25 Blogging Mistakes to Avoid

 

Learn how to avoid these 25 blogging mistakes from bloggers who have been there & want to help you avoid making their same mistakes.

 

I know, I know. It’s been awhile since I shared a new recipe, DIY project, or even a renovation update on our new house. But I have a good excuse. More like a million good excuses, but here are 3.

1. I don’t really have a kitchen, or a master bathroom, or even floors! Evidence on Instagram Stories.
2. I’ve been spending my days stacking our new solid bamboo floor planks (so it can acclimate) & painting our house many shades of grey.
3. Every time we go to call it quits for the evening we wind up starting another project. Last night we ended up ripping our closet apart all the way down to the sub flooring. And now I don’t know where any of my clothes are… 

So since our home life is a disaster (it literally looks like a tornado swept through our house), & I don’t have a working kitchen, I hope (& pray) you will bare with me for at least 4-6 more weeks. At which point I promise to share more consistent recipes & renovation projects. Until then I will be continuing to share a variety of posts, like this one on How to Start a Successful Blog in 3 Steps, this one on Turning Date Night into a Profit, & this new one on 25 Blogging Mistakes to Avoid.

Although I should admit that I have included 26 blogging mistakes. I decided to add one of my own blogging mistakes at the very end, one that I’ve been making my whole blogging journey that I sorely regret. I’ve learned so much from these 25 bloggers & I hope that you enjoy their expert advice & that you check out their fabulous blogs! And if you would like to share any of your own blogging mistake please feel free to share below in the comments. We can all learn & grow together in this wonderful blogging adventure! 

 

 

“Branding! because I wasn’t going to monetize I thought it was unnecessary. Now I’m going through and rebranding and its such a headache. I wish I had more of a clear idea when I started ”

Lauren at Bellows in the Berkshires

 

“Not investing in my blog the same way you’d invest in a business. I thought I could get away with spending zero money on courses, networking events etc. and I was wrong. This year I’ve FINALLY spent money on courses, marketing materials, and attending blogger events. From this I’ve seen a 2x ROI and almost ten-ex my blogging income.”

Cora from The Mini Millionaire 

 

“Not understanding how to properly use tags and categories. With YEARS of posts to edit now, it’s so tedious to fix.”

Emilie from Burke Does

 

“Not coming across pinterest and genuine seo experts before. Not having much knowledge about blogging. Wasting time and money on shortcuts and fake seo people.Not doing enough guest blogging as I should have.”

Natasha from Natasha Kundi 

 

“My biggest blogging mistake was that I didn’t start my blog with a niche in mind. It’s been more difficult to figure it out afterwards rather than before. My best suggestion would be to do lots of research before you start and know exactly what your niche and audience will be!” 

Abbey from Small Town Soul

 

“The biggest mistake that I’ve made was not writing blog posts out days or even weeks before I publish them (or having a batch of articles stashed away). The problem with not writing them out before is 1.) My posts were a lot lower quality because I had to rush to get them out with little time to edit them 2.) I would miss posting on my scheduled posting days (I said I would post M/W/F, Monday would come and I would miss posting). I fixed it by lowering my posting days to two days a week M/TH and setting a deadline for myself to get my posts written for the upcoming week by each Friday. Still not perfect at it but improving” 

McClain from I Just Want to Be Wealthy

 

“Starting on Weebly. I wasted a lot of effort and time on that platform before I finally bit the bullet and moved over to self-hosted WordPress — but I’m so glad that I made the switch. However, the transition was difficult, and it would have saved me so much if I had started on WP in the first place.”

Emma from Creative Explorations 

 

“Put your website on EVERYTHING! Your personal Facebook page, Pinterest Page, all out going email etc. You never know how people will find you. Another tip is to make sure everything is watermarked with your website name, Pinterest Pictures, Youtube videos etc. We had a video stolen and lost more than 50 Million views! Yes, 50 million. We wanted to throw up at the loss, all because we didn’t think to watermark it way back when!”

Tawra from Living on a Dime

 

Not knowing that the title should be at least 3 times mentioned in your post (beginning, middle, end) which ups the SEO for others to find your blog. Not realizing that you just can’t post a pic that you find on google images even though it seems everyone else is using it for free. You have to get permission or buy the rights or use a site that offers for free. 

Stacy from Anchor of Promise

 

“Mine was purchasing my first theme because it was cheap and not looking at all of the features or lack there of at the time. Then my second theme I got it because everyone recommended the company, and I was just okay with the theme not In LOVE with it. Then I found ThemeForest and realized that for cheaper than the second theme I got WAYYY More useful features. It’s a drag and drop theme which I’ve found very crucial to making your site your own.”

Lindsey from Mind, Body, & Soul After Baby

 

“Two blogging musts to avoid mistakes: Stay consistent. Quality > Quantity. I suggest buying a planner strictly to be used for your post schedules, specific topics, etc. Write ahead if you are feeling inspired and on fire about a topic to avoid the lack of passion behind your words – the post does not need to be pages and pages long every time.”

Hailey from Hailey Mae

 

“Being afraid to ask “dumb” questions. I have wasted so much time sometimes trying to figure something out. Whether it is to move something on my site or to figure out how to make the correct photo come up when my post is shared on Facebook. I spent hours and hours on google and then when I am about to give up I get up enough nerve to ask on a blogging Facebook group and I have an answer in 10 minutes. When will I learn?”

Carolyn from Fennell Seeds 

 

“I feel silly saying mine after reading all the great comments. I have struggled with many of those but my biggest struggle has been staying true to my unique voice. As much as I think community helps, Im learning to be careful who I allow to give me input. Everyone has an opinion, an idea and if not careful you can get confused and head down a blog path that was never your niche.” 

Sarah from A Life Inspired

 

“Not having a clear focus on what I want to blog about and not having enough posts done in advance” 

Marguerite from Make Sense of Life 

 

“The biggest blogging mistake I made was not rebranding sooner! I was so stuck on wanting to make my old blog name work for me and I can only image where my brand would be if I had switched a long time ago. On the same note, another mistake was not switching to WordPress sooner! I wish I had started blogging on WordPress from the get-go.”

Madison from A Joyfully Mad Kitchen

 

“Not joining Pinterest group boards and working on my Pinterest account from day one. I wrote 20 blog posts and created my website over a couple month span and never worked on my Pinterest. I personally feel Pinterest should be a top priority for bloggers since I get 90% of my traffic from there. I fixed the mistake and got ahead quickly by getting on a schedule scattered throughout the day, pinning 50+ pins a day to group boards and my own, and following other bloggers that were similar in their amount of Pinterest followers to mine.”

Jessica from Jessica Autumn

 

“I know I’m late to this thread, but here you go: My biggest mistake was not believing in myself and being too scared and shy to share my blog! It sounds like a strange mistake, but I’m a bit of a perfectionist, and that held me back for too long! When I finally decided to jump in, it was a huge relief, and I was able to get outside feedback that was necessary. I still struggle with sharing with those I personally know, but I’m not as hesitant to talk about it anymore – which has made a world of a difference!” 

Amanda from Maple Alps

 

“My biggest mistake was not paying attention to image sizes when uploading or trying to reduce their size once uploaded. I never even bothered deleting old images I no longer used. After a while, they started to eat up space and I bought a more expensive hosting package so I could have more space. Looking back, having paid more attention to what I was uploading could have saved me money…..especially in the beginning when I wasn’t making anything.”

Jon from Money Smart Guides

 

“My biggest blogging mistake was designing my site before having an ultra-specific idea of what exactly I wanted to blog about. I had to do a re-brand, which was pretty expensive.” 

Adrienne from Fruitfully Alive

 

“I would say my biggest mistake was not starting sooner. I was always so worried about doing everything right, that I never got started. I had notes upon notes upon notes of plans for my blog. If I could go back in time, I would have bought the domain and started where I was and learned along the way.”

Roxanne from Roxanne Gilmore

 

“One mistake I see many bloggers make at the beginning is blogging anonymously. I did this in the beginning as well and it really held me back. Once I came out publicly, I got more media attention and more writing jobs right away. I always tell new bloggers to be themselves, come out publicly, and embrace it – all of it. Blogging anonymously for a while is okay, but it will ultimately prevent you from reaching your goals.”

 

“Installing two instances of google analytics. When I changed domains I tried to put the NEW domain on the old account, so I could use one google analytics account for both sites. (This is possible, just not for me apparently). I installed the code on the new website, and it never really tacked properly. After a couple weeks I gave up and created a new gmail and a new google analytics account and installed new code. It seemed to be working fine. It wasn’t until a little later (like 2 months later) that I found out it was tracking EACH PAGE VIEW TWICE because I had never removed the first faulty code. It was so so sad to go back to 150, 000 page views from 300, 000. But also so good to know what is ACTUALLY happening on my blog. It was the simplest fix ever, I just located the original code and removed it. 

If you want lots of mistakes, the only reason that ever even HAPPENED was because I settled for a domain name I didn’t love in the first place. I was changing domains because I couldn’t stand the name and hated telling people what my blog was called. Don’t buy a domain name you don’t love.”

Carly from Carly on Purpose

Side note: I had the same thing happen a couple years ago, I realized installed GA twice & I was devastated…
Here’s the post I wrote about it & how to make sure this doesn’t happen to you too!

 

“My biggest mistake was not taking advice that seemed “too simple” or “too obvious” I once reached out to a fellow blogger for advice about increasing pageviews and her advice was to be consistent and add images…which seemed too simple.”

Lovette from Goal Digging to Happiness

 

“My mistake was not joining blogging groups before my blog went live. That would have saved me months… I thought I knew what I was doing…ha ha! Through everyone else, I learned how little I really did know and how amazing the blogging community is to helping everyone.”

Kelly from Montana Happy 

 

“I would say a big mistake I made initially was not wanting to invest any money in my blogging business. I know it is necessary now and I am glad I have spent money on courses and learning.”

Rebecca from Frame to Freedom

 

“For the last 3 years I have thought that I needed to reach a special number in page views & followers before I could starting making legitimate money on my blog & that I could get by spending the bare minimum on my blog. Over this last year I have learned that both of these ideas are very wrong. While you can learn a lot for free (& through trial & error), the truth is (like any job) some special training is needed. Why reinvent the wheel when other bloggers can teach you exactly what you need to know to be successful from the get go! 

After taking the course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing from Michelle who makes over $50,000 a month from affiliate marketing I learned how to make a real income through affiliate links. She also taught me how you can lay the foundation for making real money on your blog from the very first day your blog goes live. So as your blog grows so will your income. I have also decided to take one new course every other month (like this one on growing your Facebook page to 100,000 followers) so that I can continue to learn how to grow my blog from expert bloggers!”

Giustina from Domestically Blissful

 

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Do you have any blogging mistakes you’d like to share?
I’d love to hear from you!
Feel free to comment below, email me, or tweet me on Twitter.

Want to connect on a more personal level!?
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With love, G

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths,
but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs,
that it may benefit those who listen.
Ephesians 4:29