6 Most Common Mistakes Amateur Bloggers Make

Starting a blog has its own host of uncertainties. You will always find yourself doubting every move you make. Is this how it’s done? Will this work? Have I done my best? Such questions can stick you in a circle of thought and consequently lead you to mistakes. But hold your horses, man is still to error, and like the amateur blogger you are, the universe will forgive you for that.

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Being a rookie, you are prone to mistakes, no doubt about that, but lessons are meant to emerge out of them. When lessons are learned, you become better and closer to being a pro. This relates to all professionals, and blogging is no exception.

As a blogger, building an online presence cannot be done overnight. It’s a slow process full of ups and downs, and as much as it may be maddening at times, the reward is worth it.

Amateur blogger’s mistakes

Amateur blogger makes mistakes, some unavoidable, and some learned best through trial and error. However, other mistakes cost a lot, and repeating them can take you miles back in your blogging expedition. With a highly competitive environment out there, it’s best to avoid these common mistakes altogether.

To stand out and ultimately gain more audience as an amateur blogger, you must keep pushing unique, high-quality content that targets the right audience and is free of errors and mistakes. So how can you achieve this while skipping all the frustrating parts? By merely avoiding common mistakes made by amateur bloggers.

Learn more about: What to Blog About – 14 Ways to Choose a Blog Topic.

Let’s get to them:

1. Mistakes on amateur blogs – not self-hosting

These one common mistake amateur bloggers are notorious. Well, it might not be their fault. But ask the pros and entrepreneurs how they started their blogging journey. They will tell you through buying their own land –that is, self-hosting their own blogs.

Self-hosting essentially puts you in control of your servers. This way, you don’t risk losing the work you have worked. When the company decides to shut you down for whatever reason, or it decides to end its run.

As an amateur blogger, you are allowed to dip your toes, test the waters with a free blogging platform such as Wix, Weebly, blogger, and wordpress.com.

However, don’t make yourself at home there but rather increase your chances of long-term success with an incredible monetization strategy by hosting your own website, from the start, with wordpress.org and your own hosting in Siteground or Bluehost.

You may also like: Best Blog Hosting For Bloggers.

2. Mistakes on amateur blogs – confusing blog names

Many newbie bloggers pick difficult blog names for their websites. A mistake made even by professional bloggers. Who only realized after a while, how often they were losing new visitors on their site. Due to the complicated name of the blog. Users, even though they loved their work, could not return to their blog. They did not remember his name.

Short, simple, and clear. That is how easy it should be when brainstorming and choosing a blog name. Avoid being fancy or a sesquipedalian – I even lost myself spelling that big word. Remember, you want them to dredge up your website with every chance they get online and thus give your new unique brand more exposure.

An example of an easy-to-remember and still a straightforward blog name is seniorliving.com. It also sounds sweet to the ‘eye.’

If you want to learn more about how to choose the right name for your blog, read our article: How to choose the best domain name.

3. Mistakes on amateur blogs – not being consistent

Most amateur bloggers enter into their careers with a lot of zeal and passion – blogging for fun ideas, and soon it becomes their hobby. However, if your interest is to earn a large sum of money while enjoying what you do, then it will take more than passion.

You will need to put in work!
Just like working out from zero to get that ripped badass body or killer curves that need nothing less than a consistent body-building diet and everyday exercise, you’ll need to produce masterpiece after masterpiece for your readers consistently.

Apart from that, you’ll need to promote your work, research, look for new ideas, learn from every angle, and implement your discoveries. It sounds like hard work, yet it is all for the bounty.

Don’t shy away from breaking a sweat because you’ll successfully establish a full-fledged blogging business.

Lear: How To Make Money Blogging.

4. Mistakes on amateur blogs – too much focus on the appearance of the page

The aesthetic is everything! Ever heard of “the first impression, is the last impression”? Sounds scary, right?

It’s no lie that a good theme is not only its design but above all, a perfect code. You must know that searching for such an ideal can take a little time.

I recommend simple free themes from WordPress.org. You probably think I’m crazy, huh?

Paid themes – is this the right choice?

Paid does not always mean good quality. And unfortunately, in most cases, it is not. Some paid themes are massive, with many unnecessary features and poorly written code. So why lose money on them? Do not think that if you spent a lot, you would always get the best quality because it is not. It does not always go hand in hand.

So why should newbie bloggers avoid a paid theme and choose the perfect free theme? Well, first of all, and most importantly, you will not be losing money. Secondly, why buy if you can get free? Plus, you’re new to the industry, and you do not know if you’ll like blogging. Or maybe after some time, you decide to move to Instagram, instead of writing a blog.

Free WordPress Theme

You may be wondering why we are insisting on choosing good free themes? Well, here is why:

• An excellent free theme regularly updates for bugs.
• It takes care of users by providing them with proper support.
• A good theme looks good, is mobile-friendly, is light, and loads fast.

The ONLY disadvantage of a free good theme is that you need to spend a lot of time to find it.

However, don’t get crazy. Whether or not you succeed in blogging will not be due to the theme. The fundamental mistake of novice bloggers is too much focus on the appearance of the page. Focus on its content. Refined content is the basis of success.

If you don’t want to come late to the party as an amateur blogger, try free themes such as BlogOnYourOwn themes or themes which will give you good looks and first-rate loading speeds.

5. Mistakes on amateur blogs – not investing or unnecessary spending

Some amateur bloggers enter the blogging world with an I-can-do-it-myself attitude. And that’s great! There are plenty of tutorials on how to create a blog that will help you solve many problems. You can do many things yourself.

Hire a freelancer

But if you need expertise you are not conversant with, do not hesitate to hire the right freelancer. This is a necessary expense! Well, here is advice you can take to the bank: hire the best freelance WordPress developers. Avoid spending months on guesswork to end up fruitless. To get the tricks and hacks, hire a freelancer.

Apart from that, don’t shy away from investing in a self-hosting platform (SiteGround, Bluehost), and tools that will help you in SEO.

On the other hand, as much you’ll need to spend, stray away from a splurge. Be wise with your business; if you don’t need it, don’t get it. Some unnecessary expenditures may include: purchasing paid themes, putting up sales funnels (too early for beginners), and purchasing advanced email marketing software.

Paid themes are not always the right choice

Throughout the network, you’ll find articles about great paid themes, about their reliability, versatility, supersonic speed, SEO matching, etc. All bloggers recommend only paid themes. Everyone with one voice states that the free theme is for nothing.

But how many of these bloggers are professional developers with coding or SEO experience? How many of them understand what a good theme means? How many of them had the opportunity to review code?

Paid themes won the hearts thanks to the design, beautiful appearance, and versatile usability. You can have one theme for everything – It’s excellent! But would it be for sure?

Appearance is one thing, and I have to agree that demos of paid themes (that is what we watch before buying) are, in most cases, beautiful. You buy with your eyes, and you want to have it!

It’s nothing that later turns out that your images do not match, because they are not so crazy, that the whole theme looks worse than in the demo. You’re still happy because you have so many functions. You can do anything! You have thousands of options for color changes, font changes, backgrounds, different types of sliders, several store layouts, etc.

Just did you wonder if all this is needed? If all these things are in the back of your page, how fast can your website be?

Free WordPress Themes

We are developers and designers. We worked with many well-known paid themes, which we adapted to the needs of our customers. And the conclusion is one, most of them are bad.

That is why we sincerely recommend free themes on wordpress.org to beginner bloggers. Find the author who provides well coded, fast themes without the bloat. Who cares about usability, accessibility, and performance (ecology). Who makes themes not only lovely and responsive but also useful, accessible, fast, and efficient.

Always look for simple themes that best suit your needs.

You may also like: Most Popular Blogs in 2020.

6. Mistakes on amateur blogs – devoting too much time to social media

It is wrong to think that with social media platforms, you won’t need to hunt for readers. Just share, and your audience will find you themselves. Unfortunately, you won’t succeed because nothing happens by itself.

In most cases, social media revenues are only a fraction of bloggers’ revenues. And they are tiny.

Of course, social media has a positive impact on the authority of your page on Google. And yes, the social media platform gets you closer to your target readers, informs them about your blog. And being on social media won’t hurt you. But this is not an essential element of your website. At the beginning of your blog path, you need to consider what activities you need to have time for carefully. What actions will lead you to success, and what can wait your turn.

In my opinion, when you are an amateur blogger at the beginning of your blogging adventure, do not waste too much time on social media. Focus on tasks that will bring you specific goals.

Conclusion

In any profession, it is hard to survive without a knowledge of what you are doing. Especially if you are an amateur blogger, it is straightforward to give up and fade away even after a good start.

To avert being just another statistic of failed bloggers, stop or avoid making such common mistakes mentioned in this article. If you play by that rule, your blogging career will rise with many devoted audience and benefits.