5 Blogging Mistakes that Beginners Make

Starting a blog is as easy as one two three. However, maintaining it well and driving it towards success is not as straightforward, and can often be a complicated and overwhelming process. In their eagerness to take off, beginners are prone to making a few blunders that may cost them later on in their blogging journey. It’s difficult to recover from blogging mistakes once you’ve made them, which is why it’s essential that you get started on the right note. That’s where we come in.

In this guide, we’ve listed five common blogging mistakes that beginners often make, and how you can avoid them. If you’re thinking of starting your own blog or have just started the process, this article is for you. From choosing the wrong design, overcrowding the blog with unimportant but fancy elements, being inconsistent, to having unrealistic expectations, newbies are very likely to make these blogging errors when starting out. This article will ensure you stay far away from these blunders and approach blogging from the lens of an experienced player.

• Using dark backgrounds and light text

The template and design of your blog is the first thing your reader will notice. While you may select a template based on its aesthetic value, it may not be very functional in terms of its readability. Designs with dark backgrounds and light text features are hard to read, which means you’ll be causing your readers unnecessary difficulty and trouble while they’re trying to consume your content. 

Instead, choose a readable, light background with black text, so that you can make the experience as pleasant and easy for your visitors as possible. Remember to put the needs of your readers above yours, so that you can build a loyal customer base over time. 

• Adding auto-loading music

In your efforts to add personality to your blog, you may actually be attaching superfluous elements that slow your readers down. Auto-loading music is a feature that allows you to play an automatic background score when someone visits your website. There are two problems with adding auto-loading music to your blog. One, your reader will probably not be expecting it, and therefore might be taken by surprise when the music suddenly starts blasting from their speakers. Secondly, this feature tends to slow down the browser, and it may take much longer for your readers to open your webpage. This may very well mean that you could lose potential readers even before they’ve opened your blog. 

So, instead of adding features such as these, try and make the experience simple and straightforward for your readers. They don’t want to be flooded with annoying elements – they just want to browse through your blog with as little friction as possible. 

• Having a cluttered sidebar

You may have a lot to offer through your blog, but it’s not advisable to display all your services, content, or products on the sidebar. This will simply confuse your readers and make it hard for them to find the specific thing they’re looking for. A decluttered sidebar allows your readers to navigate better and ensures that their attention is focused on the things that are most important. 

So, make it a point to divide the sections of your blog into fewer categories, like about us, services, contact us, etc. Only include the most important sub-headings on your sidebar. The others can fall inside these pages. This will help you increase the white space of your blog, which is always a good design strategy. 

• Not capturing leads for your blog

You can’t expect to write a blog and attract traffic to it without doing anything to drive it. This is where the process of lead generation comes in. There are many ways to capture leads for your blog, including linking web pages in your text as CTAs, making use of the Hello Bar, using welcome redirects, pop-ups, blog summary downloads, landing pages, etc. You can also rely on email marketing for this step, which helps grow the traffic on your blog over time. 

The idea is to make your blog interactive by incorporating leads for it from other web pages. This will ensure you start getting more readers onto your blog.

• Expecting every blog post to go viral

While it’s important to analyze the numbers on your blog, you shouldn’t pay too much heed to how every blog post does in terms of unique views. Expecting every post to go viral and get thousands of likes, shares and comments is an unrealistic goal, since less than 1% blog posts are shared over 1000 times. Instead of opening yourself up to discouragement by holding your blog posts to such high standards, you should focus on the quality of your content.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t care about the numbers or the analytics of your blog’s performance – you should. Just don’t get too hung up on it, as it may demotivate you. Do your best by employing SEO features to ensure that your post is well equipped to gain traction. And of course, make use of lead generation, as recommended above. After that, sit back and relax, and don’t beat yourself up if the blog post doesn’t do as well as you had hoped it would. Not every post is meant to go viral – if it did, virality would not have the same value!

Now that you know what not to do, you’re better prepared to launch your blog the right way. Avoid these five common blogging mistakes throughout your blogging journey, and you’ll start noticing the difference in your blog’s performance. Equipped with this knowledge, you’re all set to propel your blog in the direction of success. And while it may not happen overnight, if you steer clear from these mistakes and remain consistent, you will eventually get there. 

We wish you luck in your journey as a blogger. Feel free to bookmark this page, so that you can revisit it anytime you need.