Starting a new blog is an exciting time.
For those who plan on blogging for profit however, it can also be a pretty stressful one. Writing posts and building backlinks takes time and unfortunately, not everyone gets paid for their efforts.
Should you find yourself starting a new blog for the first time, there are a number of important things that you need to get right. Fail to do so and your odds of turning a profit decrease dramatically. Here are eight things not to do when starting a new blog.
1. Starting The Wrong Blog
The biggest mistake that a blogger can make is to dive into the wrong niche. Content might be king but your content isn’t going to mean much if you’re blogging about rocks. Think long and hard about the kind of blog that you want to create. Choose something that you can monetize, something that you can compete in and even more importantly, something that you’re passionate about.
2. Starting a Blog For The Wrong Reasons
There are two things that all bloggers should know before they start out.
- Blogs are rarely very profitable during their first year. Fail to accept this fact and you’re unlikely to make it to year two.
- Don’t start a blog exclusively for money. Passionate bloggers make money, everyone else makes pocket change.
3. Failing to Introduce Yourself
When somebody visits your blog for the first time, they’re not going to know anything about you. If they like your posts, they’re going to become curious and they’re going to visit your About Page. What your About Page says will determine whether or not they return.
Take the time to tweak your About -page, it’s arguably the most important page on your blog. In the very least, it should include the following:
- Who you are (preferably including a photo).
- What your blog is about.
- What makes you qualified to write such a blog.
- What people can expect in the future.
4. Copying Old News
One of the reasons that passion is so important when choosing a blog topic is that it’s opinions that make a blog, not facts. And if you’re not passionate about what you’re writing about, those opinions are going to be pretty hard to come by.
If you think that you can rehash everyone else’s ideas and turn a profit, think again. Regardless of what you’re writing about, you must strive to say something new.
Fail to do so and you’ll just be one more copycat trying to make money from old news.
5. Talking to Yourself
A blog is supposed to be a two way conversation. This means that a blog needs a comment section and it needs a blogger that responds to those comments. Fail to do this and you are essentially just talking to yourself. Nobody likes that guy.
Encourage comments by both asking for them and responding to them. Moderate your comment sections carefully both manually and using the appropriate plug-ins.
6. Posting When You Feel Like It
A lack of updates can kill just about any blog, let alone a new one. Whether you post daily or weekly is irrelevant, what matter’s is that you decide on a schedule and that you stick to it.
When somebody visits your blog, they must know when to expect the next post. Otherwise, why would they return?
7. Expecting The Audience To Come To You
One of the biggest challenges of starting a new blog is actually getting noticed. If you don’t actively promote your blog, you’re going to be waiting a hell of a long time. The easiest way to promote a new blog is to find people interested in the niche and simply talk to them.
In other words, find the most popular blogs in your niche and start commenting on them. Find the most popular forums in your niche and start contributing to the conversation.
“The fastest way to find an audience is to go out looking for one.”
8. Underestimating/Overestimating The Importance Of Search Engine Optimisation
For every profitable niche, there’s a hundred bloggers trying to make a living from it. And because they all use SEO, you’re going to have to use SEO too. Fail to employ basic SEO techniques and you’re going to be fighting an uphill battle from day one.
On the other side of the coin, we have the bloggers that devote all of their efforts into SEO and none of their efforts into creating quality content. Such bloggers might make money in the short term but they’re just a single Google update from losing everything. Optimise your posts for Google but write your posts for your readers.
John Miller enjoys blogging. He mostly writes article on SEO, web development and online marketing. He believes that SEO is a crucial process for ensuring that your blog is a huge success.
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