BLOGGER TECK

15 Mistakes Of Amateur Bloggers You MUST Avoid!

Blogging Mistakes

I started my blogging journey in 2018, and when I first started, I thought I had it all figured out: write great content(self written articles), hit publish, and watch the traffic roll in daily(without doing SEO).

But the reality was far different. I made many mistakes, some of which cost me time and energy. For example, I have given 100% of my energy to creating my content, but that failed due to some mistakes I made in the past and ignored them, which led to a fall in monthly readers.

core update impact on blog

And I’m not the only one who’s been through this. Every amateur blogger encounters these hurdles in the early stages of their journey. Whether it’s neglecting SEO, inconsistency in content creation, overlooking keyword research, excessive SEO, disregarding link building, or attempting to juggle every social media platform at once.

The good news is that we can avoid these mistakes, and I am here to share what I’ve learned from my mistakes so you can skip the trial-and-error phase and fast-track your blog’s growth.

Let’s dive into the most common blogging mistakes—and how to fix them.

15 Common Mistakes Amateur Bloggers Make

  1. Using free sites to host the blog
  2. Choosing an uncomfortable blog name
  3. Opting for a cheap and insecure domain name
  4. Lack of social media activity
  5. Poorly designed site without proper navigation
  6. Failure to diversify income streams
  7. Using unformatted articles (ignoring SEO and readability)
  8. Not mentioning the source of copied content
  9. Topic inconsistencies
  10. Failure to optimize the blog for Google
  11. No headshot of the blogger
  12. Posting posts with no author
  13. Not building an email list
  14. Image Alt Text optimization
  15. Giving up early

So, we will go through all these mistakes in detail and I’ll try to solve them the best possible way.

#1. Using free sites to host the blog

Whenever we start a blog or website, the first thing that comes to mind is how much it costs. To start a blog, we always choose free or low-cost platforms with free hosting providers, which is the first big mistake because it will harm you in the long run.

Hosting your sites on free sites or using their subdomain names is unsuitable if you want to run a business. I am talking about Google’s free blogging platform, Blogspot.com.

You must have your own domain name. Yes, that gives us complete control over what we want from our business. From content to marketing, a good blogging platform can help you grow fast in 2025.

So I recommend you avoid Blogspot or any free domain type, and here are some reasons why you should.

Link Building:

Most well-known brands and websites have reliability issues with BlogSpot domains. I personally got rejected as a guest contributor when I was on the BlogSpot domain and will refuse to link back to it. If you are using a free site to host your blog, then promoting your website or blog will be very difficult.

Seriousness about blogging: 

If you want to become a professional blogger, creating informative and engaging content on BlogSpot is not enough. You must have a custom domain name with a beautiful layout and template that readers can recognize and take your work seriously.

If you want to succeed, then you should be willing to spend a few bucks on your blog.

Engagement:  

If you get a custom domain name, you also get a domain-based email address(professionalism). This email address helps you a lot. For example, if your visitors have any feedback or some details, they can find out through this email.

For example, with a free domain, you can get “yourdomain@gmail.com,” but with a business email, it can be “info@yourdomain.com” or “contact@yourdomain.com,” which looks more professional.

For me its “info@bloggerteck.com.”

Related: What to choose between Blogger.com vs WordPress.org?

#2. Difficult blog name

One of the most common mistakes made by amateur bloggers is not making their blog name unique. When choosing a blog name, it’s important to stand out in the crowded online space.

You have to choose a blog name that is easy to remember, or visitors can type it fast to visit your site. Don’t make your blog name too long or something extra unique that your visitor can’t remember. 

Make it simple and memorable.

My simple rule is that:

In 2025, I suggest you create micro niche blogs because with your expertise in these niches you can grow your blog fast and make a good amount of income. 

#3. No SSL & Cheap Domain names

Your blog needs to be secure. Most bloggers forget to tell you the importance of SSL certification, which stands for Secure socket layer.

It is not a certificate given by any organization, but it is a layer of protection that helps your website be secured from hacking attacks, etc.

Adding SSL assures your visitors that your site and blog are secure.

To know whether the website is secure or not, you must have seen the lock icon in front of your website’s URL; any site with this lock icon with the URL is considered secure.

Here is an example:

This certificate is required for sites that take personal details from their visitors, such as some online store sites.

For sites that handle personal and payment details, such as online stores, the SSL certificate is a reassurance. It’s a virtual guarantee that your visitors’ information is safe and secure. This is a crucial step in building trust with your audience. 

Even if your blog isn’t an online store, the SSL certificate is still a must-have. It’s not just about making your blog secure, it’s about making it reliable for your readers. By taking this step, you’re giving your visitors the peace of mind that your site is secure, and that’s a responsibility every blogger should take seriously. 

SSL comes free with all hosting plans and you can also enable it on Cloudflare. They provide you with a free SSL certificate and also help to improve your site speed with their CDN. 

#4. Lack of social media activity

Lack of social media activity can severely limit your blog’s reach and audience engagement. If you skip using Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, you can miss out on valuable traffic and other opportunities to build a community around your blog. These three are the most important for bloggers to be consistent.

LinkedIn is also a good platform for getting high-quality leads, which is best for high-ticket marketing.

Yes, consistency on social media can amplify the reach of your content, grow your audience, and drive more traffic back to your site.

Social media is not just a tool for driving traffic, it’s a platform to connect with your audience on a personal level. You can reach millions and have personal conversations with your audience through these platforms.

If you remain active, your visitors will also feel that this guy is more friendly and active than your competitors, which leads to more engagement. The visitors who come to your blog will take your blog Seriously. 

#5. Poorly Designed sites

Blog design can help you get more engagement and decide how your users will interact with your website. If they feel it is overdoing things with excessive ads, and worse formating, then they will quickly return to SERP, so make sure to design your blog for UX.

The navigation bar is crucial for helping visitors navigate your site quickly and efficiently. To ensure a seamless user experience, it is important to use a responsive theme that works well on both desktops and smartphones. Many amateur bloggers make the mistake of using non-responsive themes, which can hinder site navigation, especially on mobile devices. 

I have seen many blogs with poorly designed navigation and content structure, so try to spend a good time on website design. 

#6. Failure to diversify income streams

If making money is the main purpose of your blog, then you should identify ways to monetize it. There are many ways to generate revenue with your website or blog. You can make money through Google Adsense, ad networks, affiliate marketing, and even selling your products.

For example, you might decide to use an ad network to monetize your blog, but what happens when traffic to your site suddenly drops? This means that your income will also decrease. You can choose affiliate marketing, but what happens when the program changes its terms?

That’s why I always recommend going with more than five income streams.

here are some options

  1. Google Adsense: Apply for Google Adsense for the initial phase of your blogging, and if you reach 50k sessions, then you will prefer Mediavine ad network to host ads on my site.
  2. Affiliate marketing: In affiliate marketing, you must apply for at least 10 affiliate platforms to make a huge amount of money through your new blog. Make a list of all top affiliate programs and go and sell their offers. You will get a commission from them.
  3. Sell your service/digital product: If you can sell PDFs or other kinds of digital products, then add an e-commerce cart to your blog and sell those to your visitors. 

#7. Using unformatted articles

As we all know, articles have to be written in a good format to be SEO-friendly and reliable. However, amateur bloggers make these mistakes by not using H1 and H2 headings.

Sometimes, their articles contain paragraphs of  500 to 400 words, which decreases their readability and can impact dwell time.

They make mistakes in their grammar and have other flaws when proofreading their articles.

Use H1 and H2 heading tags; your articles must be 100 to 200 words in one paragraph. This will make your blog more beautiful, and visitors will find it easy to read. Writing a blog is the main step of blogging. 

Blog writing makes your blog rank on Google’s first page, so I suggest working on that part more. 

#8. Not mentioning the source of copied content

Most bloggers make the mistake of copying text from big publishers and using that content without sourcing it for them(Or linking it back to them).

Remember, Google can easily detect copied articles. Instead of boosting your site’s ranking, it can actually harm you. So, guys, avoid this pitfall. Always create your own original content and use free plagiarism checker tools to verify it

My personal tip. Amateur blogs do not work on these points.

  1. Go to the plagiarism checker tools list and open 5 to 6 tools in a new tab.
  2. Copy and paste your content on all these platforms to check if they are plagiarized.
  3. If you find plagiarized text, try to rewrite it in your own words. Make sure to keep your copy under 10% to safeguard your content.

One more suggestion is to give credit to the image owners

When you use an image from Google, you have to give credit to the site from which you downloaded that picture. Some of us download pictures from Google and forget to give credit to the site, which will make your blog or site a spammer. If you use that picture downloaded from another site without credit, they can take action against your blog. 

Envato Elements will provide you with pics that you can use on your blog freely.

#9. Topic Inconsistencies

We randomly choose the blog’s topic and then post a maximum of 10 regular posts that need to be corrected.

Instead, we should perform good niche research before choosing a niche for our blog.

Selecting a topic that genuinely interests you is crucial when embarking on a blogging career. This passion will drive your content creation and keep you engaged in your blog.

Another mistake is that we started a blog but do not regularly publish blog articles, so our visitors and audience started to unfollow us. 

When you choose your favorite topics for your blog, you not only enjoy the process more, but you also reap many benefits. Your passion will drive your content creation, and you’ll find it easier to maintain a consistent posting schedule.

For example:

So we have to maintain Consistency.

If you publish 2 Articles per week, you must publish two articles for a long time. Please don’t skip your content plan.

Make sure to publish 150+ articles to see some good results/profits

#10. Fails to optimize the blog for SERPs

Blog optimization is the most crucial part of Blogging. Optimize your blog by following all SEO best practices so that search engines can understand it and start ranking it on their SERP results.

By following these steps and optimizing them properly, you can be confident that your blog will rank quickly. These steps are straightforward and manageable, empowering you to take control of your blog’s SEO.

The main categories of SEO are:

  1. ON-Page SEO
  2. OFF-Page SEO
  3. Technical SEO
  4. Social media Optimization/connections

So go and check your blog for all these optimizations and make it easy to crawl by search engines. 

#11. No Headshot of the Blogger

Publishing your headshot as a blogger with a simple ‘hello’ helps your readers connect with your work, especially with your content.

It helps to establish a solid first impression, leading to good engagement rates.

A good headshot should be of high quality and consistently represent your brand.

How to get a good headshot

Use natural light in focus:

You should hire a professional photographer if you don’t know what this means. Do not add bright lights when taking a headshot.

Do not wear sunglasses:

People usually wear sunglasses when they are not feeling their prettiest while taking photos. However, it is not advisable to wear sunglasses for headshots as they do not show your true facial recognition. Do everything to look your best without sunglasses. Keep your chin up and look confident.

Use your latest or updated photos:

Your headshot should always be up to date, as should your exact presentation and what you represent in your blog content. If you want to be taken seriously, avoid paying attention to seasonal or holiday outfits, as they do not show professionalism.

These are some points to consider when clicking your author bio pic on your articles. 

#12. Posting posts with no author

As of the above point, you can understand that blog articles do not look attractive without the author’s name and bio. If you give a little bio of yourself at the beginning and end of a blog post, then your visitors will gain some trust and read your posts. 

It’s a powerful way to attract visitors and instill confidence in them. An author bio assures readers that the blog’s author is real, credible, and knowledgeable about the topic being discussed.

Many bloggers are unaware of this simple yet effective practice, leading them to miss out on potential readers every day.

So you should start giving your introduction or bio before publishing the blog.

#13. Build your Email List

It’s crucial to start building your email list from the very first day of your blogging journey. This proactive step can help you to build your personal community and stay ahead in your blogging game.

Convertful provides you with free access for a lifetime. 

Mailchimp also provides 500 free subscribers, so you must pay for its upgraded version.

Currently, I am using Convertkit, also known as KIT, for this blog, which is super fast and user-friendly to set up.

It’s crucial to start capturing emails from the very first day of your blog. These tools, Convertful, Convertkit, and Mailchimp, not only help you capture emails but also allow you to analyze your site traffic daily and monitor your email list. 

#14. Image alt text optimization

Image SEO is equally important for blogs to rank because, in some cases, images perform better than blog articles. So, focus on images, too.

The fun part is that there is no critical work behind image optimization. If you are using a CMS like WordPress, you just have to give your image a title, caption, description, and, most importantly, Image alt text.

You can specify information about the image you upload in the image alt text. So, make sure to optimize your images correctly.

For example, if you have an image of a laptop

Then, for this the perfect alt text would be “man working on laptop”

#15. Giving up early

Blogging is not so much for doormats; if you want to do it, you have to be very strict, whether you become successful or not. You have to work hard because it requires time, effort, and sometimes money.

You have to work very hard to succeed, but if you reach there, you cannot think how much success you can achieve.

Blogging is a platform where you have to make your articles so attractive that people search them themselves.

On blogging platforms, you will find millions of bloggers. So leave them behind with your content and writing skills. 

Wrap up on Amateur Bloggers Mistakes!

Honestly, I’ve been there—making all these rookie mistakes and wondering why my blog wasn’t taking off. But here’s the thing: mistakes are part of the journey, and the sooner you catch them, the quicker you can turn things around.

Yes, in the beginning, I over-optimized my articles with keyword stuffing, ignored building an email list, and ignored social media, so according to me, making these small tweaks can have a huge impact.

Don’t be too hard on yourself if you’ve stumbled—trust me, we all have. What matters is that you learn, grow, and keep moving forward.

Success in blogging doesn’t happen overnight, but I feel that with each mistake, you’re getting closer to success.

You’ve got this! Keep pushing, and soon, you’ll see the results you’re aiming for.

A tiny request: If you liked this post, please share it.

Regards,

Mohit

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