Whether you want to make some money, or simply share your passions and interests with the world, blogging is a good hobby to take up. You can blog about any topic and are generally free to write about anything you’d like. However, it is important to keep in mind that you’re not alone. There are a ton of blogs out there, talking about everything from parenting to sports to beauty.
This is a lot of competition and makes succeeding a little more difficult. In addition to the competition, there are also many blogging mistakes that people make which hurt their success. With that in mind, this article is going to look at a couple of things to make sure you avoid when running a blog.
Trying to Monetize Too Soon
When many people start a blog, they have an interest in making some money from it. However, if that is the sole purpose of your blog, it may not go as well as you’d like. Your blog always needs to begin with quality content first. If you try to monetize immediately, which subpar or limited content, you won’t see much success. You need to start by making sure the content is quality and offers value, to entice the readers. Once you have a solid audience, you can begin to implement monetization.
If you need some assistance getting your blog off the ground and quickly getting to a place where you can consider monetizing, consider utilizing online resources. There are several guides, like the one from Today With Jay, that can help you launch your blog and operate it the right way.
Not Maintaining a Consistent Posting Schedule
Consistency is key when it comes to running a blog. Over time, your readers will begin to expect a certain amount of content from you. If you have been making 3 posts a week for three months, they expect three posts a week. If you go from that to only posting twice a month, there is a good chance your audience will become unhappy. Also, the more you post, generally the more value you can provide and the more your blog will grow.
Thankfully, there are many tools out there to help you schedule blog posts ahead of time, so you can always make sure that you’re prepared. In addition to a consistent schedule, try to also be fairly consistent with your voice. If your content is all over the place and focuses on many different niches, it can be confusing to readers.
Forgetting to Think About Design and Format
While the content of your blog and the value you deliver is the most important aspect of success, don’t forget about the design and format of your blog. The easier your content is to read, and the better it looks, the more people will likely stick around and become a part of your audience.
Your content should use photos, infographics, videos, and subheadings throughout to break up long walls of text. The font and size of your text should also be thoughtfully considered, and the colors and theme of your site should be attractive, without being too “busy”. Also, if you decide to run ads, take time to decide where on the page they should go.
Not Editing Enough
When some people are done writing a blog post, they think their work is done and instantly post it. However, that shouldn’t be the case. No matter how good of a writer you are, it’s important to take some time to edit every post before it finds its way onto your blog. You need to not only check for spelling errors but run-on sentences and other grammar issues as well.
While you won’t always find errors, there will certainly be something you missed every now and then. Posting blogs riddled with spelling or grammar errors is sure to turn readers off and hurts your professionalism.
Not Taking Advantage of SEO and Social Media
While having valuable and high-quality content is great, if you don’t market the content well and get in front of the most eyes, your blog won’t see the sort of growth that it could. Two of the best tools for getting more people to see your blog posts are SEO and social media. SEO (search engine optimization) is all about adding the right keywords and phrases into your content, in hopes of ranking high on search engines.
The benefit of social media needs no introduction. With billions of people using social media across the globe, it is one of the best ways to get your content in front of the most eyes possible. If your content goes viral, it could lead to a major boost in your audience, and your ad revenue. Sharing your blog content on your social media page, or even creating one for your blog itself, are good ideas. If you don’t use either of these methods to increase the reach of your blog, you won’t grow as quickly or easily as it could have.
In conclusion, we hope that this article has been able to help you become familiar with some things to avoid when running a blog.