Serious Mistakes to Avoid as a Blogger

Mistakes are very expensive in blogging and it can seriously hamper your ability to grow and accomplish your goals as an online entrepreneur. I have experienced this personally in my own blogging career that I wanted to share that with you, so that you won’t make the same mistakes in your blogging career. A silly mistake committed now can cost you very heavily in the long run.

Some mistakes can dangerously slow down the efficiency of your blog by preventing it from becoming the best, and some can jeopardize the very existence of your blog. Essentially any mistake that you make during the planning phase of your blogging career can either bring your blogging career to a grinding halt or may prevent your blog from evolving into the best in its class, and can seriously affect your income potential. So ultimately it all boils down to in-depth research and planning before launching your blog.

That’s why, it is very important to have a clear cut plan about each task that you undertake in your blogging venture – right from the beginning. To have that kind of precision planning, you must have already conducted an in-depth research about your target market, the topic of your blog and gained immense knowledge about your target audience and their needs. And to save you from a crisis situation, you must also possess an efficient contingency plan to effectively tackle such situations in the minimum possible time, if you are ever faced with one.

So in a nutshell, never bypass these 2 cardinal rules of research and planning; and if you do, be prepared to face every unpleasant surprise, financial losses and frustrations in your blogging career. Research and planning are the 2 strong pillars on which your blog is built on; without them your online empire would surely come crashing down.

In this post I have discussed 3 of the most crucial tips that will help you gain the maximum productivity, efficiency and profits in your blogging venture. These are some vital “Don’ts” that you need to follow if you really want to become a successful blogger.

Don’t Buy any Website Builders

This is one of the major mistakes that I committed before launching my first blog. And I am sure many new comers would definitely do this same mistake of buying a website building software to create their blog.

I was in a hurry to see my blog go live and make some fast bucks, so my research was limited and done haphazardly. I never researched for any information like “how to start a blog” or “how to launch a blog successfully”. Instead I was foolishly searching for a website building software that could help me create a website as quickly as possible, which landed me on many flashy sales pages selling expensive website builders promising all kinds of tall claims. Unable to wait anymore, I finally took that hasty plunge by settling down for a clumsy stripped down website builder by spending around $50 of my hard earned money. I was ripped off! It’s a real pain to create, update and publish my blog using that website builder and I badly repent for taking such a daft decision. Had I continued my research for few more days or done it in a slightly different way using different search terms, I wouldn’t have ended up committing such a serious mistake.

If you are an absolute beginner who’s planning to launch your blog for professional blogging and online business, please don’t buy a website builder. You don’t need it at all! All you need to do is go to WordPress.org and download the latest version of WordPress and install it on your web hosting space. That’s It! You are all set to roll! You will have a highly customizable, robust, easy to use, professional and efficient website builder cum Content Management System cum full fledged website for doing some serious blogging!

Don’t use Free Blogging Platforms

This is another serious mistake committed by most of the newbie bloggers. And I was no different at all. But luckily the ones that I created on the free blogging platforms were never pursued seriously. Never rely on a free blog hosting service like WordPress.com or Blogger.com if you are planning for a serious entry as a professional blogger. They are suitable for personal bloggers or hobbyists who are not aiming to generate revenue from their blogging activity.

If you choose a free blogging platform you are at the mercy of the company that is hosting your blog. They can shut down your blog at any time they want, without giving you any reasons or warnings. Don’t be surprised if they take that drastic step of shutting down your blog on one fine morning, after your blog has grown considerably in terms of traffic, money and have evolved into an authority site; and after you have put in so much of work on it – for years and created hundreds of high quality blog posts. Do I need to describe the amount of mental agony and financial loss that you have to put up with when you realize the shocking truth that your million dollar business is no more?

Free blogging platforms also seriously lack in terms of customization, scalability and monetization features. You cannot have an exclusive domain name for your blog (eg www [dot] yourblog [dot]com) if you are on a free blogging platform. This prevents you from building a professional image of a serious online entrepreneur and a good reputation for your blog.

Don’t Choose a wrong Topic

This is another biggest mistake that many of the bloggers do! Choose your topic wisely! Never choose a topic for your blog in which you have zero experience or knowledge – just because that market has a lot of money making potential. It just won’t work out that way. I am talking from my personal experience.  Money shouldn’t be the initial priority in blogging at least when you’re starting off. You need to first build a good reputation for your blog in your niche – as an authority blog – by creating awesome content for your blog on a regular basis. This will help your blog grow organically, drawing more and more visitors to it, and making some great money on the way. If you launch your blog on a wrong topic, you will soon start struggling to find the right content for your audience and blogging may soon become an intimidating task rather than an enjoyable experience – which it definitely should be. And most importantly, your audience would easily see you through and will start looking at you as a con artist trying to rip them off through affiliate ads and rehashed content, which can seriously endanger your existence as a blogging career and damage your online reputation.

Conclusion

These are some of the critical “Don’ts” that you must avoid doing in your blogging venture in order to build a highly sustainable and flourishing online empire.

So please don’t commit these mistakes – ever!

I hope it was enlightening enough to read this post. I am sure these tips will definitely help you take the right decisions before launching a blog. I will be coming up with more useful posts that will help you become a better blogger. So keep in touch with my blog by subscribing to the RSS feeds.