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Sometimes it takes years of blogging to notice your most obvious mistakes.
I’ve been blogging privately since 2003, then professionally since 2005! I still blog for clients!
By now I have made most mistakes you can make as a blogger I guess. I’m not the only one though.
Most bloggers make the same mistakes.
They make them either by neglect or due to the limitations of the medium and software itself.
In many cases you have to make the decision to change your content strategy to stop making the most common mistakes.
Here are 10 blogging mistakes most bloggers make and you probably also do.
Posting to social media instead of blogging
Some people obsess about LinkedIn, Facebook or in the worst case Instagram.
In a way I do as well. Sometimes I share my ideas on social media to save time I’d spend on blogging otherwise.
Consider each idea you have for blogging before you share it.
Everything shared is lost after a few minutes in the worst or days in the best case.
Whatever you blog is yours and lives on for ages unless you use a third party service like WordPress.com perhaps. People can find your content years later.
and other social media platforms want your content published there instead of your own site. They get the attention – not you.
Always remember who you work for: yourself or billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg (who owns both Instagram ans Facebook)?
When you publish on Instagram you create content for someone else’s website for free.
Self promoting on social media
Many bloggers still tend to only self-promote their own content on social media.
It doesn’t work that way. Most social media sites either limit your reach from the start or once the algorithm notices that people ignore you.
Even on LinkedIn or Facebook you need an audience first.
Some sites even downright ban self promotion algorithmically.
Self-promotion is backfiring especially for business blogs. Don’t do that. Nobody will even see your content!
Make other people discover your content. Socialize on social media but don’t solely promote yourself to get some meager traffic.
Let others find and share your content!
Embedding videos from YouTube etc.
Most bloggers embed YouTube videos on their blogs. Vimeo is also popular.
YouTube videos often get removed.
Even a teenager managed once to take down several videos citing fake copyright charges.
I couldn’t watch many YouTube videos from Germany over the years because they contained copyrighted music.
Vimeo is less restrictive but even there people also remove videos on their own sometimes.
Many posts don’t contain anything beside a video. Such a post is dead on arrival.
It’s even worse than a dead link. I know because I learned the hard way.
Once the video got removed I didn’t even notice. I only did accidentally.
Then I couldn’t even find a working replacement. The context was lost completely.
Using aggressive ads
Aggressive ads are dead but many bloggers still use them in the hope to “make money online”.
The sad truth is that these ads rather ostracize.
Nobody clicks banners due to the widely spread banner blindness and proliferation of ad blocking.
Your blog appears to be spammy when it’s plastered with blinking ads.
Use text ads instead and affiliate links but only leading to very good products matching your content. Sadly, these are hard to find though.
Ads are not a good business model for blogs in general.
You need the proverbial “huge traffic” to make significant money with ads.
For most bloggers ads of any kind will rather tarnish their image than earn money.
Blogging too often or not often enough
Over the years seo2.blog has turned too silent for a good blog.
I’ve noticed that regular posting is best to build an engaged audience. Otherwise you have to rely on Google.
You can do it once you established yourself like Brian Dean of Backlinko!
Yet you have to invest many dozens of hours per post to get there!
Weekly posts are the minimum to make people return of their own accord frequently.
More than 5 in a week lead to cognitive overload. No single individual will read all your content then.
Thus you spread yourself thin over manifold audiences. This only works with a whole team!
Many blogs these days publish far less often and look more like static websites this way.
They have to build an ad hoc audience each time they publish then.
When not blogging regularly you lose attention. People start to forget about you.
Several posts a day in contrast lead to overwhelm. Nobody can read that all.
This way you get more and more casual traffic from search and social media.
On the other hand you overburden your loyal readers.
Your loyal readers are the backbone of your blog though. Don’t annoy them.
Automating content creation
By now there are many tools that simplify content creation or even automate content.
Ever since AI automation took over many people just flood the Web with artificially sounding content. It’s often
- wordy
- bland
- and repetitive.
It repeats the same formulas over and over. It’s “me too” content trying to reinvent the wheel.
By 2025 Google focuses on originality to prevent that!
Automated content ostracizes your loyal readers.
Blogging is by definition subjective! You have to add your own unique point of view.
You need first hand experience to genuinely write about what you love!
Only then your niche content will be believable and truly helpful!
Creating “blog spam” postings
The “blog spam” kind of blog post seemingly will never die. It’s just a social update posted on a blog.
It may contain only a link to the source and short description of it. Basically it’s just a waste of time.
Your blog turns into an obstacle between the reader and the real source.
In case you don’t have any value to add don’t blog it at all. At least
- add your opinion beyond “this is great”
- collect a few links to provide context
- add something of value, whatever it is.
First and foremost credit the source and add something more!
Many bloggers or people who post on social media do not even mention the original author! They just copy and paste.
Not socializing enough
Blogs aren’t islands. They only thrive as part of the “blogosphere” or in connection with other blogs!
Bloggers who don’t socialize enough with other bloggers and social media users can’t get popular in the first place.
Many bloggers turn to one way communication in case they already are well known.
In both cases the overall quality of the blog deteriorates.
Never forget your blogging and social media peers.
Link out, engage and connect with them on a regular basis.
Not updating existing content
Most blogs have a huge archive of blog posts!
These often get plenty of visitors from search!
Serahcers bounce after noticing that the post is outdated though!
When the links broken, the wording is stale and examples are from years ago you have a problem.
Make sure to revisit your existing postings, update and fix them.
You may even republish them once the update is substantial enough.
Also write for longevity aka “evergreen content” in the first place.
Nobody cares for yesterday’s news tomorrow.
Not focusing on best postings
Usability expert Jakob Nielsen has written about it years ago. It should be a best practice by now.
One of the most common issues with blogs is that they don’t show the most popular postings on top.
Another common issue is that many popular postings are outdated.
I’ve been testing many “popular posts” plugins for WordPress. I haven’t found the perfect one yet.
I did use Koko Analytics though and they let you show your most viewed posts as a text widget on WordPress.
Now I choose and add those manually to a hub post on top!
Blogging mistakes happen
Do you also make these blogging mistakes?
You are not the only one! I made most of them either myself or witnessed them all over the place!
When I made the mistakes above mentioned myself I only noticed afterwards.
Now it’s easy to recognize them on other blogs though!
* (CC BY 2.0) Creative Commons image by Ghost of Kuji