9 Blogging Mistakes to Avoid Making in 2021

9 Blogging Mistakes to Avoid Making in 2021

If you want to grow your blog and find success as a blogger in 2021, you’ll want to avoid making these 9 blogging mistakes.

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Sure, important life lessons can come from making mistakes. Sometimes from totally messing up.

However, if you can avoid certain common blogging mistakes from the get-go, why not save yourself a lot of time and energy? Or even tears? Yep, I know I’m not the only blogger who has shed a few buckets of tears over the years making mistakes. And trying to fix them.

Time is Money, So Avoid Blog Mistakes in 2021

Time spent on undoing the worst blogging mistakes is time that could have been spent on creating fresh content, promoting it, building links, or networking. Content that could make you money. Promotion that could bring people to your blog or to your products. Mistakes can equal money…less of it. Less blog traffic. Less money.

If you haven’t read How to Make Money Blogging in 2021, you might want to check it out. After all, when it comes to blogging, time is money.

Don’t Make These Blogging Mistakes

Mistake #1: Starting Out on the Wrong Platform for Your Goals

If you’re goal as a new blogger is to blog professionally, launch your blog on the right platform. There are plenty of free blogging sites and free website builders out there that will let you launch a blog without spending a dime. However, sometimes these free blog platforms have limitations that can impact your goals or inhibit growth and revenue potential. Ultimately, free blogging sites often give you less control.

Setting up on a free platform, such as WordPress.com or Wix, can seem like a piece of cake, especially since they can require little initial how-to-blog knowledge and your blog can be “up” in minutes. However, when you use a free platform, often by the time you discover you’ve outgrown the platform’s capabilities, you can find yourself stuck. Stuck having to figure out how to make the transition to another self-hosted platform. Stuck having to learn another new platform from scratch. Or you may find yourself having to hire help to transition your content to a new, self-hosted platform.

To learn the difference between WordPress.com and Self-hosted WordPress.org or to learn about self-hosting your own blog from the start, check out How to Start a Blog.

Mistake #2: Not Thinking of Your Blog as a Business

When your goal is to build a blog to make money, it’s important to think of your blog as a business from the get go. That means setting your blog up as a business and having a business or entrepreneur frame of mind.

When you think of your blog as a business, you come to realize that the typical reader is coming to your site for the content–for what you offer–and not necessarily to get to know you or your writing. Blogging as a business can be an odd combination of the personal-meets-business. When you plan and write content, you’ll necessarily want to think about your reader and what they want.

Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t write for you or share your unique personality–like writing about your mood, random thoughts, or interests. But a blog of personal thoughts and rambles doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll make money or find success unless you approach it like a business with laser focused objectives.

Until you are well-established and have developed reader trust, you’ll have to create content by prioritizing your overarching goals. In the meantime, think of your niche market, consumers, and providing valuable, useful content.

Mistake #3: Waiting to figure out SEO

I messed this one up big time. I literally wrote thousands of posts before I really understood what I was doing with SEO, keywords, and SEO optimizers. Trust me, you don’t have to make this mistake to find blogging success! It’s easier than ever to learn about SEO now, thanks to online courses, books, blog posts, tools, and freebies.

Understanding SEO is crucial so your content shows up in searches and finds its way onto your target audience’s screens. Keep in mind, you’ll want to learn how to SEO effectively and be smart about it–keeping your writing and style authentic while also including key words so your blog posts rank.

Mistake #4: Not Using Headings and Subheadings Effectively in Your Blog Posts

Subheadings give your blog posts structure and provide a map for your reader. When your content is well-organized, your readers are more likely to keep reading and keep coming back to your blog. Using subheadings also gives you the opportunity to insert table of contents charts at the beginning of blog posts.

And you want your readers to come back! You want to build reader confidence, loyalty, and trust.

Mistake #5: Not Proofreading Your Blog Posts

It’s a mistake to neglect proofreading your posts. After spending so much time researching and investing in writing a post, take time to proof your content! It’s worth it. For your readers. For your credibility. And for your blog’s growth.

Online tools, like Grammarly, can help big time. You can also ask a spouse, roommate, older child, friend, or business partner to give a post a once-over before it goes live.

Mistake 6: Not Committing Time to Your Blog

It’s easy to fall in love with the idea of blogging and becoming an influencer. However, it’s also easy to fall out of love with the effort it takes to post regularly. If you want to grow a successful blog and grow followers, post regularly. Regularly is whatever you define regular to be, but stick to it. For example, if you plan to post fresh content once a month, do it! Your readers will appreciate consistency. And Google likely will, too, at least when it comes to noticing and ranking your content.

The key is to develop healthy and successful blogging habits.

Mistake #7: Not Promoting Your Blog Content

I totally botched this one up for years! Don’t do what I did. I used to think that I could write content, hit publish, and then I was done.

Nooooooooooo.

Once you hit publish, that’s when the next phase of the content creation project begins. There’s no rest for the weary! Promote your content and get it out there! Pin it. Share it. Tweet it. Mail it out. Get the content to your mailing list subscribers. Rinse and repeat. Over and over again.

Mistake #8: Not Networking to Grow Your Blog

A big mistake to avoid in 2021… don’t forget to network. Prioritize networking. Meet other bloggers. Attend conferences or virtual meet-ups. Join blogging Facebook groups. Participate in blog round-ups or blog sharing or re-pinning parties. Collaborate with other bloggers. Guest post. Build your connections!

You want to build lasting, effective relationships with your audience, but also with other bloggers and people working in your target niche(s).

Mistake #9: Forgetting Why You Started Blogging

At the beginning of a new year or new season, it’s easy to get psyched up about new goals and resolutions. But as time goes on, it’s also easy to forget about the why. Don’t let yourself forget about why you started blogging in the first place. This is especially important if you aren’t seeing the numbers or revenue you hope to see at first.

Write down your reason(s) for starting your blog. Put it where you can see it when you need a reminder. It might come in really, really handy… especially if or when you feel like giving up.

Conclusion – Blogging Mistakes to Avoid

Becoming a better blogger is a process. However, I hope 9 Blogging Mistakes to Avoid will help make the process better for you and help you avoid common blogging mistakes.

Drop a comment below. I’d love your feedback on this post and to hear how blogging is going for you.

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