Blogging is not easy-peasy or get rich quick. I know its not a great way to open a blog post on a blog which talks about blogging tips. But I don’t want to sugar coat my posts and give you a fake feel about all the stuff going on in the blogosphere.
Blogging Success is not a joke either.
Just like any other job, you have to work hard and smart to earn your pennies. From my personal experience, I must say that the shoot up, or the time that takes to pick up momentum and eventually to taste the tip of success is much longer compared to a day job, where you’re paid from month 1 or day 1.
But then, I am not de-motivating all of you aspiring bloggers. I just want to spill the beans. There are so called mistakes or myths as with starting any business.
You try, fail and then try something else, fail and then figure out something else, try it and succeed. Well the chain could be longer or shorter depending upon how fast you learn and adopt.
I present to you a list of 53 mistakes that is committed by most of the newbie bloggers who are starting out with super motivation. I am sure that identifying and correcting these mistakes at the earliest stages of blogging could really make a huge difference rather than realizing them years later.
I am just starting out this list and I want you to add more to this list, so that everyone can learn from one another’s mistakes. Shall we?
- Not starting a blog with a goal
- Not blogging with a plan
- Throw in a couple of Adsense units and expect a 5 figure pay check next month
- Think blogging is fun
- Not willing to invest any money into blogging
- Not outsourcing anything
- Outsourcing everything
- Believe blogging is one of “get rich quick” schemes
- Not willing to learn the basics
- Not starting with list building
- Not willing to learn past the basics
- Not leveraging the power of social media
- Caring only about content and nothing else
- Paying too much attention to details
- Don’t bother to pay attention to details
- Not adapting to latest techniques
- Not committed to blogging (but expect blogging success, weird)
- Not respecting readers/commenters/subscribers
- Not doing regular blog backups
- Following a blog posting schedule that doesn’t fit
- Don’t follow a blog posting schedule
- Work without deadlines
- Not developing a portfolio
- Not branding the blog
- Not reading other blogs
- Consider commenting on other blogs is a waste of time
- Not developing blogger relationships
- Not paying attention to stats
- Paying too much attention to stats
- Rely too much on plugins
- Always agree with popular bloggers
- Always disagree with popular bloggers to get noticed
- Not learning SEO (and hence relying too much on SEO services)
- Become a victim of shiny object syndrome, quite often
- Being ignorant about link building
- Getting de-motivated often
- Get sidetracked quite often
- Compare with A-Listers
- Not learning about the competition
- Not doing keyword research
- Avoid researching on the topic while writing blog posts
- Not caring about blog’s design (think content is everything)
- Not keeping up with technology
- Not improving on writing
- Not improving on English (especially if blogging in English and if the blogger is not a native English speaker!)
- Not writing an e-book (either a free or a premium one)
- Trying to please everyone
- Allow everything to get into their head
- Being impatient with blogging success
- Adopting black hat SEO techniques for quick blogging success
- Believe banner advertising is the only form of advertising
- Failing to offer any other services through their blogs
- Writing only for people
- Writing only for bots
- Not participating in blogging networks like Blog Engage, Blokube, Blog Interact, WP Junkies etc.
Please feel free to add to the list. Let’s explore what makes stops bloggers from achieving blogging success.
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Article by JaneSheeba
+Jane is the founder of Problogging Success. She is an expert blogger, consultant, freelance writer and blog designer. Don't forget to get your hands on two FREE Ebooks she offers.
Jane has written 262 awesome posts for Problogging Success.
{ 43 comments… read them below or add one }
Lack of Passion can lead you to nowhere in the blogging world. Also you may add Lack of marketing, lack of unique content and being impatient, in this list.
Sandipan Mukherjee recently posted..Bloggers should take Advantage of Facebook
Great additions, thanks Sandipan
Jane Sheeba recently posted..How To Stay Organized By Prioritizing
Hah I just wanted to say that Sandipan, there was a point – “Thinking that blogging is fun” – if you are passionate about what you are writing about, then blogging is fun, keeping up with other blogs is fun as well. Of course it is still work, but so much enjoyable!
Dainis Graveris recently posted..Is Twitter Still Trending? – Predictions And Thoughts
Aspiring blogger: Follow these tips!
Many of these I learned the hard way when I was first starting and I’m glad I had those experiences but I also wasted a lot of time and energy had I just set realistic expectations and did things the right way.
It’s not that anything is “right” or “wrong” it’s all a learning process and each persons goes through it in different ways and it all leads to the same destination.
Be consistent and focused on your efforts and they WILL pay off!
Sean recently posted..The Top Liver Cleanse Foods
Sean, that’s right. There is no “right” or “wrong”. It all depends on what suits our business and what doesn’t fit in resulting to failure. Identifying that bit and eliminating it will suffice.
Thanks for stopping by.
The biggest mistake I made with respect to blogs was to write too much about myself. My initial content was way too self promotional. Now I realize that people want to read content that is of value to them. So I’ve been making efforts to do just that but it’s not always easy. This is probably why many people end up abandoning their blogs.
Great Clint. It is very good that you realized it. Yes usually when we start out we tend to be more personal and self promotional. Thanks for the valuable addition
What a huge list of blogging mistakes you have here Jane. Quite frankly I have to admit that these are deadly sins for a any blogger who wants to venture online. I think the whole “blogging” concept is right there in the first two of the list. There is really no point in even starting a bog f you don’t have a clear defined goal and an action plan to back it up.. thumbs up!
DiTesco recently posted..How To Create Professional Landing Pages With ThesisAwesome, And The Giveaway
Fran, thanks. That’s an awesome insight. The first two points wrap everything up
Great article! but I don’t agree with your last point about not participating in blogging networks, I assume that joining these networks you mentioned is a big win but still not a mistake if we don’t join. Thanks for the list, actually I enjoyed reading them.
Faissal Alhaithami recently posted..The complete Guide to: Facebook SEO or NFO
Faissal thanks for politely disagreeing. Well, its a matter of perspective I’d say. For me the changes were really very big after I joined them. So I wished I did that earlier
Thanks again for the wonderful comment!
I really liked this list. I’ve made a few of the mistakes on there in the past, but thankfully now I can say apart from a few, I avoid things on that list like the plague! Great list by the way!
Thanks Rough Blogger (is that your name?
) I am glad you found the list useful.
Really Nice article ,will surely try to follow your guidelines and avoid mistakes
Saurabh Mukhekar recently posted..Nokia’s New Symbian Belle OS for Nokia 600, 700,701 Handsets:Features,Facts & Specifications
Saurabh, thanks for stopping by. Glad that the list helped you.
Excellent share Jane. All these blogging mistakes are so true. As they say, a wise man learns from the mistakes of others. When I started out my blog some years ago, I got a lot of mistakes along the way too and you have actually mentioned some of them. For new bloggers in the blogosphere, I’m sure these tips will surely help them out and avoid doing the mistakes that others have been through.
Extreme John recently posted..Business Blitz: Growing Your Business And More
“a wise man learns from the mistakes of others” – well said John. Everyone makes mistakes. But how soon we learn from them and hone our path to success is what makes us a successful person.
Thanks for stopping by
Nice share Jane all this are common found on newbies blogging blogs.It’s helpful for overcoming it.
Thanks for stopping by Zarah. I am glad that I could help the newbies out there
Jane Sheeba recently posted..Success Dwells In Your Head: Creating The Right Mentality
Well blogging is really fun but should also keep in mind that if you want to be successful. Blogging should also be taken seriously. And in order for you to be serious with blogging you really have to shell out some bucks for it.
adam recently posted..Tagalog Love Quotes Collection
Oh yeah, many bloggers hesitate to spend for their blog. They must understand that it is not “spending” but “investing”
Yeah Jane at first I was also hesitant spending for my blog but then I still spend some money for it since I really want to have a website I can call my own. Its been one and half years and it seems I did the right job and I’m enjoying its return.
BTW Jane I have a question in one of your post regarding how many keywords should be placed on the first paragraph.
adam recently posted..Tagalog Love Quotes Collection
Yikes! That list is longer than my to-do list.
I just printed it out and placed it above my computer. Thanks for putting it together!
carly recently posted..My Irvine dentist
Hope you implement it carly
Thanks for stopping by 
Wow Jane, that’s quite the comprehensive list there, all valuable points too. I guess a lot of it boils down to having a healthy amount of both balance and patience, oh and not to mention plenty of hard work!
Darryl Burma recently posted..Taking Risks: Are They Really Worth Your While?
Darryl, certainly. There’s plenty of hard work involved that goes without saying. And it is an undeniable fact that we have to wait patiently until we start to see some results. That’s the hardest part as far as I’ve experienced
Thanks for the pointers Jane. Got them printed out.
Eddie Gear recently posted..Stepping Into StudioPress Child Theme Customization
Great, Eddie. I’ll also keep updating this list
Jane – as usual, these are great tips! A very comprehensive list, I’m impressed at everything you thought of!! I’ll definitely be looking back to this as a reference since I’m sure I won’t remember *all* of them. What do you think is THE most important thing on this list, in your opinion?
Natasha, well it is really tough to choose one most important mistake that needs to be taken care of. But it is good to set things straight from start, right? So starting a blog without a goal and a plan will be the most important one that needs urgent care
If I’m using too much on plugins then what effects comes on blog
Make money online advertising recently posted..Google Pagerank Updated June 2011
Plugins are third party codes. The more they are the more load is to your blog. It can affect user experience, loading times and so on. Some plugins can be buggy and cause unnecessary issues. Keeping them to a minimum is always healthy.
Recently I wrote something similar about this. It’s about the excuses of blogger give when they don’t update their blogs. http://www.wpwebhost.com/2011/09/top-8-excuses-that-stop-bloggers-from-making-money/
WordPress Hosting recently posted..How to block traffic from autosurf sites using .htaccess
Thanks for adding that up ….? May I know your real name, please
?
Thanks for sharing. there are lot of important points that i am still doing. Hope to resolve those mistakes now
Rakhitha nimesh recently posted..Fixed Positioned Back To Top Button Using Jquery Scrolltop
Rakhitha, good luck with your tackling part. Thanks for your comment
Here i recognize that i did lots of mistakes which you’ve mentioned above. I will try to remove them.
Rakesh Kumar recently posted..MTS MBlaze Ultra Price – High Speed CDMA Data Card
Jane what an amazing article. I don’t even know where you would get all these ideas from. I’m sure we have all done a few of these, At the end of the day what’s important is to keep moving forward and learning from these mistakes. maybe this article will help some blogger avoid the same mistakes we’ve made.
bbrian017 recently posted..Blog Engage website navigation guide for new users
I couldn’t agree more to the listed mistakes, having committed some of them myself and then having learnt from them as well! Thanks for the reminders to be careful
Harleena Singh recently posted..5 Tips to Develop Your Inner Strength and Power
Very good list, I always learned from mistakes. Thanks.
Rajesh recently posted..7 Must Have iPhone Blogging Apps
Whew! that is a long list…committed some of them myself but learning from it not to do it again, thanks for posting this eye-opening blog.
Glad that I could be of help Heather~!
Having a plan – something everyone’s talking nowadays, but very few have it implemented in reality. So why on earth do you need a good plan? The answer is more than simple. Good planning helps you achieve the goals you have set easier and it keeps you motivated. The last one is especially important, as lack of motivation is the blogger’s biggest threat.
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