I’ve been blogging for a number of years now and I have:
- made money
- lost money
- broke even
- posted articles regularly / not-so-regularly
- changed my blog design
- changed my blog’s web address
… you get the idea (been there done that).
Aside from being obnoxious and rude to people, here are my top 5 blogging mistakes new bloggers might make which can slow the growth of their blog and pocketbooks.
1. Domains and Hosting
After deciding you want to start a blog and choosing your topic, your next step is setting up your blog. Question is, do you go with a free blog, self hosted blog, get your own domain name, etc.?
There are a couple of ways to look at it, but for the most part a self hosted blog is your best bet. Here’s my criteria for whether or not you should go with a free blog.
A free blog is ok if: All you care about is your content. Free blogs are good if you want someone else to take care of all the security issues, upgrades, etc. If your only goal is to write and you don’t care much about making money and turning your blog into a business, a free blog is fine.
A free blog is not ok if: You want to turn your blog into a business; want full control of the design of your blog; your mind is telling you that you’ll upgrade to a self hosted blog one day down the road; etc.
Let’s face it, hosting and domain names are cheap. So don’t let me hear anyone say they don’t have the money right now.
The reason why I typically advise new bloggers to choose a self hosted blog and purchase their own domain name is because you never know where your blog will take you in the future and having to stop, bundle it all up, and transfer your blog to a new web host (and possibly a new domain name) will KILL your blog.
2. Insufficient Research
This could range from a wide array of topics which might include:
- Failure to do proper market research (is there anyone looking for what you have to offer?)
- Understanding the consequences I outlined in #1 above
- Research experts and their price point which could help boost your blog’s success
- Failure to watch, analyze, and understand what your statistics are telling you
Those are some of the basics. As with any venture, online or off, if you wish to be successful at what you do, you need to spend a little time researching. By researching, you can point your boat in the right direction.
3. Truly Understanding Niche Marketing
Understanding the ins and outs of niche marketing is an entire course all on its own. Something I’ve seen over the years as an entrepreneur, however, is that newbies to niche marketing think niche marketing mostly entails finding a small crowd or group from within a topic and sell their products / services to them.
The more focused your niche is and better your product or service can solve for them is what they’re told niche marketing is.
While that is true, most newbies don’t realize that it’s not just about finding a focused group to sell to, niche marketing is about positioning and perception.
If you’re new to blogging, finding a niche is great, but if you fail to position yourself as an expert or “go-to person” in your niche, you’ll fail.
Even if you’re not the real go-to person, make sure you are perceived that way. The power of perception is kind of like “the force” in Star Wars.
4. Improper Use or Lack of Scheduling
Ask any seasoned blogger about time management and you’re sure to get an earful. Unless their educated in time management, new bloggers I’ve talked to fail to realize just how much time and organization blogging requires.
Writing an ebook? Posting 3-5 times a week? Need to spend time with the kids? Gotta cook dinner? Want to read and comment on other blogs? Need to figure out how to get more clicks on that banner? Want to write a series of guest posts? Looking to start a newsletter?
… the list goes on and on.
In the beginning you might not think you need a time management schedule because you’re not doing all that yet, but you’re wrong. Time management is key to growing your blog, making more money, and generating traffic to your site.
Simply writing down goals with no mechanism or direction to get you there ain’t going to cut it!
Want a time scheduling outline for bloggers? Alex Fayle has a really cool time management sheet he uses to keep himself on track (I use it, too).
5. Blog Security
I suppose blog security may or may not keep you poor, depending on if you get hacked or not. Nevertheless, it’s so important I feel it deserves to be on this list.
Let’s face it, when you’re new to blogging, you’ve got a lot to think about and a lot to set up. The problem is, since you’re new you don’t even know which questions to ask yet.
Blog security seems to always take a back seat. New bloggers don’t realize though just how important this is. It’s kind of like that movie where you see someone gets sent to jail for the first time and doesn’t yet have the experience to know how to protect themselves or just how bad it is to bend over to pick up that soap.
Newbie bloggers in a similar way are prey.
They set up their blog and start thinking about making money and writing articles, not the fact that their blog is or very soon can become easily hackable, removed from Google, and worst of all… destroyed.
If you’re new to blogging, blog security should most definitely be high on your priority list. And if you’re not sure how to better secure your blog, just hire me and I’ll get you hooked up.
Bonus Tip For New Bloggers
Blog your passion and be real. Don’t try to make money from your blog, but rather let your blog make money for you.
Be yourself, find your own voice, and don’t force it. In time, you’ll find that’s a much better route to take.
There are of course a ton more tips I could hand out to help start your blog off on the right foot, but I’ll leave that for my upcoming newsletter. Be sure to subscribe to my blog so you can be notified when my newsletter with tips like these is released.
In the meantime, here are a few other “blogging mistakes / tips” articles you might want to read (links open in a new tab):
- 5 Blogging Mistakes Beginners Make
- 7 Blogging Beginner Mistakes And How to Avoid Them
- Top 7 blog mistakes to avoid
- Beginner Basics for Making Money Online Using Blogs
- The Winnie the Pooh Guide to Blogging
Question: If you could go back to when you first started a blog and change something to help boost how long it took to get you to where you are today, what would you tell yourself?
January 18th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
I’ve read so many blogging mistakes posts, and yet somehow this one seems fresh and interesting. I guess when you’ve “been there done that,” it’s not hard to find some new angles.
While poor blog security may or may not keep you poor, it will definitely make you far more stressed than you want to be the first time something bad happens.
Hunter Nuttall´s last blog ..9 Life Lessons From Rambo: First Blood
January 18th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
I totally hear you on the “read so many blogging mistake posts”. I’ve read so many over the years I actually was cringing a little when I wrote this article.
But I know a lot of our hosting customers are somewhat new to blogging so I thought this might help. Glad to hear it had a fresh angle, that’s what I was hoping for.
January 18th, 2010 at 10:38 pm
I agree with Hunter. I became engrossed in this. Great job John. This is easy to understand and you’ve broken it down into 5 important points. When I first started blogging a year and a half ago I had NO idea how much time would be involved. As the circle grows so do the time requirements.
Davina´s last blog ..I Find Stillness
January 19th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
I’m trying to get to grips with “Don’t try to make money from your blog, but rather let your blog make money for you”
I think I know what you mean…… but I’m not sure.
As usual you’ve set out the important bits and pieces in an easy to understand post.
Any more tips on speeding up page load times… looks like Google are pushing site speed more and more.
Keith Davis´s last blog ..Ooh la la…
January 19th, 2010 at 10:58 pm
Hi Keith. Just my opinion, but while it’s true Google will be pushing more on site speed, I think that’s only a small piece of the puzzle. Google entire system is based around “popularity”.
How popular is your blog with other relevant and popular blogs out there?
Those high quality links are what will be most important because remember, Google’s number one priority is to be relevant to those who use their search engines.
Just because your site loads faster than mine doesn’t mean it’s more relevant to the person using their search engine.
Re: Don’t try to make money from your blog….
Basically I’m just saying to be yourself. Don’t let the thirst of money be the thing you build your blog on, build your blog on you. Talk about what you enjoy, show your enthusiasm, make good connections, concentrate on quality content, and you’ll see that one day your blog will start bringing in the money.
Of course you still need to do a little work to make that money, like banners, affiliate stuff, etc.
January 20th, 2010 at 12:32 am
Hi John,
Yup! Been there, done that.
In answer to your question, to get where I am today (almost 3 years blogging), I would have started visiting other blogs and commenting right away as community and the friends I’ve made online have become very precious to me. Instead, I had that mentality of “if you build it, they will come”. Heh!
That said though, since I wasn’t getting a lot of traffic nor visitors, I was able to spend whatever free time I had learning more of the behind the scenes stuff, tweaking my theme, trying to figure out how to make millions with a blog, plus, plus….
Now, I’m trying to figure out how to do it all in addition to work on my next blogging project. Short of reducing the amount of time I spend interacting online, I haven’t figured out the perfect time management system yet. However, if I could be cloned…. Ya think?
Barbara Swafford´s last blog ..Inquiring Minds Want To Know
January 20th, 2010 at 5:34 am
Hi Barbara. Blogger cloning, now that sounds like a plan!
Between us (and everyone else who reads and subscribes to this article hehe), I don’t see how you do it. You manage to comment on just about every other blogger’s blog who comments on yours and you still find time to work on other blogging projects as well as your day job.
You know, I hear James that Alex Fayle is really good with time management. Maybe you outta check his services out?