I recently hit a very special milestone for me. My one year of blogging anniversary. Over the year I made blogging mistakes, Read my 5 beginner blogger mistakes below.
A year ago I hit Launch on Mom’s Daily Diary with 5 posts ready to be published. I had zero experience, absolutely no social media following, and tons of ideas.
Today, I may not be earning a full-time income, but I can confidently say that I’ve finally figured out what I’m actually doing. And if you’re planning to start a blog, here are X beginner blogging mistakes I’ve made that you can learn from.
This blog post does NOT contain affiliate links. I am simply sharing the mistakes I’ve made and the solutions I’ve found to save you some time and money.
5 Blogging mistakes to avoid
1. Signing up with Bluehost
How to avoid: Always check your facts.
Before starting out I tried to do as much research as I could to start on the right foot. I found many established bloggers in my niche, read pretty much everything they had on how to start a blog and since they all recommended Bluehost, that’s who I signed my hosting with.
And this was my first big blogging mistake.
While Bluehost is really cheap and may not be the worst option out there, it is not your best option either.
Having your blog under Bluehost means your blog will take longer to load. Why is this important? Because higher site speed means better user experience, and if your goal is organic Google traffic, a great user experience is a must.
So why are Bluehost so recommended if they are so bad?
Simple. Because they have the highest paying affiliate program. It took me months to find this out and thanks to other bloggers’ unbiased advice I am now switching to BigScoots.
2. Seeing other bloggers as competition only
How to avoid: Reach out to other bloggers
In some ways, other bloggers may be your competition. After all, the first page on Google results has only 10 spots, right?
Wrong!
Building a relationship with bloggers is a great way to improve your reach and domain authority. But that’s far not the best reason to reach out.
In reality, during your blogging journey, you’ll face a lot of challenges. And you’ll make your first beginner blogger mistakes.
Other bloggers can help you see your mistake and help you fix it by giving you honest and actionable advice.
The easiest way to reach out to other bloggers is by joining different blogging communities on Facebook. The two groups that I find most helpful are:
- Blogging Like We Mean It
- Becoming a Blogger
3. Using only free keyword research tools
How to avoid: Sign up with Keysearch.
When I started I knew I had to do keyword research. And of course, I followed all the beginner tips provided in the free blogging courses. They tell you to:
- Use Google search bar suggestions
- Use Google related searches
- Answer the public
- Ubersuggest
- Google Trends
And for almost one year of blogging, I followed this advice. Why?
Because I thought it was working. I had a few posts that did well with Google and I thought I must be doing it right.
It turned out I just got lucky with the keywords I’ve picked. The problem with the above is that don’t give you the data you need to select the right keywords for the blog or for some reason (in the case of Ubersuggest) they give you the wrong data.
For me, this changed when I finally decided to sign up for Keysearch (thanks to those helpful blogging communities I mentioned). And you know what the game changer was for me? Keysearch actually analyzes your website and tells you what difficulty you should aim for.
A while ago I listened to a blogging podcast, can’t recall which one, but they said something that just stuck with me.
There are two types of mom bloggers. Those who write about what they want. And those who are ready to get out of their comfort zone, write based on their keyword research and succeed.
In other words, if you want people to be able to find the awesome post you’ve written, do your proper keyword research first.
4. As long as you’re consistent, Pinterest traffic will come
How to avoid: Do your Pinterest keyword research
I bet you’ve heard these valuable tips in every Pinterest course you’ve watched:
- Pinterest is a search engine and not a social media.
- To get traffic from Pinterest you need to be consistent.
While both of these are absolutely true, in reality, however, they are just not enough to bring you the traffic you’re expecting. And here is one of the most common beginner blogging mistakes.
You do your keyword research for your blog post. You find a killer keyword. You use it on your blog and then again on Pinterest. Does this sound familiar?
But here is the thing. Pinterest is not Google. And as obvious as this is, many bloggers seem to overlook this in their first year of blogging.
People don’t go to Pinterest and ask “how to lose weight after the holidays“. Instead, they are looking for “weight loss“, “weight loss plans“, “weekly workout plans“. They are looking for specific ideas with as few words as possible.
If you want to rank with Pinterest you need a whole different set of keywords because the perfect long-tail keyword you found for Google is just no use out there.
5. Relying on free blogging guides and courses
How to avoid: As soon as your budget allows it, purchase an in-depth course
As much as it pains me to admit, the reality is that all the blogging tips that are available for free are just the tip of a huge underwater iceberg. That is because bloggers keep their best tricks for when they are actually getting paid.
Once you’re ready to invest in a course, steer clear from general “how to blog” courses. Instead, pick a topic you want to focus on (SEO, Pinterest, tech, funnels, etc.) and ask around the blogging communities for recommendations.
And while spending a ton on a blogging course does not guarantee you’ll get valuable information, it’s pretty much impossible to find a free course that will offer more than just a starting point.
If you still want to learn without spending a dime, sign up for the newsletters of the established bloggers in your niche and read their emails. Occasionally, they will share a really good tip or let you know when there is a good blogging summit around the corner.
And speaking of summits, they are probably the best way to get actionable advice for free. The tough part is to filter through all the talks that are not relevant to you at the moment.
As tempting as it sounds to learn it all at once, in the end, you’ll just burn out and overwhelm yourself.
January blogging report
And now to my last blogging report. I’ve decided that I want to track my first year blogging as since it’s now over, this will be the last detailed report I’m going to publish.
So with tons of excitement and a pinch of nostalgia, here is my January blogging report.
Productivity focus
December was a very slow blogging month for me. That’s mainly because I wanted to spend the holidays offline and enjoy quality time with my family.
However, this doesn’t mean that I’ve given up on the blog. So once January was a fact, the toddler was back at the daycare, and my hubby was back at work, I sat down and started all over again with a whole lot of energy and newfound motivation.
I also signed up for the Bloggers Breakthrough Summit and got a few great tips out of the talks.
One of them helped me figure out that the main reason for the slow speed on the blog is actually my theme and not just the hosting as I thought initially. As a result, I now switched to a lighter theme and my page load speed skyrocketed.
The other thing I got out of the summit was how to evaluate the efficiency of my keywords so I made a list of all the posts and keywords and I’m currently in the process of fixing a few early blogging mistakes.
Posts
Here are the posts that I managed to publish in January.
Stats
After my December break, I expected a huge drop in my stats. This, however, did not happen immediately. Instead, January was a really strong month.
- Sessions: +46%
- Site visitors: +42%
- Organic traffic: +33%
- Facebook page: likes +31% and followers +21%
- Pinterest page: Impressions +29% and traffic +38%
Goals
Last but not least, I set a few goals last month and I’m so happy I nailed them all. Here are my last month’s goals.
January
- Go back to productivity mode after the holidays. – Absolutely done. I was extremely motivated and managed to get so much done.
- Start working on a couple of the ebooks I have planned. – Done. I drafted the ideas and started to write the content. Hopefully, they will be out in the last quarter of 2022.
- Research and switch hosting providers. – I noticed I’ve signed up for a 36-month hosting plan with Bluehost it kind of felt like I’ll be throwing money away if I switch now. Still, I contacted BigScoots and I decided to switch as soon as I get my Bluehost subscriptions in order.
That’s all about my one year of blogging. It had its ups and downs but I’m looking forward to a successful second year.
And while this may be the last of my monthly blogging reports, I’ll be sure to check back every 6 or 12 months to keep myself accountable.
See you soon!
