Congratulations! You have decided to join the ranks of bloggers. You’ll love it! But before you get too deep into it, I want to help you avoid some common beginner blogging mistakes. These mistakes are almost a rite of passage, but why waste that time on mistakes you can easily avoid?
1. Load music automatically.
Please. I’m begging you, your readers are begging you: stop the auto-loading music! Automatically loading music is not only annoying and surprising, but it also puts a strain on bandwidth. This will make your blog load slowly. Do you really want to lose a reader because they couldn’t wait for your website to load? And when she’s waiting for your website to load, will she be upset because she didn’t know there would be music, her speakers were accidentally turned up high, and there was a sleeping husband (or child) right next to her ? I can tell you this: she won’t be coming back.
2. Use a theme with a dark background and light text.
This issue is less about your aesthetics (although that is part of it) and more about usability and readability. Reading online is more difficult for our eyes than reading traditional newspapers. Using a dark background with light text makes it even harder on your readers’ eyes.
3. Too much clutter in the sidebar.
A slim, tidy design is well received by readers. The less clutter, the more empty space you have. You can use this white space to direct your readers’ attention to specific content. Your images and headlines will stand out more.
Are you proud of your awards, badges and various trinkets and display them in your sidebar? That’s okay, these things are a rite of passage too. You don’t have to get rid of them, but why not put awards on their own page and link to them from your main page? You swap 20 links for just one link and ensure more order in the sidebar. A clearer sidebar makes navigation easier for your reader. When there are fewer elements competing for your readers’ attention, they are drawn to what’s important.
TIP: Want to learn more about how bright backgrounds and eliminating clutter affect how your audience uses your website? Blog Design for Dummies is a great resource. I highly recommend it.
4. Accidental plagiarism (including photos).
Very few legitimate bloggers intentionally plagiarize. Most likely, a new blogger won’t realize what they’re doing (but that doesn’t make it okay). Plagiarism is the use of content that is not originally yours, whether words, photographs, music, images, or anything else.Many new bloggers google an image, then save it and use it in a blog post. This is plagiarism – even if you indicate where you found the image – because you didn’t ask the owner if you could use it.
The US Copyright Office says bluntly: “Acknowledging the source of copyrighted material is not a substitute for obtaining permission.”
So take a minute to learn more about and understand the problems of plagiarism and copyright. You may also want to learn more about Creative Commons.
What about your Are words used without your permission? You can Check if someone has copied your content using Copyscape. And if you find someone has If you have used your content without your permission, click “What to do if someone steals your blog post.”
5. Use “click here” instead of keyword phrases for links.
Choose your link words carefully. If you’re writing a post and need to include a link, think about how you’ll write that sentence and where you’ll include the link. For example, which of these is more effective (potential links in bold)?
We can help you find most of the information popular blog hosts.
About blog hosts Click here.
The top sentence is more effective because it contains a keyword phrase that helps with search engine optimization and is more meaningful to readers. The words “click here” or even just the word “here” linked to other files or pages can be found all over the web. When was the last time you searched for “click here”?
Wait, there’s more! Here are five more beginner blogging mistakes to avoid.