Because both the world of blogging and social media changes at almost lightning fast speeds, there is a pretty significant and continual learning cycle involved with blogging. I have been a blogger since 2012 and I know that I still learn something new everyday. There are quite a few things you can do to help your blog be successful, and back in May I wrote about some of the Secrets To Successful Blogging. Today I would like to delve a little further into that idea, but instead talk about the 5 mistakes you can make to sabotage yourself as a blogger.
Don’t Make These Five Blogging Mistakes
Delay Purchasing Your Domain Name
If you want to avoid heartache in your blogging future buy your domain name right from the start! It’s about $7. Back when I started blogging I met another blogger who learned a hard lesson. She had a blogspot.com domain name and finally decided it was time to transition her blog to a domain. Unfortunately someone had bought her domain name before she did with the hopes that she would someday pay a premium for the rights to her name. Terrible, right? That blogger had to change her name, all of her social media accounts, transition her comments and everything, losing hours of precious work that wouldn’t have happened if she had bought the name and hosting right from the start.
I use Go Daddy and have been really happy with their service and their fast turn around time to my questions and concerns. There are lots of other providers out there and you can pick your favorite, but start your blog off on the right foot and do not delay purchasing your domain name.
Not Networking
The internet is a very big place and just sometimes you might be lucky enough to write a post that completely and 100 percent goes organically viral without you doing a thing to share it, but the likelihood of that happening is about a zillion to one. Successful bloggers have a tribe and that tribe helps each other by supporting one another through comments, visits and even social media shares. The network you cultivate will be incredibly important going forward as a blogger. If you don’t have tribe, start cultivating one now and you will see the difference it makes to your blog.
Neglect Social Media
As a blogger I spend roughly 40 percent of my time using social media to help promote both my blog and specific posts I have written. Utilizing social media in an effective manner is one of the greatest tools a blogger has. Neglecting it will hurt you. It is important though to focus your efforts within those social media channels for which your time and effort gets the most “bang for your buck”. Determining which channel gets you the most interaction is easily done by setting up a KLOUT account. Within KLOUT you can connect all of your social media channels and then it ranks which posts, tweets or videos give you the most interaction. This helps you to narrow down your playing field so that instead of jumping around between social media channels, you can pinpoint the ones that benefit you and your blog the most.
Burn Yourself Out
A lot of bloggers hit the blogging world running at sprint speeds, committing themselves to host every blog hop they can, writing 5 posts a week and generally just wearing themselves out in the process. If you are able to maintain that type of blogging schedule kudos to you, but I know I can’t and so I set my own blogging pace and only commit to those blogging commitments I feel I can feasibly accomplish. As a blogger it is important to know your blogging limits and not stretch yourself too thin or ultimately you will burn out and as I have seen far too many times, end up leaving blogging altogether.
Compare Yourself With Other Bloggers
This is almost the biggest mistake a blogger can ever make. In the world of blogging there are various stages of bloggers and it is almost impossible to find a blog that is exactly like yours in order to compare yourself. If you do try to compare yourself to a blogger who has been doing it for years and get depressed every time you see them getting a job or contract you wish you had all you will successfully be doing is making yourself miserable. STOP COMPARING! Instead focus your efforts on making your blog the very best it can be.
Stay Happy! Stay Informed!
Love,
Jen
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