5 Blogging Mistakes You Must Avoid

This is a guest post by Onibalusi Bamidele from YoungPrePro.

Blogging is a great way to interact with people, build your brand, make money blogging, create awareness and even satisfy yourself. Blogging has its own rules, and not following these rules can cause you more harm than good on the long run.

As in every other thing, there are also various do’s and dont’s in blogging. There are some things you must observe to build a successful blog and there are things you must avoid in order to be successful.

To maximize your chances of success in blogging, there are somethings you should really try to avoid as much as possible.

blogging tips

Below are 5 blogging mistakes you must really try avoiding:

1. Not Hosting Yourself

One of the most terrible blogging mistakes you must avoid is not hosting yourself i.e. not having your own domain name with a hosting company of your choice. Not having a self hosted blog will have some adverse effects on you sooner or later because your blog might grow to a very large extent, it will then be very difficult to move to your own domain because you will not want to loose your readers and even search engine traffic.

You might be thinking of using a 301 redirect but search engines also take into consideration domain age. Another problem with not hosting yourself is that your free host can just decide to close down when they like, just like when GeoCities decided to close down and all websites hosted on it were affected.

2. Not Having A Professional Design

First impression is very important. Not having a professional design for your blog might have a negative effect on your blog because all visitors are not the same and might not continue with your site if you don’t have a good design. You might think only content is what matters, but not all visitors know this especially those coming from search engines.

Some people who are new to the internet might even think a professionally designed website is also loaded with good content. Try to take care of your design, it is very important. To add to it: a professionally designed website will always be easy to remember.

3. Writing For Many People

If you have ever read from companies, you will understand what I mean better. Another major blogging mistake is to be writing your blog posts as if you were talking to a large group of people. You don’t need to blog as if you are talking to 10, 100 or even thousands of people but rather blog as if you are talking to only one person, as if you are talking to your friend. This will make your message look more interesting and will also make your readers know you care about them.

Your readers will even think you are having a one-on-one conversation with them. Just imagine opening an email to read a message titled “Dear first name” (substituting first name with your first name 🙂 ), your attention will be keen towards reading what is in the mail than coming across with a message talking to a group of people. Your readers want to know you care for them and them only; they are not ready to know about others.

4. Blog Instability

Some people are so unstable with their blog and they just change their blog anytime they want, today it is “aaa.com”, tomorrow it will be “bbb.com” etc. It is very important to take your time to think well before you start your blog, you have to brainstorm what you want your blog to be about, what the main objectives of your blog will be and you should be able to research effectively before choosing a name for your blog because this will have an effect on you in the future.

Some people suggest choosing your name as your blog because this will give you the flexibility of using your blog for anything that pleases you in the future. If your name is too long (like mine: Onibalusi Bamidele) or might be difficult to remember you might choose a name related to your website.

5. Not Promoting Your Blog

Yeah! This is the problem most people face. I just wonder when I come across a forum post where somebody is complaining of setting up a website two months ago and nobody visited the blog. I never experienced this problem before because 151 people came to my blog on its first day (being a forum spammer then  😮 ), all jokes apart.

You should not just blog and be expecting people to visit your blog from the blue, you have to have a plan for your blog, how do you want to get traffic to your blog? Is it through SEO, PPC or Networking? You should decide how you want to get visitors from your blog because users can’t just come from nowhere (even if you have the best content).

At The End, I would Say That…

There are many other blogging mistakes you must avoid, but the ones above are the foundation and avoiding them will also help you avoid many other blogging mistakes.

Let me know if you have committed any of the above blogging mistakes or were just going to commit and boom, you realized that it will be a big mistake. Also let me know in your opinion what are some other common blogging mistakes which bloggers must avoid.

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49 thoughts on “5 Blogging Mistakes You Must Avoid”

  1. I don’t agree with point no. 2 Just look at zenhabits, mnmlst and other weblog that I couldn’t remember the name. Oh yeah, not to forget Seth Godin’s blog. They are all have simple design, neither interesting nor professional (personal opinion) but they manage to capture huge readers. It’s all about credibility and contents.

    I’m sure, the most mistake newbies did is wasting time for searching good design. They should concentrate on creating good contents at the beginning and slowly grow up.

    Just my two cents,
    fazreen

    1. Hi,
      Do you know how many readers they would have lost? Truly they are big blogs, because of their name! but they will do even better with a professional design. Look at copyblogger.
      Glad to see someone who disagrees 🙂
      Thanks a lot for the nice comment
      .-= Onibalusi Bamidele´s last blog ..7 keys to build a better website =-.

  2. Wanting to flip-flop on my niche is something that i think about a lot. I realize now that this would be a big mistake. Heck, if i want to talk about fitness and social media, i’ll just go start another blog hah.

    Thank you for the advice!
    .-= Josiah@Youtube Layouts´s last blog ..50 Cent: Blood on the Sand =-.

  3. This is a good post for new blog owners. It can be tempting to avoid paying for a domain name and hosting if you don’t have any money, but it could hurt you in the long run.

  4. Great Points bro 🙂
    There Many bloggers like seth Godin, Alan Liew(Moneymakerinfo) etc. who are still using free hosting.
    Recently blogspot has closed Alan Liew’s blog for no reason. I think it’s better to have self-hosted WordPress and Domain.
    Thanks for this great post bud.

    Cheers,
    Dev
    .-= Dev | Technshare´s last blog ..Interview with Glen Allsopp From ViperChill =-.

    1. Hi Dev,
      Exactly! I just checked moneymakerinfo.blogspot.com and I wondered what happened to him overnight. This is a very sad event 😉
      This is being said everywhere, don’t use a free domain name, he that hath hears, let him hear.
      Self hosted blog is the best.
      Thanks a lot for the nice comment.
      .-= Onibalusi Bamidele´s last blog ..7 keys to build a better website =-.

  5. Very good post and all true. I cannot agree more with promotion being the key to a successful blog. Keep being great a giving out awesome tips.

  8. Creating a list of blogging mistakes and limiting it to 5 must had been hard. I think we have so many ways to make mistakes with our blog it’s almost not worth worrying about it. But I do like your like list it’s very realistic and important for bloggers to remember.
    .-= bbrian017´s last blog ..Guest Blog at Blog Engage =-.

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