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Guest post by Clyde of WhatBlogsHerMind.com

What is Blogging? Are You Wondering What You Should and Shouldn’t Be Doing as a New Blogger?

What is blogging you’re asking? It is creating and passing on information/content through a website you create, buy or build. This blog post will go over the things you should and shouldn’t be doing as a newbie blogger or a seasoned vet.

Sometimes you think what you do is enough and right, other times, you feel like banging your head against the wall, or against your laptop. What am I doing wrong? What is still missing in my blog? I am not saying that I am an expert in blogging, that I could point out without experiencing it myself what bloggers do and don’t do that should be changed. 

This is my second time blogging, and my blog is already 11 months old, and I have noticed the habits of other bloggers that make me want to wince. I know, I’ve been there too, being a novice and ignorant too, or maybe I still am in other aspects of blogging. 

However, in this post, I’ll be sharing to you the obvious points that we shouldn’t miss as bloggers, amateur or already experienced. First off, I’ll indicate habits that bloggers do that should be changed immediately, then, habits that bloggers usually don’t do that should be altered. 

Mistakes That New Bloggers are Making

Not Creating Enough Content

Writing for a blog post every day is not that easy, especially if you are suffering from burnout. Posting 1 or 2 articles a week would be ideal but not once a month.

There are times that I couldn’t even achieve it, to post even a single article in a week. Instead, what I do is promote or edit my existing articles. You may not be able to post every week but at least, promote every week, preferably every single day. 

Where can you promote your blog posts?

  • Quora
  • Reddit
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Mix
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • Facebook Page
  • Facebook groups
  • Email Newsletter
  • Friends, word of mouth

Putting Too Much Pressure on Oneself

I know, you’re not blogging just to vent, you’re here for money and fame. Yet, we shouldn’t force it if it’s still impossible to get what your neighbor achieved. 

Tip: Don’t compare yourself to anyone else. Everyone is unique, and every line on our palm differs too. 

You should accept that you’re not a superhuman and you have weaknesses and limitations too. Your neighbor may have achieved to have 100,000 K traffic every day in her blog when you only have 10.

That’s not good news at all for a blogger, but good thing is, it’s not yet the end, and there’s always room for improvement. 

Instead of pressuring yourself to get there, tap and congratulate yourself, you have achieved these things. 

Procrastination 

Everyone could be guilty of this and has a tendency to procrastinate. According to Wikipedia, procrastination is an act of avoiding tasks that should be done before a certain deadline. Procrastination hinders you from doing your tasks and achieving your goals. 

How can you even avoid procrastination?

  • Focus on your existing task
  • Look at your checklists (List of to-dos)
  • When you’re writing for your blog post, remove other distractions like your phone and if necessary, disconnect your laptop from the Internet.

Type of procrastination while blogging which you should avoid:

  • Checking stats. Watching and waiting for your page view to increase without doing something wouldn’t even help you to change the stats. 
  • Researching, a lot. Research is good, but too much is already a waste of time. 
  • Spacing out. Instead of imagining and daydreaming to get there or achieve your goals, do something already and start immediately. 

Having a Website or Blog Filled with Ads

You don’t have to explain why you’re having ads on your site, it’s loud and clear, but instead of attracting visitors to click on these ads, these ads make quite the contrary.

Some individuals get easily annoyed to see ads when they’re on the verge of reading especially those pop-up ads that appear out of nowhere. Some ads are even stubborn and don’t disappear right away. 

I’m not discouraging you to become a publisher of these ads but do make sure to choose the right one which fits your brand and your blog. Avoid Propeller ads, or you’ll experience it what happened to me and my blog. They don’t filter the ads they promote using your blog and they wait until you tell them so. 

WHAT BLOGGERS DON’T DO THAT SHOULD BE CHANGED

This is not only for beginners but for experienced bloggers too who could have missed some points, even I myself, am guilty. 

Having No Social Share Icon Buttons

I personally don’t like it when I find and read a blog post that is share-worthy, but there are no social share icons anywhere. I find it frustrating and a total bummer.

You could be wasting traffic and views coming from your social media accounts if the people can’t even share your posts on their own social media, and people find it really inconvenient. 

Do yourself a favor, check your website or your blog. If you can’t find social share icon buttons, then it’s time to change it. I personally use a plugin, Simple Social Icons, but if you want more variations, you can check out Social Pug and Shareaholic.

If you have noticed on other blogs, they have a gallery of photos coming from Instagram. If you want to increase your social media presence and that people will notice that you’re active on other social media too, you can surely showcase your photos too by using a plugin, Instagram Feed. 

Not Creating Any Shareable Pinterest Graphics

You’re on Pinterest but you’re not that active. I guess you have to change that. Pinterest is one of the best social media nowadays for your blog and for getting information for an Internet user who is just looking for a wide variety of info and resources. 

You would enjoy using Pinterest more if you know how other bloggers get more traffic coming from Pinterest and how it has helped them increase their monthly page view. But be sure to claim your website on Pinterest and have it in a business account. 

If you’re on Pinterest but you don’t have Pinterest graphics or pin on your blog posts, you’re missing out a lot here. I don’t simply pin those photos without texts on them, or photos which are too small or too big for Pinterest. 

Having noticed this, I created customizable templates that would make your Pinterest account more colorful and livelier.

Not Making Sure They Are Blogging Legally

Before I started blogging, I didn’t have any idea about the legal aspects of having a blog. I have even used a free privacy policy I got from the Internet and used it for my blog, but I later found out, it can’t even protect my blog.

Now, what is so worrisome is that other bloggers and website owners don’t even have a privacy policy on their site and they’re not that novice in this industry. Perhaps they don’t have any idea why they have to protect their blog. 

Why bother with a privacy policy on your website? It is simply required by law especially if you’re collecting info from your visitors and the penalty differs in every country. 

If you are reading this, then it’s high time for you to protect your blog. There is a blogger/lawyer who sells her legal bundle template at a very affordable price, if you want to know more, you can visit her blog and her products. 

They Don’t Respond to Comments

I am quite guilty of this and I ought to change this immediately and so you too. Why is it important to reply to comments on your post? Being responsive to comments helps improve our SEO score albeit in a minimal way, but it also shows our readers and viewers that we are active and present.

Aside from that, it also builds a relationship with your visitors and encourages that will comment again either on the same post or on the next post. 

Additional tips:

  • Proofread your blog posts using a tool, Grammarly. Divide your post with bullets too to make it more pleasing. 
  • Install Google Analytics to view your stats, but don’t overdo it.
  • Use SEO Yoast plugin, there is also a free version and educate yourself more about SEO. 
  • Have fun and don’t stress yourself too much.
  • Don’t forget to promote your blog post and also support other bloggers. There are a lot of blogging groups on Facebook

Conclusion: What You Should and Shouldn’t Be Doing as a New Blogger

That’s it for this topic about what is blogging and bloggers’ habits that should be maintained and what should change. We are not perfect, and we have a lot of things to do aside from blogging. But there’s always room for improvement and blogging is not a race and contest at all. If you love what you do, it doesn’t even faze you out if you’re not yet reaching your goals, you know yourself, you can do it. 

 Author Bio

What is Blogging and What You Should (and Shouldn't) be Doing

Clyde is the blogger and founder of What Blogs Her Mind which talks about health, lifestyle, and travel. If she’s not working as a nurse, she’s busy with blogging. If she gets burnout, she enjoys discovering Berlin and cooking. You can visit her blog http://www.whatblogshermind.com  and her Instagram account http://www.instagram.com/whatblogshermind.

Find other tips on blogging here:

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