5 Devastating Blogging Errors You Should Avoid

Run a blog may sound easy when you are just a reader but once you move to the other side of the aisle, you realize that there are plenty of challenges and detours along the way. Unfortunately, most people learn their lessons the hard way (including yours truly). But bloggers who succeed often find a way to bounce back from devastating errors. They always is to get up even if you knocked yourself down hard in the first place. Here are 5 devastating blogging errors that you should try to avoid:

Choosing The Wrong Domain Name: if you start a blog on the wrong domain, that could cost you a lot of time and money to fix. Of course, the sooner you realize this, the better off you are. I used to have a WordPress site dedicated to the latest hacks for WordPress. I chose a domain that had the word “WordPress” in it. I thought that WordPress was an open source software, and the owners wouldn’t really mind me using that word in my domain. But of course they came out a few months after I got started and encouraged people to dump “WordPress” domains for trademark protection purposes. I was ranked high on search engines, and I had spent a lot of time spreading the word around my site. Once I changed my domain, it took me more than 6 months to get a fraction of my traffic back. That was a costly mistake.

Choosing The Wrong Hosting Option: choosing the right web host can be a difference between one blogger succeeding and another failing in this market. I did a couple of posts about this very issue a while back, but I think you should put extra time and effort aside to make sure you are doing your blog justice as far as its hosting is concerned.

Going with The Wrong Niche: blogging is fun. There is no doubt about it. But you can’t put money on the table and make a living by just having fun. That’s why new bloggers should choose a niche that has the potential to be monetized. You should always do proper niche keyword research to find out if your niche has the traffic potential you need to go ahead with your blog. Unfortunately, a lot of people start blogs impulsively and without too much research. Blogging about the wrong niche can be very devastating financially as you may have to go back to your 9-5 job to pay your bills before starting another blog (unless you have the financial muscle to stick around).

Procrastination in the research process: if you look at the most success blogs on the planet, you can see why they have the success they are having. Authors of these blogs put a lot of time into research to make sure they are providing good accurate information to their readers. If you do not do your research, you end up embarrassing yourself and lose credibility among your readers. That’s the worst scenario. If you have no credibility on the Internet, you can’t expect people to come to for their informational needs.

All these challenges can be overcome with hard-work and dedication (the last one would be very difficult though). I have personally done a few of them already. I have been with a bad host. I have had a bad domain. I was in the wrong niche. But that hasn’t stopped me from going at it. If you get easily discouraged by the smallest issue, maybe blogging is not right for you. Having a thick skin in this business helps you get over early mistakes more easily.

What errors have you made early in your career? Do you believe it is possible to bounce back from a reputation crisis? Please share your thoughts.