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Blogging is the best way to express thoughts, share knowledge and reviews. Starting a blog is easy, but making money through it is difficult. Many people abandon/delete their websites or fail to succeed online because of the below blogging mistakes:
Not using self hosted blogging platform
A self hosted platform is one which allows you to install a blog software of your choice on a shared, cloud or a VPS server. It gives you freedom to use any type of extension or plugin you wish to use. Self hosted sites are easy to set up. To do so, you’ll have to buy a hosting plan from a reputed company like Hostgator, Bluehost, Siteground, etc.
Once your web hosting account is ready, log into the Cpanel module and use one click installer to set up your content management systems. Most blogging softwares are free. WordPress, Drupal, etc are two of most widely used publishing platforms. WP is better when compared with drupal. Thus, your first choice should be WordPress.
Must read: Best Blogging Platform – Blogger vs WordPress
Ugly themes
Most bloggers are from non programming background i.e. they can’t design and develop a theme. Such bloggers use themes which are suggested by others or which are free to download. Free themes for WordPress or Blogger may or may not be mobile and search engine friendly.
No mater how well your website content has been written, if the site’s structure is bad, design is ugly, your articles will not rank high in search engines. Bad templates result in poor visitor experience. They are very difficult to customize.
If you’ve just launched a blog, buy a premium theme. We recommend Newspaper magazine, MyThemeshop templates or ElegantThemes DIVI to our readers.
Plagiarism
Copying someones content and publishing as your own will do no good for you or your blog. Google search algorithm can easily distinguish between original and copied content. Even if your blog gets higher ranking than the original article, the webmaster can easily get the infringing URL removed from Google search.
Professional bloggers like to use plagiarism checking tools to find duplicate versions of the original content. If they find copied content, the webmaster will file DMCA complaint to get the copied publication removed.
Newbies who have just started a blog will copy and publish content of a high ranking website thinking that this will help them in earning money faster. Their thinking is wrong. Google will reward a website only if it has original and high quality content.
No keyword research
Choosing a blogging niche is easy, but finding a topic to write is difficult. I’ve 2 years of experience as a blogger and i still find it difficult to find a topic unless I use the Google Keyword Planner tool. Instead of randomly choosing a topic, newbie aka beginners should spend time learning the functionality of keyword planner and finding keywords that people use when they use Microsoft Bing or Google search engine.
Day dreaming
Most people create blogs after going though income reports of some pro bloggers who earn 1000s of USD every month. Most newbies don’t know that pro bloggers have been blogging since early and mid 2000s. Their blogs have a lot of content and a very good domain authority. They have put in a lot of hard-work in writing the content and managing their blog.
Newbies dream of earning the same amount of money. They can accomplish this goal by publishing 1000+ high quality and unique articles which may take up 3 or 4 years. MOst newbie bloggers will not publish content regularly.
After a year or two, they’ll blogging to pursue different career or resume their work which they had quit. Day dreaming is not a bad thing, but to achieve the goals, a lot of hardwork is required.
Not learning SEO
Search engine optimization is a vast topic. To become an SEO expert, you should have experience of ranking websites higher by using white hat SEO techniques and following Google webmaster guidelines.
To become fully aware of SEO principles, you should spend time reading content published on searchengineland, hobo-web, etc. Try to implement the new strategies you learn on your website. It takes a lot of efforts to become an SEO expert. If you become one, no one can stop your from being a person who makes his living from the web.
Ignoring Email marketing
This is one of the biggest mistakes that blogging beginners commit. Adding a subscription form to a blog with mailchimp, feedburner or ET bloom plugin will give your website loyal readers. It will also help in improving revenue from affiliate programs you’re signed up for.
Adsense Craziness
Google adsense is the best platform to make money online, but getting your website approved for it is not easy. My application for adsense was rejected over 10 times. Beginners or inexperienced bloggers think that adsense is the only way to earn money from the internet.
For the 1st 12 months, even I felt the same. I was dejected every time my application was disapproved. I didn’t sign up for affiliate programs nor did I sell banners ads on my website. This was a mistake. Become a member of shareasale, commission junction, pepperjam and promote as many products as you can.
Conclusion: You should avoid the above mentioned blogging mistakes to survive and succeed as a blogger. Following the tips I’ve shared is not difficult thing to do.
Image credits: Pixabay
