bloggers fail to make it past the first year. They have no plan for their blog. Without a plan, you'll never know what your goals are or how to achieve them. You'll never know what you're doing or why you're doing it.
You need a plan, and that plan needs to be in writing. Once you have your goals and a game plan for achieving them, you can move on to the next step.
2. You Don't Have a Schedule
You need to have a schedule for your blog, and you need to stick to it. If you don't, you'll never know what posts are coming up or when they're going to be published. This will make it difficult for you to market your blog, and it will also make it hard for you to create content.
Your schedule doesn't have to be anything fancy. You can just use a simple spreadsheet or even a piece of paper. Just make sure that you're sticking to it.
3. You Don't Have a Mission Statement
If you don't have a mission statement for your blog, then you need to create one. Your mission statement should be a short paragraph that describes what your blog is about. It should be something that you can look at and know instantly what your blog is about.
For Example, my mission statement for this blog is:
The purpose of this blog is to provide free and useful information to people who want to learn how to blog.
You can read more about creating a mission statement here.
4. You Don't Have a Social Media Strategy
I know that you probably don't want to hear this, but if you want to make money blogging, you need to have a social media strategy.
I'm not talking about a strategy for Twitter or Facebook or Pinterest. I'm talking about a strategy for how you are going to use all of the social media platforms to promote your blog.
I have seen too many bloggers spend hours on Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest, only to make a few dollars a month from their blogs. If you want to make money blogging, you need to be able to show how your social media efforts are going to help you make money.
If you want to learn more about how to create a social media strategy, check out this post.
5. You Don't Have a Blogging Schedule
I know that blogging can be a lot of work. It's tempting to spend all day on your blog, but you need to set aside time for other things in your life. If you don't have a blogging schedule, you'll never get anything done.
You should set aside a specific time each day to work on your blog. I recommend that you set aside at least an hour a day for blogging.
6. You Don't Comment on Other Blogs
Commenting on other blogs is a great way to get traffic back to your blog. The key is to leave insightful comments that add value to the conversation. When you do this, the blogger will often come back to your blog and leave a comment on your post.
As you can see, commenting is a great way to get traffic back to your blog. The key is to make sure that you're leaving insightful comments that add value to the conversation.
Blogging is all about relationships. You can't build relationships with your readers if you don't comment on other blogs.
The easiest way to find blogs to comment on is to use Google Reader. Subscribe to the blogs that you enjoy reading and leave comments when you have something helpful or interesting to say.
7. You Don't Promote Your Blog
The more people that know about your blog, the more traffic you will get. Here are some ways to promote your blog:
- Tell everyone you know about it.
- Link to your blog from your email signature.
- Add a link to your blog on your Facebook page.
- Link to your blog from other blogs you write.
- Submit your blog to directories like Digg, Reddit, Stumble Upon, etc.
- Add a link to your blog on your Twitter profile.
- Submit your blog to article directories like Ezine Articles, Go Articles, Article Dashboard, etc.
- Get a custom URL for your blog.
- Create a YouTube channel for your blog.
- Use social media to share links to your blog.
- Submit your blog to directories like Yahoo! Directory, DMOZ, and BOTW.
- Contact bloggers who write about similar topics and ask them to mention your blog.
- Contact bloggers who have guest posts open and offer to write a guest post for them.
- Start commenting on other blogs in your niche.
- Join Facebook groups related to your niche and participate in discussions.
- Join Google+ communities related to your niche and participate in discussions.
- Comment on forums related to your niche.
- Participate in Q&A sites like Quora, Yahoo! Answers, etc.
- Find social bookmarking sites related to your niche and submit your blog's URL.
- Create a YouTube channel for your blog and start posting videos.
- Join social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc., and participate in discussions.
- Get listed on social news sites like Digg, Reddit, Stumble Upon, etc.
- Get listed on industry-specific directories and blogs.
- Participate in forum discussions and answer questions.
- Participate in interviews related to your niche.
- Get listed on industry-specific job sites.
- Write guest posts for other blogs in your niche.
8. You Don't Link To Other Blogs
Another great way to get traffic back to your blog is to link to other blogs in your posts. This is a great way to let people know about other blogs that you think are great.
You can also get traffic back to your blog by linking to other blogs in the comments of other blogs. Just make sure that you don't spam and only do it once or twice per post.
9. You Don't Make A Blogroll
A blogroll is a list of links to other blogs that you like. It's an easy way for people to find new blogs to read and also a great way for you to promote your favorite blogs. But, I've never made a blogroll on this site.
The reason is that I don't want to recommend any blogs that aren't worth reading. If you're just starting out and you're looking for blogs to read, there are plenty of great blogs out there. You don't need me to recommend any of them.
But, if you're a blogger and you want to be on my blogroll, here's what I'm looking for:
You have to write at least one post a week. I don't care if it's about your cat or the time you got stuck in an elevator, but you have to be consistent. You have to be at least semi-interesting. This is a pretty subjective category, but I'm looking for bloggers who are at least as interesting as I am. You have to be honest. I don't want to read your rants about how you hate all men or how the government is out to get you. I want to read about your adventures, your successes, and your failures. You have to be yourself. If you're not a blogger, then don't try to write like one. I'm looking for real people who are passionate about what they do.
10. Use SEO To Your Advantage
SEO is a big topic and it's beyond the scope of this article to cover it in detail. However, if you have a website that gets traffic, it's important to use SEO to your advantage. You can do this by using keywords and key phrases on your site that are relevant to the topic of your blog. You can also optimize your blog for search engines by using the right coding and meta tags.
A lot of bloggers are doing this, so you need to do it too if you want to compete. There are many free SEO tools available online that can help you with this.
If you want to learn more about SEO, check out my post on how to use SEO to get more traffic.
#Topic: A Complete Guide To Starting And Running A Successful Blog
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