If you are just blogging, you might have questions like: What amateur blogging mistakes to avoid?
In today’s world, if you want to be successful, it is not enough to have a good idea.
If people don’t know about your idea, then it will never be realized.
This is why blogs are so important for entrepreneurs and small business owners alike.
They can help you get the word out about what you do and make connections with potential customers or partners that would otherwise go unnoticed.
But this doesn’t mean they come easily—in fact, there are a number of mistakes new bloggers often make that keep them from achieving the success they deserve.
Making money from blogging seems the ultimate goal for many.
You often hear six-figure blog or seven-figure blog stories and look at bloggers travelling the world, having a beer with a picture of a laptop on the table.
Well, it all seems overwhelming, and you want to make a blog too. Trust me, that doesn’t sound so easy!
Making money with a blog is a hefty task, and you need to create strategies and plans, along with good research, before creating content for your audience.
Furthermore, investing money in your blog doesn’t guarantee success. Success starts with no expectations. You should not expect anything out of your blog when starting.
That’s what amateur blogging is all about! But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start if you are thinking of starting your blog.
In this article, I will be sharing about amateur blogging and the common mistakes related to it.
What is Amateur Blogging?
Amateur blogging is when you blog just for the sake of it.
It is not really meant to help you grow your business or build your brand.
However, that doesn’t mean amateur blogging can’t be successful!
The term “amateur” refers to someone who has no formal training in a field, and such a blogger will likely make mistakes.
An amateur blog is usually for personal use, and the blogger is not really aware of the revenue or considers it a full-time job.
They start blogging, expecting help from the internet gods, when, in reality, they need to work towards their goal and be consistent in their blogging.
It needs to start as a hobby.
It would be best if you liked doing it because you find some pleasure in it. If not, why do you write constantly?
So, all of your writing comes from your pleasure in expressing an opinion or something interesting about a certain topic or anything that comes your way and then posting it online.
Is Income An Essential Component of Amateur Blogging?
Many amateur bloggers start blogs as a full-time passive income, expecting higher returns from the first month.
The truth is you can’t make money just from an amateur blog! Never!
Before you start, you should consider some income-generating strategies that will help you make money from your blog.
Let me tell you something: It takes time to promote your blog and build an audience that is truly interested in what you do.
A few months ago, I saw a post on Facebook from someone who was thinking of quitting blogging because they had not made any money in the past few months.
But I don’t think she’s an amateur blogger!
She was thinking about it too much and wasn’t very active when she started blogging, which means it will take her less time to get a stable income from her blog.
Another point is most amateur bloggers expect a lot of returns in a short time. This is not going to happen.
You need to focus on the long term, and your work will pay off!
Amateur bloggers may also commit various other mistakes.
Thus, we have listed these common mistakes that most amateur bloggers make during their blogging days.
10+ Common Mistakes that Every Blogger Should Avoid:
1) Not Knowing Your Audience
When you start blogging, you should know what type of topics are suitable for your audience and who will be interested in reading them.
You don’t really need to know your target market, however!
Targeting the right kind of audience is not that important when starting out with a blog; this comes later after blogging for a few months.
All you need to do is ensure that your blog is focused on ONE WORD that describes the topics you write about.
This will help you narrow down your audience and know where they are coming from.
2) Using a Free Platform
Sure, using a free platform is very tempting.
However, this indicates that you are not serious about your blog, and it will most likely be abandoned soon after starting.
Using a paid blogging platform like GoDaddy or WordPress (which has its own hosting) will make you look professional in the eyes of your audience.
There are so many reasons why you should not go for a free platform.
First, they don’t really offer much customization and good SEO practices that you will need to use to boost up your blog. Second, it isn’t easy to manage everything from one place.
Generally, the free platforms aren’t reliable, and there is no proper help desk.
You will need to figure out a lot yourself, and in most cases, you won’t be able to troubleshoot any problem on your own because there isn’t much support available for free blogging services.
3) Not Niching Down
It is important to create a blog that covers ONE WORD! I have seen so many amateur bloggers who are not niching down, and they will eventually go nowhere.
You need to narrow your niche (or topic) after you start blogging for at least one year.
If you haven’t narrowed it down within one year of starting, chances are you won’t be able to go anywhere with your blog.
A good trick is to read other blogs in the same niche and monitor their activities. This will eventually help you narrow down the topic for your blog.
4) Having a Long Domain Name
You don’t want your blog title to be too long. It makes it difficult for readers to remember your blog and eventually they will give up!
Most amateur bloggers believe that creating a long domain name is a good practice.
It is always going to hurt your brand in the long run.
What you want to do is make sure your blog title is short and meaningful.
A good approach would be to read the blogs in the same niche and take a look at their domain names.
Most bloggers use their name as their own domain name. This is a great way to build a brand identity.
5) Not Having An SSL
SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer. It makes your blog secure and ensures that data is sent safely to your visitors.
Google hates sites without SSL certificates. And why not? It wants the user to navigate to sites that are secured and free of any malware.
With the expired domain, your visitors are likely going to bounce back, and that definitely hurts the SEO.
It must be secured in all aspects so that users can trust the site.
All you need to do is install an SSL Certificate in your hosting account.
If this process becomes too overwhelming, there are numerous online tutorials that can help you understand it.
6) Not Changing the Permalink Structure
Most amateur bloggers forget or do not have knowledge about changing the permalink structure.
By default, the permalink structure shows the plain text or might not contain the page.
Even if you have submitted the sitemap, the permalink structure makes it easier for the search robots to crawl the page.
It is a good practice to change the permalinks only at the beginning of your blog.
Once you have a lot of posts, changing the structure may cause 404 issues.
7) Writing Blog Posts That Are Personal
Most amateur bloggers want to write about the things they have been through or what they think about a topic.
It depends on how much emotional touch you want to give your content from one niche to another.
Your audience wanted information and shareable stuff that would make them look like experts in the niche and help them grow their business.
The content you provide to your audience should be helpful and actionable. Avoid writing about personal or common topics.
8) Not Posting Consistently
Posting regularly reflects your passion for the blog and the niche.
If you don’t post for a month, it will be very difficult for people to remember your blog later on!
They will forget about you after some time, even if you have good content on the site!
If blogging is your full-time business, then you need to maintain consistency in terms of quality and posting frequency.
This helps users engage with the site and builds trust among readers.
9) Giving Up Too Soon
Starting a blog requires time and patience. Blogging is not an overnight process.
If you want to be successful in the blogging industry, then you need to put your best foot forward on a daily basis.
The more you practice, the better you get!
People give up way too easily, believing that people like overnight success stories and that if they haven’t succeeded after two years of blogging, then blogging isn’t for them!
The truth is that most established bloggers spend 2 or 3 years before making progress with their blog or business.
So, keep practising every day to become great at what you do over time!
10) Not Implementing SEO From the Beginning
There is no right or wrong time to implement SEO.
It is a learning process, and you need to go with what you know and learn more about it when you encounter new opportunities.
That being said, most bloggers make some mistakes that prevent them from implementing proper SEO from the beginning.
Not utilizing images properly is one of them.
Most amateur bloggers put an image into their posts that actually does not add any value to the content or title.
You should always look beyond using a stock photo for your images and pick up something related to what you are writing about.
This can contribute meaningfully to your post and can also help you rank for relevant keywords.
If you are using WordPress, it is recommended that you use SEO-friendly plugins like Yoast SEO, which will do all the hard work of optimizing your images with proper titles and descriptions.
11) Not Doing Keyword Research
You may have the best content in the world, which will get you a huge readership!
But if it is not targeted towards a search keyword, you will lose traffic.
Most amateur bloggers ignore doing proper keyword research and publish whatever they think is relevant.
But, that thought process is flawed because even if you type a random keyword in the search box, you will get relevant content on the first page.
It is completely up to you which keyword should be your focus area.
You can use various tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, SEMRush, etc., or choose other suggested keywords related to your niche!
12) Not interlinking properly
New bloggers tend to link their other posts on the blog that are not related to the current post.
This doesn’t go well because people who are reading your blog will lose interest if you switch topics too frequently.
You should always link back to the previous post when a relevant topic is mentioned in it. This can be as simple as a “continue reading” section.
This will also improve user engagement and help you with your SEO implementation!
Quick Links:
- Can You Make Money From Blogging? Simple Ways to Earn From Your Blog
- Tasks New Bloggers Need To Accomplish Before Writing a Word
- Key Elements of Writing Great Headlines
- Types of Blog Posts People Love To Read
- Ultimate List of Blogging Statistics and Facts
Conclusion: What is Amateur Blogging?
If you want to create a successful blog, you must avoid the following amateur blogging mistakes.
However, if you can follow this list of dos and don’ts for amateur bloggers – namely by doing keyword research and linking properly- then chances are that people will find your content valuable enough to share with others!
