Back in 2013 I started writing blog articles, I knew I had something great to say and share, but I was a little all over the place about the whole blogging concept. I was the typical beginner...
I thought I could write randomly about anything inspirational and that it would instantly be amazing. People would feel motivation in a second and things would be awesome.
But it was really a slow start, I realize blogging had many things to be studied and understood, before making any sort of impact.
But it was really a slow start, I realize blogging had many things to be studied and understood, before making any sort of impact.
Why I started blogging? One, to see if I could do something that always interested me - to inspire and motivate people in a big scale. Two, to prove myself and challenge me into unknown territory. Three, I wanted to change my job - hopefully I could monetize my blog.
Those reasons were the core base for my desire to have a successful blog. Years later, I can tell that the pursue of that goal brought me others results I could never expect.
I will share with you today one of those results: the precious things I learned about blogging that made me a better blogger (I think!).
I will share with you today one of those results: the precious things I learned about blogging that made me a better blogger (I think!).
Join me on this adventure, that start it out with me being a beginner trying to learn some of the unwritten rules of blogging, looking for things that would make a better blogger with time and it still is going as a never ending learning experience.
I don't consider myself an expert by any means, but I learned some valuable lessons that might help you out. Here are my blogging mistakes as a beginner that you can learn from:
I don't consider myself an expert by any means, but I learned some valuable lessons that might help you out. Here are my blogging mistakes as a beginner that you can learn from:
Blogging Mistakes I Made As Beginner That You Can Learn From
1. Not Having A Clear Topic
When I started blogging I had a handful of ideas. I wrote an article, then another, then another and so on. It was non stop writing without thinking about it.
What I notice now reading those pieces is that, despite having different topics, I was always talking about the same things!
I didn't have a clear topic nor I would stick to it. I was to vague and not specific. Two major blogging mistakes.
What I learned: when you write an article you must have a specific topic and be precise about it, touching everything related to it is good to some extent, but it can get you to a never ending road.
Eventually, you'll get tired, and the things you'll talk about start to be all alike.
Be specific, go straight to the point!
Be specific, go straight to the point!
2. Titles Weren't Concise
I had a great topic, let's say Comfort, and Getting Out Of Your Comfort Zone. So, it was time to elaborate on a good tittle, you know what tittle I came up with? Comfort Is Your Handicap...
Whoa! That's confusing for sure. Comfort and handicap together?
Is he talking about handicapped people and criticizing them for being in a comfort zone? How cruel! Or is he saying that comfort makes you handicapped? Brutal!
Is he talking about handicapped people and criticizing them for being in a comfort zone? How cruel! Or is he saying that comfort makes you handicapped? Brutal!
Yep, now that's embarrassing, but never mind, I don't care too much about it today, I'm willing to share it so you can learn from it too.
Your article titles must be concise, people should read them and understand right away what the article is all about.
Note to self: This isn't literature you know Philipe?
So back to my example, the article tittle should be something like: Ways Of Getting Out Of Your Comfort Zone or Why You Need To Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone. Notice the difference?
3. Having A Random Structure
What I was doing in my first articles I can't call it writing good blog articles, what I was doing scribbling. Writing carelessly with a great adrenaline rush.
Don't get me wrong, scribbling can be good as a tool to write down quick ideas and get your thoughts out (even for a blog article), but you need to structure your article well. Why?
Mainly because people will understand better what your trying to say and also, the visual aspect of the article will be more attractive to them.
So, structure your articles just like your telling a story:
- Make an intro where you tease about the topic and present the problem.
- Talk about the topic as a whole in the body of the article.
- And make a final conclusion reviewing or summarizing what the article just taught us.
Also, you should clearly define each part by naming them, making use of titles and subtitles, it helps you structure your writing and it gives people a great experience while reading your piece.
4. Didn't Cared About The Link
The first blogging platform I used was Blogger, it features a tool called automatic permalink.
What this means is that Blogger would use what I wrote in topic section and came up with an automatic link for the article.
So using this article as an example it could be something like: Blogging Mistakes I Made Beginner. Not too bad if my article title was short, it was perfect! But in this case the part You Can Learn From is left out.
My concept of showing you that you can learn from this article is out of the equation, you see?
What you should do is customize the link by yourself when having long titles.
You don't need to put all words in it, but the main keywords should be featured.
Links are not titles, but they also represent and identify your article. This is particularly important for search engines. If you want your article to appear in the search results, you need to work on your links also.
5. No Images To Go With The Text
I told you, blogging it's not just about the writing. A picture is worth a thousand words...Yep Philipe!
When I wrote my first articles, either I didn't inserted an image, or, I would use an image but in a reckless way. The images didn't related to the article.
Your article images are also important for the identity of your article, it's like your presentation card of your piece.
So the images and your title or subtitles, should be related, so people can right away identify with the topic your going to talk about.
When you share your article in social media by inserting a link, social networks generate a preview of your article featuring what? Your title, your description and your article images. It's a major advantage right away because images attract people, take some time to work on them for your articles.
6. Worrying Too Much About Simple Labels
Ok going viral? Keywords and labels, plus labels and labels. I would label my articles to exhaustion.
You know what? Labelling it's just a part of your article presentation, and it can hurt you search rankings if you abuse it.
Labels should be few and very precise. Stick to the main keywords and categories. Why?
I had like 30 labels (!) for my articles when I started out. Labels like: motivation, inspiration, motivate, inspiring, inspirational, motivational, personal development, self-improvement, quotes, inspirational quotes, good quotes, speeches, motivational speeches, motivational speakers on and on.
Basically what I was being redundant. some labels were just the same thing or related, so what I was really doing was tagging articles with sub-labels instead of main labels.
To have a better organization of your blog so that readers can understand right away what the article is about.
I had like 30 labels (!) for my articles when I started out. Labels like: motivation, inspiration, motivate, inspiring, inspirational, motivational, personal development, self-improvement, quotes, inspirational quotes, good quotes, speeches, motivational speeches, motivational speakers on and on.
Basically what I was being redundant. some labels were just the same thing or related, so what I was really doing was tagging articles with sub-labels instead of main labels.
Group your articles using no more than 5-6 labels for your whole blog, and one article belongs to one label, that's it!
7. Not Having A Description Or Meta Tags
Titles, images, article structure and labels are things that help people better identify your article. That's human language. I just cared about this at one point...
But you need to grasp, this, your blog is a digital platform, so it has to talk also in the digital age language.
Search engines will identify your article better if you work on your html meta tags.
They call it "data about data", basically it's information about your article that search engines pick up automatically, it's not visible on the page, but it's there and read by search engines.
All information about your article should be in them: description of the article, author, keywords, last updated, etc.
I didn't knew any of this, luckily search engine also rely on human language still, but it's better for your article rankings to have both.
You don't have to be an expert in coding, but you have to study a little about meta tags if you want your blog to be searchable.
It's important for your search engine optimization efforts, make the best use of them.
8. Keywords Used As Baits Not Pure Content
Yup! Again the viral thing! Back then I was creating articles with ok content actually, but "selling them" with bait keywords for people to click on.
I was not trying to mislead people, I just thought that was the way it worked on the web. But if content and keywords are not related, that's just a trick. But now I know, that trick doesn't work!
I was faking what I was doing for the sake of having page views. Damn!
But this not just a moral issue, it's a major blogging mistake. I what I found out later is that, there are no shortcuts in blogging. Everything must be precise, connected and plain.
Content must be great and if actually is, keywords are part of the content, not isolated!
What this means is that if you write awesome content, with a clear topic, title, structure, labels, images in it and such, you don't have to worry about keywords like crazy, they will be in your article by default if you follow the guidelines for great content writing.
9. Hoping Social Would Get Me Viral
Social networks can a blessing but also a curse to your blog. Back then I honestly say all I could dreamed of was going viral. So I was like acting crazy sharing my content.
Note so self: that's called spamming you know Philipe?
Note so self: that's called spamming you know Philipe?
Ups! Instead of inspiring people I was doing the opposite,
I was all upon in their face hoping that they shared my stuff.
I was all upon in their face hoping that they shared my stuff.
The lesson I learned was: if your content is not sharp people will not share it, despite all the effort you can make marketing your articles.
Content must be king! That's what makes people share.
If you add value to their lives with great pieces of content that can improve their lives and the ones around them, they will share!
If you add value to their lives with great pieces of content that can improve their lives and the ones around them, they will share!
10. Not Reading My Articles Looking For Errors
Yes! You're a blog writer, writing is what you do, so grammatical errors are things that people that don't write make.
WRONG! I was somewhat thinking like that, I was influenced by the whole "talent" premise: if I made mistakes than writing is not the thing for me, but I don't make them, I'm a natural!
But then, some feedback about my articles started to arrive, people were complaining about this or that grammatical error. What a shame!
What I learned from this is that I need to read my articles after publishing them 3 to 4 times. Still mistakes can appear, don't worry, as soon as you notice, correct them.
Some errors will be there to annoy me always. But it's ok, I now know that it's part of the process and if you want your content to shine get your errors checked always before you publish your piece.
11. The Adrenaline Of Hitting The Publishing Button Too Soon
I started writing and writing, like I was possessed. I thought my piece was finished, I didn't care about the technical stuff.
I just thought about hitting that publish button and let the world know first hand about my latest piece of art...
But all things that I mentioned above were missing, so no such thing as a piece of art just random thoughts and ruff ideas.
You can have a great idea and all that, but don't rush things.
Again... writing it's just a part of blogging!
Again... writing it's just a part of blogging!
Yeah it sucks I know.. but no pain no gain, you have to embrace it and make the best of it, to keep blogging successfully.
So, between finishing with writing and hitting the publish button, there are a lot of steps you have to take to ensure that your article is great.
So, between finishing with writing and hitting the publish button, there are a lot of steps you have to take to ensure that your article is great.
Treat it like a checklist of things you have to do with any piece of content you produce, without checking all the items on that list, don't publish!
12. Studying The Experts "Rules" But Not Embody Them
If you to achieve something one of the things you can do is study people that have already achieved that something.
That's also one of the things I did to try to be a better blogger, I searched and study some of the biggest names in blogging. Like: Jeff Bulas, Yaro Starak, Mike Kabbani, Ramit Sethi or Neil Patel to name a few.
But my biggest mistake was not to embody right away what these people were advising in their articles and outlets about blogging related content.
You see, it's easy to read and say yeah ok I need to do that sure (the whole beginner BS skepticism), but to believe that you must really do it and actually do it? That's another ball game.
What I realize now is that experts advice cannot make a difference if you're not totally committed to the process!
It's just information, you need to turn that into wisdom by applying it, practice it, making your own custom strategies and your own conclusions.
Lesson learned: Pick up experts tips and guidelines, apply them to your specific concept, embody them to the fullest, and results will come if you stick to them. Trust me, I know.
13. Not Finishing What I Start
I have dozen of incomplete articles from the past, maybe I will finish them sometime, but really that time rarely came.
The lesson here is when you have an idea and you start to write about it...
make sure that you finish!
This is one of the hardest things to do, because when you start you're excited but then, it's time to put hard work in. If you aren't relentless and determined about it, you'll lose focus and energy, you let it go and never get back to it.
Now I created a formula that is working for me, once I start an article I don't start another until I finish the first one.
The rush now is different, ask me now and I'll say that an article represents a blank canvas where anything can be created and the technical stuff it's just like a puzzle experience to me.
I'm only satisfied until I have covered every detail that great blogging implies. The things that I've talked about in this article, those are the pieces!
The results are off the chain: articles now have better quality, better SEO, I come up with ideas in a heartbeat, I tripled my productivity, I love what I'm doing, my writing is getting better, people are finding and sharing my articles often, page views are up, I'm getting money from blogging, I'm getting emails asking for business partnerships, etc.
As you can tell I'm excited about blogging and writing my articles. I really felt like I had to write this one, telling you about the lessons I learned doing it.
Like I told you I'm far from being an expert, hyper successful in blogging, or a fabulous writer. I know I still got a long road ahead...
But I'm getting better at it and results are showing. So if you're a beginner, like I once was, I hope you can find great value in theses blogging mistakes and learn from them.
This gave me focus, work ethic and a burning desire to really deliver good articles.
The rush now is different, ask me now and I'll say that an article represents a blank canvas where anything can be created and the technical stuff it's just like a puzzle experience to me.
I focus on putting all the pieces of that puzzle together, only stop when the puzzle is complete, and it gives me real joy to finish it!
I'm only satisfied until I have covered every detail that great blogging implies. The things that I've talked about in this article, those are the pieces!
Wrapping Up
The results are off the chain: articles now have better quality, better SEO, I come up with ideas in a heartbeat, I tripled my productivity, I love what I'm doing, my writing is getting better, people are finding and sharing my articles often, page views are up, I'm getting money from blogging, I'm getting emails asking for business partnerships, etc.
As you can tell I'm excited about blogging and writing my articles. I really felt like I had to write this one, telling you about the lessons I learned doing it.
Like I told you I'm far from being an expert, hyper successful in blogging, or a fabulous writer. I know I still got a long road ahead...
But I'm getting better at it and results are showing. So if you're a beginner, like I once was, I hope you can find great value in theses blogging mistakes and learn from them.
Hope you like reading this article just as much as I enjoyed writing it for you.
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