10 Things to Avoid as a New Blogger

Last Updated on May 4, 2020 by ellduclos

Are you a new blogger wondering what to do now that you started your blog? There are a few things to avoid as a new blogger. When you first start your blog it can be overwhelming. There is SO MUCH to learn, but don’t let that stop you! Blogging is all about trial and error. You find what works for you and what doesn’t. It’s a learning experience, even those who are successful bloggers learn something new everyday! In this blog post I am going to share 10 things that you should avoid as a new blogger.

This is just my own personal experience. I share my trial and error journey with you in hopes that it can help you learn and grow.

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Disclaimer: Affiliate links are used. Read my full disclosure here.

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10 Things to Avoid as a New Blogger

Avoid Comparing your Success 

It’s really hard as a new blogger to avoid comparing your success to someone else’s success. You might see that they have thousands of followers and you don’t. You start to ask yourself, why? Why don’t I have what they have? OR, why is it taking me so long to make money when they made it in 6 months? We often find ourselves comparing our journeys and it’s damaging our path to success.

The more you compare your success to someone else’s, the more you start to feel as if your blog isn’t good enough. That can lead to self doubt and giving up on your blog.

Instead of giving up and comparing your blog to someone else’s, start reflecting on your own progress. Don’t look at someone else’s success, look at YOUR OWN success. You might not have thousands of followers but maybe you have 10 more than you did two days ago. THAT’S PROGRESS! Or maybe you didn’t make thousands of dollars but you made $20!! THAT’S PROGRESS! 

Start looking at your progress and start celebrating your wins, big and small! Let the progress keep you focused and in your own lane. Don’t give up because that progress will all be wasted if you do.

Avoid falling for the “make 6 figures this year” click baits

Don’t fall for the “Make 6 figures this year!” Click baits. No one can map out exactly how you are going to make 6 figures blogging, especially in a short amount of time like a year. HECK, I have been hardcore blogging for almost 3 years now and haven’t reached 6 figures yet. I have an income report of my first two years a blogger that you can check out.

LET ME TELL YOU I WORK MY BUTT OFF and no 6 figures yet! The only thing that will bring you to a 6 figure salary blogging is, HARD WORK, DEDICATION, CONSISTENCY, FINDING YOUR STRATEGIES, and a WHOLE LOT OF PATIENCE. Making money blogging TAKES TIME, and it happens at different times for EVERYONE. It’s NEVER guaranteed.

 Avoid worrying about your numbers over your content

As a new blogger you want to avoid worry about your numbers and instead focus on putting out quality content. This is something I think everyone who is new to blogging finds themselves doing. When I first started blogging I found myself worrying about getting as many followers and subscribers as I could. I spent so much time trying to figure out who follows me and who doesn’t. Guess what, it doesn’t matter! People will eventually follow me if they enjoy my content. That’s what should really matter. How good is your content? You need to also remember that just because your following is small, doesn’t mean your content isn’t good. Growing your blog in the beginning is not easy.

Once you figure out your content marketing strategy the followers will come. Focus on putting out great content and learn how to market that content.

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Avoid Not Targeting Your Audience

When it comes to building your audience you have to make sure you are targeting the right audience. Many bloggers will target OTHER bloggers without even realizing it. We do all of these things to grow our following but most of the time our following is made up of other bloggers. Don’t you want to spice it up a bit?  

If you are like me and blog about blogging often, then YES target other bloggers. However, if you are a beauty, fashion, lifestyle, mom blogger, you need to also target those who aren’t bloggers. You can still engage and follow other bloggers because YES some are interested, but bloggers tend to be competitive.

Try engaging with non-bloggers on Instagram. If you think about it, other bloggers are just like YOU trying to build their following, make money blogging, and look appealing to brands. Unfortunately most will play the follow/unfollow game because they “worry about their numbers” WHERE AS non-bloggers aren’t in competition and could care less about the whole “numbers game.”

You can find those who don’t blog through geo tags. Those who don’t blog are more likely to use geo tags rather than hashtags. For some reason hashtags aren’t as popular for non-bloggers. Maybe you want to target a specific location? Searching geo tags (like Boston) can help you find people in your area, or targeted area.

Avoid Not Planning Ahead

Throughout my blogging journey so far I realized that planning AHEAD & staying organized is necessary. It makes blogging a lot easier. What I usually do is plan out my blog posts a month in advance in my planner. This helps me to visualize what my month will look like blog wise. It also prevents writers block because I already know the posts I need to put out.

I also LOVE using Tailwind to schedule and plan out my Pinterest pins. I don’t always have the time to manually pin.

I put together a post that shares the blogging tasks I like to do daily, weekly and monthly.

Avoid not using Pinterest

I wish I knew about Pinterest marketing right from the start. I was shocked when I found out that Pinterest can be used to explode your blog traffic.

For a while I was manually pinning which grew my Pinterest monthly viewers to 1.6 MILLION. But, I eventually found an EVEN BETTER Pinterest strategy that took my monthly BLOG VIEWS from 5k a month to 5k A WEEK and now I get over 6 million monthly Pinterest views and 100,000 blog views a month.

If you want to find out what that strategy is, I created a detailed affordable E-Course.

Avoid not networking and collaborating

I learned as a new blogger that it’s IMPORTANT to collaborate and network with other bloggers. In the beginning, finding your blog traffic strategy is tough. If you collaborate with other bloggers you are more likely to grow your reach.

Ways to collaborate with other bloggers:

• Exchange guest posts: Have another blogger write a post for your blog and vice versa.
• Do tags or collaborations: For example, I participated one where we each did a gift guide under ($10, $20, $30, $40, $50) and each blogger would like to the next.

Avoid not going self hosted from the start

If there is one tip I would give it’s making sure that you self-host your blog from the beginning. I have a post dedicated to why you should self host your blog from the start. I started on wordpress.com and quickly regretted my decision. When you aren’t self hosted you are very limited in everything you do. The best thing I did for my blog was self host with Siteground. Not to mention, transferring your blog can be a pain so it’s better to self-host right from the start.

Avoid aiming for perfection

As a new blogger you need to avoid aiming for perfection. Why? Because perfect doesn’t exist! Everyone has their own idea of “perfect” , who’s to say what’s perfect and what’s not? Nothing is ever perfect. You want to create good, high quality content but don’t strive for perfection. That will only end up slowing down your journey because you will obsess over how “perfect” your content is. Nothing will ever be “good enough.” This will lead to unpublished posts, and missed content. It also won’t make your journey a fun one!

Avoid waiting for brands to pitch to you

If you are a blogger and you want to eventually “monetize” your blog and make money, one thing you look for is working with brands. One of my most popular questions is How do I go about collaborating with brands and scoring sponsored posts?

MANY will wait for brands to reach out to them. However, what I learned is brands are busy and there are SO many bloggers out there to choose from. You should 100% make the bold move and pitch to brands that you want to work with first!

I have pitched to many brands like Tuft & Needle, Loreal, and more. I was afraid that I would get denied but almost all that I have pitched to have given me an opportunity to work with them in some way! From paid product to free product. You really have nothing to lose! Want to learn how to make money & pitch to brands? This will walk you through it.

Avoid not having a business mindset

I found it helpful to go into blogging with a business mindset. When I started blogging it wasn’t “just for fun.” I was depressed and needed more financial stability. It was a way for me to cope but in the back of my mind I wanted to make side income. I knew that if I didn’t treat my blog like a business I would probably give up. If you have the business mindset approach with your blog it will give you the extra motivation you need to make it successful.

I have seen bloggers take HUGE breaks away from their blogs and become inconsistent with their strategies. This usually doesn’t bring the results you want.

Think to yourself, am I more likely to keep up with and trust a consistent blogger or an inconsistent blogger?

I also like to think of it this way, I can’t take a month off of my job, so I WON’T take a month off from my blog. Don’t get me wrong, breaks are important. However, a long break can ruin your progress.

Bonus tips:

If you plan on making money from blogging, you need a marketing strategy. Some CRUCIAL factors that have helped my marketing is:

1. Personal Connections: Engage with your readers! Don’t ignore your audience.
2. Build Trust: Your audience isn’t going to purchase anything through or from you if they don’t trust you. You can’t usually sell a product easily without proving yourself first. You have to offer quality, free content. Make sure your audience knows that you are trust worthy. That trust needs to be there before a sale can happen.
3. Community: Grow your own community that is filled with members who do know your worth and can trust you! I created Boss Girl Bloggers with no intentions of it turning into over 37,000 incredibly inspiring women. I am so glad that I decided to start my free community because it has helped me grow my blog and make amazing connections with my audience. Without BGB I probably wouldn’t be where I am now, doing what I love. I am so thankful for that.

Learn how to create and grow your own community here.

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I hope you found these tips helpful!