How to Fix 8 of the Most Common Blogging Mistakes

Navigating the blogging world is hard am I right?!

There are so many misconceptions and misinformation that it is so so difficult to find the tools to succeed let alone finding someone who you can relate to, and can trust the information that they give is correct.

It doesn’t have to be confusing though. These feelings of being overwhelmed or stuck – repeating the same things don’t have to be the only way.

I have seen time and time again people consistently making similar mistakes. BUT good news? They are easy to fix!

Here I am breaking down the 10 most common mistakes that newbie and veteran bloggers alike are making. Implementing changes to these 10 things I promise will skyrocket your page views leading to more visitors, readers, and customers.

There are 2 million blog posts written and published every. single. day. This is why it is so important to write a title that is optimized, powerful and actionable. No matter how great your content is, it isn’t going to be seen if it isn’t clicked on.

Your blog post’s headline is the first glimpse that your reader has into your brand and website. It will only take a second for them to decide if clicking on your post is worth their time.

The Solution:

Here is how to make sure your headline is the best it can be!

• Create a list of at least ten different titles per blog post. I know that it seems like a lot but this process will help you test out what works and what doesn’t.
• Optimize your headline for SEO by including your (researched) keyword in the title as well within the blog post.
• Use a headline analyzer tool like this one here to help you rank your prospective headlines. Aim for a score above 70!
• Incorporate ‘powerful’ words into your headlines, here is a list of 500+ of them! 

In their essence, keywords are the words that your prospective readers are going to be typing into Google and when Google recognizes this it will pull up your article because it sees that you are talking about this subject too, but…

Picking one very broad boring keyword is not going to get you any traction with your SEO. Instead think about researching them, making keywords longer and using more than one!

Solution:

Research keywords and trending topics. Create long-tail keywords appropriate for your article and use them throughout.

• Use keyword finding search engines. Ubersuggest and Keyword Finder are just two of my favorites for finding prospective keywords.
• When picking keywords, look for the words that will be fairly easy for you to rank for. Words that are red or are indicating that they would be hard for you to rank for means that there are already too many big websites talking about these subjects and are already ranking for this word.
• Create a list of 5+ long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords include more like three to six words and are more specific. Example: For an article about concerts in Bangkok, instead of your keyword just being Bangkok or Thailand use something more specific like best things to do in Bangkok.
• Download the Yoast SEO Plugin, in the free version it helps you optimize your post for this one long-tail keyword.
• As for the rest of the keywords you have found, aim to use them in the body of your post and in the headings.

 

Another part of having great SEO is utilizing your site’s metadata description and creating metadata descriptions on each of your posts. This gives the search engines even more of a clue as to what your article is all about.

Solution:

Include metadata and alt image tags, here’s how!

• Include a few sentences describing what your blog post is about in the metadata description (you can do this easily in the Yoast SEO plug-in). Make sure to include your keyword in the metadata description.
• Include your keyword also in the alt image attributes. Not only is this just another added layer of SEO but it also lets your readers know what the photo is about in case it doesn’t load.

 

This is one of THE biggest mistakes that newbie bloggers make, myself included! I didn’t think that Pinterest was going to help me with my traffic because it was a social media site, right?

Wrong!

Within one month of using Pinterest and implementing a Pinterest growth strategy, my page views increased 100% and my traffic has doubled consistently for months.

Solution:

Optimize your posts and Pinterest account in the following ways →

• Stop thinking of Pinterest as a social media and instead as a visual search engine.
• Create a new account or clean up your boards to have only on brand boards.
• Create at least three pins per blog post and include them first thing on the post.
• Use Tailwind and Tailwind Tribes to schedule and share your pins. Aim for 10 or so pins a day.
• Enable rich pins for your site and create detailed and keyword loaded descriptions for each pin.
• Set a featured board and create a concise bio. Include a professional picture of yourself as a profile photo.   

Related: 5 Instagram Mistakes That Could be Costing You Followers

Linking to other sites is a great way to highlight other awesome websites as well as cite sources and help create community online – but if you are only linking out then there is no way for Google or other search engines to know if you actually know what you’re talking about.

Solution:

Link multiple times within your own blog post to other of your own blog posts.

• Linking just at the end of your post isn’t enough, people will usually just skim past that, butttt if you insert hyperlinked text in appropriate places then it will give you not only more Google SEO credit but it will help guide your readers through your site.
• Example – if you are writing a post about restaurants in Hanoi, A few times throughout an article you can stick something like, RELATED: 5 Awesome Vegan Cafes in Hanoi people will be more willing to click on that then the computer generated “related” tab at the end of the post.

 

It is commonly thought that if you are writing content for a blog you can’t write anything too long, because people have short attention spans. Though this is true, and people do often have short attention spans, it doesn’t mean that people are not searching or in-depth knowledgeable posts.

If your post is only 500 words they aren’t going to find the expert knowledge that they are searching for. They will be left wanting more and disappointed that they didn’t find what they were looking for.

Solution:

Aim to be writing informative long posts at around 1,800 – 2,000 words each.

• Split your paragraphs up into smaller chunks and provide structured headings and subheadings to accommodate peoples short attention spans and preliminary skimming of your post.
• If you are looking for some help with editing you can invest in the Hemingway App or Grammarly which are programs which help you edit.
• Use your Yoast SEO plugin to establish if your post is readable.

 

Understandably it can be overwhelming to constantly need to be creating new content for your blog. When I started I was trying to post one or two blogs a week and you know what? The quality was low and the word counts were low. Instead, now I aim for one much longer and much more high-quality post every two weeks.

Solution:

• Aim to post one high quality, optimized and informative blog once a week or once every two weeks.
• Google loves fresh content! Posting regularly will help not only bring visitors into your page, generating views but also helping to keep your reader base engaged.

Related: How to Start a Travel Blog in 6 Easy Steps

In the online world, nothing is as permanent as we would like to think. What if tomorrow Instagram went bust then the next day your websites hosting went out of business? Your platforms would be gone, and there wouldn’t be much you could do about it, but if you had an email list, you would be able to notify your readers what the plan, or what the next step is.

An email address is a golden ticket, the ultimate access to prime inbox space, but enabling your subscription service on your website and asking your readers to sign up for updates is not going to cut it.

Solution:

• You must offer what is called an opt-in incentive. This is something that can be digitally downloaded which offers a great deal of value to your readers. Something that they might even buy but since it is free they must have!
• Good examples of opt-in incentives could be ebooks, highly specialized guides, resource libraries, workbooks, or worksheets.

 

When I first was starting a blog I was not doing any of these, I didn’t even know I was supposed to be. But, once I started making these small tweaks I have seen huge results!

 

Let me know in the comments below if you are making any of these mistakes or if you were and have since fixed them what kind of results you have seen!