Ten Most STUPID Blogging Mistakes By Beginners

Blogging is exciting. Really, the notion of blogging means that you can, if you play your cards right, essentially do whatever you want with your life. Many bloggers just go around eating at fancy restaurants and writing about it on the web. If it doesn’t pay their bills, it at least pays for their restaurant checks.

But it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement and make some mistakes early on.

Here are ten common blogger mistakes that a lot of us make when we first start out.

#1: Going Full Time

This one deserves to be listed first because it’s one of the worst mistakes you can make. People who blog full time are people who slowly built a following up over several years of blogging part time. When you first start out, you really shouldn’t be spending more than, say, an hour a day on your blog. Luckily, there are writing jobs on the web where you can hone your skills as a writer and work on your own hours in the meantime. Check out constant-content.com where you can sell your articles to various websites.

#2: Waiting to Monetize

You never know how much money you might be missing out on if you wait until you have a hundred followers before you start monetizing. Start monetizing right away, get those banner ads and affiliate links on there. At first, you won’t be making a lot of money, but along the way towards building a better blog, you may as well get every dollar you can.

#3: Polling

When you run a poll in the beginning and you wind up with three votes total, it just makes you feel a little silly, and it makes your blog look kind of, well, pathetic to the people who stumble upon it. When someone discovers your blog, they shouldn’t feel like they’re invading on some private group that consists of nobody else but the blogger and a couple of people he or she knows in real life.

#4: Starting Without a Focus

Over time, your blog will come to encompass pretty much all of your interests. For now, though, try to keep it fairly streamlined. Keep it about movie reviews or music or cooking or whatever it is you want to write about, just keep it focused enough that, when a reader stumbles upon your blog, they know what to expect for the next dozen entries they read. If you’re looking for a niche, check out the statistics and see if you can come up with a blog that hasn’t been done before (you can check out a lot of other fascinating stats while you’re there, too).

#5: Trying to Land Big Sponsors

Just sign up for Google Ad Sense and other ad revenue programs. Worry about landing big sponsors later on down the line. Typically, Coca Cola and Maxim aren’t going to be interested in buying ad space on your site until you have tens of thousands of subscribers.

#6: Prioritizing Style Over Content

Style and content go hand in hand, and content should always guide style. Check out  Theme Theme where you can get an amazing customizable & SEO friendly theme for your blog.

#7: Using an Impersonal Tone

When writing to the public, there’s a tendency to want to use third person impartial tone. This works for some blogs, but most of them use a personal tone to feel more like a real back and forth with the reader. It’s also easier to be funny or entertaining or witty or creative when writing in first person. Unless your blog really calls for an impartial tone, just write in your speaking voice.

#8: Ignoring Your Readers

You’re not a star yet. As long as you have time to talk back at your readers, do so. You may be disappointed that you only have ten or twenty of them for now, but if you don’t respond to them, you won’t even have ten or twenty a week from now.

#9: Choosing the Wrong Host

What you’re looking for is a good, basic and not-too-pricey package at a site like  hostgator.com, where you get unlimited storage for four bucks a month. Some bloggers choose to go with a free host like a basic blogspot.com account, but then you may have difficulty switching over later on down the line if you want to switch to a pay host: You lose all your backlinks, your traffic, you have to move all that content over etc. etc., it’s basically like starting over from square one. You may as well start with a cheap host and just upgrade your service package if you ever need to in the future.

#10: Starting a Forum

If you’ve got fans and readers from around the world who want somewhere to talk with other readers, well, that’s when you start a forum. A forum with exactly one member (you) just looks silly.

Conclusion:

The basic rule of thumb here is not to bother doing anything, really, until you get to a point where you absolutely have to.

Don’t quit your day job until you wind up making enough money from the blog to support yourself, and you don’t have time to work your day job anymore.
Don’t expand to a bigger host until you get to a point where your current host can’t support what you want to do with your blog.
Don’t pay a graphic designer to redo your whole blog with an original theme if your inexpensive theme is still a hit with your readers.

The bottom line is that great content and style trump all, and you can’t rush it. So have fun for now, just write about something you enjoy writing about and enjoy the learning process.

Image Credit: anvrecife

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33 comments

Jordon Marreo January 19, 2011 - 3:15 pm
Nice points. I liked the 2nd point specially because that is the most common mistake 99% of the bloggers do. Why wait to monetize..heck we are here to make some money ;)
ZK January 21, 2011 - 1:17 am
You should go all out to monitize the blog as soon as you set it up , unless its a hobby blog and your objective is not to monetize :)
Deep Arora January 21, 2011 - 1:20 am
Well said..Jordon. I waited long too so I know first hand how it feels when all the time is gone by..
Best Media January 19, 2011 - 4:36 pm
Nice points you make, like the forum one and going full time.
ZK January 21, 2011 - 1:28 am
Forum is a great tool for interactivity and engagement of a like minded community ...when you have decent traffic to your site and you see a lot interaction on your posts in terms of comments, you should look at options of starting a forum. A lot of readers to your blog will be willing to moderate the forum else you can always outsource it.
Dodge Neon SRT4 February 4, 2011 - 1:13 am
Now a days, People are loosing interest to forum. Before, it was a great tool for interaction, but now a days, lots of people are loosing its interest.
Car Rental January 19, 2011 - 9:02 pm
There are millions of blogs these days and only few of them are useful, otherwise i see repeated posts everywhere. Is it really worth spending time on blogs these days to make fair income?
Angelique January 20, 2011 - 1:29 am
Content is the real key for a successful blogging. Informative content enable people to have an understanding of what we do more as a business and in that why they draw in a lot of links.
Komodo Dragon January 20, 2011 - 4:25 am
Really good points listed there. I especially agree with not going full-time too early. It's too risky to leave a reliable job unless you know for sure your blog will take off. Another thing, if your blog is targeting people of a certain region, make sure your host server is located close to that region.
Deep Arora January 21, 2011 - 1:23 am
ALternatively, use CDN (Amazon S3?) to host your static content. That is much faster. For hosting, I recommend Liquidweb cloud hosting..ahhh..they are awesome :)
Komodo Dragon January 24, 2011 - 12:47 am
Thanks for the recommendations. I've heard quite a good bit about Liquidweb, they've been around a while.
Edinburgh Driving School January 20, 2011 - 6:45 am
Nice list, I must say that the use of an impersonal tone in a blog is really off putting. People want to buy from people they like and trust so an impersonal tone won't help.
Shailender @ Romantic Getaways January 20, 2011 - 7:57 am
Really impressive & perfect post... I liked it very much. Keep it up. :D
Seo company Kanpur January 20, 2011 - 8:26 am
hi, Thanks for this Ten Most STUPID Blogging Mistakes with have a good thought.I will follow these steps. Thanks Raj.........!
Alex@Jocuri January 20, 2011 - 4:59 pm
Many people don't know that blogging is a hard business and you need time to get it rolling. So they jump with their heads forward without thinking it through. An other mistake is that they are trying to get lots of money from their blog from the first month, and keep pushing big sponsor or all kinds of affiliate offers. Blogging should be taken with moderation and starting should be just like on your job, first timidly get to know your new colleagues then go for the parties!
Deep Arora January 21, 2011 - 1:24 am
Well said Alex - First get to know..then sell (party)!!
used tires January 20, 2011 - 8:16 pm
There are certain cases where it does do good to not monetize the blog, especially if you are getting 0 traffic, its much easier to promote your site at first, then when you do start getting traffic then yes offcourse you should monetize, but at the beginning when you really get 0 traffic then I would say its best not to. -Jean
raybak January 21, 2011 - 6:58 am
i mad ethe mistake as mentioned in point 9 and believe me its really painful to see your new blog staying offline for few hours every week and on top of it when you don't get proper support.
Software Development Company January 21, 2011 - 7:04 am
Good points about blogging mistakes. Blogger can avoid these mistakes and makes blog better. Never ignore readers, make relationship with readers.
Bojan January 21, 2011 - 11:59 pm
I don't believe many of these mistakes are stupid, they are the price people pay for ignorance. Especially the hosting part. Had I knew how much domain was important to me when I first started.... Luckily I didn't waste too much time...
Jasmine January 26, 2011 - 2:57 am
Going full time blogging is great. But it would be even better if no need to blog, but have the blog on auto pilot. Hahaha...
Eddie January 26, 2011 - 10:43 am
Very fair list of mistakes. Number 1 is the top one I see. Some people quit their jobs to blog full time and end up starving and losing their ambition for their new found blogging passion.
FirstHosting January 26, 2011 - 3:55 pm
You are right that choosing an hosting company is really important, because many people don't consider it important but soon they realize that they just have mistaken choosing a wrong host.
Mahesh January 29, 2011 - 4:39 am
Yeah ! You are correct. We have to start monetizing our site since the launch. At that time, it will not make huge money, but make a little money.
iPhone 5 February 1, 2011 - 12:51 am
The points given by you are very much helpful for a new blogger. to earn some money one has wait. starting a forum is a good way to stay connected with the people.
p90x February 1, 2011 - 6:11 pm
Great list of beginners pitfalls to avoid. I think starting on a free host such as blogger is not such a bad idea to learn from. Of course when you want to start a real business then get a real host. Thanks for sharing SiteJerk.
8iFY Make I.T. Money February 1, 2011 - 9:22 pm
ZK, How long did it take you to quit your fulltime job?
Leaflet Printing February 3, 2011 - 12:14 am
At first, you won’t be making a lot of money, but along the way towards building a better blog, you may as well get every dollar you can.
Durable Goods February 3, 2011 - 3:14 am
Those were really helpful tips.I guess that I should monetize my blog now.
Jocuri gratis February 3, 2011 - 4:35 am
11. Not writting at all.
Dodge Neon SRT4 February 4, 2011 - 1:30 am
Ignoring readers is a big mistake. Even if it is 5 or 10, we have to respond to them.
eCommerce Features February 5, 2011 - 12:50 am
Let me keep all these point to my notes.
Property Marbella February 9, 2011 - 10:35 pm
I always say it needs three basic things to get visitor and get the possibility to be a successful blogger; Quantity before quality, Strong and interesting SEO Titles, A special niche blog or site.
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