Have you created a website or a blog? 

If yes, welcome to the blogging world.

When people tell me they are bloggers, it gives me joy because blogging is one of the lucrative business ideas in 2023. So you don’t have to joke with it. It may not be paying you now, but give it time.

However, if you’ve decided to own a blog, that means you will be competing with more than 152 million blogs in the blogosphere.

Mistakes can ruin any business. Even in blogging, they are certain mistakes you must avoid if you really want to be a successful blogger.

In this post, I will share 10 blogging mistakes to avoid to grow your blogging business to the next level.

#1: Having No Business plan

This is one of the blogging mistakes to avoid. If you want to leverage blogging, you must be willing to make it a business, and writing a business plan is the starting point.

To be frank, I started blogging without a business plan. Do you know what happened?

• At one point I was fed up. I can’t move on again.
• I had no vision. I couldn’t determine the future of the blog
• I knew nothing about Niche. I was blogging about everything

In fact, my first post was plagiarized content. I copied it from Google and posted it on the blog. I deleted it when I discovered that I might cause trouble to myself.

Therefore, you need a business plan for your blogging business.

A business plan will include

• Your executive summary
• Your blog objectives
• Analyzing your competitors and the keyword they are ranking for
• Sales and marketing plan
• Strategies to make money from your blog
• An exit plan

Yes, I included an exit plan because I discovered a lot of bloggers don’t value it. Sometimes, the best thing for a blog is to just sell it which can be lucrative.

It won’t take you much time to write that. It took me four days to write mine.

#2: Not investing – Always looking for ‘freemium’

I am sick and tired of seeing so many blogs on subdomains like apple.blogspot.com, car.wordpress.com and movie.tumblr.com.

If you want to go for a blogger blog, get yourself a domain name and connect it to your blog.

If you want to go for WordPress, get yourself a domain name and web hosting and then install WordPress as easy as that. A digital marketing company can help you do this

A domain name is note more than $12 (N4k). You can even get web hosting at Namecheap for as low as $20.

A domain name helps build credibility and trust to your blog.

#3: Not posting often

You have to post often if you want to build a successful blog.

Not just any kind of post, but a high quality content that gives value to your audience or can push them to take action.

Bloggers like Linda Ikeji and Bella Naija post frequently – more than 10 articles per day.

Although it’s not easy for someone who is just starting out. But just try and post at least 1-3 times a week.

Fresh contents and regularly updating old contents is needed to keep your audience engaged.

#4: Posting articles without promotion

Many bloggers hit the publish button, log out and then sleep.

This is a blogging mistake that cannot fetch you any traffic.

In fact, more work needs to be done once you hit the publish button.

What I do when I hit the publish button is

• I go to Google webmasters tool and index the post
• Go to Buffer and schedule the post to all my social media platforms
• Use Pilot Poster and schedule to all Facebook groups

Doing this constantly will increase your blog visibility and get more traffic.

#5: Plagiarism

This is a blogging mistake you must avoid at all cost.

I have discovered that some bloggers are very lazy about writing their own posts.

In fact, if you can’t write, then there is no need to blog unless you plan to hire freelancers to write for you.

This is what plagiarism can do

• It will tarnish your image online
• I can lead to an arrest.
• Google AdSense will ban you from using their platform

You need to desist from this.

Even if you need to copy, do it professionally. Cite the blog you copied from and add a link to the post.

#6: Neglecting Email marketing

If you don’t have an email marketing account, you are losing.

It has been proven that email marketing is one the best marketing strategies on the internet. This is because people value their emails

You can’t even do most things on the internet without your mail. whether you want to create a Facebook or twitter account, buy a product online, they will ask you for your email.

Now imagine when you have 5,000 email subscribers, that money.

Personally, I would rather prefer having 10k email subscribers to 10k followers on twitter or Facebook.

#7: Not building a social media audience

You have to start creating value on social media if you want people to know you and your business.

Don’t post too many links in your updates.

Learn to post updates that people like and can make them take action.

#8: Blogging mistakes to avoid – Neglecting SEO

Search engine optimization is very important in online business. Don’t ever do without it.

How do you get started?

• Index your posts in google, bing and Yandex webmasters tools
• Use SEO plugins like Yoast, Rankmath or AllInOneSEO
• Writing quality content.
• Build Backlinks

I want to let you know that SEO takes time to work. You have to give it time.

#9: Not networking

If you don’t get connected to your fellow bloggers, then how do you think you will succeed? 

Join blogging groups on Facebook. Follow popular bloggers on twitter and you will see how you will improve.

Don’t forget the power of teamwork. Form your own team of bloggers with similar mindset.

#10: Depending only on AdSense

A lot of newbie bloggers know about Google Adsense, but they depend on it so much to make money online.

There are many ways you can make money from your blog.

• Sponsored posts
• Freelance services
• Affiliate marketing
• Digital products
• Online Courses

You don’t rely totally on Adsense.

Wrapping up

If you want to succeed in blogging and make more money in 2023, you have to change your approach. Avoiding these blogging mistakes is very important to grow your blogging business.