Blogging is a pretty challenging task, even for a professional. As a starter, you may have a lot of ideas as to how to execute your writings and how you can monetize the site and so on. However, when you try it out practically, you see that the results are not always up to the mark.
Even if you use a free online blog website builder and try to minimize the cost, you may still see that the profits are not as expected. This is because of the presence of some common yet significant mistakes. These mistakes can negatively impact the traffic and the growth of your blog, as well as can cut down your earning potential.
Those of you who are looking for seriously expanding your blogging business and earn money, you have to identify these mistakes and avoid them as much as you can. Only then can the blog truly grow in all aspects. Given below are the top 10 blogging mistakes that you should avoid.
Table of Contents
Blogging Mistakes You Should Avoid
Mistakes with Monetization
Only blogging is not enough to expand your income. If you are looking for more income opportunities with blogging, you need to take some necessary marketing steps. Most of the bloggers provide their content free of cost on their site. To make money from this free content, you need to include paid sponsorships, working with advertisement network, and do affiliate marketing. The aim for seasonal bloggers should be to be able to monetize their every single post. The promotion of the products should also be focused according to the needs of the readers, not you. The critical aspect of gaining the readers and traffic is trust, so you have to maintain that to keep earning as well.
Lack of Interlinking
As per the Google norms, the SEO is optimized every time an external website is linked to your content. With more and more linking, the rankings of the site become better. A lot of bloggers are entirely oblivious of the fact that they can interlink their content. Even if they know about it, some people choose to ignore it. This should not be avoided at all. Interlinking not only increases the traffic for your current content, but it revives some of your old content, especially the one you are interlinking with. This way, you can start earning more by merely interlinking your old contents. You have already done the hard work, now get the benefits.
Lack of Goals
Blogging is like any other business, and you need to settle for some concrete goals. If you are thinking that by merely keeping some loose goals in your mind, you will be able to increase the level of your blogging, then you are wrong. It may work in some cases, but it will not be enough for long term profits. Promotional efforts or marketing plans need to be reliable, and you need to follow your strict guidelines to achieve them. Unless you have a plan, you cannot evaluate your progress, which in turn keeps you static.
Lack of Images
Many bloggers think that adding images is a foolish task or completely unnecessary in blogging. They probably have no idea that the visual presentation of a blog determines how much impact the blog has created in the minds of the viewers. You do not need to overflow your blog with images; simply adding one or two relevant pictures is enough. You should get free stock photos for your content. The main aim is to capture the attention of viewers, and they are more likely to read it if they can understand your point visually. It adds a professional touch to your blog and also improves the SEO.
Improper Formatting
Even if the content of the blog is excellent, with terrible formatting, it is not even considered as a readable post. Web writing is very much different than writing an article, as the audiences are mainly specific. The key factor in this point is to get to the point of the post as fast as possible. Additionally, adding headers, sub-headers, numbers, and bullet points make the blogs look more presentable. Similarly, short paragraphs with specific points will make the blog more valuable, as readers will get what they are looking for easily.
Payment for the Do-Follow Links
To optimize SEO, Google has set a few rules and regulations. One of them to obtain higher rankings is to include links from external sites, especially the reputed ones. To maintain fairness, bloggers should not accept payment for the sponsored, affiliate, and advertorial links. However, to get short term benefits, mainly bloggers do so. If Google catches you with this violation, chances are your content will be taken down. On worst-case scenarios, your whole website can be removed. This will be a huge setback for your business.
Not following Giveaway Rules
One of the most promising aspects of the blogging business is to conduct giveaways. However, the laws for conducting giveaways are strict, and there are specific rules that need to be followed. Any giveaway needs promotion, and bloggers often make the mistakes of violating the social media rules for promotional methods. You may argue a lot of people are doing it. However, it is not right. If caught, both your website and your brand can be charged with a penalty. Lastly, no matter the condition, you have to arrange for the prizes and gifts, even if it means you have to pay for it yourself.
Behaving Rudely
Under no circumstances, you should behave rudely with any of your guest post bloggers. It may happen that none of your requirements is met and you cannot post it. If that is the case, just let the person know. The chances are that you will get a heated response, but you need to remain calm and resolve the matter correctly. Whatever you do, try to explain your decision calmly in details. Do not come to the heat of the moment and start quarreling. It is not at all advised to make someone irritated. One single person can ruin your reputation beyond repair.
Lack of responses
Your viewers and followers will try to contact you eventually. It may happen that while you are so busy with your work, you do not feel the need to interact with all of them. However, it is advised to provide some kind of response. Even if it is delayed, an answer to every individual should be given in some way or the other. If you do not respond at all, people will feel that you don’t care about them, and this will provide a wrong impression. Obviously, such words spread faster than anything else, and you would not want to spread such negative emotions about yourself.
Selling out Integrity
If you are in demand, a lot of companies and brands will approach you for advertising and partnerships. Your basic instinct is to accept them all. After all, you will get paid for all of them. However, you should not sell out your integrity just for the sake of money. It may seem harmless at first, but with time, your viewers slowly stop trusting you. Try to work with the brands that you genuinely love and admire. I8f you fake out services, your blogging business may get a severe negative impact in the future.
Look out for these mistakes and try to avoid them. You will see that with the same amount of efforts, your profits will have increased considerably over a while.
