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These are the 10 most common beginner blogging mistakes that you don’t want to be making (but probably are anyway!)
As a new blogger, everything is exciting but also overwhelming. You’re asking yourself a lot of questions;
Where do I start when starting a blog? What blogging tools are best to invest in? Am I even doing any of this right? How do I make money blogging? (And will I ever?!) I’ve been there, and I’ve just about done it all. So we’re going to be going over the top 10 beginner blogging mistakes so you can avoid looking like a newbie blogger!
10 Beginner Blogging Mistakes You DON’T Want to Make (But Probably Are!) MISTAKE 1: Starting your blog on a free website One of the biggest beginner blogging mistakes I see from new bloggers is starting your blog on a free site like WordPress.com or Blogger.com.
It can be very tempting to start your blog on a free website- in fact, I did this when I first started! However, it was because I didn’t know better and I wasn’t aware of the differences between a self-hosted site and a free site.
If you are looking at blogging for a hobby, then a free blog is just fine! But if you want to make money blogging, leave your 9-5, and take this thing seriously, a paid blog is where it’s at!
Here’s why you should avoid free blogging platforms
Free blogs aren’t as customizable (and therefore don’t look as professional) You don’t get a custom domain name (So mine would be www.sarahmarie.wordpress.blog ) Companies are less likely to work with you Monetization options are limited You don’t actually own your blog- so it can be taken down at any time Free blogs don’t rank well in search engines because Google favors self-hosted sites more All-in-all, free blogs are less appealing despite the “benefit” of being free. If you can call all the downsides to a free blog a “benefit” that is!
On the other hand, the only downside to a paid blog is…. You have to pay for it. That’s it.
It also can be a bit more complicated to set up, but the good news is there is so much help out there for starting a blog that it’s super easy to figure out!
Plus, you can make your blog as complicated or as simple as you want. It’s all up to you!
If you’re looking for my step-by-step method for starting a blog, check out my FREE 5-day crash course on starting a blog!
The benefits of having a self-hosted WordPress website are:
You own your site- it can’t get taken down like a free one Customization options are literally limitless. If you can dream it, you can do it! Google will think more highly of your site Your blog will look more professional (so your readers will think highly of you too!) Monetization options are easier to come by and limitless. (More ad network options, affiliate companies will work with you, brands, you can sell your own products, and more) Don’t like your hosting company? You can choose to switch! There are a ton out there.I recommend starting out on Bluehost. They’re beginner-friendly, easy to get started on, and inexpensive! You can start a Bluehost blog for $2.95 RIGHT NOW! You also get a free professional domain name through them when you sign up!
I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Self-hosted is the way to go!
MISTAKE 2: Not having legal pages set up One important detail bloggers tend to forget is their legal pages!
If you are running a blog online, you need a terms and conditions page, a private policy, and a disclaimer page. These are a MUST!
Mine are sitting right at the bottom of my site, as you’ll likely see with any blog or site on the internet!
You don’t want to be held liable for the content you create on your site. If a reader decides to take your advice and that leads to problems, you could be on the hook for those problems.
So these pages protect you from that!
You may think this doesn’t relate to you or affect you, but it does, and that’s one of the beginner blogging mistakes! So make sure you have them.
However, I don’t know about you but… I’m not a lawyer. And you can’t exactly write these pages yourself! So what I did was buy THIS legal template bundle from a full-time lawyer, and part-time blogger.
She made these templates available to bloggers like us who can’t hire a lawyer to write legal pages for us and they were so easy to use and a true lifesaver!
| Check out the legal template bundle right HERE!
MISTAKE 3: Wasting time on non-ROI or unimportant tasks The next one of the beginner blogging mistakes I see new bloggers making is simply wasting time on things that don’t matter!
When it comes to blogging, there are a lot of things you could be doing.
There are so many small tasks involved in this job and you could spend hours on things like tweaking your About Me page or updating your brand color ever so slightly.
But the truth is, a lot of the tasks we work on just don’t matter that much! And they won’t make us money (AKA no ROI or- Return on Investment!)
Especially if you work a 9-5 or full-time job, you need to be focusing on what’s important- which are tasks that make you money.
These money-making tasks are easy to put off though because they are typically the hardest, or most boring. So new bloggers tend to procrastinate because;
You’re afraid of messing up You need everything to be perfect You don’t know if it’s the right move to make, so you make none It is a boring (but necessary task) so you avoid it You may THINK some of the tasks you do are important, but they’re really not. Things like;
Updating your Instagram bio, or making sure your “grid” looks perfect Tweaking your site til it looks perfect Re-writing your About Me page over and over again Tweaking your brand colors Checking your email 10 times a day (Okay, I’m guilty of this one too!!) These are all things that I used to do as well because it made me feel like I was working when in reality, I was not!
Here’s what you SHOULD be focusing on;
Keyword researching your next blog post and writing it Updating old blog posts to have better keywords or more affiliate links (however this can be a time waster too!) Planning out your content strategy (and actually executing it!) Creating pins and promoting your blog posts Creating your next product Emailing brands to work with Applying to affiliate companies, or researching your next affiliate product Nurturing your email list/ creating a freebie for it There are a ton of jobs you could be doing- and mindlessly scrolling through Pinterest “looking for inspiration” usually isn’t one of them!
So make sure you’re focusing on what ACTUALLY matters and what will ACTUALLY move the needle forward and not something that just FEELS good at that moment!
One task that I find is an absolute MUST and leads to more leads, email sign-ups, and sales is promoting on Pinterest.
Promoting your blog on Pinterest is a MUST if you want to get more eyes on your content. So you need to make sure you’ve got a winning strategy.
I’ve been working on Pinterest marketing for years and put everything I know into this course right HERE!
Check out Pinterest Simplicity to get all the details and blow up your blog today!
MISTAKE 4: Being afraid to invest in blogging tools Speaking of investing in blogging tools, this is another one of the beginner blogging mistakes people make.
When I first started, I was not afraid to invest in my business. Sure, it was a bit scary, but I knew I could make it back.
When you start investing in your blog, that’s how you know you’re taking it seriously. You’re betting on yourself, taking a chance on your future, and going all in when you invest.
If you start out on a free blog and only use free resources to start growing your blog, how serious are you going to be about making money and growing your blog?
Probably not very.
There is nothing but time invested in the project, so you won’t work as hard to make the money back.
Plus, you won’t be getting very good results from free tools! Free tools are great, but they can only get you so far.
Here are a few things I recommend you invest in when starting your blog;
Hosting I mentioned this before. You 100% need a hosting company if you’re going to be starting a blog. It can be a big expense, but bite the bullet and sign up for Bluehost when you start your blog!
Legal pages I mentioned this earlier as well. Getting legal pages on your blog is a must so make sure to pick them up from right HERE!
Learning (Courses, ebooks, ect…) I don’t really care what “learning” you invest in, but starting a blog can make you feel like a fish out of water- you have no idea what you’re doing!
But luckily, you don’t have to shuffle around in the dark and hope to find your way to the light. You can just follow the simple path of others and invest in products by them!
I have invested thousands of dollars into learning about blogging, and I still am! You can learn so much about those ahead of you.
Of course, you don’t need to invest all that much at once! But, if you are looking to invest in some courses though, here are a few I recommend:
This is a great course that was recommended to me by a TON of bloggers. I swear pretty much every blogger has taken this course it seems.
Michelle earns over $50,000 (likely more now!) From affiliate marketing alone every single month- so this is the go-to course to learn about making money blogging!
I’ve taken her course over a few times now and every single time I go through it, I will learn something new to implement on my affiliate marketing strategy!
| You can check out her Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course right HERE!
Now, I might be a bit biased when I say this, but Pinteret Simplicity is a great course that teaches you how to grow your blog with Pinteret.
If you want to make money blogging, the one thing you need is pageviews. And Pinterest is a go-to place for so many bloggers to get traffic from.
I’ve been working with clients since 2020 as a monthly Pinterest manager to help them drive traffic to their blogs using Pinterest, and I’ve had a lot of success doing so!
The problem with Pinterest management is though, you end up spending thousands of dollars on services (many clients stay 6-8 months for an average of $1,440-$2,160 spent!) and then by the end, you still don’t know what you’re doing!
So your options are to keep sinking more money into Pinterest management every month, or learn in your own and buy a course anyway!
So, it’s better to just skip all of that and learn Pinterest yourself through my
| Check out my Pinterest Simplicity course right HERE!
MISTAKE 5: Not learning how to properly make money blogging Not knowing exactly how to make money blogging is a big beginner blogging mistake that I see from a lot of new bloggers.
There are a lot of ways you can make money blogging, but if you don’t know what you’re doing- you’re going to struggle!
These are all the ways that I currently make money blogging:
Ads Affiliate marketing Selling your own products Client work I recommend starting out with ads because they are the easiest thing to set up. My ad network right now is Ezoic, and they have two tiers in their program.
The first one has no minimum traffic requirement, and the more advanced (and I imagine better paying) tier has a minimum requirement of 10,000 pageviews a month.
So you could sign up with them at any time, with any number of page views, and then will be able to upgrade when you pass the traffic requirement of 10k views a month!
Affiliate marketing This is the next place I recommend you start because it is easy enough for anyone to do. All you need to do is recommend a product you love to your audience, and when someone buys it- you get a commission.
However, affiliate marketing is a lot more than just spamming links all over your site and calling it a day, You won’t make any income that way (at least not consistently!)
You actually need to have an affiliate marketing strategy. And this is the part that I struggled with heavily.
For YEARS I fumbled the bag when it came to affiliate marketing. I had no idea what I was doing, and no clue how to learn.
I looked at every single income report that came down my Pinterest feed.
I read every single free blog post on “how to start a money-making blog”
And every post just told me they “made money affiliate marketing” without ever explaining what in the world they were doing to get results!!
Until I found this 14-day affiliate surge challenge. This was the game changer that took me from sometimes making affiliate sales to consistently making affiliate sales!
I can not talk about making money affiliate marketing without talking about this 14-day challenge (Which you can sign up for right HERE)
This course is an ABSOLUTE MUST if you’re trying (and failing) to make affiliate marketing revenue.
| Check out the 14-Day Affiliate Surge Challenge to boost your affiliate income 10x like I did!
Selling your own products Selling your own products is a great way to make money because the options truly are endless. You can make whatever you want and sell it!
I currently sell Pinterest templates and they do very well.
I launched a Pinterest course called Pinterest Simplicity and it’s selling very well.
These are two very different products (even though they both involve Pinterest!) at two very different price ranges.
I also sell blog templates and other things in my shop.
You can sell whatever you want, at whatever price point you want, and make as much income potential as you can dream of!
Client work/ VA work Client work has been my biggest income source for years now and it is a great way to get your foot in the door to making money with your blog.
I am Pinterest manager, I’ve done blog coaching, I do Pinterest account audits, and more. If you can come up with a service that people need from you, all you need to do after that is start creating content around the topic!
All of my clients come from my YouTube videos where I used to talk about Pinterest a lot. And I am still booking clients to this day for videos that I posted years ago!
MISTAKE 6: Ignoring Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog If you are ignoring Pinterest for your blog, you are leaving so many pageviews (and money) on the table!
As you can tell, I do a lot with Pinterest, so I may be biased when I say it is the single best place for new and established bloggers to drive traffic to their blogs.
But I say that for good reason! As a monthly Pinterest manager, I have seen what Pinterest can do for client accounts. Take a look at these client results I have gotten:
These are the numbers from multiple accounts getting insane results right now on Pinterest! I’m not kidding when I say you’re missing out on a HUGE chunk of traffic if you aren’t using Pinterest.
Just like this account:
Or even if you are using Pinterest, maybe you’re not seeing the results like my clients. Then it’s a good time to start learning!
I took all of the strategies that I’ve learned since 2019 on Pinterest and packaged it all up in my course Pinterest Simplicity. So if you want to know how to grow your Pinterest this year, check out the course right HERE!
MISTAKE 7: Not sticking to a blogging schedule One of the harsh realities that you’ll learn as you blog is, that it can sometimes be hard to motivate yourself to blog!
And you can’t just do whatever you feel like whenever you feel like if you’re looking to take this job full time and make a full-time living blogging.
You need a blogging schedule, and you need to stick to it.
Especially if you have a full-time job and are hoping to quit that job any time soon- you need to stick to a blogging schedule.
Choose a time each day or week that you’ll use to work on your blog. Pick a day that you’ll release content on for that week and make sure you stick to it.
When I didn’t have a blogging schedule I did whatever, whenever, and after a while, I looked back and realized I was sporadically posting to my blog!
There would be weeks I missed that just passed me by and I didn’t even notice. Time just got away from me. Until I created a schedule and stuck to it.
MISTAKE 8: Taking on too many blogging tasks at once This is another big no-no as a blogger- taking on too many things at once. This goes hand in hand with working on the wrong things and not having a schedule.
As bloggers, there are so many hats we wear. So it’s easy to get distracted!
Not to mention everything that we have going on OUTSIDE of our blogs as well. (Because sometimes I forget there is life outside of the blog!)
If you are trying to run all the social media accounts, grow an email list, create products, learn affiliate marketing, and post 3-5 times a week on your blog all at once, things are going to fall apart on you.
Ask me how I know.
Last year, I cut back big on things that were going on in my business and blog. I expanded way too soon, way too fast. I tested out a lot of things and some of them didn’t work out.
And my business suffered for it!
When you start a blog, you really need to make a list of things you want to do, focus on, or accomplish, and work through that list one by one- not all at once.
For example, taking my Pinterest course and mastering how to use Pinterest for your blog.
Posting one blog post a week while you’re going through the 14-day affiliate surge challenge.
If you find yourself all over the place, overwhelmed by all the tasks you have to do, one of two things can happen.
You’ll either not learn as much or do as well in all the tasks because you’ve spread yourself so thin, or you’ll get so overwhelmed you’ll stop blogging altogether.
And you don’t want either of those things to happen! So focus on one thing at a time, master it, and then move on!
MISTAKE 9: Ignoring your email list Now I know I just said to not take on too many tasks at once, but one of the important things on your to-do list should be starting and growing an email list.
The thing about your blog is, that most people will never come back to it if they don’t have a reason to. Most people will see your blog on Pinterest, read the article and they may never return.
Unless you have an email list on a site like Convertkit.
When you get someone onto your email list, then you’ll be in their inbox consistently. You can send them helpful emails, links back to your blog, and just an overall reminder that you exist!
An email list is where much of the affiliate marketing revenue and sales can happen.
Most people who visit a blog once won’t buy from you. Because they don’t trust you yet and they have no idea who you are.
Most people also need to hear about a product or service more than once before buying!
So, with an email list, you’ll be providing them valuable information on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis (however often you choose to email people) and you’ll be top of mind!
An email list is where you build trust and a relationship to turn a reader into a customer. Not only are you going to send them free valuable information, but you can also send them affiliate links, products, services, or deals to get them to buy from you!
The best email service out there is Converkit. It was made by a blogger, for bloggers and it’s the only email service I’ve ever been with!
You can offer freebies to people like this one:
And you can set up an automated sequence to auto-send out emails to people! Which essentially sets you up to receive totally passive income with very little upkeep.
It works like this:
Create freebie -> Get signup -> Add to an automation -> Provide value -> Pitch product -> Sell product -> Repeat!
Your products can sell on autopilot and all you have to do is drive traffic to your free offer. It’s that simple!
| Sign up for Converkit HERE and get started making your first automated sequence right away!
MISTAKE 10: Quitting too early And the last mistake is simply quitting too early!
Blogging can take a lot of time, and a lot can go wrong! It can really take some time to get right and start seeing results.
So make sure you stick to it for longer than 6 months! It can sometimes take over a year to see results. Which is definitely a long time, but once you do see the results it makes everything all worth it.
These are the 10 beginner blogging mistakes you could be making! How many of them are you making? Let me know in the comment below!