Important Beginner Blogger Tips - 18 Major Do's and Don'ts while Starting a New Blog. (2021 Edition)
Not only me, but there are a bunch of bloggers out there willing to guide newbies and to give them tips for beginning a blog the right way.
Check out some posts to get yourself started easily right here.
Now, you see, when a person starts a new project regardless of what it is, there might be tons of passion, but unless you really approach your passion the right way with proper guidance, it is easy to lose momentum and to eventually give up.
Starting a blog might seem fun, but if you expect great results out of it, like a base for your business, a decent side income, or a large audience to entertain, then you need to do it the right way in accordance with the way the online blogging and SEO systems work. Not only do you need to start the right way, but you need to keep your passion for it alive because once you give up, all your hard work will go to waste.
Now, without wasting any more time, let's quickly and thoroughly go through the most important do's and don'ts for a beginner blogger.
What you need to DO as a beginner Blogger
Do Choose the Right Blogging Platform
There are multiple platforms that support bloggers, and website makers.
First,, you need to decide if you require a blog with a few pages or a blog that can allow multiple posts with regular updates.
If you are creating a blog, then the next step is to assess your budget. If you are sure about this and are completely aware of your goal, and also have the right small funds then I would recommend opting for a WordPress Blog with Hosting from hosts like GoDaddy or BlueHost.
If you fear the lack of consistency, determination, or just have a lack of startup funds, then using Blogspot.com is equally alright. After your website grows, you can buy a domain name and use it on your Blogspot hosted blog, or you can switch to WordPress.
If you're just making a still website which is completely different from a blog, then there are a bunch of hosts and domain providers available. For example, Wix.com is a very popular site builder.
Do Promote Your Content on the Right Social Media Platforms
Proper content promotion is about as important as the quality content itself. When we talk about promoting your content,
I don't mean through ads. Ads are usually recommended to promote a purchasable product, and isn't really required for your content blog, especially not at your beginner stage, unless you have a niche that would require promotion.
Making use of the biggest social platforms if the right way to go towards the proper promotion of your content. According to both your niche and your target audience, you can use platforms and tools like Instagram Pages, Facebook Pages and Groups, Quora Answers, Pinterest Pins, Boards and Group Boards, Twitter, Reddit, and Topic-Related Community Forums.
I personally use Pinterest, Quora, and Facebook for this blog.
Not only does this strategy help in blog promotion, but proper knowledge on how to promote organic traffic to your content, whether it is a youtube channel, a Spotify account, a product, a company website, or anything else, is extremely useful and important.
Do Follow the Content Writing Format
No one is here to read an essay, or to do feel like they're doing homework, or to read long paragraphs to find that one important line of content.
It is important to put yourself in your readers' shoes while writing your content. Here are some important guidelines to follow while writing your content.
- Write your content in small paragraphs of two to five lines.
- Use a readable font
- Use basic colors and don't use flashy unprofessional colors unnecessarily.
- Use blockquotes, and bold/italic/underline options to highlight important keywords
- Use Headings and different types of Subheadings
- Use bullet/number lists.
etc.
Do Be Consistent
Writing one post today, three posts two weeks later, two posts months after that, and a single post the year after. Do you think that is what any viewer will support?
Not only will your viewers not like you, but they also won't even be able to find you, since Google promotes content makers who post consistently. This is a major factor in improving your SEO.
And another major downside of not being consistent is that you won't ever be able to reach your blog goals if you don't make regular content. You won't have enough content to attract viewers, and you won't get referrals or a loyal reader base. Affiliate networks and Sponsorships will always stay far out of reach.
That is why you need to stay productive, write multiple posts whenever you have time, and schedule your posts to be published once or twice a week.
Do Set Goals
Without goals, in any field of activity. you'll have no idea about which direction you want to go towards.
For example, "Getting 5k monthly viewers, 500 USD in earnings through ads and affiliate networks, 500 people on your mailing list in 5 months."
You can also have goals like, "Get recognized by ...", "Be a guest writer on...", "Have a PageRank of ...", etc.
Make realistic goals and stay consistent to achieve all of them.
Do Reach Out To Other Bloggers and Make Connections
It is important to have good connections within the blogging community, especially with the writers writing under your range of niches. A good place to find people to build these connections with is on Quora, Pinterest, and Yahoo. You can build relations there, and I'm about to tell you what you can do with these connections.
You can also try to contact the writers or owners of any specific blog that you like.
Relations like these help SEO in every way. You can be on community boards and pin each other's content, or if possible, you can write free guest posts or each other in exchange for backlinks.
Do Make Easily Understandable Content
Again, no one wants to feel like they're doing homework while reading your content. You shouldn't put multiple complicated words that a normal person would have to google the meanings of.
You should only use simple words and sentences so that the mass public can easily understand what you're trying to say.
Don't unnecessarily use complicated stats and charts that a basic viewer cannot understand. Do not use terms that only a person that is familiar with your niche can understand without having to explain it.
Do Use Keywords and Have Good SEO
Keyword Research is your key to getting mapped by google. Keywords are basically the terms that normal viewers type in the search box of a search engine to look for results to their query.
For example, if you are a chef with a cooking blog, then you can write an article about cheesecake and an easy recipe on how to make it. Then a person can google, "easy recipes cheesecake". And your blog just might be visible in the results if you have good SEO and regular content too.
It is important to build content surrounding very popular keywords because that means more people are interested, and also around less popular keywords because that means it will be easier to find you in the results.
Being found on the top of the results for a small yet general and popular keywords is a very hard thing to do and takes a lot of time and effort. For example, being ranked high for "easy cheesecake recipe" vs "Baking" has obvious and large differences.
Do Stay Aware About Your Target Audience and Their Needs
Is your target audience a bunch of 14-year-old video game players, or 16-18-year-old students, or 22-35-year-old people trying to learn how to cook, or 22-30-year-olds trying to set up their own businesses?
You need to keep in mind the needs of your target audience before you go about writing your content. Write content on topics that the age group, gender group, regional group, or personality group would need.
Do Promote Guest Posting
As mentioned before, guest posting is an important way to grow as a blogger. You can build connections, get more fresh content, get backlinks to your blog, or can provide backlinks to other writers, good connections can lead to more "in-context" backlinks and obtain a better overall SEO.
What you should NOT DO as a beginner Blogger
Do NOT Take it as a Hobby
Would you take your actual job at a company as a "hobby" and then be shocked if you got demoted or fired? No. It's the same thing here. If you do not take your blog and audience seriously, you'll be treated as a joke.
It is important to try and make regular content that solves your readers' issues, it is important to try ad respond to your readers' comments or doubts, it is important to treat your viewers as both your boss and your client, after all, they're the one you're doing the work or and they're the ones you'll be earning from.
Do NOT Expect Success Overnight
You cannot write 5 posts before bed and expect the blog to blow up the next morning like you've seen in the movies.
This will be a gradual growth process. You'll need hundreds of posts, multiple contacts multiple platforms for promotion, regularity in your reader base, good SEO, and hard work to reach those big numbers.
Do NOT Expect Google AdSense to Make Millions For You
Google Adsense cannot buy your daily bread, especially as a small new blog, not even as a three-year-old blog will it be able to generate tens of thousands of dollars unless you're extremely lucky and hardworking, so yes it's possible but hard to achieve for most.
It can generate larger revenues over time but again, it cannot generate millions for you. Be sensible about it this will require you to do further research on the topic to get a better understanding of what you're in for.
To compensate the small earning possibilities in AdSense, you can use affiliate marketing, you can sell a subscription or a product, you can get sponsorships, you can actually do a lot and the sky is the limit.
Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular and highest-revenue-generating methods for a content creator.
Do NOT Expect One Blog to Be Your Complete Income Source
Don't quit your job just because your blog is getting popular now, the possibility of it being able to support your living expenses is very low.
In that case, you'll need multiple well-developed blogs with SEO and affiliates, you'll probably need at least a side job too which would either be your regular job or as a freelancer website builder, etc. It is very important to remain sensible and insightful.
Do NOT Take Credit for Someone Else's Work.
What if you just copied all of my content and pasted it on your blog? Not only would that make a writer like me feel bad, but it will also have major consequences,
Read - "The Benefits of Publishing Original Content and the Consequences of Copyright in terms of SEO"
You can try to copy my, or anyone else's credit thinking that as a small blogger, it wouldn't have any consequences, but I can assure you that it will always make you regret your decision.
Do NOT Assume that Your Reader Audience Can Also be Your Buyers
Imagine yourself as the viewer. How much trust would you need to put into your favorite blogger to actually invest into their products? The answer is - a lot.
Most people are only going to view you as a blogger for a very long time until your audience has really skyrocketed. Until then, normal viewers are just going to buy a product from a trust-worthy company rather than from an individual blogger who probably can't completely solve their issues.
Even after your blog skyrockets in metrics, only the most loyal portion of your reader base is likely to buy from you, the rest would still buy a similar product from a company or someone more reliable and experienced.
Do NOT Skip Design and Presentability
The phrase, "diamond in the mud" is beautiful but can't be appreciated by just, anyone. You can write brilliant content with the best SEO and a lot of backlinks to your blog, but if your web design looks like mud, then no one will be trusting you an sticking around for too long.
Your web design needs to be clean, professional, will two-three main colors max. It needs to have the basic navigation tools, optimization for different screen resolutions, good ad placement with just the right number of ads, and an easy way to access all your content.
If your blog annoys people just by looking at it, then is there really something here to discuss? No, just try to fix it.
Do NOT Ignore Your Bounce Rate Statistics
Bounce rate shows the percentage of visits of people when they just open a single page and don't continue reading or browsing any other pages. So, if the bounce rate is high, then that means that people don't stay on your site for long and like a ball, they open the site/blog barely stay on it and don't continue, and leave almost immediately.If your bounce rate is high, then that means that it is important to try and lower it down. The ways you can attempt to do this are
- Providing your viewers a way to subscribe to your feed
- Providing a mail subscription.
- Asking to turn on browser site notifications
- Writing original content with captivating content.
- Using good quality images and easily consumable yet very important info.
etc
Do NOT Use a Wide Range of Niches on a Single Blog
You can write about cooking, or you can write about gaming, or you can write about online marketing, or you can write about fashion, or you can write about health, but a single person cannot write about all the topics and expect blog growth.
I was very young when I started blogging, and me being an indecisive yet competent child, made a blog regarding all of my interests. I guess you can assume how that turned out. So I know this better than anyone how it is impossible to create such diverse content alone.
Pick up 1-3 very similar and inter-related niches for a single blog and fully go for it. It should be something that interests you, otherwise, you will lose your motivation, and it should also have market value. For example, you can write about - cooking, health, and fitness as a single blog.
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