Well, congrats on your new blog – at least when asked what you do now, you can say: ‘I blog!’ However, that is just the tip of the iceberg …after answering the title blogger, it is important to avoid the common mistakes newbie bloggers commit.
So, what are the mistakes newbie bloggers make and how do you avoid them?
First Mistake: Thinking Anything Other than a Top Level Domain is OK
Well, the urge to go for the cheapest stuff out there is great – and at times may prove overpowering especially when one has no idea where an adventure would end. It is thus common and natural to go for a .blogspot or a .wordpress extension when starting up a blog. The implications? Your blog is controlled by another entity, you cannot customize your blog in the manner and fashion you want and always stand the risk of complete shut down. Not something to wish your worst enemy if you ask me. The last straw is that Google is finding it relatively difficult to accept these ‘low level domains’ into its program, Adsense. If your plan is to go professional and not remain an amateur ad infinitum, your best best is self hosting!
Second Mistake: Spamming
Spamming merits the first position by any standard used – for it the one singular almost every newbie blogger is guilty of. The reason why the .com precedes it is because domain name is usually the first step every blogger must take.
Back to spamming. Every newbie blogger believes that the only way to get traffic to a new site is to spam links, here and there and possibly buy even low quality ones from merchants whose business is to sell links – no matter the quality. A quick word: spamming never pays! Every webmaster hates it with passion (that’s why we all have Askimet installed). Google frowns at it with passion too – that is the reason the sandbox was invented. Build links steadily and never result to spam as a new blogger, for more often than not, it backfires, with disastrous consequences! Remember, Alexa or Google rankings do not change overnight – tis a gradual procedure!
Third Mistake: Lack of Consistency
Nothing pushes readers away more than bloggers that are not consistent. With time, it is your most loyal readers that mention your blog in their tweets or status updates. From there, you get many more readers and the effect is geometric! But would this happen when for two weeks running, there is nothing new on your blog? Or at worst, a lame excuse why nothing has been uploaded? The answer, definitely, is no! Three times a week is fair. For supreme results however, blog everyday!
Fourth Mistake: Copy and Paste Syndrome
Most newbie Bloggers assume Goggle is very unintelligent. It is common to see the exact replica of a post on more than 10 blogs. Haba! If you launch your blogging career with this mindset, you sure won’t go far – for somehow, Google manages to run a comprehensive plagiarism check on all contents passing through their filters. That explains why after copying a post word for word, the original post may rank well and yours may be no where to be seen. Watch out! You cannot cheat the system!! Take your time and write original posts that have value, do some SEO and wait. You sure would reap a bounty harvest!
Fifth Mistake: A Blog without a Sitemap
Imagine being thrown into a giant medieval castle and asked to find the Master Bedroom. Of course, attempting such a task would amount to a serious waste of time and precious energy. Creating a blog and launching it without preparing it’s sitemap is akin to building that very medieval castle mentioned above and enjoining the search engines to find you! They may, they may not. And for our good, I think they better – and quickly too!
Questions, comments? Let’s hear you. I’ll answer everyone of them!
