7 Blogging Mistakes Most Beginners Make

Are you starting your own blog and you want to avoid the beginners’ blogging mistakes? 

We all do mistakes when we’re starting with writing but there are a few common ones that you can prevent from happening. In this blog post, I’ll share helpful tips that can help you start it the right way! There are countless useful recommendations, like posting regularly or focusing on quality content but these are a few more that you should definitely focus on! Here are some blogging mistakes that most beginners make and how to avoid them.

List of the Biggest Blogging Mistakes

Writing for yourself

When you’re writing a blog post, keep in mind, you’re not the only one who will read it. Think about your audience! Align topics you write about with the purpose of your business and people who read it. Make it easy to understand but also relatable, although you have to have a clear idea of who your target audience is and who will read your blog. If you don’t know who you are writing for, it’s much harder to write and decide on things to include. 

Impersonal style of writing

Find your personal writing style and stick to it. Make it conversational, write in a way that you would normally talk to your friends. It will be easy to understand and people will prefer a more relaxed tone that they can relate to. Bring your personality to the writing, so it’s more fun and trustworthy. Be yourself and let your persona shine. This can make you stand out from other bloggers and differentiate your content. 

Choosing broad topics to write about

Avoid writing about very general topics like ‘How do I make money online’ and rather focus on more specific and niched down topics like ‘How do I become a virtual assistant’. One of the reasons is that there are way too many blog posts on the broad topics, so yours might get lost in between them, and the second reason is that it’s almost impossible to answer broad questions because there is just too many information that needs to be said, but also because you want to attract your target audience that is looking for your type of content.

You should also combine personal experience with facts to prove your point. Use data to support your arguments, it makes it more believable and it creates trust. It’s good to have a balance with these two, so try to include some interesting info from other websites that did the research on the topic you are writing about. 

Writing one big chunk of text

Stop and read this subheading again! There are headers and subheaders available to use for a reason, so start using them if you’re not already! Dividing the text into logical breaks is helping readability but also allows readers to scan through the blog quicker and see what it is about. Maybe they just want information about one of those sections, so make it easy for them. The structure is great for keeping your blog organized. You can also break the text by including pictures or quotes but I would still take advantage of headings and subheadings to be a part of your written content.

Plagiarism

The copy and paste technique is still a very common problem when people start their blogs and it’s something that you should definitely avoid. If you really want to use someone else’s a small part of the content, give them credit or write it in quotation marks. You should definitely do the research before you write a blog post, but even though you gather some ideas from others, make it your own, personalize it. One thing is that no one wants to read the same post that they’ve already read again but mainly because it’s not fair towards the people who took the time and wrote the post you would copy. Additionally, you can get a penalty from Google, so it really doesn’t worth it.

Posting the blog right after finishing it

Give yourself some time, don’t rush posting it right away! Once you finished your post, give yourself time to review it again in an hour or even the next day. Our brain usually works better when you get the break from writing and then get back to it and see what you’ve not seen when you were writing the first draft. Correct typos, grammar, rewrite sentences, or simply double-check whether it is ready to be published. Even the most experienced writers are proofreading their content several times and you should do it too! It can really help to make it even better and ensure it’s the way you want it to be.

Not using Call to Action

CTA is a very important part of each blog post and blog in general. You can use it at the end of each post, so you tell people what’s the next step to take after reading your blog or you can also have a CTA which prompts readers to subscribe to your blog or to join your email list. Growing the subscribers’ list and building a community of loyal readers is crucial for your blog in the long-run. If you get the subscribers, they will be the ones to know about your newest posts or updates, which creates loyal fans.

Conclusion

We’ve all done it! Catching ourselves when we write the way we talk to ourselves, accidentally using topics that are too broad, or forgetting to include CTA on our blog. Learning from mistakes is a good way to learn but it’s even better if you can avoid these and keep in mind some essential to skip the blogging beginner mistakes. When writing your next blog post, keep in mind your audience and who you are addressing your blog to and the topic you are writing about. Avoid copying someone else’s content and focus on your personalized take on the topic. Once you start writing, make it understandable, easy to read, and relatable. Oh, and don’t forget CTA, that’s an important way of telling people what’s the next step you want them to take. 

So what’s the one blogging mistake you’ve made before?