5 Silly blogging mistakes I’ve made recently

Every blogger has a story to tell about that time they forgot to click publish, or the time when they published their blog with the incorrect date… Name a mistake and I’m sure someone other than you has made it. In fact, some of us ‘seasoned’ bloggers continue to make the same silly blogging mistakes time after time. Call it lack of attention to detail, or just sheer silliness if you must. But it definitely happens to everyone.

Last year, I wrote a post on the mistakes I had been consistently making so that you don’t have to. Funny enough, once I hit publish, I was confident that I had found a way to hack my forgetful brain. And yet, one year later, I have a completely new list of mistakes that I really should not be making.

If this post does nothing but give you giggles, then give yourself a pat on the back. But if you can relate to the below, let’s toast to being human and promise to grow together.

Just in case you missed it, you can check out the other 5 Dumb blogging mistakes I’ve made here. Don’t judge me!

Starting a poll without knowing how to access the results

While this isn’t the biggest mistake I’ve made to date, it is the most recent one I can think of. You know, the poll on my Youtube questions video? You thought I actually knew how to read the results after? Gosh, I’m flattered at the faith you have in me!

So the secret is out – I had no clue how to read the results. And after searching for my site on the browser and taking my own poll just to see the results others came up with a few too many times, I knew there had to be a better solution.

It turns out, not only did I skew my own results, doing a simple Google search would’ve saved me time. All I had to do was log into crowdsignal with my WordPress details and voila!

So what is the moral of the story? Make sure to do thorough research before you post anything on your site. My issue was with a simple poll, but yours could be incorrect data from a third party.

Not taking on enough collaborations

Remember the time I wrote a whole post about how important your Domain Authority is for blog monetisation? Yeah, neither did I.

The past few months have been very turbulent for me on a personal and professional level, so my blog has not been getting the attention it deserves. Top it off with not guest posting on other sites while continuing to receive guest posters on my own, and you have negative growth!

While receiving guest posts on your site will not reduce your DA, it also does nothing to grow it. I knew this, but it didn’t register until I applied for a sponsorship and found out that I wasn’t eligible because my DA had declined.

You may be thinking that this should hardly be considered as one of my silly blogging mistakes… And in all honesty, you aren’t wrong. However, as monetisation is one of my objectives, it’s a mistake that has really hindered my earning potential.

So what is the moral of the story? You need to make sure you are taking the necessary steps to reach your end goal. Every missed opportunity will cost you later.

Related: Want to collaborate on a blog post? Read this first

Not doing research on my titles

Did you know that the title of your blog is a very important step to attract readers? Of course you did. Heck, even I knew that before starting a website!

But did you know that you need to be specific with the words you use in the title? Like how popular they are in the search rankings vs whether they are synonyms?

Let me explain.

I recently wrote a blog post titled ‘5 Tips to avoid going house broke‘. Quite the stellar post if I do say so myself, but anyone who doesn’t follow my blog wouldn’t know that. Do you know why? Well, the simple reason is because the correct term is ‘house poor’ not ‘house broke’. This is very important because people are more likely to search for the correct term than my made up one. And while I technically wasn’t wrong in naming my post this way, for the search engines, I was.

What is the moral of the story? Don’t make one of my silly blogging mistakes, just do the due diligence. Running your proposed title through Google takes less than a minute and will give you an idea of what type of information will pop up. If you have extra time, search for your key words on Answer the Public and it will give you the specific questions people are asking.

So for great visibility, you just have to structure the title according to the most searched terms and make it SEO friendly.

You’re welcome! (And no, this post isn’t sponsored by Answer the Public 🙂 )

You may also like: You’ve hit writer’s block… Now what?

Numero uno of my silly blogging mistakes: Not checking for broken links

Boken links? What are broken links?

Let’s take a step back so I can explain.

When I converted my WordPress plan from premium to business, I got the brilliant idea to change my URL structure. I had read on some forum that having the date in your URL would result in older posts ranking lower on Google search and nobody wants that. Let alone, a struggling artist who was craving more visibility!

Changing the URL structure affected all of the posts I had ever published. But what about the links I had already shared on social media? Well, that’s where the broken links come into play.

Back in the day, I was diligent in ensuring that all broken links were given a proper redirect. Now? Not so much.

For the sake of this post, I decided to check on the status of my redirects and was appalled to see 17 pages of 404 error hits. If I’m being honest, this may well be number one on my silly blogging mistakes.

What is the moral of the story? Don’t make changes to your site that you will not be able to manage. I personally thought I was doing something productive, but I have actually worsoned the health of my website.

Sharing information that I later rescinded

As a blogger, I often struggle to find the balance between oversharing and not sharing enough details. This was more of an issue when I had started out my blog as it was meant to be a parenting blog. And since deciding to stop sharenting, I have had to delete some details, alter some names and remove pictures of my daughter.

I know, I know, how unnecessary! But the thing is, what if she didn’t want that information online?

And my oversharing didn’t end there.

I’ve since altered details on other posts that I wouldn’t like circling in my professional realm. But here’s a thought… Many people had already read the information, so what good does rescinding do?

What is the moral of the story? Make sure to think before you ink. Once something is on the web, you really do not have any control of how the information will be used. And no, deleting it will not erase any of the data that others may have already saved!

What are some of the silly blogging mistakes you have made? Share them below to help out other bloggers.

Want some video content too? Check out my Youtube Channel!