As a new blogger, you may have a lot on your mind. That’s the reason it’s easy to make mistakes. 

AS an amateur blogger, I too was a culprit of the same and made tons of mistakes. This post is a warning and guide for you to steer clear of the same amateur blogging mistakes I made.

Once you realize what these mistakes are, you’re going to definitely avoid them in the near future.

Say no to comment links

Comment links on blog posts seem like a harmless way of building links back to your blog. My take? Don’t engage in them.

For starters, most comment links are no followed and don’t pass link juice. That means the effort is not nearly that good at building your link profile. It might get you some referral traffic but no-follow links as a rule don’t help build your blog’s rankings. Keep that in mind.

The second thing is no followed links may actually end up devaluing your blog. Why? Because Google doesn’t trust them and this is user-generated content. You’re actively trying to build links to the site and for most cases, that’s seen as a red flag.

As far as I’d say, no follow comment links are an exercise in futility and that’s why I dislike them.

Don’t Start link building from the get-go

Most bloggers take it slow. The first few months are spent writing great content. That’s not a bad strategy. The problem is, you get rankings slower. There’s absolutely no reason to slow down link-building as long as you’re not getting an insane number of links.

Don’t worry about things like anyone would link to a new blog. If you want to beef up some domain authority, build a few web 2.0 links first to your site. Once that’s done and you have some semblance of authority, reach out to sites that accept guest posts.

Build a few guest post links to your site by searching for niche followed by write for us. You will find a bunch of sites that accept guest posts. Use them.

You also need a minimum 5 to 10 blog posts live on your site as well.

Never Lighten up your writing

Passive voice, addressing readers in formal tones work for dissertations and essays. On a blog they’re a strict no-no. A blog is not academic writing.

You need to be able to connect with your readers. One of the ways to do this is by addressing these readers in the first person.

Use words like I and you.

Why is trust important? I frequent a blog called GrowthMarketingPro. They offer plenty of useful advice and one of the things that resonate with me is transforming your blog into a place where people can trust and one where they can rely on advice for.

A personal approach can get you, readers. Above all, a personal approach helps you establish trust and authority both of which are critical to letting your blog gain traction.

Never Link out

Linking out has many benefits. One of the benefits is Google starts associating your site with those sites that you are linking out to.

Linking out may seem pointless or even counterintuitive but linking to similar authority sites means your site too rises in rankings.

Above everything, linking out helps you build relationships with relevant bloggers in your niche.

Use the power of social media

As a blogger, social media isn’t just someplace you see lovely pictures or post about your awesome life. It’s a good place to start attracting traffic and relevant links for your blog.

Social media is a place where you can post about the most-happening things on your blog and get social shares as a result.

A blogger Ilana Wiles posted about the bad experience she had contracting out home renovation to HomePolish on her blog and on her Instagram page. A few days later, big media sites picked up the story and the story ended up going viral. 100s of links poured into the piece she wrote. This would never have had been possible had she not posted those pictures to Instagram.

From a purely link-building perspective, such links are 100% natural and add to the weight and authority of a site. I wouldn’t be surprised if she starts ranking for some huge keywords now in her niche.

Never build an email list

Google will give you traffic as long as it serves them right. According to a Jumpshot study posted on Rand Fishkin’s blog, almost 50% of keyword searches end up in no clicks to the target site.

Queries like how’s the weather, or a celebrity’s net worth is immediately answered by Google using data scraped off of sites that painstakingly wrote the content.

Almost 97% of queries today carry one or the other featured snippet and the numbers are only going up. Google is siphoning off traffic from webmasters and bloggers and sending most of it to itself.

Every Google update ranks Google properties like YouTube higher. Search and online businesses it supports is becoming a very scary place.

That’s why you need traffic baskets. A bit from email list, a bit from search, a bit from social media and so on.

No passion regarding what you’re doing

The thing with blogging is it requires a shit-ton of work. And it has become harder than ever to attract traffic or rank your blog.

First is the explosion of sites in competitive niches. And second, it’s really difficult to save your sites from updates. They’re like mini cyclones uprooting and decimating whatever’s in the path. Recovery takes months.

My point? Blogging is hard work. Don’t make it harder by writing about something or beginning a blog in a niche you have zero interest in.

Never start your blog on WordPress

WordPress is one of the best CMSes you can use today. They are a content powerhouse, equipped with everything a blogger might need.

To save money you might want to start on BlogSpot. But that gives your site an unprofessional look and feel. This is better avoided.

Here a few other things that matter when blogging:

Don’t do anything that damages reputation

As a blogger reputation stands tall over everything else you do online. Don’t do something that dents your reputation. This means promoting shady courses or linking out to spammy sites for a quick buck.

Don’t write to get to a word count

While longer posts certainly make sense from a search perspective, netting better rankings, writing tomes just for the sake of writing isn’t helping anyone.

For starters, this spoils user experience. And Google is smart. They see right through it. Instead, research, back up your claims, get quotes from real people and use all of that to bulk up your content.

Stick to a writing style

When publishing new content, it’s always best to stick to the style you blogged so far with.  If you’re trying to be conversational with your content, don’t fold the towel after a few attempts. Stick to the style and see where it takes you.

Conclusion

Now that you have read the post, you know all the amateur blogging mistakes amateur bloggers make duh? When starting you’d always see a lot of blogs in your niche that are influential, that get tons of traffic and links. What’s their secret? How do they rank and what they do. Learn from them by asking these questions.