Sometimes mistakes can be the best way to learn. Making them and learning from your failures is one way to do it. Or, you can learn from the mistakes of others and hopefully avoid making them yourself. In an attempt to learn from others, let’s go over seven mistakes that can lead to failed blogs.
Mistake #1: Not Being Consistent
Blogging requires a consistent schedule. You need to publish content regularly.
Ideally you should publish a blog article weekly. If that isn’t feasible with your schedule though, then aim for monthly posts. If you have plenty of time and can commit to daily posts, do it.
The important part is you pick a posting schedule that works for you and then stick to it.
Keeping a consistent posting schedule helps everyone.
It helps readers by making it easier to understand when they can expect to hear from you. They know when they will be able to access new content. And they can have more confidence in your existing articles knowing that the blog is actively maintained and updated. It helps build your relationship together.
It helps search engines by providing more ranking opportunities and new content to crawl. Each new article you post has a new set of keywords and a new page that search engines can rank in search results. A consistent schedule also helps search engines understand how often to crawl your website. They want to keep search results accurate, so if you have new content to index on a regular basis, it’s easier to understand how often and when they should crawl your website to look for new content and updates.
It helps you by creating a routine. Staying consistent will help you get into a routine which will only make the process easier for you the longer you stick with it.
Mistake #2: Poor Quality
It’s important to remember that quality is more important than quantity.
We just talked about keeping a consistent blogging schedule. That schedule should be at a pace that allows you to create high-quality content. If all of your posts are filled with useless fluff instead of valuable information, they won’t help anyone; you, the readers, or search engines.
A high-quality blog article should include:
- Information your readers care about.
- A format that is easy to read and easy to follow.
- Only relevant information, no fluff or filler material.
- Images, videos, and charts when relevant.
- Links to articles to dig deeper into additionally referenced topics.
Mistake #3: Wrong Topic
Before you write your article, make sure it’s a topic your readers are interested in. You want to write content that people want to read.
Don’t choose topics randomly. When deciding on a topic to write there are two paths to create content people care about.
- Create content based on keyword research.
- Create content based on questions and concerns from your audience.
When you create content based on keyword research, you’re using data to make an informed decision. This is a good tactic to use to create content that will grow your blog audience. Keyword research allows you to find the topics that are in demand, the queries people are actively looking to find a solution for.
Another tactic to write content on topics people care about, is to answer questions and concerns that you hear from your own audience. When you get a content idea from your existing audience you can be confident it is a topic that will resonate with your readers. If one of them spoke up and asked the question, there’s a good chance others are wondering the same thing.
Mistake #4: Ignore SEO
Another common mistake is to ignore search engine optimization.
I strongly believe that writing articles for the user, and not for the search engines, is the best long-term SEO strategy. However, there are some basic SEO best practices that don’t make sense to ignore in your articles.
Write your article with the user in mind. Then, when you’re done go through and make the following SEO improvements:
- Add your targeted keyword to the article title.
- Add your targeted keyword to the URL (if possible).
- Add your targeted keyword to the first paragraph.
- Create a meta description and include your targeted keyword.
Mistake #5: Don’t Gather Emails
Another mistake is to spend all of your time creating amazing content, but not building a community. Try to collect email addresses, build a list and create your community.
Not everyone will want to give you their email address, and that’s okay. Make it easy for the people who do want to hear from you, be able to do so. Let them subscribe. When you post new content, let them know. Start building the relationship with the engaged users who want to hear from you.
Mistake #6: Lose Interest
You do not want to lose interest in your blog. Don’t get annoyed if it doesn’t take off right away. Building a blog takes time.
If you post consistently on a weekly basis, expect it to take at least two years before you start seeing the momentum you want. If you blog monthly, expect it to take even longer.
Think of this blog as your business, not your hobby. Commit to the long haul. It won’t be easy and it will take longer than it seems like it should, but if you stick with it you will see results.
Mistake #7: Monetize Too Early
The last mistake is to monetize before you know who your audience is. Of course you want to eventually figure out a way to monetize your blog, but don’t start there. Start by finding an audience. Build a community. Figure out who you’re talking to and what they need before you start selling to them.
If you’ve already made any of these mistakes, don’t worry. They are all fixable. Just start now. Knowing what not to do will hopefully allow you to focus on what you should do.
Have you made any of these mistakes? Do you think there’s another common mistake that we should add to our list? Let us know in the comments!
Do you want to listen to this article? Here’s the podcast episode: