Guide Book For Amateur Blogger
Blogging is an art, and every blogger must determine the goals of their blog.
Most of you will follow YouTuber’s and imagine earning of millions being a blogger. But this dream doesn’t happen over a night.
This article is about all the Amateur blogger out there who are taking the first baby steps in the field of blogging and building a blogging career.
Yes its true there is no limit in earning from blogging if you are following this guide book from your heart.
In this article, I will not only cover the most common mistakes that every new blogger do but also easy fixes for the same mistakes.
Part of the article is a technical guidance for blogger and part is on method of writing.
Basic Technical Mistakes
Basic Technical knowledge is must for every blogger.
If you are seriously considering blogging as an career option and an source of income, then you can not ignore technical knowledge.
Let us look into some technical mistake first time bloggers do.
Getting a free domain name
The Problem : I need everything for free
I have seen several new bloggers they start working on articles without a domain name or starting to look for free domain name provided by many blogging sites like blogger.com.
but remember having a subdomain is not equal to having a domain name.
A subdomain is : Yourname.blogger.com
Domain Name is : www.blogger.com
The Solution : Invest in your asset!
Domain names are like real state of internet.
Invest some money on domain name registration it will be worth every penny.
Do some research before registering a domain name. Consider registering .blog domain name which is exclusively launched for bloggers also be focus on niche you want to do blogging in.
You can also book domain name in your local language if main stream domain TLD is not available.
I have written a guide for booking domain names in regional language (In Hindi) with step by step guide.
Also, remember to keep your domain name as simple as possible.
The domain name should be easy to remember and pronounce.
if possible keep your domain as straight forward as possible, don’t worry if your name is not available under .com, there more then 1000+ tld’s type in domain name in which you can look for that perfect easy to remember domain name.
Not getting a good hosting
The Problem : Economical, I need everything in low-priced.
In real state terms, If domain name is the registration of your land then hosting is the actual land.
Where you build your house on.
Again, people will rush for free hosting or cheap hosting provider with reading the underline of the service offered and end up loosing years of work.
It takes time to write article, edit them and finally rank them and loosing all of it due to bad hosting will be an expensive bet.
The Solution: You get what you pay for, Look for the balance Hosting ! And upgrade with the time
Look for a good hosting provider.
Netspace (India) provide Web Hosting Service in India for more than 15 years now.
I will recommend going with the basic plan and upgrade the plans as and when your blog grows.
The basic hosting plan comes with a complimentary domain name for your first year of service.
Not to mention the Free SSL you get, and what’s more this plan comes with pre-installed WordPress in it.
Just plug and play.
Ignoring Backup
The Problem
Consider backup as an insurance for your blog.
In the online world of blogging anything can go wrong, it can be human error or an attack on your website.
Your website can go down due to several reasons.
a bad plugin can end up in compromised website.
You can accidentally delete that last good blog you have written.
The Solution
A good backup plan enable you to store your backup in remote location other than your own hosting account.
With the hosting account i recommend above comes with a complimentary backup service of 10 GB for the first year, which is stored into AWS managed cloud infrastructure.
Ignoring SEO
The Problem: SEO is too tough
Most of the writer out there and good in writing but they do not consider SEO an important factor or ignore it because they feel it is too hard for them.
The Solution: Take baby steps in SEO
Take baby steps here, follow the basic rules of SEO.
Consider SEO as ever learning process.
The first step is to register your new domain with google webmaster.
This process required domain ownership which is explain here in this video.
Once you are done with registration as webmaster, here are some article I have written in past which will help you transform from Amateur Blogger to professional blogger.
As I said, SEO is ever learning topic.
We been providing SEO service in Mumbai from long time now.
Learning from my experience I will keep adding more topics above.
Doing too much of blog design
The Problem: Lets make that epic website!
I know we all love those fancy looking website, with lots of colors, images and java scripts.
There are 1000’s of WordPress design you can go with when you want to go all in.
Some of the worst idea will be having the 80’s kind of website with background sound in it.
belive me this is a bad idea.
Why? You may ask.
My answer will be simplicity is the king when it comes to blogging. Keeping too much of design may bring down your website speed and consume too much of your shared hosting resources.
and not too mention the effect on SEO ranking for slow website.
Even google love simplicity, don’t believe me? hear directly from google.
The Solution: Keep it Simple
I understand starting and running a new blog on a very low budget is clear.
But this does not mean amateur-blogs must have badly design code/plugin.
Having a simple website with easy to follow pages is the best you can do for your blog.
Do not install too much of plugin, install a basic theme like GeneratePress (for your wordpress theme) And Elementor Pro as a writing plugin is the most simplest way to start.
However I do recommend following plugin like Yoast SEO (For your SEO need) and W3 Total Cache (For Fatser Website) to start with.
Remember readers do not like ugly sites, plus they will not take your seriously and you can end up having too high bounce rate, which is again “Not good for your blog SEO”.
Do whatever you can to make sure your theme is great looking and well designed since this can allow you to convert more visitors as returning visitors to your site.
However good and enlightening your articles is, most readers will doubt you if your site is poorly designed.
As you’re a beginner, do not risk your website with heavy design website since you might not receive the desired benefits.
Focusing short term
The Problem: Okay! When will I get my first Cheque?
This heading comes in between technical and non technical, But I decided to keep it in technical area.
Some of the first time blogger focus on making quick money. I understand in the end its all linked to money but the does not mean there is a easy money.
The first time Bloggers focus too much on result that they do not concentrate on the quality of the website and content.
The Solution: Patience is the key
Blogging and result from blogging takes time to show its magic.
In the first start writing a minimum 50 high quality articles with in-depth knowledge on your topic.
Select each topic wisely and then wait for google to do its job.
If you have followed all the instruction mentioned until here, soon your website will see its first bunch of traffic.
Writing Mistakes That Amateur Bloggers Do
Now we are in our next part of article. You have done good job till here if you followed all the instruction until now.
But from here we will look into the mistake an Amateur Blogger do while writing a blog.
As blogging is all about writing which will help you build a relationship with your blog visitors.
Copying Content
The Problem: Want to start too fast, let’s copy content from somewhere else
Wait ! Stop. What ?
Copying content is as bad as not having a blog.
The new bloggers copy other website content pro blogger refer other website for reference.
Remember no body is born expert, but everyone need to learn while they grow.
Remember, If your original source raise a complaint on your site you may get blocked for the life.
There is something called DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) on which and original post written can raise a complaint against you, and this could be really bad for your website.
Here is the video which explain how google handle website owner who copy content from other website.
The Solution: Be Original
If you are starting a blog, remember to give value to your content.
Try to be as original as you can, each and every word should come directly from your mind.
The quality content is the key to success here.
The thing you will notice with all the successful blogger out there is the unique and quality content.
To start with try to write on topics you are good with, where you have specific skill set.
Writing an original content shouldn’t seem like a big challenge, You just need a strong will to communicate to your visitors.
Your blog visitors will not come to you just because you started writing, You have to value the time of your readers.
This way every article you write will hold value to the readers and they will come again and will read more, eventually giving you less bounce rate and google will notice this and in written give you good ranking.
Win! Win! for everyone.
Running behind link building.
The Problem: Build backlinks!
If I get good link, My site will rank higher.
I will say : Backlink are not dead but they now work in different way.
Just be getting too many of backlink will not help you in any way.
building too much of backlink is one of the biggest mistakes that every amateur blogger do.
The Solution: If I get good link, my site will rank higher.
Remember, good content is like an open sweet box. if your content is good your article will attract backlinks from popular blogs automatically.
Let the backlink get buildup organically.
build your authority in the future google or other search engine may not give value to backlink but as of today quality backlink still matter.
Here, what google think about backlink :
Lacking gratitude
The Problem: No outgoing link.
Most newbie blogger think giving reference to the other website for there content is a bad thing, but gone are the days where outgoing link make loose your ranking.
No, outgoing link are somewhat consider bad in the eyes of search engine and the readers.
People may think you have written the article without any base.
Outgoing link can stand by your side as a quality reference to your source or may support your article and your words.
The Solution: Give value to outgoing links
As I said, giving reference to your writing give value to your article.
If you have taken reference of some other article or data then consider giving backlink to the source, this will only add value to your writing.
Consider outgoing link as gratitude and remember karma will do it job in the end.
Repeating topics
The Problem: I want to increase my word count hence I’ll repeat same messages.
Word Count matter in terms of SEO. However, bounce rate matter too.
If you keep repeating the same sentence or topic again and again on the same article, people will eventually bounce back (leave your website). This is really bad for your ranking.
Bounce rate is critical factor and you want to make sure you are keeping your readers on your side.
The Solution: Quality is the King
Do the in depth research for your article, make sure you cover all the sub topic in the article.
This way you will article will score the perfect 100 / 100 rank.
If the reader is coming to your article he/she must get the full content and knowledge on the topic.
repeating your topics again and gain will not help.
Ignoring editing and just publishing.
The Problem: The grudge of pushing that publish button.
In writing editing is extremely Important.
It is an vital step in the entire writing procedure.
Editing article includes steps to check out if there is any repetition as well as checking grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary errors.
Editing will not only helps you in getting rid of the typos but, also polishes writing skills.
It makes your topic and content clearer and helps to identify any errors may have happen easily.
I Know, It feel really tiresome and boring but its worth spending time on in the end it will bring great deal of perfection.
The Solution: Read Again
There is a reason, why WordPress have a draft button.
Read your article again and again before pushing the publish button.
This will make sure that only quality content is going online in your website. And you are passing the right message to your readers.
If you want to publish quality piece of writing so, you should have build editing skills.
As an amateur blogger you may not have enough fund to higher a professional editor but at the same time the importance of editing cannot be ignored in the world of blogging.
To be a pro bloggers you need to undergo the process of editing your article until you get the perfectly written article.
Final Thought
I will end this article with my opening words “Blogging is an ART” consider giving it time.
One thing to remember, if you are considering blogging as a business then consider reading HOW TO MAKE MONEY BLOGGING – The Expert Guide
Feel free to post your comment below and I will be happy to reply to you.
Happy Blogging !
Shashi kant Pandidhar
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