15 Awful Amateur Bloggers Mistakes: Must Avoid #3 Mistake

Do you want to know which amateur bloggers mistakes you should avoid to make your blog successful?

If yes then relax and read this post till the end so that you will be aware of the most awful amateur bloggers mistakes.

When I started my first blog I also made many terrible mistakes because I was once an amateur blogger too.

Almost everyone makes a lot of amateur blogs mistakes in the initial days of blogging, because in the beginning, we don’t know the right things and what to avoid.

This is the reason behind the writing of this post so that you don’t repeat those same amateur blogging mistakes that I did and other amateur bloggers also do.

If you have not started your blog or need any help to perfectly set up your blog without any hassle, check out this epic guide here.

So without any further ado let’s get started!

Note – This post is full of helpful resources that’ll help you to grow your blog. The only thing you need to do is avoid amateur blogging mistakes and follow the actionable tips that I have mentioned in this post. 

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Awful Mistakes That Amateur Bloggers Make

1. Using a free platform

New bloggers often make the mistake of setting up their blogs on a free platform such as Wix, Blogger.com, or WordPress.com. A free blogging platform does not give you ownership of your own site.

In other words, for any reason, if the company shuts down then you will lose your blog too. Moreover, you will not get access to all the plugins & themes that will help your blog to grow faster.

I also made this same mistake while setting up my very first blog. Let me share my experience with you, I started my first blog on Blogger.com with a lot of expectations and excitement.

The free domain: mydomain.blogspot.com

It was very unprofessional to choose such a name. Your brand can be identified through a domain name that is self-hosted.

Self-hosted domain: mydomain.com or bloggersdesire.com

A self-hosted domain is looking more professional right?

You’ll also appear in Google’s search results faster and more often if you have your domain. This will also help to build trust because people can trust on a professional domain, not on a free domain that looks unprofessional.

Getting back to the story, I put month’s of effort into that blog but I got nothing, only my time was wasted.

It is never a good idea to start blogging on free platforms.

I recommend you to start a blog on WordPress, it’s the world’s most used CMS platform. I’m also using it to manage my sites.

You can start a professional & profitable blog on Bluehost at only $2.95/mo. Bluehost is the most popular and officially recommended by WordPress web hosting companies.

You can check this step-by-step guide to start a blog on Bluehost.

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2. Choosing Wrong Niche

This is the most common mistake that almost all amateur bloggers make, they start their blogging journey without doing proper research. In the hopes of generating lots of traffic and money, they start writing every trending topic on their blog.

Before starting a blog, you need to clarify your niche and stay focused on it.

But first, let’s understand what exactly the niche is?

In very simple words, 

A blog niche is a specific topic about which you will write on your blog, it can be a gaming blog, health blog, or anything.

I made the same mistake when I started my first blog. I created a blog in the health niche in which I had no interest and didn’t do any research.

Due to a wrong niche choice, I couldn’t work on that blog for a long time and closed it very soon.

But you don’t need to worry, I’m here to help you to choose a profitable niche in a few minutes.

Here’s a formula to quickly decide the best and money-making niche.

Step 1: Make a list of all the topics you are interested in. You can get some ideas by looking around and some of the examples are here:

Here is the second step.

Step 2: Now it’s time to validate your ideas. To validate you can ask these questions to yourself.

To check the competition, volume, and profitability of your topic you can use the most popular tool Semrush. Just put your idea in the Semrush it will show you the data.

Step 3: Pick one niche that you are most interested in and passionate about and ready to write without feeling bored.

That’s the niche you should blog about.

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3. Not Building Backlinks

Backlink building is one of my favorite parts of SEO. To rank in Google, having a good quality article with proper on-page SEO is only one-half of the battle.

Here’s a simple explanation of what a backlink is with a visual.

A backlink is a link pointing to another website. Link building is important for search engine optimization. Backlinks are also called “incoming links” or “inbound links.”

There are two types of backlinks; do-follow and no-follow links.

A dofollow link passes the authority of the source site to the destination site, helping the destination site to rank higher in search engine results. 

The passing of authority is referred to as “link juice.” Acquiring do-follow backlinks will increase the domain authority of a website, which in turn will help it improve its keyword ranking.

Nofollow links, or backlinks, do not pass authority onto the website linking to them. This is less helpful in terms of SEO.

The value of backlinks for SEO is that they represent a “vote of confidence” from one website to another.

Search engines see backlinks to your website as a signal that your content is trusted. 

Search engines can determine that a webpage or website is worth linking to, and therefore worth appearing on a SERP if many sites link to it. A site’s ranking position or search visibility can be positively affected by earning these backlinks.

Having said that, you shouldn’t build links like a bullet train, but rather in a natural way and maintain the do-follow / no-follow ratio.

It may be ideal to have a ratio of 60/40 for do-follow and no-follow links. 

So here are some of the best and genuine ways to make quality backlinks for your site and help your post to rank higher in Google.

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4. Ignoring Keyword Research

This amateur blogging mistake can be so time-consuming and energy-draining.

In one of my past blogs, I discussed health. Over the past year, I have written many posts about health.

Even though I tried hard, my posts never ranked on Google and didn’t get any organic traffic.

I didn’t do keyword research to check what exactly users were searching for. Instead, I wrote about topics I thought users would find interesting.

The keywords in most of my posts were broad and had a lot of competition. At that time I was not using long tail keywords or trying to find keywords with high search volume and low competition.

I wrote a lot of quality posts, but they weren’t what my audience wanted.  I did not realize I was doing it until months later when I learned about doing proper keyword research.

The core of any search engine optimization strategy is keyword research, and without the right content for the right keywords, it is impossible to rank in search engines and get traffic. 

It is very difficult to convert visitors into customers unless the traffic is highly relevant and targeted towards your business.

Conduct a keyword search. You can search for keywords and find out how much search volume each key phrase receives by using keyword research tools, such as Ahref or Semrush (get a free trial here).

Let’s take an example of the keyword “best keto diet” and we are going to use Semrush to find the information of our keyword.

Step 1: Click on this link to signup for a Semrush free trial and create an account.

Note: You can refer to this article to know the steps to get Semrush free trial.

Step 2: Now open your Semrush dashboard and tap on the Keyword Overview then type your keyword and click on the Analyze button to check the data.

Step 3: Now it’ll show you all the important data of your keyword such as volume, keyword difficulty, Keyword Intent, CPC, Trend, Keyword Variations, Related Keywords, SERP Analysis, and more.

That’s it, see how simple it is to analyze any keyword and find if it is perfect for you or not.

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5. Unprofessional Website Design

To stand out from the crowd, your website/blog must have something different or unique, or it must look amazing! First impressions typically last a long time, and with so many websites/blogs to choose from, it can be easy to move on to the next one.  

Whether it’s for your website, blog, or social media, your theme should reflect your niche, your services, and most importantly, your personality. 

To be effective, your theme must convey your brand’s core values and message to your visitors. 

So if you write a Lifestyle blog, choose a theme that reflects that. If you are a parenting blogger, make sure your header, images, and fonts relate to children and mothers. 

Here are some best practices to improve your blog design.

1. High Readability

People usually think of colors, illustrations, branding, and user experience when they hear “blog design.”.

It is important to have those features for a blog’s design.

However, your typography is more important.

In the end, blogs are places where people read text. If the content of the blog is hard to read, the blog will fail.

It’s not rocket science to make your blog content easy to read.

Your font size should be between 15px and 18px.

2. Maintain Consistent Design

The design of your blog must be consistent, just like that of any website.

Your blog will be easier to remember with a consistent design. As there are so many blogs out there, this is crucial.

As an example, the Backlinko site uses the color “Green.”

As a result, their blog design would look inconsistent if they used stock photos for some posts and illustrations for others. By keeping the design consistent, their blog looks very professional.

In fact, even without the text, you could tell which blog you were on by its design alone.

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3. Use Graphics & Images

Page design isn’t the only aspect of blog design.

Format, layout, and even copy can influence the look of your content.

If you want to make your content a little bit more engaging, I recommend including images and visuals throughout it.

Here are some examples of how you can customize your blog design so it looks more attractive and unique:

Note:- BloggersDesire uses the Kadence theme to maintain a clean UI and enhance readability. 

Also Read – Elementor Pro Discount Code 2022: Activate Discount Code Now!

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6. Not Choosing Better Hosting

Are you using a free hosting service or do not have good hosting service?

If yes, then ignoring this is a terrible blogging mistake. 

Hosting your domain name on a free platform is not sufficient if you want to be a successful blogger.

With free platforms such as blogger.com, you may have less control over your blog and you do not get enough options to customize it yourself.

The chances of losing all your content are more likely if you are using free hosting.

If you are a blogger who commits this mistake, I recommend switching to a hosting service that gives you blazing-fast speed with all the essential features.

You can find tons of hosting companies that claim to provide good speeds, unlimited bandwidth, and 24×7 customer support in the market.

However, does every hosting provider provide those features on their sales pages? Probably not. 

As an amateur blogger, what hosting should you use? 

Bluehost would be my recommendation because it offers amazing features at a very low price and comes with 24x7x365 support. 

Bluehost currently hosts over 2 million websites, and I’m not the only one who recommends this hosting.

Do you know? Bluehost is one of the top 20 largest web hosts in the world and is officially recommended by WordPress itself.

If you’re from India and want to know more about Bluehost then check this post – Bluehost India Review

Here are easy steps to purchase Bluehost for worldwide users.

Step 1: Click here to visit the Bluehost website. It will redirect you to the company’s homepage.

Step 2: Choose a hosting plan that suits your needs. As you now know what value you will receive from the website, choosing the right plan will be easier for you without considering the low price.

Step 3: Another benefit of choosing Bluehost is that you will also receive a free domain name for one year. 

Two boxes will appear, one says, “create a new domain” and the other says, “use one you already own.”.

Step 4: To purchase Bluehost hosting, you now need to provide the account information. 

Step 5: The final step is to pay for your hosting plan.

Congratulations! You’ve successfully bought your first hosting package from Bluehost.

Also Read – 14 Best Web Hosting Free Trials 2022: [No Credit Card Required]

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7. Not Doing Internal Linking

Do you know that you should include both internal and external links in your posts?

Your post should contain links to your relevant posts. 

Google can better rank your website if you link to other pages within it. 

Google can determine which pages of your site are important by following the links along with descriptive anchor text. Interlinking may also enhance the user experience and increase engagement.

Linking internally allows you to spread link juice throughout your site. Whenever you build links to a specific page on your website, this page has links to other pages on your website, which spreads the link juice. 

Because of this, it is important to ensure that this juice goes to your revenue pages, as the primary component of SEO is understanding how this juice flows through your links.

The use of related posts can boost your time on-site and reduce bounce rates. In other words, a bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who view one page and then immediately leave the site. 

Visitors can be retained on a site longer if you link to content that provides real value. 

Google bots are designed to capture a user’s thought process. It will take them only a few seconds to find and follow all of the links on your website. 

When you develop a strong and smart internal structure, bots will find deeper and less visited pages. Linking to other pages can boost your overall ranking, as well as boost the ranking of other pages. 

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8. Not Publishing Consistently

Almost all amateur bloggers often make this mistake.

A niche is selected, a domain name is selected, and a blog is created.  You start nonstop writing and create a handful of posts.

Now you are waiting for traffic to come on your blog. Nothing happens.

You write more blog posts. But no traffic comes.

As you begin blogging, traffic will be low until Google recognizes your blog.

Most new bloggers lose motivation to write as often when they don’t see any progress on their blogs.

Your posts are less likely to be found if you write less.

It’s all about the content. As you write more posts, your website gets more exposure.

You should keep writing. You should keep in mind that blogging requires patience.

It won’t happen overnight that you have thousands of visitors. Don’t worry!

Don’t stop writing.

Having prepared a schedule based on your content planning, and knowing how many posts you intend to publish in a certain period of time, it is time to work on content and relevancy. 

As a result, you will not only be able to publish your content in a timely manner, but you will also ensure that your content adheres to your niche and that your readers are not disappointed.

You will reap the following benefits if you are consistent with your blog:

Branding & Trusts: Your subscribers’ expectations will grow, and their trust in your blog will increase. Your blog will see more return visits and you will create a loyal following.

SEO: If you publish your posts on a regular schedule, search engines will know when to crawl your blog and index your new content quickly.

Consistency does not happen overnight or over a weekend. You have to work at it. 

Now there are tools like Jarvis.ai are available in the market that helps to create quality content in less time. You can use Jarvis.ai to create content for your blog to maintain consistency.

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9. Not Focusing on Content Quality

If you want traffic, you will have to do more than just write a post. 

It is not an easy task to get to the first page of Google in today’s time, and it is not even a difficult task. You just have to be patient and do your work.

Having quality content will help you improve your conversion rate, lower your bounce rate, and get more visitors. 

Who decides the quality of your content? That’s simple – your users. However, this also makes it somewhat more challenging to create good content. 

Everyone’s needs are different. Users search for different things. Users know what they want, but you don’t always. Well, not exactly.

Ensure that your blog post or page is easy to read if you want people to read your entire blog post. 

This means thinking about how you structure your text and how you use the words. When there are too many words without headings, subheadings, or paragraphs, people tend to get scared.

It’s also crucial to build trust when users land on your post. If they don’t know much about your blog, you need to show them that you’re trustworthy. Using clear, user-friendly language helps you do this.

Maintaining up-to-date and relevant content is another important element of quality content. In other words, writing a well-written article isn’t the final step in the process. 

Content needs to be updated periodically to ensure people can find the right information. 

Your users will appreciate this since it shows that you stay informed and are able to give them the most accurate information.

Your website should meet search intent, be readable, match your goals with your content, keep your content up-to-date and be well-structured.

Also Read:

1. ShortlyAI Free Trial 2022: Get Free Account Now [Without Credit Card]
2. AI Novel Writing Software: Write Your Next Novel With AI

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10. Not Investing In Blog

This is a mistake every amateur blogger makes.

At the beginning of my blogging career, I was also hesitant to invest money in plugins, tools, and learning.

Free is awesome! Everybody loves a good sale or getting something for free. Even I enjoy them occasionally.

There are programs, plugins, and articles you can find online for free. Does it make sense to invest in them? Are they meeting your needs?

Someone asks me nearly every day for resources to learn specific aspects of blogging. When I share some tools or books I know about, they ask for free stuff because they don’t want to invest or pay.

Additionally, I saw a J-curve in my blog when I invested money in my learning, tools, and plugins. 

If you also desire to see your business grow, stop making this mistake and make sure your money is invested in the right things that will boost your business like a rocket.

If you are just beginning your blog, you should also have a budget for essential tools and plugins that can help you to grow your blog.

Is it difficult for you to decide which plugin or tool to invest in? Below is a list of recommendations:

You can invest in these tools/plugins,

For a business to get results fast, it needs to invest some money.

If you are serious to grow your blog and take it to the next level then here are some books that I highly recommend to check out.

1. Traffic Secrets 

Inside the Traffic Secrets book, Russell Brunson will be sharing 20 of his best secrets that will help you get more traffic into your funnels or website.

2. Zero to $10k

This book is written by Anil Agarwal, In this book, he shares a complete blueprint to earn $10,000/month.

3. The Habits of Highly Successful Bloggers

In this book, you will Discover the Tactics, Tools, Routines, and Habits You Need to Become a World-Class Blogger.

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11. Not Having a Monetisation Strategy

It doesn’t take much skill or experience to achieve your blogging goals, but a lot of dedication will be required. 

With a blog, you can make money in many different ways, but they will all take some effort.

Before launching a blog, do you need to have a monetization strategy? Certainly not, but it can be helpful. Without a concrete plan for how you will monetize your blog, you can start a blog and grow an audience. 

However, if you begin with a proper monetization plan, you can use that plan as a guide to make some key decisions along the way. 

Here are some ways to monetize your blog.

1. Google AdSense

One of the most popular methods of monetizing a blog or website is via Google AdSense. You’ll receive a commission whenever someone clicks an ad on your blog. 

You will earn different amounts depending on a variety of factors.

2. Affiliate Marketing

You can find companies in almost any industry or niche that will pay a commission to bloggers for referring customers to them. 

If your referrals result in a purchase, you will earn a commission. You can recommend products and services through affiliate programs and make a good passive income. 

3. Sponsored Content

Some bloggers publish sponsored posts. Product/service reviews, announcements, and giveaways are the most common types of sponsored content. 

In exchange for reviews, you typically receive free access to test out a product or service, and the company pays you to publish your honest opinion on your blog. 

4. Selling your Products

Create your products to sell instead of promoting others’ products as an affiliate. E-books, online courses, templates, courses, etc., are popular types of digital products among bloggers.

5. Selling Ad Space

Blog owners can sell ad space to companies so that they can market their products or services to your blog readers. 

Blog advertising is most commonly done with banners.

Most amateur bloggers believe that blogging alone is enough to earn money, they often struggle to make a living from their blogs.

The best way to generate income is to use multiple methods.

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12. Ignoring SEO

If you’re not optimizing your website, you must be making a huge blogging mistake.

The vast majority of new bloggers don’t understand anything about SEO, and they don’t even want to explore it. Search engine optimization can seem complicated and even difficult to them.

I have found that search engine optimization isn’t as complex as we might think! You can learn the basics on your own, but I wouldn’t say it’s easy.

The more keyword-optimized your blog posts are, the more organic traffic you will receive from search engines such as Google. 

Besides keywords, other SEO factors can improve your website’s ranking.

A properly optimized blog will rank higher in search engines and will receive more traffic.

In the above image, articles ranked on position 1 get more clicks than other articles.

Therefore, don’t ignore SEO at all costs.

Here’s a short introduction to SEO for your convenience.

Search engine optimization refers to the process of optimizing your website so that it will appear higher in search engine results.

The three main types of SEO:

Technical SEO: If your website is properly optimized for Technical SEO, search engines will index and crawl it easily.

On-page SEO: Rules for optimizing your blog post or site for search engines.

Off-page SEO: Techniques for promoting your website or blog to boost its search engine rankings.

Here are some tools you can use to do SEO for your blog.

1. Semrush

Semrush offers a competitive analysis tool that users can use to evaluate their content and competitors’ site. Users can obtain top-performing content, pages, and keywords through robust metrics. If you can’t afford a paid Semrush plan, you can start with a free plan which still offers a lot of value.

2. Ahref

I recommend Ahrefs highly as one of the best SEO tools available today. The tool is not only the second-fastest crawler (right after Google), but it also has the best user interface among all tools on this list.

3. Long Tail Pro

Using Long Tail Pro, you can find less competitive keywords. Whatever your niche, you can use these keywords to get more high-converting traffic online.

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13. Not Building Email List

The biggest mistake amateur bloggers make is ignoring the importance of building email lists. 

In the beginning, building a list may not seem essential, when you have a small audience and nothing to sell, but as you gain more exposure, it will become very important.

You may have heard that Money is on the list.

If you’re not building it from the beginning as an amateur blogger, then you’re making the biggest mistake you could ever make.

A marketing email is a way to convert your visitors to subscribers. Once someone is on your mailing list, you can contact them whenever you like and tell them about your blog and promote the products you like most.

You should build email lists because they allow you to drive instant quality traffic, and you can easily hook people into buying from you.

One of the best things about email marketing is that you are in full control of your subscribers. By providing valuable content you can turn them into your most loyal customers.

List building is one of the best ways to create more revenue over time. If you haven’t begun yet, make a start today and build your email list. You cannot deny the fact that email marketing is the easiest and most effective way to convert a reader into a buyer.

Did you know that? According to the study, at least 99 percent of customers check their email daily. No other communication channel can say the same.

Marketing through email encourages consumers to spend 138% more than those who don’t receive email offers. 

The ROI (return on investment) of email marketing is 4400%. That’s incredible! Social media may convert better, but emails convert at least three times better. The average order value of emails is at least twice that of social media.

There are many tools available to help you build quality email. OptinMonster is my most favorite and most popular tool to generate leads and with ActiveCampaign you can manage your email subscriber and convert them to buyers.

According to McKinsey, email is 40 times more effective at attracting new customers than social media. 

So start building your email list today.

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14. Not Building Brand

Good branding isn’t just about having a memorable logo; it provides direction and motivation to employees, as well as makes it easier to acquire new customers. So what does branding actually mean?

In a nutshell, everything.

Nowadays, a brand is both an online and offline word, and it refers to a very complex concept. 

Even if the product is expensive, the brand is the reason why a buyer chooses a product made by the company.

It was implemented, in my opinion, as there are some blogs that are treated as authorities and these posts are read and appreciated by a large number of readers.

Here are some tips to build a strong brand.

It’s not an easy task to build a brand for your blog; be patient, work hard, and be optimistic. Always keep a positive attitude!

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15. Giving Up Too Early

Amateur bloggers may have read articles from other bloggers claiming to make $50,000 a month and wonder why they haven’t made even $100.

A famous quote by Theodore Roosevelt said, “Comparison steals joy.”.

That’s true.

Comparisons between you and the blogger who says they’ve made $1,000 in their second month of blogging are unavoidable.

New blogs do not usually produce that kind of result.

They are the exception.

Comparing yourself to other bloggers is not a good idea.

Comparing your yesterday with your today is the only thing you should do.

When they don’t see any success overnight, beginners often give up on their blogging dreams.

But it’s the truth – most bloggers don’t make any money from their blog until they’ve been blogging for 6 to 12 months.

If you are providing high-quality content that is SEO-optimized, if you are building a high-quality backlink profile, and if you are promoting your blog through social media, then you are on the right track.

Never give up! According to Kobe Bryant, “The moment you give up, the moment someone else wins.”

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FAQs: Amateur Blogging Mistakes

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Wrapping Up

Most Amateur bloggers think that they will see traffic immediately after they create a high-quality post and share it on social media.

No matter how good your content is, if you are a new blogger, you won’t wake up to magic the following morning.

Beginner bloggers are prone to this misconception.

The process of creating a successful blog requires time.

Before you begin blogging, you are more likely to find success if you already have a large following.

A brand new blogger with a brand new social media account might not see the growth they expect when they share their new post on Facebook and Twitter.

Building your readers’ trust will take time.

Additionally, it is imperative that you share your content more than once and hope for traffic.

Making sure you create new content constantly as well as spacing out your old content is important.

I hope this post has helped you get started on the right path with your blog.  You can achieve success more quickly by avoiding many of these beginner blogging mistakes.

Best of luck!