by Natalia Jones

Created on: April 28, 2010   Last Updated: July 26, 2010

If you are new to blogging you may be fooled by how easy it all seems. The technology behind blogging has improved so much over the years that now if you can type using a word processor you can probably start a blog, but this doesn't mean that blogging doesn't require careful planning and specialist knowledge. Newbie bloggers should look out for the following mistakes if they want their blog to be popular and eventually make money. 

Don't Host on a Free Blogging Platform

The idea of creating a blog in minutes and all for free might be really appealing, but before you jump into using one of these free platforms consider the cons. If you use a free platform your blog will be more difficult to find because search engines rank these blogs below those with paid domains. In addition to this, a free blog might have a lot of functionality but you will still be limited with the themes you can use and how you can monetize it.

Never Neglect to Add Important Pages

The lifeblood of a blog may be the posts, but static pages are also very important. New readers might head to the About Me page for instance to get an idea of who is behind the particular blog. They may also expect to see a bit more information on how to contact you or anything else that might be pertinent to your niche.

Always Place Subscription Buttons in a Prominent Place

A blog with a hard to find subscription button is not capitalizing on the number of unique visitors it gets per day. It is much harder to expect to attract completely new users everyday than it is to try to hold on to them once they have landed on your pages.

Don't Fall Prey to "Goldilocks" Posting 

This is a popular mistake made by many new bloggers. Posting too little can turn readers off but posting too much can also drive them away. You need to strike a balance and then stick to the established posting schedule.

Don't Stop Your Marketing Efforts

Blogs need to be marketed to attract new visitors. New bloggers tend to take a laid back approach to marketing believing that the stats will increase over time. While this might well be true to some extent, you still need to give your blog a push by talking about it on social networking sites, commenting on other blogs and maybe even forums.

Don't Worry About Making Money Too Soon

If you are a new blogger you shouldn’t spend too much time worrying over how much money you can make in your first month. Your time would be better invested by focusing on areas like content generation and marketing.

New bloggers continue to make some of the same mistakes over and over. Hopefully by highlighting a few of them they will become less prevalent.

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