I am so excited, I have reached my anniversary of my first full year of blogging! It has been filled with many ups and downs. And let’s just say I still have A LOT to learn! It is very easy to get carried away as a new blogger and make mistakes, and lose sight of what truly matters.

When I reflect on my very first year of blogging, I always think about what a true journey it has been. I wasn’t aware that there is a technique to blogging you must follow in order to be successful. Originally, I thought I just had to write a post, publish it, and I would have lots and lots of people reading and subscribing to my blog! Boy was I wrong! Here are 7 new blogger mistakes I made that you don’t want to make and how to fix them.

#1: No Blog Launch

I had been contemplating for over 4 years to start a blog. I decided to create a youtube channel first and then an instagram page. I put the blog idea in the back of my head and continued to focus on just those two platforms. Last year in 2019, I had come across a free webinar that a well known influencer, Jenell B. Stewart was hosting. She compared having a blog website to purchasing a home in real estate. She stated that having a blog is where the money is and is the best investment!

At that moment I was like that’s it, I’m facing my fears and I’m creating this blog. I didn’t do much research at all. I had heard of wordpress.com and decided to purchase a Premium Plan for around $8 per month. I created a logo, wrote my first blog post and hit Publish! That was a BIG MISTAKE! That was my mediocre blog launch. I was the only one who knew my blog existed, which brought in no viewers. That is the last thing anyone wants — to work really hard on a blog post and no one reads it!

Why You Need to Launch your Blog

In order to start off with traffic to your blog, it is important to build a target audience. Once you have built that audience SHARE with them that you are planning to launch your blog. Depending on your platform, get your audience excited that this will be the best blog they will ever read! Build anticipation and build that email list as you plan for the big launch!

I saw one blog launch that posted a countdown on their instagram page daily for 10 days. In their pre-launch, they posted a picture with the number 10 and in the caption wrote something to promote their upcoming blog. The next day, they posted another picture with the number 9 and shared something different about their blog. They did this everyday until launch day and of course it built anticipation and guess who went to check it out — meee! Building that anticipation will bring more readers and subscribers.

#2: Inconsistent Blog Posts

Once I wrote my first blog post, I didn’t get the views I was hoping for. I didn’t have a plan for how often I was going to publish posts and to be completely honest I had no clue of what to do next.

I ended up doing some research and enrolled in a Jenell B. Stewart online course called Level Up Your Blog. I learned so much valuable information and I was able to “level up.” That course allowed me to fix many of my new blogger mistakes!

I suggest before you launch your blog, that you have about 5 – 8 blog posts already written. This will allow you to have consistent content. You can develop a post schedule and stick to it. It will build your audience’s trust and give you returning readers. Consistency with anything is key!

#3: Hosted vs. Self hosted

When I first started out, I didn’t know the difference between a hosted website vs. a self-hosted website! I was like say what!?! So you don’t make the same new blogger mistakes I made, let me give it to you in simplistic terms.

First of all you need to ask yourself: What is my main goal with this blog? Do I want to do this as a hobby? Do I want to make money from it?

Once you are clear about your goals then you can decide which is best for you!

Hosted Blogs

Hosted blogs are like an all-in-one-buy. I like to compare it to renting an apartment. You get to rent the space, all the amenities are included for you, and you pay monthly rent. This is true for web hosts such as WordPress.com, SquareSpace and Blogger. They provide you with simple software to build your website and storage space. They take care of all the software updates and technical issues you may incur, just as an apartment landlord would. However, you can’t completely make it your own because it is owned by them. The biggest drawback is if the web host company goes out of business, your website goes down with them.

Self-Hosted

Self-hosted blogs are those that resides on its own server. Most of the time people have to pay a 3rd party to host their blog (which is a lot cheaper than hosted platforms such as wordpress.com) I chose to have Bluehost provide me with hosting services. Transferring my site from wordpress.com was fairly easy with this company, and I didn’t lose any of my content. With a self hosted blog you have full control over your blog, like you would if you owned a house. You can change up the layout, install custom themes, and make necessary code changes. It can be intimidating for new bloggers, but it is totally worth it.

#4: I Skimped on SEO

I didn’t learn about SEO until after I launched my blog (one of the biggest blogger mistakes!!) I was missing out immensely! I had no idea what the acronym meant, but now I have made myself acquainted with SEO and everything it has to offer. You may be like me, a newbie!! I like to talk in simple terms, because so many times these websites would lose me and I would be back at square one!

SEO is the process of increasing website traffic by increasing the visibility of the website to users of a web search engine. Basically, when a user “googles” a topic, you want your web page to reach the highest position in the search results. Think about it most of the time when you google something you don’t continue to look on page after page. You usually pick something on page one. Having your blog SEO friendly allows for readers to get to you! Researching and using key words, and optimizing your website are all things to help you improve your rank in the search engine results.

I am still working on making my blog SEO friendly. Having the Yoast plug-in has helped me out tremendously. It requires you to put in work during and after you’ve written your blog post. Don’t skimp on the SEO!! Your blog post must be seen after all that hard work! To help to ensure you are making your blog post SEO friendly I created a blog post to-do checklist before you hit publish! Grab it here. It’s free!

#5: Lack of Promotion

This is one of the biggest blogger mistakes I see a lot of newbie bloggers, such as myself, make. The rule of thumb that most successful bloggers preach is you spend 20% of your time on the content and 80% of your time promoting it. When I first started out I didn’t want to seem like a salesman. I was scared that I would lose followers, or somehow annoy them with all of my promotion tactics.

I had to change my mindset on this. Originally, I only promoted my blog post twice; once through an instagram story, or static post, and once through an email to my email-list. As you can see I definitely skimped on promoting my blog.

I remember one month speaking to my mentor and explaining to her that my blog wasn’t getting the views I had hoped for. The first thing she asked me was how many times had I promoted my content on my platforms. I answered her truthfully and explained my concerns. She told me to look at it from another perspective; she gave the scenario of a McDonald’s commercial. She said, think about how many times you see that McDonald’s commercial before you actually go and buy something off of the menu. After our conversation, I started to notice my own behaviors when someone promoted their blog through their instagram. Sometimes I would need to see their promotion post at least 5 times before I said, “let me go read the blog post or watch the video.”

It is important to get out of the mindset that you are bothering your followers when you are asking them to view your content. And if you lose a few, that’s OK! They weren’t part of your target audience anyway!

#6 : Not Utilizing Pinterest

I started using Pinterest to promote my blog late in the game. Don’t sleep on Pinterest, it is becoming a popular search engine and can boost your blog views if you utilize it correctly.

There is power behind pinning. Here are some facts taken from bloggingwizard.com: How to Drive More Traffic to Your Blog

• A pin is 100 times more spreadable than an average tweet
• Each pin can drive up to 2 page visits and 6 page views
• The life of a pin is one week vs. 24 minutes for twitter

You should pin frequently, add a detailed description and include a “call to action.”

#7: Mailing List without Landing Page

Going into blogging, I created a mailchimp account to build my e-mail list. I thought by just having a “sign up” to my mailing list on my blog, that people would just sign up— boy was I wrong. My mailing list didn’t grow for months- sigh! It wasn’t until I started offering freebies that I saw my mailing list grow. One of my most popular freebies is “Top 10 Apps for Creatives!”

I created this freebie because I realized most of my followers were also content creators. I had created other freebies, but this was by far my most successful freebie.

Those were my top 7 biggest new blogger mistakes. These were major mistakes but very fixable. I hope where ever you are on your blogging journey that this post has helped you in some way.

Tell me where you are on your blogging journey and have you encountered the same or other new blogger mistakes? Tell me in the comments!

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