Last Updated June 2021 by Crystallace

10 Rookie Blogging Mistakes to Avoid

A couple of months ago a posted my Zero Month Blog Income Report from my “zero “month of blogging, you can check it out here. I mention in that blog post, that I call it my “zero month” because I made some major changes to my blog and I wanted to do a reset.

I have been blogging since 2012 and I made this decision to reset my blog after I realized I had been making some huge blogging mistakes. I was blogging for broke instead of Blogging for Bank. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes that I did. So I wanted to make share my experience. Here they are:

Blogging Mistakes to Avoid: 10 Ways I Was Blogging for Broke Instead of Blogging for Bank

I was blogging about my feelings.

There once was a time when blogging about your feelings, experiences, and opinions led to interest and popularity. However, today’s readers are looking for their problems to be solved.  Simply put, nobody cares about your feelings. Think about it, you may come across an article on Facebook where the writer speaks about their experience. It may be well written and you may share it. But how often does it move you enough to check out their website, follow them on social media, and subscribe to their email list? Not enough.

Blogging majority of the time about your thoughts, feelings, and opinions will lead to you blogging for broke instead of Blogging for Bank. If you feel like that is type of writing you want to do and you still want to be monetized, perhaps look into being a Freelance writer and submitting your articles to magazines for payment such as The Root, Medium, or Refinery 29.

I did not sign up for the right affiliate marketing programs. 

The only affiliate marketing program that had crossed my mind was Amazon. Not to mention, I was doing affiliate marketing all wrong. I was just adding the link to a blog post, putting it out into the universe, and hoping it would come back in coins. Ha!

Can I tell you I am so grateful I came across The Six Figure Blogger Course by Create and Go. This course laid out affiliate marketing and how to do it right. Now, I have the right partners and I even have an affiliate marketing program for my products. You can check it out here.

I did not have any products.

Like most amateur bloggers I thought that bloggers got paid through ads. While they do, it is usually where they make the least amount of money. The majority of blogging income comes from affiliate marketing and product creation. The latter is why it is so important to have a niche audience.

You get to learn them, learn what they problems are, and offer them solutions. For example, I noticed that a lot of bloggers were not blogging legally so I came up with legal templates for bloggers, I have them here .

Blogging Mistakes to Avoid: The Most Important One

Btw, if you are not already doing so please make sure that you are blogging legally. You don’t want to risk your blog being shut down or miss out on making money by not being in compliance.

Luckily, I had this one covered because I am a lawyer but it is the most common mistake I see amongst bloggers, not taking the legal side of blogging seriously.

I did not have a niche.

I would blog about what was on my mind and that led me to not being intentional with an intentional audience. I also didn’t truly understand what a niche was. For example, your niche can’t be any and everything women your age think about. But if you really want that to be your blog you have to give one area 75% of your focus.

For example, if you’re going to talk about hair care, being a mom, cooking, DIY, Fashion, and Party Planning, you should pick one area and put most of the focus on there. Otherwise, you will look like a jack of all trades, master of none.

I did not invest in my blog.

You have to spend money to make money. I started my blog on Blogger because it was free and I’m cheap. That was a mistake. I spent a lot of time trying to get my blog to have a look that just wasn’t going to happen for free (with no coding background).

Moving to WordPress, paying for a theme, buying Pin templates, settling on a mood board, etc. Were minor things that had a major effect. On the internet, aesthetics are everything. It pays to be pretty. Now my Pins get more clicks and people stay on my site longer.

I did not take any courses.

Blogging is strategic and there are formulas. I am always eager to learn. Don’t think that blogging can’t be hard or you can figure it all out. That use to be me and I could’ve been making money so much earlier if I had just invested in blogging education.

After biting the bullet and investing in the Six Figure Blogger course. I made the necessary changes to my blog and immediately started to see results.

More Blogging Mistakes to Avoid

I did not have any goals for my blog.

I was blogging without purpose. I mean, I knew I wanted a blog but I did not have a vision for my blog. It is important to have short term and long term goals for your blog. Now I set monthly goals such as growing my email subscriber list, blog posts per month, page views for month, etc.

I was not being consistent.

When I first started my blog I worked full time and my blog was an afterthought. While it was my baby, I was not disciplined when it came to working on it. Now I do something on my blog daily. Consistency is key.

I was not using what I knew.

I had this law degree and I was so wrapped up in the traditional way of practicing law, that I failed to figure out how I could apply it to my blogging world. There is something that you know more about than the rest of us.

For me that answer is the law and legal matters. I was then able to create solutions for my audience and have those available for them in my legal boutique. What are you an expert about? The answer, should be the niche of your blog.

I doubted myself.

I would hear about these blogging gurus that made money blogging. I’m talking  beaucoup money, five and six figures a month. I thought they only made that money because they were selling marketing or blogging about blogging.

After I did some research, I found that there was a science to blogging and that I could apply that to what I wanted to blog about. Having a profitable blog was possible for me.

Now that you know which blogging mistakes to avoid

If you find yourself making these same mistakes do not freak out. Just correct them one at a time and you will see yourself blog go from broke to bank. As I remember more blogging mistakes to avoid I will update this list.

If you are looking for blog support join the Blogging for Bank™ Facebook Group here. There is a coupon for the legal templates in there!

What blogging mistake are you making from this list? Let me know in the comments.