31 Common Blogging Mistakes And How To Fix Them

Blogging For Beginners To Get Started (24 Tips & Hacks To Start Now)

A Detailed Step-By-Step Guide To Start A Blog In 2024

Are you a newcomer to the blogging world, ready to make your mark, but unsure of where to begin? Maybe you've already started your blog, but you're struggling to gain traction or grow your audience. If you're feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of advice and skeptical about the key strategies to follow, you're not alone. Many beginners like yourself find themselves in the same boat. The good news is that you've come to the right place to get advice for blogging for beginners. In this blog, we'll guide you on how to steer clear of the most common blogging mistakes, which can help you achieve your goal of growing your blog quickly and effectively.

And don't worry, we're not just going to list the mistakes that can derail your progress. We'll also offer you actionable advice on how to avoid them and set your blog up for success. To help you track your progress and stay organized, we'll introduce you to Feather's Notion to blog, which is a powerful tool that will help you achieve your goal of avoiding common blogging mistakes as you grow your blog.

Why Do These Blogging Mistakes Happen?

Blogging requires more effort and time than many people realize. Failing to properly plan and strategize can lead to major mistakes. Without a clear content plan, you may struggle with consistency, formatting, and promotion. This is especially true for new bloggers who may not be aware of best practices. Bloggers who fail often don’t conduct research and prioritize their audience, which can make them struggle to engage and retain readers. Researching your target audience, industry trends, and keywords is crucial for creating valuable and engaging content.

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7 Reasons Why You Need To Recognize And Fix Your Blogging Mistakes

1. Enhanced Readership and Engagement

Correcting mistakes on your blog makes the content more enjoyable to read, encouraging readers to return and actively engage with your blog. This increased engagement results in a more loyal audience and boosts metrics such as comments, shares, and subscriptions.

2. Improved SEO Performance

Fixing SEO mistakes is crucial for enhancing your blog's visibility and organic traffic. By addressing these issues, your blog can rank higher in search engine results, driving targeted traffic and increasing conversions.

3. Building Credibility and Trust

Producing error-free, high-quality content consistently helps establish you as a trustworthy source in your niche. This credibility is key to building a loyal audience, which in turn creates opportunities for monetization and partnerships.

4. Professionalism

A well-maintained blog reflects professionalism, leaving a positive impression on your audience. This is vital for setting an authoritative tone, establishing your brand, and maintaining a professional image.

5. User Experience

Addressing common issues such as broken links or slow loading times improves the overall user experience on your blog. This results in visitors spending more time on your site, leading to higher engagement and conversion rates.

6. Monetization Opportunities

A polished blog attracts advertisers and partners, opening up more monetization opportunities. This includes avenues for sponsored content, affiliate marketing, and product placements.

7. Continuous Improvement

Recognizing and fixing mistakes fosters a habit of continuous improvement, which enables you to grow as a blogger and adapt to evolving trends and preferences of your readers. This ensures that your blog remains relevant and effective over time.

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25 Common Blogging Mistakes And How To Fix Them

1. Creating a Free Blog

One of the most common amateur blogging mistakes most bloggers make is not investing in a self-hosted blog from the start. We all know that free things are always great, right? Well, not if you are serious about making money blogging your full-time job. If you want to make passive income from blogs, you should avoid free blogs.

There are several limitations to free blog platforms. These include:

Free blog platforms often restrict the customization you can apply to your blog’s design.

Some free blogging platforms display their own ads on your blog.

Free blogs have limited space, limited bandwidth, and don’t offer many features.

With a free blog platform, you have limited control over the technical aspects of your blog.

Most importantly, most free blogs do not allow you to monetize your site.

If you are serious about blogging, don’t use free blogging sites to create a blog. Opt for paid versions that allows you to run your blog professionally by providing features like speed, SSL, ease of use, etc.

2. Inconsistent Posting Schedule

Publishing content frequently and consistently is key to successful blogging. After all, it puts your website out there and brings readers to your page. Some set up their blog and upload various posts, but eventually lose vitality. No one will consider you an expert in the field if you don’t share your knowledge regularly.

Maintaining Reader Interest

Inconsistent posting schedules can cause your readers to lose interest in your blog. Unpredictable content releases can also result in decreased engagement and a decline in your blog’s visibility.

The Rhythm of Blogging

We recommend creating a content calendar that outlines your posting schedule. Decide on the frequency of your posts, whether weekly, bi-weekly, etc., and stick to it. Doing so sets the expectations for your audience, ensures a steady flow of fresh content, and shows that you are committed to providing valuable information. It gives your readers something to look forward to.

Publish at least twice a month, but ideally once weekly. Remember to always choose quality over quantity when creating your content.

3. Ignoring SEO Best Practices

When people want to know something, they go to their favorite search engines, such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo, and type a phrase or question. How do you ensure your page shows up when curious readers need you the most? Let your intended audience find your website by maximizing various SEO strategies to optimize your website and blog content. Otherwise, your work may not reach its full potential readers, limiting your blog’s growth. All the work and effort you’ve put in will go to waste as no one will read them.

Learn to identify a topic based on pain points and invest in keyword research to identify relevant search terms. Afterward, optimize your content based on these keywords. Leverage them in subheads, body text, and image alt text so search engine crawlers find and rank them more easily. You can use tools, such as SEMRush, to find topics and keywords your audience might be interested in. A high monthly search volume (MSV) means many readers use that keyword in search. Work that phrase into your titles or subheaders for better results.

4. Writing About Too Many Topics

One of the most common blogging mistakes is writing about too many topics. It can be tempting to write about anything and everything on your blog, and the thought of limiting yourself to just one topic can seem daunting. The truth is, just like when building any online business, finding a niche for your blog is crucial. Without a clear niche, readers won’t know what to expect from your blog. Your audience will get confused if your blog posts are about film photography one week and the next you’re talking about pet care.

Writing about too many topics can also cause damage to your online reputation. It’s hard to believe someone can be an expert on multiple topics, but sticking to one key area will help position you as a thought leader. Before you begin writing your blog posts, take the time to carve out your niche so you know what to blog about. Finding a market gap and ensuring your niche matches your broader business interests is important.

5. Not Understanding Your Target Audience

After learning how to start a blog, the following step is to figure out your target audience. It’s pointless to waste time and brainpower writing blog posts if the audience isn’t interested in reading them. All too frequently, people publish blog posts about things that their readers do not want to read about.

It’s not only posted topics to think about. To guarantee that your blog properly targets your audience, you must first understand how they act online. How much time do they devote to reading blogs? Do they prefer long-form content or shorter articles? Do they prefer a particular blog post type, such as listicles or Q&As? Conducting audience research will help you to get under your readers’ skin and ensure your content meets their needs accordingly.

6. Using a generic writing style

Many rookie bloggers create bland, generic-looking posts that don’t have a single drop of personality. To make your blogging brand more recognizable, hone your own voice and write like you’re talking to a friend.

7. Not Doing Any Keyword Research

Have you ever wondered why your blog isn’t getting more search traffic even after posting content regularly? It might be mostly because you create content without doing keyword research. Keyword research is the process of finding “words” or “keywords” that drive more traffic, leads, and sales to your blog from search engines such as Google.

Keep one thing in mind when performing keyword research: long tail keywords. Long tail keywords are often made up of four or more words. For example, “best free SEO tools for bloggers” is a six-word long tail keyword that can be easy to rank compared to short tail keywords like “free SEO tools”.

8. Overlooking Mobile Optimization

Not everyone consumes your content on their personal computers and laptops. With the increasing use of smartphones and tablets, neglecting mobile optimization can result in a poor user experience, leading to higher bounce rates.

When users open your page on their mobile device, and it isn’t optimized for mobile viewing, they will most likely close the tab and look for another reference. Choose a responsive website design that adapts to different screen sizes. It also helps if images are optimized for mobile devices. Ensure a seamless user experience by testing your blog’s functionality across various platforms.

9. Writing for Yourself, Not Your Audience

We all like to think our lives and opinions are the best. In reality, not everyone wants to hear about your favorite color, or your opinion on current affairs. The most popular and successful blogs are the ones that are useful for readers. As tempting as it might be to give your posts a personal spin, sticking to the facts that your audience is looking for will be more beneficial.

Similarly, you might be interested in reading about the topics you’re writing about, but that doesn’t mean your audience is. Every blog post you publish should always be centered around your readers. You can still discuss personal events and experiences in blog posts; you just need to find the right angle. For example, writing a blog post about your recent holiday to Disneyland could be useful for readers if you position it as a travel review.

10. Writing About Too Many Topics

One of the most common blogging mistakes made by bloggers is covering too many topics. Writing about anything and everything on your blog might be exciting, but the thought of limiting yourself to just one topic can be daunting.

The truth is, finding a blog niche is actually quite important, just like it is when starting an online business. Without a specific niche, readers will have no idea what to expect from your site. If your blog posts are on food blogging one week and personal finance the next, your readers will be confused. Writing on too many topics can also be bad for your online reputation. It’s difficult to think someone can be an expert on multiple topics, but focusing on just one will help you establish yourself as a thought leader.

To avoid this blogging pitfalls, take time to carve out your niche so you know what to blog about.

11. Poorly Formatted Posts

Your blog post could be the best-written and most valuable piece of online content, but if it’s poorly formatted, you won’t be able to succeed in blogging. Nobody wants to read blog posts that aren’t shown in a user-friendly way on the screen.

It’s all too easy to focus on the content of your blog post and forget to format the post in a way that’s easy to read. To fix this blogging mistake, use subheadings to break up long text sections and add images to make your posts look more visually appealing. Bullet points and highlight text are also excellent ways of making sections of your text stand out.

12. Not Linking to Other Content

Once a reader has landed on your blog and finished reading their chosen post, what do you want them to do next? Read some more of your content, of course! The best way to encourage readers to stick around on your website, and explore more of your blog, is to include links to other content within each post you write.

Often, once a reader has completed reading a blog post, they’ll want to conduct further reading on that topic, so you must be sure to direct them to your content. Not including links to other content in your blog posts will lead to readers leaving your website and finding the blog posts they’re looking for elsewhere. Create a linking strategy as part of your editorial calendar. Decide which other articles you want to link to before writing your blog posts. This will help to ensure your links are placed naturally within your content and that you’re linking to the most beneficial blog posts.

13. Using Uninspiring Titles

The title or headline for your blog post is there to tell readers what it is about and encourage them to read it. Sadly, it’s common for titles to be an afterthought, resulting in uninspiring headlines that don’t grab the attention of potential readers. If your title doesn’t engage your readers, you will have a hard time convincing them to read your blog post.

While there’s no clear-cut formula for creating the perfect blog post title, we recommend you:

Include your target SEO keyword(s)

Ensure the title is accurate

Use adjectives and terminology to make it sound exciting

Lead with the most important part of your article

Avoid inaccurate clickbait

14. Not Proofreading Your Content

With so many blogs online, you need to find ways for yours to stand out from the crowd. One of those ways is to ensure that your writing is of the best possible quality. Bloggers usually think they’re done after completing their blog article. They are wrong.

You must check your blog posts before hitting the publish button to catch any errors. A blog post stuffed with spelling and grammatical errors signals to the reader that the site is unprofessional, which might harm your online reputation. To avoid it, always proofread your blog post before you upload it. You can use grammar checker tools like Grammarly and ProWritingAid for this. They can help you to identify and correct grammar, spelling, and other errors in your writing.

15. Not Producing Various Content

Writing a blog post’s easy to get carried away with words. While they are key components, you should remember they are not the only content you can share. Another common blogging mistake is sticking with text-heavy posts that can bore your reader, resulting in disengagement. It can also be intimidating for them to read a huge chunk of text.

Enhancing Engagement with Visuals and Multimedia

Create variety by offering different materials. For instance, images can generate more views than text-only blogs. You can take it up a notch with other forms of media, such as videos and infographics. Doing so breaks up the page, keeps reading more interesting, and engages your audience.

Strategic Content Integration

You should be careful when adding videos or infographics to your text. It helps to determine what value it could bring to the blog post that text can’t. Blog posts with a lot of data can be overwhelming, so you may consider using graphs to show the stats interestingly. Conversely, videos are best for interviewing an industry expert instead of a text-based Q&A.

16. Plagiarism

If you’ve identified some competitors’ blogs during your research stage, you can use these to help inspire ideas for your blog. What you can’t do is simply copy and paste their content.

Using existing content for inspiration is fine. In fact, it’s a classic blogging technique, but a common mistake is not changing it enough or not adding your own spin on the content before you upload it. Plagiarism is serious business, and you could even get sued if you’re found to be copying someone else’s work.

17. Focusing on products rather than your audience’s problems

When blogging about products, focusing on features rather than your audience will make your content sound biased and promotional. Remember that readers only care about how a product can help solve their problems.

18. Relying only on stock photos

Using only generic, royalty-free images will make your blog look bland and unoriginal. Stock photos aren’t bad per se, but your entire visual content strategy shouldn’t revolve around these images.

19. Guessing what your readers like

Basing your blogging strategy on hunches and “guesstimates” could leave you with heaps of content that nobody likes. Always have a data-driven approach when making big decisions for your blog, like keywords, content types, and product ideas.

20. Publishing thin content

Relying on thin content, like doorway pages and affiliate product content, will prevent you from ranking in search. Be sure your blog has plenty of informative content that actually has value in readers' eyes.

21. Not using subheadings

Some first-time bloggers may publish content without subheadings – filled with long, intimidating walls of text. Not only does this affect the reader experience, it also reduces your chances of ranking in search engine results.

22. Taking readers to unrelated pages

Adding external or internal links to unrelated pages will confuse your readers – period. As a rule of thumb, only add links if they can help readers make the most out of your content.

23. Leaving readers with unanswered questions

Readers won’t be happy with your content if they still have unanswered questions by the time they conclude. This typically happens if you use “clickbait” headlines without regard for your audience’s expectations.

24. Redundancy

Repeating the same points over and over again in the same post will make it dull and uninspiring to read. Redundancy also includes the unnecessary repetition of words or using words with the same meaning, which may confuse.

25. Taking Too Long to Start List Building

When it comes to building your email list, you can never start too soon. Email marketing is an excellent tool for bloggers, and underestimating its potential is high on our list of common blogging mistakes.

List building is simply the process of gathering a list of email subscribers for your blog. The emails you send to your subscribers can include extra content, free giveaway resources, or just notifications about new stuff on your blog. Whatever you send to your subscribers, the important is that you have a group of individuals who are interested in your content.

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Go From Notion to Blog With Ease Today with Feather

Feather is the right tool for you if you're looking to start your blogging journey as a beginner. Here's why:

SEO-Friendly Blogging Platform

One of the most common blogging mistakes is neglecting search engine optimization (SEO). Feather takes care of this for you by providing an SEO-friendly blog platform. With Feather, you can focus on creating great content while the platform optimizes it for search engines so that your blog gets discovered by more readers.

No Coding or Design Skills Required

Many beginner bloggers think they must know how to code or design to start a blog. Feather eliminates this barrier by allowing you to publish blog content through Notion without coding or design skills. This means you can focus on writing without worrying about technical details.

Subfolder Blog Option for Better SEO

Choosing the right domain structure for your blog is crucial for SEO. Feather allows you to set up a subfolder blog (domain.com/blog) instead of a subdomain blog (blog.domain.com). Subfolder blogs are better for SEO because they signal to search engines that your blog is part of your main website.

HubSpot-Like Experience through Notion

Blogging mistakes often stem from using multiple tools that don't integrate well. Feather solves this problem by allowing you to manage your CRM and website blog through Notion. This means you can have a seamless blogging experience without switching between multiple platforms.

Customization Options with Custom CSS

Another common blogging mistake is neglecting design. Feather offers customization options through custom CSS, so you can make your blog look unique without any design skills. This ensures that your blog reflects your brand identity and stands out from the competition.

Email Collection and More

Feather offers email collection and other advanced functionalities beyond basic blogging features. You can grow your email list and engage with your audience more effectively, setting your blog up for long-term success.

Seamless Collaboration with Your Team

Collaborating with your team during blogging is essential for creating high-quality content. Feather makes this easy by allowing your entire team to work together on Notion and automatically publish content to your blog.

Easy Transition from Notion to Blog

Feather streamlines the blogging process by allowing you to write on Notion and automatically publish your content to an SEO-friendly blog. This saves you time and ensures that your blog posts are always up-to-date.

Try Feather’s notion-to-blog software for free today — create a new account and go from Notion to blog in minutes!