The Top 4 Mistakes New Bloggers Make
Avoid blogger’s remorse with these tips.
The Internet is full of beginner bloggers showing up expecting rainbows and sunshine, only to be disappointed when they run into the harsh realities of what content creation involves.
More find frustration when their new blog doesn’t turn the profit they expected after reading those “HOW I 10X’d MY BUSINESS WITH BLOGGING!” headlines.
While that can certainly happen, it just doesn't happen every day.
But, blogging can be an enjoyable and engaging way to create content. Putting your hands into the dirt of words and bringing a post to life with careful curation is an amazing feeling. (Trust me, I left my full-time job to do it.)
Here’s the key: with a few quality resources in your tool belt, there’s no reason why you can’t maintain a blog that is fun, easy to write, and actually gives you quite a bit of freedom to make money in your spare time.
Here are four of the top mistakes that new bloggers make that keep them from reaching their potential online:
1. Staying overly focused on the numbers.
By this, I mean focusing too much attention and/or time measuring visitor counts.
Yes, to a certain extent, we all want those eyeballs on our blog. The bigger the audience you have, the more opportunities will present themselves to you.
But if there’s one thing for certain about blogging, it’s that the act of blogging itself should be a reward in and of itself.
I’ve seen so many bloggers get trapped into this never-ending cycle where they feel like they have to blog to stay relevant or stay popular (or keep their blog alive).
Not true at all! Blogging is much more than that.
It’s about the act of creating content that you are passionate about and sharing it with others who might get something out of it.
If you let the numbers dominate your thinking, you’ll start to lose sight of what blogging is really all about and stop enjoying yourself. And if you’re not enjoying yourself, why blog in the first place?
2. Expecting something for nothing.
Remember this wise quote that I wish was mine: “If you’re not paying for it, you are the product.”
Blogging has a whole lot in common with business and marketing. Anything that isn’t free (and even some of the things) is trying to reap value from you somehow.
As a blogger, you have to understand this mindset and realize that there will be costs involved.
There’s always going to be something for you to learn.
A new platform or tool to master. Backlinks and social media interaction. Any type of connection or networking. All of these are investments that add to your life and business.
I’m not suggesting that you need to go out and buy a bunch of crap for the sake of it. Shiny new toys only last until 4 minutes after you bought them.
But if you’re not at least learning something new, or sharing your content with others, or helping others on your blog, then what are you really getting from blogging?
The truth is that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
3. Giving up too easily
When you first start blogging, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re going to suck at it. It takes time to find your voice (and identify who you really are). It will take some time to build an audience. And if you’re not constantly refining your blog, it’ll slowly go downhill.
Sometimes it feels like you’re spinning your wheels. You’ve been at it for a while, but you don’t see yourself getting better. I
n fact, you probably feel like things have plateaued and aren’t going anywhere. You begin to wonder whether blogging is really worth your time and effort anymore.
It’s easy to quit when that happens. But stick with it!
You wouldn’t expect to learn how to play a musical instrument, instantly be awesome at it and then continue playing beautifully for the rest of your life, right?
You’d recognize that there’s always going to be an element of challenge with it. Yet we often have unreasonable expectations about blogging.
Expect to suck at it in the beginning. Be patient with yourself and your blog. Allow the process to unfold and develop on its own time frame.
4. Not posting consistently
This one is pretty obvious, but there are a lot of bloggers who find themselves stuck in one of two ruts:
- Posting only when they have something extremely “new” to share with their audience.
- Letting blog posts pile up for months on end without ever publishing them (I’m guilty of this)
It’s no surprise that this hurts their blog’s success in the long run.
If you don’t post consistently, your visitors will stop coming back or forget about you entirely. Even worse, a lack of posting can make it seem like you’ve “gone away” or gotten bored with blogging and lost interest altogether.
It’s important to find that balance between posting consistently and not being an over-blogger (or someone who just posts for the sake of posting).
There’s no exact science to it. No one can tell you what the perfect amount is. It truly depends on your niche, audience, and other factors such as your capacity and interest.
But you need to strike that balance so that your audience knows you’re serious about blogging without being annoying.
You Need To Enjoy The Process
I can’t speak for every blogger out there, but I know that if you’re not having fun with your blog, it’s probably time to rethink things. There’s no point in dragging yourself through the blogging process and feeling unhappy about what you do.
If it were just a hobby for me (which is how I started), I probably would have quit it long before I had the chance to build my blog up into something more. I liked blogging, but it wasn’t a huge passion of mine.
But now that writing has become such an important part of my life and business (as well as my full-time job), I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to do this every day.
Like I said, blogging is like any other skill that you learn and master over time.
What worked when you first started won’t work forever (and may have to be adjusted at different points along the way). But if you stick with it and have fun, I think you’ll eventually find your groove.
Hey bloggers — what mistakes would you add to this list? Let me know!
