10 Big Mistakes That Bloggers Make With Their Websites

Starting a blog is probably one of the greatest decisions you can make. I see more and more blogs popping up on the internet, but they’re still making the same mistakes.

In this article, I share the 10 big mistakes that bloggers make with their website:

1. Attracting The Wrong Audience

The other day, I saw the most ridiculous thing possible. I went to a blog and the guy was a web developer, but his branding was targeting golfers. It’s fine to blog about something that isn’t your profession, but every third post of this guys had something to do with coding.

If you attract the wrong audience, your traffic numbers will be horrible. If you’re going to write about golf, keep it strictly about golf. I’m pretty sure the percentage of golf players to web developers is extremely low. There is no relevancy between the two topics.

2. Being Really Inconsistent

Out of all honesty, I have had a lot of trouble with this aspect of blogging as well. Starting your own blog is a huge commitment and many people don’t realize that until a few months after they start their site.

I promised myself I would try posting 2-3 articles each week no matter what happened. In the last couple months, I’ve gotten extremely busy and have a hard time juggling my posting schedule. If you do start a blog, you want to be consistent with the type of content you post and how often you post it.

3. Focusing On Quantity Instead Of Quality

It’s not about how many articles you post. It’s truly about the quality of each of the articles that you do share. Many people think that if they spam the hell out of their site and share 40-50 posts a month, they’ll get a ton of traffic.

However, that’s a myth. Some of the most successful bloggers I know only post 3-4 times a month. When they do post, their quality is so amazing that they absolutely kill it.

4. Poor Writing

Before you can start a blog, you need to make sure that you touch up on your writing skills. Make sure that you brush up on your basic writing skills and have a strong focus on editing each of your posts.

Whether you hire someone to edit your posts or you do it yourself, you need to make your writing as strong as possible. An easy way to turn people away from a site is by having a blogger that can’t communicate their thoughts effectively.

5. Poor Headlines 

Your headline is literally everything. Think about it this way, if a movie trailer sucked….would you watch the movie? No chance in hell.

There’s a reason why production companies spend a large portion of their budget on just perfecting the movie trailer. Your headline is the same thing. I recommend writing down 10-12 different headlines for each article. Ask your friends and family which of the headlines would get them to click through to the post. Take those votes and make your final decision afterwards.

6. Selling Yourself Way Too Much

The one thing that I learned early on by starting this blog was that selling yourself is not going to make your website successful. Instead of focusing on how I can make money off of my readers, I just created a platform where I want to help people for free.

If people find my services helpful, they will take the next step on their own. Don’t start a blog just because you heard it’s a good way to sell yourself. It’s really not. Your audience isn’t going to like you for it. Focus on producing great content that will give people a stronger connection to you.

7. You Don’t Invite Engagement

Does your blog have a section for people to chime in on your post and write comments? Do you make it easy for your audience to share your post on social media? These are some key things that will help your blog be successful.

Many people disable the comments section on their blog or put a small share button at the end of the article. On my blog, you’ll notice I integrated Disqus (a popular comment platform) and I have a share bar that follows the user throughout. If they do want to share the piece or respond, it’s readily available.

8. You Don’t Have A Good Design

For some reason, I have gone to some blogs that have completely grouped up a ton of content in one space. If I can’t read your blog without being annoyed, I’m not going to read it. I don’t care how good your content is.

Make your content easy on the eyes for your audience and make it inviting. If you don’t, your bounce rate will automatically increase.

9. Not Optimizing Your Posts For SEO

Believe it or not, optimizing your posts to get search engine traffic is really possible. Content is still one of the easiest ways to get traffic from the search engines. However, many bloggers totally abandon this idea.

The first step is creating keyword rich titles. Go on the Google Ad Words Tool and see what things people are searching for, can you change your title to make it apply to that niche? Also, make your URL’s match the keyword you’re targeting. Last but not least, I installed WordPress SEO by Yoast on my blog to help with the SEO.

10. Being Fake

If you read about a blog making 6 figures in the pet industry, it doesn’t mean you go create a pet blog. Many people are guilty of doing this and it’s a horrible idea. If you try creating a blog without being authentic, people will catch on.

Someone else may be successful in another industry because they are passionate and knowledgeable about it. For someone else with no experience to come in and reciprocate that success will be extremely difficult. Don’t chase the money, chase your own passions.

Conclusion
In this article, I shared the 10 big mistakes that bloggers make with their website. What are some other mistakes you’ve seen others made?

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