Hello, everyone! This is Q’Zion, and welcome back to The Joys and Trials of a Christian Teen! Being a part of the blogosphere is like a dream for those of us who love to write, inspire, and create. But when many bloggers make the decision to create a website of their own, there are a few common mistakes that I have noticed being repeated.

So whether you’re a beginner blogger wanting an overview on what to expect or a more experienced content creator needing some blogging advice, these common mistakes to avoid that I have noticed myself and other awesome content creators make is for you!

Not Having a Clear Purpose or Audience

For my fellow teen bloggers, it can be easy to create a blog just for the fun of it! I often see new bloggers post a bunch of random–but really entertaining–posts with little repurposed content or common topics. And while displaying our personalities in what we do and post is important, it’s also crucial that we have an idea of what audience we’d like our blog to reach or resonate with.

E.g. when you choose the name and major topics of your blog, you want to make sure that what you’re posting will appeal to your target audience–whether that be people in a certain age group or with similar interest as you.

Lack of Consistency

Not having a blog post schedule has got to be the largest–and most common–mistake that I’ve seen within the blogging community. At first, some new bloggers will post excellent content every single day . . . and then they’ll disappear for a month. Trust me, I understand that some things come up in our lives, such writer’s block or a lack of motivation, that can make it difficult to keep posting content. But at the same time we have to remember that the only way to get our blog to grow is by being consistent. Posting only two days a week can do wonders for a blog’s traffic–all we have to do is show up and stay committed!

Grammatical and/or Punctuation Errors

Alright, I’ve got to put my hand up on this one. While writing the first draft for a stellar blog post, it can be easy to accidentally miss a letter or type a word twice. You see, the fact that we make simple errors like these is not the mistake; it’s when we make the errors and fail to revise them. Re-reading your blog posts aloud before you introduce them to the public is the best way to avoid grammatical mistakes. You could even read them aloud to a second person to catch errors you may miss and get a second opinion. Either way, revision is one of the keys to making every post the best that it can be.

Not Engaging with their Audience

It’s not uncommon that I’ll see 3-5 comments underneath a blog post . . . and all of them are by fellow bloggers complimenting the writer’s work. Thanks to the wonderful invention of notifications, we get a message every single time someone comments on our posts. And since one of the main goals of most bloggers is to build an audience, its important that we show our appreciation to the supporters that we already have. Not only will your viewers appreciate it, but you could even make a few new friends along the way.

Creating Extremely Short Blog Posts

Another common trend that I’ve seen going on, especially within the last few months, is bloggers making five- to twenty-word posts about five times a day. And all they do is tell their viewers good morning, afternoon, or night.

It’s always nice to greet your viewers before you get into the topic of a blog post, and short posts are acceptable now and again (especially on holidays.) But you want to make sure that you’re not just posting to post–after all, we want our readers to see our effort when they look at our blog. Not a bunch of short spam posts piling up in their email.

Choosing Quantity over Quality

When you create your blog, it’s easy to want to post every single day to get your website out there! But when you’re posting five times a day, it can become a challenge to give every single post your all. Therefore, even if you can only create one post a week on your blog–that one, well-written post is probably much better than five rushed ones.

Not Using Attention-Getting Blog Post Titles

Ahh~titles. They’re the first thing that anyone who stumbles upon one of your posts will see–alongside your images when viewers are browsing WordPress Reader, which are also very important. Therefore, it’s important that you add relevant, fun titles to your posts that get the main topic across and grab your viewers’ attention. There are a lot of great bloggers and posts out there: that’s why we need to use our titles as a strategy for convincing our viewers to click on ours.

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So, those were some of the most common mistakes that new bloggers make, and I hope each and every one of you got something positive out of it! Also, I’d like to know, what are some common mistakes that you notice and/or made that I missed here? And if you’d like, is there any advice that you’d like to give to other bloggers to prevent them from making that mistake? Feel free to share your responses to these discussion questions in the comments!

Have a beautiful and blessed day or night, everyone! God bless you all and I’ll see you next time! Peace in! ♡