Blogging Mistakes Blogger Should Avoid

Blogging Mistakes Blogger Should Avoid

Fifty years ago, only well-established media personalities or celebrities could voice out and share their opinions with the public. But, today, anybody with the internet connection and a computer could do so.

Of course, the rise of social media helps to achieve the same goal, but it’s the blogging that came first. We are in 2020, and still blogging continues to be the most influential platform to connect with the public. 

If you have been blogging for months and haven’t seen any traffic and leads, you might be asking yourself – Where am I going wrong? Or does content marketing actually work? Well, you must understand the fact that “Content Is Still King” when it comes to digital marketing, no matter how effective the SEO strategies are.

So, blogging should be one of the major marketing strategies. But, do you know about 70% of marketers lack a consistent content strategy? Yes, not every marketer seems to take blogging seriously.

If you want to make things work, you need to get it right first. Every successful blogger will tell you about the blogging mistakes they have committed in the early stages of their blogging. Making mistakes are common and inevitable. But, we have to learn from our mistakes and ensure not to commit the same again.

If you are a budding blogger and struggling to get results, here are common blogging mistakes you need to avoid and some tips on how to avoid them:- 

Table of Contents

  1. Not Setting Blog Goals
  2. Choosing the Wrong Topic
  3. Your Writing Is Too Formal
  4. Not Blogging Consistently
  5. Not Including Statics or Research
  6.  Not Structuring Your Content
  7. Not Promoting Your Blog
  8. What Makes A Blog Successful?

Blogging Mistakes to Avoid In 2020

1. Not Setting Blog Goals

 Not Setting Blog Goal

What’s the goal of your blog? Does it sound mysterious and ominous? Well, defining blogging goals is essential because it is like a journey that takes the readers where you want. So, your blog needs a goal to provide direction and intent that will help to guide your blogging activities and attract the target audience.

Blog goals help to create quality content in your niche so that your blog isn’t considered as a piece of useless article in a sea of blogs.

Remember, Google shows only contents that are useful when a user searches for a product or service.

See, whatever the reasons may be, it is crucial to set the blog goals to give your blog purpose and guide the content you write about.

In short, it’s the blog goals that help to structure your blogging activities!

Just because your competitor has a blog page or your friend has started blogging, you can’t also do the same without any ideas. Could you plan a vacation and hop into the bus without knowing the destination? Yes, ridiculous!

Maybe you have jumped into blogging without any goals. Perhaps, blogging was your boss idea, or you wanted to increase your online presence.

Figure out the purpose of your blog and set the goal first.

Pro Tip:

Define Your Blogging Goals!

This is one of the most common blogging mistakes that every blogger must avoid, especially if you are a beginner.

Do you want to become a successful blogger? Then, set your blogging goals. If not, you will soon quit blogging and never return back.

Ask yourself what are you blogging and what are trying to achieve through this blog?

Do you want to build your brand? Attract the target audience and generate leads? Are you providing post-sales support? Do you want to drive direct income from your blog? Want to connect personally with your fans to express your views and make an impact? Do you want to build an email list through great content?

Ensure your blog is measurable, specific, achievable, relevant, and focused.

The more you ask yourself, the easier it could be to define your blogging goals.

2. Choosing the Wrong Topic 

Choosing the Wrong Topic

Most of the bloggers tend to commit the mistake of choosing the wrong topic or writing about something that interests them. Yes, a major common blogging mistake that should be avoided.

There are many businesses blogs that has a bunch of contents that are irrelevant to their audience.

If you are selling a product or offering a service, your blogs posts should be in such a way that it answers the questions of your customers as it helps to build trust on your brand and in a purchase decision.

Instead, what you will be doing? You might be talking about yourself and your achievements? Yes, please go and read your blog posts you will understand what I am trying to tell you.

See, people aren’t interested in who is your new VP or what have you sponsored? Or whom do you have helped? In fact, they don’t really care about it. People are looking for answers to solve their problems, not about your company’s achievements. So stop bragging about your company and focus on what your audience really wants.

Pro Tip:

Choose A Topic That Is Related To Your Niche And Your Audiences Are Searching For!

You are not the only reader who is going to read your blog posts. When you are blogging, the ideas will come to you at any time. But, the topics shouldn’t be random. Of course, the idea you got might be good. But, if it’s irrelevant to your niche, what’s the purpose of blogging and who is going to read it?

Do you know making your headline 6-8 words can increase your CTR by 21%? Yes, choosing the right topic is the key to attract your target audience.

Keep in mind, your blogs posts should be based on your company’s growth goals. Get in touch with your sales team and find out what people are asking and what they really want from businesses like you. 

Ensure your blog posts address the issues in your industry, specific questions, and concerns your audience want to discover.

3. Your Writing Is Too Formal 

Your Writing Is Too Formal

Yes, you are a great writer. But, your blog posts shouldn’t be a piece of content that show off your writing skills. You are not writing for your term exams to score high.  This is another blogging mistake that tops the list.

Yeah, the writing style for a term paper is entirely different from sharing your views to your target audience. Remember, a commoner is going to read your content, not an Author or a Professor.

Your blog posts should be in layman language at the same time interesting and engaging.

Pro Tip:

Let Your Writing Style Be As Easy As To Read!

Leonardo da Vinci said it right, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Let your writing style be simple. Make use of simple words that is easy to read and understand.

Never use complex words and try to showcase your writing skills because your target audiences are not interested in how well you are writing, but what you are trying to tell them.

Even if it is a complex subject, explain it with simple sentences and words.

The time of your readers is valuable, and no one is going to read your content completely if it’s too hard to understand and read.

The next time you write, see how you can simplify your message and follow a writing style that’s easy to read and how you talk to your friend.

4. Not Blogging Consistently 

Not Blogging Consistently

If you are publishing your blogs on your site when you like to do or when you get an idea, then you won’t see any results. Inconsistency is one of the common blogging mistakes every blogger make.

Blogging is a powerful tool that can make or break your blogging goals. Yes, when you start blogging, you will become an authority in your industry or niche as you will be providing constant information and content that is useful to consumers which helps to create a bond with your readers.

If you are not consistently blogging, it will create a bad impression on your prospects and customers that your brand is reliable, and they will lose interest.

Besides, Google favors companies that consistently publish contents that are valuable to consumers. So, be consistent in your blog posts.

Pro Tip:

Post Frequently!

It really depends on your blogging/content marketing goals. What are your content marketing goals? Is it for social media management? Email marketing? List building? Defining your content marketing goals can help find the frequency of publishing.

While big brands have found success posting daily and multiple times, small businesses are comfortable with one to four times a week.

If you are into digital marketing or social media management, don’t feel constantly publish the contents. If you do so, you’ll be running out of topics or your posts might go out of the topic that is not beneficial to your target audience.

The frequency of your blog posts must be done for two significant reasons, including generating organic traffic and creating brand awareness.

Find out whether you are blogging to generate organic traffic or create brand awareness as both are two different goals. While organic traffic helps in SEO, brand awareness is all about building a voice for your company.

If you have already published valuable contents that have reached many, you could even update and re-post your old blogs, and there’s nothing wrong in that.

Utilize the blog calendar and stick to it. Schedule and publish your blogs regularly.

5. Not Including Statics or Research 

Not Including Statics or Research

Have you ever imagined the damage you have done to your company by writing an article for your blog and sharing the information with your audience, which is inaccurate or not authentic? You can’t even imagine the ordeal you would go through if something happens like that, right? It rips off your personal and brand’s reputation.

It’s indeed a major blogging mistake that should be avoided.

Always keep in mind; blogging is not something to be taken for granted. It is the reflection of your company. It’s like a mirror that reflects what you are doing and trying to convey. You don’t want your mirror to stare back at you.

If something is wrong with your blog, it negatively impacts how people view your product or service.

Pro Tip:

Add Stats to Support Your Content!

Eliminate that guesswork when you are blogging. Yes, claims and arguments could be much more compelling when rooted in research and data.

As a marketer, you don’t have to convince people to stay by your side about a particular issue. Instead, you need to convince and make them believe in something with relevant stats and data.

Research well before writing about a topic and collect as much as data and stats possible that validates the information you are sharing with the target audience.

A data-driven content grabs people attention quickly than content that has fluffy arguments. However, make sure that any statistic you use is verified before using in your article.

6. Not Structuring Your Content

Not Structuring Your Content

When an idea comes up in your mind, it could be exciting and tempting to sit down and go with your flow. But, the outcome would be a below-average blog post. Why? Because the stream of consciousness style of writing is not suitable when it comes to a blog post.

If blogging is your major content marketing strategy, you can’t just develop a content that is not organized. You can’t write paragraphs and paragraphs even though the information is valuable and useful to the readers.

Your target audience will just scan your content instead of reading line by line. A catchy title with well-organized content increases the chances of engaging the readers.

Pro Tip:

Structure Your Blog!

Figure out the structure of your blog. Is it going to be based on the list, chapter, or a curated collection of a post? Fix a template for your blog post and structure your blog with outline and section headers.

When you have the outline of your blog, it’s easy to organize your thoughts and catch the flow in your post. The outline is the backbone of your blog post as the rest becomes easier.

Ensure there are paragraph breaks, titled sections, relevant images, easy to read font, and headlines in your blog so that it makes the information you have shared easy to read and answer the questions that users are looking for.

7. Not Promoting Your Blog 

Not Promoting Your Blog

Let’s say that you have written a quality content that has valuable information to your prospects. But, how will you make the targeted audience to read it? Well, you can’t just assume readers will find their way to your website and read it. This is one of the most common blogging mistakes that every blogger make, especially beginners.

Promoting the blog is the key to reach the readers and boost your site traffic. In fact, blog promotion must be a part of your content marketing strategy if you want your article to be seen, read, shared, and more importantly, widely consumed.

By promoting your content, you could drive traffic from new prospects, earn backlinks to your site, triggers social media shares, social media management, bring back your old audiences, and lead to newsletter sign-ups.

Pro Tip:

Promote your blogs on different sites and social media platforms for better reach!

You must incorporate a strong blog promotion strategy into your content marketing.

Use various tactics like target popular search terms and phrases, Use the right on-page SEO strategies, implement a strong social media promotion plan, actively guest post, and promote your blogs through paid social media ads.

Besides, use the online influencers to get your content extra exposure. Creating content is only half of the process of blogging. Yes, to ensure readers find and read, you must put as much as effort into promoting your blog.

What Makes A Blog Successful?

Not all blogs are created equal. While there are blogs that have thousands and millions of views that help boost SEO, there are blogs that go completely unread. You can’t just write down your thoughts and expect people to read and boost your website traffic. Yes, blogging doesn’t work in such a way, especially if your content marketing strategy.

So, what makes a blog successful?

what makes a blog successful

As you see, these are the key factors of successful blogging. While the best practices for blogs continue to evolve with Google algorithm changes, the basics remain the same. All you need to do is adjust your content marketing strategy based on Google’s guidelines.

So, when you get the basics right, you are sure to have readers and boost your website traffic.

Take Away

Don’t worry if you have made all these blogging mistakes. There is a reason why this blog post includes common blogging mistakes. Remember, practice makes a man perfect! The more you blog, the better you will understand about it.

Treat blogging as your job instead of a hobby, and you will definitely reap the benefits in terms of traffics and leads.  

In fact, with millions of blogs of posts every day, it could be very challenging to stand out of the crowd and attract your target audience. That’s why you need to have a solid content marketing strategy. If not, you could lose potential leads and conversations. If you want to sustain in the world of blogging and stay at top of your blogging game, get the basics right.

Need help with blogging? We could help you. Our team of writers has a wide range of experience in various niches and could provide you with blogs that are informative and engaging that help to drive traffic to your website and generate leads.

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SEO News

Tags :

Blogging,Bloggingstrategy,Bloggingnews

About Charanya A S

Charanya A S Books are my best companions and obsessed with Agatha Christie and Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Masson novels that are based on crime thrillers. The more I read, the more I love to write. I believe that when you write something, you can make anything happen. Writing gives me great satisfaction, as if I have achieved something. They say, “Practice makes the man perfect,” and I strongly believe in. The passion for writing will never stop; I am learning and will learn to enhance my writing skills forever! .... more info about the author