8 Mistakes That Could Be Hurting Your Blog

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Grow your blog traffic by avoiding these common problems that could be hurting your blog.

Have you started a blog recently but are having a hard time growing your traffic?

It’s true that growing a profitable blog does take some time, it’s very rare to have an overnight success with your first blog.

But you could be doing some easily overlooked mistakes that are killing your blog without you realizing it.

Blogging Mistakes To Avoid

1. An Unclear Message

If you want to attract the right reader to your post and keep them reading make sure your message is clear from the beginning.

Does your title clearly describe what the post topic is or the main benefit your reader will get from reading your article?

Never use a catchy post title that has nothing to do with what your post really is about. This is clickbait and it will do you more harm when trying to grow your blog.

After you have written your post read through it as if you were a new reader who had never been on your site before.

• Is the problem and solution in the post clear?
• Do you have a good hook at the beginning to draw them in?
• Are you using phrases or talking about someone they may not have heard of before?

Make sure you are not doing anything that could be confusing your reader and causing them to leave.

2. Not Using Good SEO

You could be writing the best post in the world but if you aren’t using the right keywords people just won’t be able to find your post.

When I decided to change from blogging only for fun and wanted to start growing a profitable blog learning how to use good SEO in my posts was a huge help.

Doing SEO research doesn’t have to be overly complicated either.

In its simplest form, you are just trying to find out what topics are popular, what phrases and related phrases people are typing into search engines and how much competition there is for each phrase.

3. Not Using Photos In Your Posts

Having photos in your blog posts is a lot more important than you might think.

See, long-form content does great in Google searches but it’s not really easy on the eyes or the attention span of most people. Use photos or illustrations throughout your blog post to break up the long sections of text.

This helps to keep your reader more engaged and photos can go a long way to helping you make your point too.

It has the added bonus of helping your blog post rank in Google image searches if you use good keywords in your ALT text field.

4. Not Having A Great Image For Pinterest

Pinterest is one of the biggest sources of traffic for many bloggers but I can’t count how many times I wanted to share an amazing post I’ve read but there is no image sized for Pinterest!

If you want to take advantage of Pinterest as a free source of blog traffic make sure you have at least one (more is better!) photos in your post using a 2×3 ratio for sharing on Pinterest.

5. Not Using Short Paragraphs

Reading on a computer screen isn’t the same as reading a book. Long blocks of text become very hard to read and even harder if you are reading the article on your phone.

This is something as bloggers we can’t afford to ignore since a huge amount of web traffic now comes through mobile every day.

It’s time to forget what you were taught in English class about formatting paragraphs and hit that enter key! Try to keep paragraphs 2-3 sentences long.

That is the perfect size once it’s been “squished” down to fit onto a phone screen.

6. Where Are The Social Share Buttons?

We all would love our readers to share our blog posts right?

Then we have to make it easy for them! No one is going to jump through hoops to share your content, no matter how much they love it.

Install a good share bar on your blog and make sure that it’s working properly.

7. A Cluttered Sidebar

Blog sidebars have changed a lot since blogging first started.

I remember years ago it was a place we would stuff all of our ads, “blog award banners”, popular posts, product images, social media widgets and more.

This lead to a very busy and hard to read sidebar.

Instead, keep your sidebar as simple as possible. It’s a good place for 1 or 2 ads, a short bio and search bar.

Focus your sidebar on the content that gives you the best return. Remember that most of your readers won’t even see your sidebar if a large amount of your traffic comes from mobile users.

When someone reads your blog on their phone the sidebar drops under all the other content and they likely will never scroll down far enough to see it.

8. Not Sharing On Social Media

If you aren’t sharing your blog posts on social media you really need to get started!

Do you know that Google also displays social media messages in their search results?

Yes really, I’ve seen many times posts on Pinterest, Google+, Facebook, and Linkedin come up in my own search results. The more you can get your content out there the better the chance it has to be found.

Now, this doesn’t mean you have start using all social media sites at once, especially if you are a new blogger. But pick one site to start with that fits your ideal reader the best and start sharing your blog posts there.

Don’t Forget

Remember we are all humans who make mistakes. It’s ok! If you have been making mistakes that have been holding your blog back you can fix it.

Take some time to evaluate your blog posts, design, and traffic and decide what areas are the most important for you to work on first.

What do you think bloggers should avoid doing?