Mistakes I Made As A New Blogger

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These are the mistakes that I’ve made as a new blogger. These mistakes most likely made my time harder. Avoid making these mistakes or if you are making any of these currently, I’d fix them. These mistakes will make your blogging journey difficult, and if you plan on making money blogging, keep you broke!

1. Using A Free hosting site

I started using WordPress.com. You do not want to use a free website. For instance, you are limited as to ways you can make money. Some platforms don’t allow affiliate links. You can’t show ads on a free WordPress.com.

Also if the site feels your content doesn’t align with their rules, they can suspend your account. If WordPress or Blogger decided to close their doors one day, your blog will go with it. Some websites load slowly which will make viewers bounce before they can see your content.

Back in 2019, I wrote a small ebook about autism. No one bought it. Probably due to the free website and the free domain. The viewer probably felt that if I couldn’t invest in a custom domain and hosting why should they show interest in what I am selling.

The truth was I had no money to pay for a domain and hosting. I looked into Bluehost and they were way out of my budget. Then I found Namecheap. I also linked my Redbubble store and that’s also why I probably wasn’t driving sales. Trying to sell something from a free website had people suspicious.

Also on a free WordPress site, you cannot install any plugins.

2. Not promoting my blog

Promotion never stops. When I was not publishing new blog posts, I should have been promoting others to keep the traffic coming. This could be why I struggle to get sales with Amazon’s program. I am not promoting my blog enough. I also have a Youtube channel and could be using that to drive people to my blog. Promote on your socials, Pinterest, use your Youtube channel, etc.

3. Not Niching down

having a topic and a specific topic is important because viewers know what to expect. I blogged about Youtube advice then autism, photography, travel. I branched out too much. It’s normal for a topic to have sub-niches. Now I blog about gaming and also have product reviews and first impression game reviews as well. it goes together.

However, travel and let’s say health do not go together vs travel, food (you may blog about different cuisines in other countries.) Only doing one topic may cause you to burn out. At the same time you want any subcategories to cross over somehow

4. Getting A free Domain

I made a blog post about this. When I moved to Blogger, I had no money to purchase a domain so I took a free one from a site called Freenom. Free stuff is not always the best. The domain I bought had “tk” at the end.

Notice how the free URLs got some stuff at the end that no one knows what they mean. I feel it could have made viewers more skeptical. That is most likely why I could not get sales on aff. marketing and why I had no luck getting sales on my little ebook. The viewer could not take me seriously/or trust me with a domain like that.

This is a bad idea. If you apply for aff. marketing site, sponsorships, etc. They will be like “Nah fam”

5. Grammatical Errors

This can make people close your blog and go to someone else if there are too many mistakes; if they can’t understand what you’re saying. Then I found Grammarly. It catches grammatical mistakes, run-on sentences, and more. Always search for a checklist of everything you need to start a blog. I may upgrade to Grammarly’s premium subscription. it has more features and catches more mistakes.

6. Too Worried About Making Money

When I blogged about autism, I talked about how I struggled to find a job. Then I thought to turn to self-employment with blogging. Then I learned about aff. marketing. It should have clicked that it will be close to impossible to make money on a site with a free domain. I should have, at least, used my Youtube channel.

Different niches have different ad rates. Travel could have a different ad rate than let’s say, finance. This is just an example. I used to blog about autism and hardly made a dent in ads. I rebranded to gaming and my AdSense earnings went from 26 ( I was monetized on YT before the new rules) to $30. We all want to make money for doing what we love, but don’t make that the ONLY reason you’re blogging or streaming, etc.

7. Not Using My YouTube channel to promote my blog

Youtube is a great place to promote your blog by linking it in your description box and pinned comments. Therefore viewers will know where else to find me.

I wasn’t being inclusive like not using they/them pronouns for non-binary folks. At the time I didn’t know. This is why you update older blog posts as you learn new things

I should be updating older content. This was paramount while I was blogging about autism. In case I used words I didn’t know were offensive. Once I learned to go through old posts and switch the words out.

I should have been going to blogging groups. Looking for related subreddits etc.

I am sure others made these mistakes. if you are going to start a blog, Youtube, podcast etc then you should search “how to start a blog” “how to start a podcast”

This will save you the trouble in the end.

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