The road to a successful blogging career can be a long and arduous one. If you’re just starting out blogging, then keep in mind that there will be challenges ahead, just as with any endeavor. By taking note of your strengths and weaknesses, you can put yourself ahead of most of the competition. In this post we will present you with 10 common mistakes that many new bloggers make, and present you with the fixes.
These insights will help you streamline your blogging process and enhance your chances of success. Let’s get started with these valuable tips and set your blog on the path to growth and achievement.
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1. Not Saving Work (Often)
This can be a game saver in your blogging career. How many of us have been in the situation where we spend hours and hours or even days of time to compose pros or work on some other project, only to soon learn that everything we worked on was deleted accidentally? I can’t think of anything more disheartening and frustrating Then losing one’s hard earned work to a system glitch. You can avoid this by saving your work often. All you have to do is click on that side button. There’s no plug-in for you to download. I personally prefer to see manually, though there is a setting within WordPress that allows you to set how often it saves your writing. The interval between autosaves is 60 seconds by default. You can change this interval in the Autosave Interval field under Settings > Writing. You’ll know that autosave is working if you see the Autosave indicator in the upper-right corner of your Post Edit screen.
2. Not Submitting Posts To Google Index
It is not uncommon for bloggers to write their first posts and wait four months and then nothing happens. That is standard. Google is trying to judge your article on whether or not it’s a good fit for their algorithm and answers the question. However, a great many new beginner bloggers never see their posts on Google because they did not submit them for Indexation.
3. Not Using Original Images Whenever Possible
On our own blog, we try to use as many original images as possible. However, this may not always be practical. Which is why we also feature a lot of stock images as well, until we hire our own professional photographer. If you’ve got some articles you wrote on your own and an original image can be snapped by either you or someone else, then it’s preferable who use these images. There is a lot ofHearsay out there about how google determines whether an image should help to rank an article even higher, but it doesn’t hurt to Try to use original images. If you’re just starting out, don’t worry too much about using original images. It’s not always possible in the beginning, but with time, try to develop the habit to include photographs that no one either than you or your team took.
4. Not Reaching Out To Other Bloggers
The purpose of trying to develop a network of like-minded bloggers so that you can work together on projects you deem worthwhile and with the potential for success. There are several ways to reach out to bloggers in your field. One of these is through an influencer net work such as Intellifluence. The site has thousands of bloggers and the influencers were looking to collaborate with others. You don’t need to have a following to sign up, though potential collaborators will see your blogging statistics and other information to help them determine if you’re both a good fit. One collaborative project could mean the difference between success and and whether or not they would be a good fit. Take advantage of these services. You’ll never know who you’ll come across. Just one collaborative effort or contact can change your career for the better.
5. Using Too Many Plug-Ins
Speed is an important ranking factor for Google. You should try to avoid any excess plug-ins that will only bloat your WordPress and cause it to load slower. We ourselves try to keep the number of plug-ins to a minimum, no more than 10, though this may not always be possible. Security is paramount, so we leave such plug-ins as word fence and cleaner talk. Look at the plug-ins that you’re using, and see whether or not you can eliminate a few. Your rankings will thank you for it.
6. Not Checking Spelling And Grammar Before Hitting Post
A mistake here and there isn’t much of a problem in terms of how others view Your blog, but if you can illuminate as many errors as possible, this is ideal. We ourselves use Grammarly to correct any spelling or grammar mistakes. Yes, we have to go outside of work for us for this, but we prefer this over installing a plug-in, which would only slow down our website.
7. Not Incl. Alt Text For Photos
This is more common than you may think, so a quick fix would instantly put you ahead of much of the competition. The purpose of out text is to tell Google what the Photos or other media are about. I personally have seen websites, even white professional ones, suffer from a lack of alt txt On their photos especially, or they’ll have some gibberish text or numbers. To determine which war media does not have out text, we use the plug-in Fix Alt Text.
8. Not Offering Something To Visitors
An opt-in or other gift that you can offer readers of your blog. What good is it if someone comes to and reads your information, only to leave moments later. Perhaps they found your information useful and are interested in exploring a personal problem related to what you have to say. In that case not offering some thing means that you lose that potential client. Let’s see your article is on how to give yourself a nice facial massage. Perhaps you want to create a video and offer that to anyone who signs up for your list. Or maybe you’re a life coach and would like to offer a helpful checklist to your readers. Whatever you decide to offer, make sure it is relevant. On our website, we do not have an opt-in for every single post, that this is something that we’re working on, lest you accuse us of teaching something we don’t practice. We use a service like GetResponse, which integrates seamlessly into WordPress and allow you to create unlimited forms for visitors to your blog to fill-in so that you can then collect them.
9. Not Working On Your Blog On The Phone
Let’s face it. Most of the world has a phone. I don’t know of any blogger who doesn’t have an iPhone or android. I think bloggers can save a lot of time by switching their work over to a phone. Sure, there are projects that are best handled on a desktop computer such as, but for other tasks. Find which activities for you are best handled on the phone as opposed to a desktop, and plan your working days accordingly. You’ll be surprised at how much time you can save by performing certain tasks on the phone as opposed to a computer. Find what works best for you and how you can best save yourself valuable time by selecting which projects you’ll perform on the phone and those on a computer.
10. Messing With The File Editor
OK, maybe this is not as common as believed, but the fact is, this could be a major, no tragic, problem if you accidentally delete or change a file. It’s best to leave such a work to professionals. I myself admit that I had this problem when I first began blogging about. I would want my site to work a bit faster, and then I would read some where that all I needed to do was add a bit of code. Much to my heartache, I lost lots of work and time that I could’ve best use on other projects. So if there’s just one Thing that you take away from this blog post, as a beginner blogger, is to not mess with the file editor. It’s best left to professionals.
