When I started my first blog (which is also my main blog), back in 2010, it was just a pure hobby experiment. After 2 years I decided to build it with a more serious approach that focused on delivering userful content for my readers and also generate revenue for me.
However due to lack of proper knowledge I did things completely wrong that resulted into just nothing. I went on doing these mistakes many years until I learnt the right process through an intense cycle of trial and error.
After I fixed my mistakes and developed my blog in the right direction, my earnings increased and crossed over the $10,000 per month mark. Eventually I made over 300,000 dollars from just 1 blog in passive income.
With mistakes you do learn but also hurt or prolong your chances of making money online from your blog and its important to learn from others whenever you have the opportunity to do so.
Knowing the common pit-falls will help you safe-guard yourself in the journey of blogging and reach your financial goals faster.
Let me explain bit by bit, some of my biggest mistakes.
1. Not deciding a niche first
I started my first blog purely out of enthusiasm to learn to make websites. I had no idea what a blog does and what we can achieve with it. I simply setup a site and posted extremely random content on it.
Sometimes I would post funny jokes, or some of my daily life experiences related to my profession (I have a background in software engineering).
I kept doing it for many years without seeing much growth in terms of traffic and revenue. For many years I could not make any decent monthly income out of it. Honestly at that point of time I did not even care, since I was working as a freelance software developer.
Many years later I decided to focus my blog on one particular niche (its in Tech niche). After I started focusing on one niche and posting content regularly in that particular niche only, based on keyword research, the traffic on my blog soared and I touched over 10,000 dollars/month in passive income.
This is the biggest mistake new bloggers tend to make. That is not knowing their niche.
Even if you don’t have a clear goal of what you shall be writing about, you should atleast know your field of interest, or passion or what things you find most interesting to talk or write about.
A Niche is the “Subject” that your blog or website talks about all day and all night. Your blog is like a book on that Subject.
Your blog should have posts, articles about a certain subject or niche that you are good at.
Your goal is to share your knowledge, expertise and experiences about that one particular subject. Ofcourse you can occasionally write about other topics as well, but having a primary niche is VERY IMPORTANT!
It could be travelling, cooking, gardening, beauty tips, health tips, real estate, software engineering etc.
But it has to be GOOD at atleast one thing.
A lot of people start a very generic blog and start writing about random things that happen in their daily lives. This is okay in the initial stages of your blog development. But if you keep doing this for long, you will eventually end up investing too much time without any valuable returns.
To save your time and money in the long run, and actually MAKE MONEY, its important to decide a niche first before you start your blog.
If you need help selecting your niche you can reach out to me and I would be glad to help! Check out the contact page for my contact details.
2. Not Knowing the basics of traffic
If you are planning to make a new blog, you should know how the world of websites and internet works and how actually you are going to make money.
Of course you know how it works. Billions of people like you around the world use their computers and smartphones to search something online and then read a website that shows up in search results.
But besides that you also need to know the system that works behind the scene. Building the website is the first part and generating traffic is the next.
Traffic can be generated through search engines like google, and social platforms like facebook, twitter, pinterest etc.
Make sure to read a lot about SEO and content promotion on social platforms at the minimum. Learning about seo will enable you to build a website that can generate traffic from search engines. And social promotion will teach you how to generate visitors from sites like facebook.
Writing content on your website and promotion go hand in hand. You publish a post, then promote it. You write the next post and then again promote it.
Not knowing proper seo can cost you a lot of time later on, when you would have to sit and fix stuff.
3. Not Having a Plan
With my first blog I used to post on casual topics in the initial years. This was because my main job was freelance software development the blog was actually my side hustle. And since it did not contribute much to my income, I did not pay much attention to it either.
This is a problem with many bloggers actually. That is not having a proper plan for building content.
To ensure the success of your blog you need something called a “CONTENT STRATEGY”. You might have heard it before because it is the most talked about thing in the blogging and social marketing field.
With a proper content strategy you basically first make a plan of what you shall be posting and how you shall be developing that content. You do not need to plan for 10000 posts in advance, but you should certainly make a plan for atleast 10-30 posts in advance.
Making a content strategy on paper gives you more clarity on what you should and can write about. Its the brainstorming process!
4. Not researching competitor
The most important golden rule of business or “marketing” in general is to do “market research”. In very simple words, look at what your competitors are doing and how are they crushing it for great success!
All of us have our own unique vision and imagination of how we want our blog to be, but when we look at others, we learn and get inspiration that would otherwise take longer if done all alone.
So look at other blogs in your niche and see what kind of articles they are writing. Take a look at which of the articles are receiving the most comments and this will give you an idea of how to find popular topics in that niche.
5. Not making a work schedule
Millions of times it has been told, that consistency is the key to success with anything and blogging is not different. If you want to see fast results with your blog then you have to be consistent which requires a proper work schedule.
Think of your blog as a full-time job and dedicate time accordingly. Your blog might practically be your side hustle, but inside your mind you should respect it as much as your main job or business.
Whether its 2 hours a day or 10 hours per week, or just work on weekends. Make sure you make a plan and religiously stick to it without any procrastination.
Some bloggers tend to get lazy the moment they see little success beyond their expectation. I know this because it happend to ME. Yes ME!
When I saw big success with my blog for the first time, I did get lazy because I thought that now I am about to reach the top of the world in no time. And that did affect my blog growth in different ways. So you should not make this difference.
Whether you are a beginner or a already running a decent blog, you should work on it considering it to be your career and profession.
Mom bloggers often have kids to take care of and find it difficult to manage multiple things at a time. But still you have to do it. Nobody is coming home to do it for you.
Look for ways to increase your productivity. Look at how you can save time and get more done in less time through out every single day. You day job, household duties and what not. There is a way to manage time better.
Learn to manage time, because time is key to success!
Question for you
Are you also a blogger… Which mistake do you think you make the most when it comes to blogging.
Let us know in the comments below. And if you need any help in growing your blog feel free to reach out to me. Check the contact page.