5 Common Blog Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

If you are just starting a blog or are more experienced on your blogging journey, it is easy to make mistakes.  Generally these mistakes arise out of 5 general areas, 1) not having the right audience or content, 2) not having a content strategy or not adjusting it when needed, 3) not using search engine optimization, 4) a lack of promotion or engagement, 5) not maintaining or growing the blog.

The Five Common Categories of Blog Mistakes

Below I will further define each area and discuss solutions to each.

1. Wrong Audience and/or Wrong Content or Both

Understanding Your Audience

In order to have an effective blog, one needs to understand their audience and provide the proper content for them.  Here are the main points to focus on:

•  Understanding Your Target Audience: Ask yourself, who exactly are you writing for?  What are their interests and pain points?
• What are the Challenges of Your Audience?: Try to identify the pain points and common questions within your niche.
• What are the Goals of Your Audience?: Try to understand what visitors to your blog hope to achieve by reading your blog.
• Where do Your Readers Hang Out Online?: Find out what social media platforms your readers are active on.  It is good to remember, there are different strokes for different folks.

Creating content for Your Audience

•  Focus on Solving Problems: Try to address the pain points and offer solutions to the issues that were identified in your target audience research.
• Write in a Tone that Resonates: Write in a style that is familiar to your audience.  For instance, are they looking for informative and authoritative content or something that is casual and conversational?
• Answer their Questions: When users ask questions, try to provide clear and concise answers.  More complex questions or groups of questions can be answered in another blog post of its own.
• Offer Value at Every Stage of the Buyer’s Journey: Have content that is suitable for readers at every stage of awareness.  Awareness can range from those just discovering your niche to those ready to convert.  This tip is especially helpful for those with an eCommerce intergration with their blog.

Some Examples of Solving the Problems Identified in #1

•  Example 1: A blog about Gardening for Beginners.  The target audience is young adults or millenials who are new homeowners and want to learn how to start a garden.
  •  Understanding the Audience: Since this audience has just bought a house, they likely do not have much experience and are intimidated by gardening.  Often they will go to social media platforms like Pinterest and Instagram to find inspiration.
  • Content for Your Blog: For this audience you will want to have blog posts with clear instructions on easy-to-care for plants.  It helps to have plenty of images and avoid technical language.  Tips for troubleshooting is also helpful.
• Example 2: A blog about Native Plants and Pollinators.  The target audience is composed of more experienced gardeners who are interested in a garden containing plants that are native to their area and support pollinators.  They also like to show their knowledge.
  •  Understanding the Audience: This audience likely has some experience in gardening and can create habitats and micro-habitats needed for the particular plants.  They understand about structuring a garden and are also more interested in helping the environment overall.
  • Content for Your Blog: For this audience you want to have blog posts with descriptions of the plants, their hosts, the plant hardiness zone, the plant’s growing requirements, and other information.  It is likely that they will have to get the plants at a native plant nursery or online and may need guidance finding and selecting those plants that are native to their area.  Information on the hosted species (butterflies) is also helpful as well as the environment in general.

2. Lack of a Content Strategy and Content Creation Problems

The best content depends on your niche and the preferences of your audience.  Experiment with different topics and content types to see what does the best and you will be on your way to success.

Choose Topics that Relate to Your Audience

•  Evergreen Content: Focus on topics that change very little over time.  These include basic knowledge of your topic, how-to guides, and explanations of core concepts.
• Have some Trending Topics: Include some newer information in your blog such as current news and latest developments in the niche.
• Take a Look at What is Doing Well: If you have a lot of posts, see which are doing well and which ones are not doing as well.  Try to write more posts of the type or of the topics that are doing well.
• Conduct Keyword Research: Researching keywords can help you identify keywords that have good search volume and are what your target audience is searching for.  More on this in the SEO section.

Have a Content Calendar and Consistently Post

•  Keep a Content Calendar: Plan blog posts in advance so your posts are organized and stay relevant to the larger topic.
• Maintain Consistency in Posting: Publish new content regularly, preferably with a high rate of posts to keep your audience engaged.  It is important to keep up with the schedule (Gilbert, et al 2016), especially if your users are conditioned to a schedule of posts.

Be Sure to Create High-Quality Content

•  Do Thorough Research: Back up your opinions and claims with credible sources and data.  Also include hard to find information to make your blog stand out (Gilbert, et al 2016), which is especially important in the age of artificial intelligence (AI).
• Offer Unique Insights from Your Own Experience: Do not just put another spin on what has already been said.  Add you own perspective and analysis.  This helps you build a strong personal brand (Gilbert, et al 2016).
• Focus on Reliability: Use clear and concise language, break up your text with sub-headings and bullets (like I am doing in this post), and vary sentence sturcture.  For most on this see this blog post.
• Optimize for Readability on Different Devices: Make sure that your content looks good on whatever device your readers are using, be it a desktop, tablet, or smartphone.

Have Varying Content Formats

•  Blog Posts: The fundamental content of a blog, which explores topics in deep detail.
• Listicles: Easy-to-read numbered or bulleted posts for quick tips or step-by-step guides.  This section is an example.
• Infographics: Visual representations of data and information that are more easily learned or digestable.
• Videos: An interactive way to present complex topics or demonstrations.
• Images and Visuals: Helps to break up text, add visual interest, sometime levity, and enhances content understanding.

2. Not Having a Search Engine OPtimization (SEO) Strategy

Having a strategy dealing with SEO is essential in order for your content to be found by search engines, for it to attract traffic, and establishing your blog as a trusted resource within your niche.  Remember, SEO is not a one a done process.  Algorithms are continually changing and blog and website need to change with it to be properly optimized.  What does not change, however, is the value of writing quality content, a strategy you should always have.

The Fundamentals of Keyword Research

•  The Fundamentals of SEO in General:  SEO hinges on understanding what keywords your target audience uses to search for information related to your niche and being competitive in those keywords.
• Use SEO Tools to Find Keywords: Plenty of tools are available to look for keywords.  Below is a list of some of them:
  •  Answer the Public: A tool that shows how keywords are being phrased in actual searches.
  • AnswerSocrates: A free similar to Answer the Public
  • Google Keyword Planner: A free tool that gets information straight from the source.
  • Searchvolume.io: A keyword tool that can look for keywords in bulk.
  • Ahrefs and Semrush: Both paid keyword tools that offer comprehensive information on keywords.
• Long-tail Keywords: Try to look for long-tail keywords that are more specific and do not have the competition that the broader more encompassing keywords have.  In addition, the more focused keywords and phrases tend to have a higher conversion rate.

Optimizing Your Content

•  Once you Get Your Keyword or Phrase Integrate It: Naturally integrate your keywords throughout your blog post, including the headings, titles, meta descriptions, and the body content.  I have found that if you have the right subject, you do not have to think about the keyword and it will come out on its own.
• Do not Stuff the Keywords: While integrating the keywords, be cognizant of not using them too much, a practice that is called ‘keyword stuffing.”  As stated above, try instead to create informative and valuable content.

The Technical Side of SEO

•  Pay Attention to Your Site Speed: Use a tool such as Google Lighthouse to make sure that your website is loading quickly, especially on mobile devices.  If your site does not get an “A” (90+) for site speed, your SEO and user experience will suffer.  The components of site speed are also called core web vitals, the accumulation of which produce the score.
• Mobile-Friendliness is a Must: As stated above make sure your blog is optimized for mobile devices.
• Internal Links: Link to relevant content within your own site to improve navigation, keep users on your site longer, and to let Google know which pages are more important.
• External Linking: Link to websites with authority to show the credibility of your content.

4. Shout Out Your Content from the Rooftops

After writing your blog posr or publishing your website, you do not want it to just site there.  You need to effectively promote your blog on things such as social media and drive audience engagement.  Promoting a blog well leads to a loyal readership, often helps the mental health of the blogger (Tekniker and Cheung 2023), their career (Das, et al 2022), and for medical blogs the patient (Eijkholt, et al 2021).  A good thing to kind in mind is that promotion and engagement of your blog is a two-way street.

Strategies to Get the Word Out

•  Use Social Media: Levarage the power of social media that your target audience is using in order to get the word out, not only about your blog overall, but also new posts.  Channels can include Facebook, Instagram, X, Linkedin, Pinterest, and social media in the Fediverse (Mastodon, Lemmy, etc.).
• Tailor your Content for each Social Media Platform: Each social media platform handles content differently and caters to different audiences.  If you are using a multitude of channels, you need to adjust accordingly.
• Actively Engage in the Community: While being able to promote your blog is a good thing, also try to be an active and engaged community member.  Participate in the forums, show your expertise, and be an asset, rather than just using the community.
• Guest Post on Other Blogs: Reach new audiences by guest posting on other blogs.  This can establish you as an authority and provide backlinks to your own site, helping your SEO.
• Email Marketing: Build up an email list of loyal followers and let them know through a newsletter about the latest blog posts and other valuable content in the field.

Optimizing Content for Social Media

•  Use Attention-Grabbing Headlines and Visuals: Use enticing headlines and images to get users to click through to your blog posts.  However, make sure you stay authentic and do not use click-bait headlines too much.
• Take Advantage of Hashtags: Use hashtags, within reason, to increase the reach and visibility of your content.

Establish and Build a Community of Active Followers

•  Have a Call-to-Action (CTA): Tell your readers what you want them to do after reading the blog post.  It could range from subscribing to an email list, leaving a comment, or sharing the content on social media.
• Be Responsive to Comments: Actively respond to comments and questions left on your blog.  It shows that you value your readers, often provides more information, and gives sense of community.
• Hold a Contest or Giveaway: Hold occasional contests or giveaways related to your niche to build excitement and attract new followers.

5. Maintaining and Growing Your Blog

Once you start your blog and get a few posts published do not just stop and let them recede into the dustbin of digital history.  Keep writing and continue to grow it with new material.  A successful blog will have continuous high-quality content and will be added to on a regular basis.  Below are some ways to do this.

•  Proofreading and Editing: Take steps to ensure your content is free of grammatical errors and typos.  One way is to use a grammar checker (though not foolproof) or have somebody else do the proofreading.  If working solo, such as me, rewriting the material from a word processor to the website can help.  This will allow you to free-write and you will be surprised what errors you find and correct.  In essence, the web version is the second draft.
• Avoid Plagiarism: Make sure that your work is original.  If you use ideas or information from somebdy else’s work be sure to use proper citations.  If, using material from AI, be sure you know where it comes from.
• Leverage Analytics: Check the performance of your blog using analytics tools.  Information obtained can include demographics, traffic sources, and your best posts.  Refine your strategy using this information.
• Refresh Old Content: Do not let old posts gather dust and go to the wayside.  Update old posts with new data, statistics, or new examples.
• Repurpose Your Content: Similar to refreshing the content, try to use older content in a new way such as an infographic, video, or a series on social media.
• Collaborations: Partner with other bloggers for guest posting, joint webinars, or online events.
• Networking: Attend industry conferences or online events to connect with others in your niche.
• Paid Advertising: Utilize paid tools, such as Google Ads or Facebook to drive targeted traffic to your website.

Conclusion

In conclusion, by following the suggestions above, you can hopefully avoid some of the more common mistakes made by bloggers on their blog.  Just remember to keep blogging, keep your content fresh, watch the analytics, engage with your readers, and above all else maintain and continue to grow the blog.  If you need help, feel free to contact a webhead for assistance.

References

•  Das, Saurav, Kevin O’Connor, and Christopher J, McLouth.  2022.  Benefits of Being a Stroke Blogger: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Past Bloggers.  Lippincott and Williams.
• Eijkholt, Marleen, Marilyn Fisher, and Jane Jankowski.  2021.  Patient Rights to Publicity versus Provider Rights to Privacy: Striking a Balance When Blogging in the Medical Setting.  The American Journal of Bioethics 21 (7): 1536.
• Gilbert, Jacqueline A., Dorie Clark, and Donald P. Roy.  2016.  Blogging: What’s all the Fuss?  SAM Advanced Management Journal 81 (4): 4-15.
• Tekniker, Imge, and Rebecca Y.M. Cheung.  2023.  Do Bloggers Have Better Mental Health?  The Social, Cognitive, and Psychological Benefits of Blogging in Emerging Adulthood.  International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 20 (8): 10 pp.