Written on April 6th, 2008 at 01:04 am by Darren Rowse
What is the Biggest Mistake That You’ve Made as a Blogger?
It’s time for a reader discussion/open thread and today’s question is:
What is the Biggest Mistake That You’ve Made as a Blogger?
What in your time as a blogger do you look back on with regret, wish you’d not done or wish you’d done differently?
208 Responses to “What is the Biggest Mistake That You’ve Made as a Blogger?”
lemonade
April 6th, 2008 1:19 am
Being a teenage blogger, I think it would have to be leaving a supposedly anonymous blog unattended on the computer monitor, for so long, that my parents eventually found it! Blogging hasn’t been the same since!
Farfield
April 6th, 2008 1:32 am
I just started out so I’m going to follow this topic very closely to find out what I have to be careful about and what to look out for. I guess there are always mistakes you have to make yourself before you understand the meaning of them, but a little education at this subject couldn’t hurt :)
Jamie Harrop
April 6th, 2008 1:32 am
1. Started blogging without a plan. I just jumped in and did it. While I admire my own dedicated and motivation, I regret having not wrote a plan. That’s why I took a couple months out, so I could start over (albeit with an established readerbase) but this time with a plan on paper.
2. Launching my blog and forgetting to add stat tracking code. I missed out on Google Analytics stats from my first 24 hours of blogging.
The Davinator-Viral Marketing Strategist
April 6th, 2008 1:42 am
Hmmm, actually I would have to say not learning enough about it at first. I didn’t realize just how powerful WordPress could be until just recently. I love it, with the proper plug-ins etc.. But, we keep learning right.
Cheers
Davin
Darcy Elliott
April 6th, 2008 2:01 am
Waiting and watching other blogs instead of just starting my own.
InvestorBlogger
April 6th, 2008 2:05 am
Oddly, I think I spent too much time reading articles written by people on how to blog or manage a blog or make money blogging that were written by people who didn’t know how to blog, couldn’t manage a blog, and didn’t make money by blogging!
It’s a curse. One that I try to steer away from, but it keeps drawing me back! I guess, though a blogger grows up with his readers, too.
Kenneth
Mahala
April 6th, 2008 2:16 am
In a word: PayPerPost
Jared Goralnick
April 6th, 2008 2:28 am
Lack of consistency in my publish schedule. Not engaging the community enough.
Publishing regularly and participating is how I get traffic to my site. All the stuff I wrote before I did these things, as quality as it may have been, kind of fell by the wayside.
Another way of thinking of: if I want a return on my time investment, there’s a minimal amount of effort needed to keep (and hopefully grow) my readership. If I fall under it then blogging is no longer an effective use of my time. I wasn’t aware of that before…or at least I didn’t realize what the bar was.
Aaron from Webspear
April 6th, 2008 2:35 am
The biggest mistake I made was choosing a website topic that I know little about. 2 Years back I created a website for GPS Systems (back then weren’t too may websites on GPS technology), at that time I didn’t know anything about GPS! I was hoping to learn the subject matter and add content to my website. But soon I lost interest on my website.
I think one should always go with a topic they know well. Otherwise you will run out of ideas to add new content. Also you have to spend a lot of time researching and learning the unknown.
Now I have just started a new blog (that provides tips and techniques on how to make your website successful). Even though I am not an expert on all areas of website development, I certainly know a lot on this area since it’s is part of my profession.
Therefore if you going to create a new blog, start with a subject matter in which you have some level of expertise.
Tanya
April 6th, 2008 2:49 am
My blog name is a bit … different. So I wish I had a more traditional name. It’s definitely memorable but I feel kind of weird saying it to potential advertisers and the like.
Simple Mom
April 6th, 2008 2:51 am
Still learning to make this a habit - producing great content instead of “learning” the blogging trade. If I spent as much time WRITING on my blog instead of researching SEO, StumbleUpon, design techniques, and the best Wordpress plugins, I’d have weeks worth of content backed up for the future.
Learning that stuff is important, for sure, but what good is it if there’s no great content to submit to said blog?
Igor The Troll
April 6th, 2008 2:53 am
Have not made a mistake yet..:)
The best thing I have done is find Problogger last year. Sort of got an inspiration to blog from him!
Heads up, not to make a mistake!
Worpress 2.5 may not be to the liking of some bloggers. Some people like basic is good, same like KISS! I am still on Win XP. If you are thinking of doing 2.5 upgrade, first backup your Wordpress directory, if you have not done it yet, which you should be doing on regular bases, because of the widgets you upgrade. If you have a backup and do not like 2.5 you can reinstal the ol version. Oh, back up your database, which you should be doing often as well. ;-)
David Villarreal
April 6th, 2008 2:59 am
Bad choose of permalinks
Later is difficult to change without lost your old position in searchengines listings
David Villarreal
April 6th, 2008 3:01 am
I forget…
Other big mistake: not test my new design in all web navigators. i made a design that working good in firefox but not working in internet explorer
Ali from TheOfficeDiet
April 6th, 2008 3:06 am
I made a LOT of mistakes with The Office Diet … and I thought I’d done my preparation before launching it.
Probably my biggest error was not using or understanding social bookmarking sites before I began.
Though, not installing Google Analytics until a month in probably ranks pretty highly. As does thinking than Jan 1st would be a good launch time for a diet-themed blog because “lots of people will be searching for ‘diet’ then” … it took me a while to accept the hard facts about search engine rankings!
Ali
Igor The Troll
April 6th, 2008 3:07 am
Just .htaccess 301 redirect them. If you need help with the syntax, go visit Webmasterworld.
Bob Younce at the Writing Journey
April 6th, 2008 3:19 am
My first WordPress theme was a disaster. It was the dang twitter bird eating a branch or something. I changed it and my stickiness doubled.
Go figure.
suresh
April 6th, 2008 3:26 am
Well there are many mistakes happened over the time.
The first one changing the name of blog thrice.
Changing labels for many posts has given hell out of web master curling problems with robots.txt.
Pádraig
April 6th, 2008 3:34 am
I wish I had sold my web design related blog for more money. Looking back now, I let it go at a ridiculously low price considering the amount of effort I put into it.
Cigar Jack
April 6th, 2008 3:39 am
I’ve made the PayPerPost and TLA mistakes that hurt my PR, but the biggest mistake I made was letting my blog on inactive for a week. Granted I had some unexpected surprises come up and couldn’t get some future posting done. But of all the things I’ve done that was the worst. It killed my traffic and my SERP’s. I fell off the 1st page in Google for some of my best keywords.
Rich Owings
April 6th, 2008 3:46 am
I own my domain, but it wasn’t showing up in Technorati, so I switched back to a Typepad subdomain. Really stupid, and now I’m stuck with it for fear of losing traffic.
Damien Franco
April 6th, 2008 3:49 am
Being accepted to do a guest post for a huge blog in my niche and not doing a superb job with that post. I didn’t include Gimp as an alternative because I had tried it out when it was new and hadn’t looked at it since. I should have tried it out again to see what improvements had been made. The Gimp fanbase really ripped my article to shreds. They had every right to.
Rebellious Arab Girl
April 6th, 2008 3:49 am
Don’t ever criticize another blogger’s view point. You won’t believe the blog gangs that are out there.
Rhea
April 6th, 2008 3:52 am
Named my domain wrong. My blog’s name and its URL and completely different.
Mark Lancaster
April 6th, 2008 3:56 am
Try to spread myself too thinly over too many projects rather than just concentrating on the one.
Yeah, I think that pretty much sums it up.
I found that once I started concentrating on the one objective it started coming to me much more naturally and it was a lot easier to do. Then taking on a second project was a little easier.
John Metcalfe
April 6th, 2008 3:56 am
I think my biggest mistake would be not believing in my own abilities to produce content based on the knowledge i had already gained through study and practise…
The problem is with the assumption that everybody who wants to start a blog has the same knowledge and skills of the subject as i have but of course they don’t do they ?
Never take what you have already learnt for granted and never ever presume that everybody else has the same skills as yourself because they don’t!
John
My Camera World
April 6th, 2008 4:03 am
I have only been blogging (writing) for about 3/4 of a year so I may not really know what mistakes I am making.
Probably the biggest is not starting sooner as I really enjoy what I am doing.
There are 2 other items that trouble me a little and one is not migrating to wordpress at the start. I now wonder if it will be difficult to have people follow to a new site as there is a fara amount of traffic through searches.
The other is my title, but not really sure it matters.
I don’t monitize my blog as I like the fact that my blog remains somewhat pure in my intentions to share my knowledge and passion.
Only the future will really tell..
Niels Henriksen
Beth
April 6th, 2008 4:21 am
Wow! great input! The biggest things I focus on is consistency of updating. I try to post something everyday and I update twitter at least once a day. Be true to what interests you - I think when I started I tried too hard to write what I THOUGHT people wanted to read versus just writing what I thought was interesting.
Aaron
April 6th, 2008 4:22 am
A pervious reader mentioned that the big mistake he mad was “bad choice of permalinks” and he is unable to change them now.
But in fact there are plug-ins that will allow you to switch to new permalink format and get the old URLs re-directed to the new format. “Deans permalink plugin” is one of such plug-in. If you Google it, you can easily find it.
NikNik
April 6th, 2008 4:35 am
Using the Blogger platform for my first blog http://www,mytechopinion.com. I have since moved to Wordpress using the Maintain Permalinks Plugin.
Selene M. Bowlby
April 6th, 2008 4:36 am
Not fully thinking through my blog identity (including URL) first. I started out with a blog not linked to my company web site. Made branding difficult - as in when do I link to my business site vs the blog?
I recently moved the blog to my main business URL. Life is much easier now, lol. I definitely made the right decision this time around, but I’ve of course lost a bit of subscribers and 6 months worth of links back to my blog, etc.
Definitely think hard about your URL first - it hurts to loose out on all your old traffic if you end up switching down the line.
Louis
April 6th, 2008 4:38 am
Started my blog in 2001, and went strong for about 2 years with it. However, while I was in the perfect position to take advantage of the massive blog growth in 2003-2006, I let my domain sit unused with just a splash page.
If I would of kept on blogging, I could of been at a level where I may have been an authority in my niche. I realize this now, and I am playing catch-up. Luckily the search engines treat me well due to my domain age.
So my recommendation is always stay consistant, and your efforts will pay off! Post regularly, and just know in time it will all be worth it.
Alejandro Reyes
April 6th, 2008 4:38 am
my biggest mistake was definitely not starting my own blog sooner.
Genevieve
April 6th, 2008 4:40 am
I’d say my biggest mistake was trying to blog in too many places at one time.
That detracted from my blogging regularly on my main blog.
Ricky
April 6th, 2008 4:40 am
didn’t map my domain when i was using typepad. When I moved to Wordpress (hosted), I lost alot of permalinks.
Also images.
In terms of actual blogging, personally I don’t feel like I’ve made mistakes yet. Then again, I’m not really ‘pro’, financially, so maybe I’m still making them….
Lisa- Add Your Site to DoFollow Directory
April 6th, 2008 4:41 am
Fantastic topic.
1) No nofollow tags in my sitewide outbound links, i.e to Amazon, etc for about a year.
2) Lived in a bubble and did not blog/post/comment anywhere else.
3) Ignoring some of the social media like twitter, etc.
Solo Business Marketing
April 6th, 2008 4:44 am
My biggest mistake was actually small when compared to most.
I didn’t add photos to complement the post.
When I started adding photos, lots more people visited and stayed.
I have one blog where I post my newsletters that doesn’t include pictures, but the rest do. It’s made a big difference.
Durkin
April 6th, 2008 4:44 am
I was expecting a large amount of hits on a particular day, and instead of putting my blog down and creating a temporary page, i left it open and i exceeded my bandwidth.
My site was then down for three days. Those three days were the most important days of the year for my site to be up.
At least i know for next year!
Jared Teche
April 6th, 2008 4:47 am
I’ve certainly made mistakes myself. I’m very new at this so I’m still making them, and fully expect to make more. I hope they don’t hurt me too much, but the way i see it, mistakes are part of the journey.
In my mind though, I’m still forming my blog and have not attracted much of a following yet. So far, by best day is 20 views after all.
Mistake 1: Not having a plan or purpose. My purpose now is even a little vague, but it’s there.
Mistake 2: Starting with blogger.com. It’s great for a beginner, but lacks a lot of great tools. That said, I haven’t cracked but a small percentage of what wordpress can do.
Mistake 3: My blog title. Can’t seem to focus on one.
Skip Lombardi
April 6th, 2008 4:48 am
My biggest mistake was getting involved in an argument with one of my readers. That is, someone commented on one of my posts, I responded, and an argument ensued…for about forty exchanges, like the old UseNet.
If you feel that someone’s comments have the potential to cause controversy–and therefore take the focus away from your productive efforts–take it offline immediately.
I’ll discuss anything you’d like, endlessly…but offline!
Best regards,
Skip Lombardi
Lee Rodrigues
April 6th, 2008 4:50 am
My biggest mistake was not defining my audience and my voice, so my first blog was all over the place.
Now I have an audience a voice and I stick with what I know.
Lee Rodrigues
Technology Coach
Scott Allen
April 6th, 2008 4:57 am
1. Same as Jared: Lack of consistency in my publishing schedule. I’m not a creature of habit. I hate schedules, hate deadlines - that’s why I work for myself. While I don’t believe that you really have to publish consistently 4-6 days a week either, I still would like to be more consistent than I am.
2. Not engaging the A-listers. I know that’s going to sound controversial, and people will argue with me about it, but it’s true. I have a couple of the longest-running blogs on my topics, great content (so I’m told), pretty good reader engagement. But my blogs haven’t been as “famous” as it seems like they “should” be. I think the reason is because I didn’t do more to engage the A-list bloggers in the space.
Now, that could be pure conjecture, except that I tested it. Went to SXSW, hung out in the Blogger’s Lounge, the b5media ranch, got on Twitter and started chatting it up with the Twitterati, and next thing you know, both of my blogs are on Alltop, my Technorati inbound links make a huge jump, I’ve got A-listers lined up for interviews, people I’ve never heard of are following me on Twitter and commenting on my blog, etc.
I’m not faulting the A-listers at all — just saying that this is a fact of life in the blogosphere that nobody really seems to want to admit to.
Ironically, I’ve always coached my clients to do this — I think I was just so arrogant I didn’t think I needed to do it myself. :-)
esvl
April 6th, 2008 5:08 am
Commenting would be my answer.
John Wesley
April 6th, 2008 5:09 am
Not working hard enough.
esvl
April 6th, 2008 5:10 am
OH I guess I have to explain why.
Because all other errors can be fixed in blogging. You can get a new domain etc, but you cant delete comments.
Mark Avey
April 6th, 2008 5:10 am
Not securing one of my blogs sufficiently.
About 2 weeks ago, one of them got hacked and I ended up with an encrypted file dropped into the root of my server with thousands of porn links. Google indexed the lot before I noticed and was sending over 10,000 people a day that were looking for some really depraved stuff.
Luckily, a few quick emails to Google seems to be rectifying the matter, although a few are even now still coming through.
This caused me a major headache for about 7 or 8 days, and I’m still having to keep an eye on it.
Lesson learned? You bet. Apply the patches. Look at your server regularly looking for anything that shouldn’t be there. And make sure you secure your blog with the correct file permissions etc.
You really don’t want to go through what I’ve gone through over the past couple of weeks!
Mark
Michael Martin
April 6th, 2008 5:14 am
Something I didn’t do. I’m not which “something” it would have been exactly, but I’ve had plenty of ideas for things to do with my blog. No doubt there was at least one of them that I should have done.
Madhur Kapoor
April 6th, 2008 5:20 am
I made a lot of mistakes. At first , i didn’t know much about Feeds and so didn’t consider it important at first. I also didnt give much thought about my blog design too.
Brad V.
April 6th, 2008 5:27 am
My biggest mistake was probably starting my blog without a solid plan for going forward. My second biggest mistake is my blog covers a very large topic that I probably should have narrowed down to a niche. Oh well, live and learn, right?
Terra Andersen
April 6th, 2008 5:28 am
I once changed my link structure in Wordpress, forgot to change the htaccess file… SOOO many links weren’t working, it was total chaos. Google also got lost trying to index those old links… yikes~!~
Yeah… that was bad… very bad. *=O
DeFries
April 6th, 2008 5:32 am
Easy. I started way to late. I was online as of februari 1996 and I did not do anything at all ’till 2004! I then fooled around for about 3 years thinking every traffic would just be overwhelming for now particular reason *lol*
Only started getting serious like 6 months ago…
Now.. I’m starting to get the hang of it though… ;)
Tac Anderson
April 6th, 2008 5:35 am
Started blogging 4 years ago, jumped around on LiveJournal, then blogger, then dropped those to run my blog on a company platform, a year into it the company switched platforms, started over then left the company and now finally have my own blog.
So basically my biggest mistake was not starting on my own hosted platform and sticking with it. Years of wasted content and link building.
Copes Flavio
April 6th, 2008 5:36 am
@David Villarreal: just use a plugin like Dean’s Permalinks Migration.
My worst mistake was not starting blogging 5 or 6 years ago. I just started last year, and I don’t know how I used to learn and live before :-)
I always have that feeling of being in a hurry, you know.. but it’s not too late ;-)
Collin LaHay
April 6th, 2008 5:42 am
Used year, day, and month in my permalink structure…
Jeff - ScienceSays.net
April 6th, 2008 5:42 am
Too much time off!
I skipped a bit more than a full week while I finished my senior thesis and attended a family function - my traffic tanked, and I wasted a major traffic-spike from a repost on a major site.
I was pressuring myself to do more full-size, in-depth content when I should have just focused on staying active, even if that just meant short, fresh posts.
Meredith
April 6th, 2008 5:44 am
Not buying my own domain/address before someone else snapped it up.
Now I’m afraid to switch from Blogger because I’ll lose all my links.
Darnell Clayton
April 6th, 2008 5:46 am
My biggest mistake was posting about a feature I thought Google had included in Gmail that made it to the front page of Digg (it turned out to be a Firefox extension that had updated).
I was so embarrassed by the blog (and my lack of research) that I lost all desire to post there…even though it was making me money.
Whether its one or two mistakes, I’ll let you decide, although I have started other (more successful) blogs, but have kept the other one up as a monument to my failure and the reason why researching posts is a good thing. :-(
Jeremy Steele
April 6th, 2008 5:50 am
Not promoting enough.
Meredith Hamilton
April 6th, 2008 5:54 am
Relying on someone else to make changes to the design, etc., instead of just learning to do it myself from the beginning.
Ara
April 6th, 2008 5:57 am
Not having my own template designed.
minnemom
April 6th, 2008 5:59 am
Publishing a whole flurry of content in a short amount of time rather than using the slow-and-steady method. At the time, I wanted to get the content out there, but now I wish I had spaced it out a bit more.
Ryne Nelson
April 6th, 2008 6:08 am
For the first three years, I didn’t utilize stat trackers, social bookmarkers, blog comments, anything. This worked fine because I wasn’t looking for money or traffic. I just wanted an easily accessible space to showcase my work.
Today, I’ve changed my blogs niche, and am quickly trying to establish a presence in the blogosphere. Had I thought ahead three years ago, who knows where or what my blog would be!
Sumesh
April 6th, 2008 6:13 am
Choosing wide topics rather than focusing on niches, and also switching niche midway.
Jeremy Geiger
April 6th, 2008 6:14 am
Lacking focus. My first blog was well written and engaging based on the comments I received, but I was blogging about everything I was interested in, and finding it really difficult to identify a target market.
It took me that year to figure out what subject I was passionate about, and In 3 months I’ve already far surpassed my original blog in traffic, quality comments, and meaningful networking connections.
Miranda
April 6th, 2008 6:20 am
I do corporate blogging as well as my own personal blogs. At first, I did my blogging through a middle man who found “clients” for me. I was doing a lot, but getting paid at the end of the month. When the middle man crashed and burned on a drug addiction, well, clients were lost, and I wasn’t paid for an entire month’s worth of work. Now I negotiate my own contracts with corporate clients, and I make sure that I get a portion of the money up front at the beginning of each month.
Chris Foley
April 6th, 2008 6:31 am
Not starting earlier.
Kajagugu
April 6th, 2008 6:36 am
I didn’t tell my wife about my poker blog. You people are too serious.
Leszek Pawlowicz
April 6th, 2008 6:38 am
Two big mistakes:
1. Being too cheap to buy a domain name right from the start.
2. Starting with Blogger instead of a hosted WordPress blog.
Ben
April 6th, 2008 6:42 am
Being sucked into the idea that Wordpress and your own domain name are the best way to go. Wasted a lot of time trying to get traffic to that site, that I mildly neglected the “free” site that gets 20 times the traffic and revenue.
On Stage Lighting
April 6th, 2008 6:52 am
I am currently living through my worst blogging mistake at the moment.
Migrating my blog to a new server, I set WP to No Follow, No Index and forgot to remove it when the new server went live.
I only found out when my good traffic levels plummetted and AS revenue disappeared overnight. A site: search on Google revealed that my index page and most of my flagship content had been dropped from the G index.
Currently waiting for each page to slowly creep back into the SERPS again.
Whatta Mistaka to Make-a
Rob
Rhys
April 6th, 2008 6:54 am
Not taking advantages of a LOT. Seriously. I’ve been featured on some of the biggest and best websites out there and been featured in UK national newspapers and still average 200 hits/day.
Lisa Irby
April 6th, 2008 6:54 am
My mistake was starting my blog with no plan or idea how I would establish its own voice and identity. I already had a fairly successful site at the time I launched my blog and because my content was very similar to my website, I started asking myself “What is the purpose of this blog again?” I’m sure I confused my readers too.
ketacode
April 6th, 2008 7:07 am
Wrote my own blogging platform, but didn’t include all the benefits of wordpress in it…
Abdullah Al-Shackarchi
April 6th, 2008 7:12 am
qanews,wordpress.com - The Qatar academy student blog
I am the adminstrator for my school’s official student blog, which we are using as an alternate technique to a print.
My biggest mistake is that when I started the blog, it was planned to be an of the book talk about the latest date kind of thing. And then with the help of my friend we turned into community and service project and the school’s official publication.
I had to change the whole infastructure of the blog, and since the change was late in the year we also had to start advertising late.
But what I learned through this is that with patience and a few extra bloggers you can get something out of a blog.
InfoDoorway
April 6th, 2008 7:33 am
I’ve made several mistakes! The first that comes to mind is Adsense, at least in my niche. It’s a known quantity for making money but is basically worthless if your working with other bloggers and readers with that same interest. The second worst mistake I made was reading tons of similar blogs and writing similar articles. Why would someone keep coming to my new site if it contains regurgitated news and tips? Since then I’ve started trying to be more unique and creative.
Lily Boynton
April 6th, 2008 7:42 am
My biggest mistake is not doing enough research before buying any program or service. I bought service that guarantee visitors, it’s a total waste of money. They sent me visitors alright, but they didn’t send me ‘targeted’ visitors. I didn’t get any sales from it at all. It’s totally wasted.
John Hewitt
April 6th, 2008 7:46 am
Killing my old links when I switched from a traditional site to a blog. That cost me A LOT of traffic.
Chris
April 6th, 2008 7:46 am
My biggest mistake was to shut down an established blog because I’d got bored with it. I took for granted the time it had taken to get the blog established, and now I’m having to do it all again.
The Masked Millionaire
April 6th, 2008 8:01 am
I am confident that I am making lots of mistakes. But at this point it doesn’t really bother me.
When I started blogging I told myself that the number one thing I had to get right before I started worrying about seo and the look of my site is content, voice, and direction.
Without scoring a 10 or close to it on these 3 items most of the time then seo and blog design doesn’t really matter.
I’m fairly new to blogging so I am still working on all 3 items.
J.C. Hutchins
April 6th, 2008 8:28 am
Darren, I dig the question — and you’ve obviously already received a great many responses — but I also believe that the best way to “get” is to “give.”
What’s the biggest mistake Darren Rowse has made as a blogger?
Chuck Lawson
April 6th, 2008 8:30 am
When my blog was about 3 years old, I got the “you’ve got to have a niche” bug, and split the site into four separate sites covering each of the major topics I tend to write about. I never really got any traffic on the three new ones, and somehow pissed Google off with my original one, and lost all of my traffic.
I’ve recently combined everything back together on a new domain, and my traffic is slowly (oh-so-slowly) coming back.
Live and learn.
KG Lew
April 6th, 2008 8:44 am
Well… it would probably have been to use a free blog and not buying my own domain name… this just lessened my credibility level because a domain name tells everyone that you are serious and you mean business.
Gary
April 6th, 2008 8:58 am
I waited 9 months before I started to promote my blog and actively start networking. Since then, traffic has risen steadily. I wish I had started on day 1.
Simona Rusnakova
April 6th, 2008 9:08 am
I think that the biggest mistake a blogger can ever make is not blogging.
Levi S. (VsRobot)
April 6th, 2008 9:13 am
I’m fairly new to blogging, but I think my biggest mistake was not branding my blog in a particular niche early on. My blog grew out of a movie-related column I write, but I was mostly writing about video games and tech topics. Now I’ve made it more clear that my blog is about “Geek Culture”, which is a wide net that includes genre film, and that will hopefully help me retain more readers.
I also wish I had used a different permalink structure when I set it up.
Earth & Economy
April 6th, 2008 9:49 am
Our biggest mistake was not creating a normalized tag taxonomy for posts with the appropriate rewrite rules from the start of our MT4 installation.
So, we ended up with non-standard, repetitive tags, and cruft in our tag-specific RSS feeds and URLs. Even though we were using a robots.txt file to block the old directory we still have duplicate URLs in Google’s index. The impact was low but it was lost time and a poor user experience.
The default movable type URL looked like this for the tag green building.
mt-search.cgi?tag=Green%20Building&IncludeBlogs=1
The new cruft free url using rewrites looks like this now (we dropped the adjective “green”):
http://earthandeconomy.com/tags/Building
Though the goal is to get indexed for terms that start with green (e.g green building), there really is no need to repeat the adjective green for every tagged term. Also, going back and renaming 400 tags in MT is not easy if you are trying to rename a two word tag to a single word.
Lamonte
April 6th, 2008 10:20 am
To be honest I wish my LTD blog didn’t go down the first time, so I’ve learned never to depend on anyone when it comes to hosting your blog, at least then you will know that its your fault if you messed something up.
-Lamonte (letstalkdev)
Jay
April 6th, 2008 10:41 am
I was inconsistent with the frequency of posting. I would skip 7-10 days sometimes.
Robb Lejuwaan
April 6th, 2008 10:51 am
My biggest mistake was not posting regularly from month 5-8. I burned out and almost quit because I was not seeing the results I had hopped for. Now I have learned blogging is more of a marathon than a sprint an I am enjoying the process. Bottom line: keep writing!
Polka Dot Bride
April 6th, 2008 10:56 am
Not starting out on wordpress!
Asia'h Epperson Fan
April 6th, 2008 11:08 am
Not learning more about Google Analytics earlier and not researching niches a lot more closely when i first started.
David
April 6th, 2008 11:15 am
My worst mistake was not doing a better job filing my photos. Now I have about twenty thousand photos and they are all messed up. And Picasa is not much help either. I have yet to figure out how it files stuff. It’s different from your regular filing system and sometimes it mixes stuff up without any help from me.
Photos are a very important part of my blog. And when i need one I don’t need to spend an hour trying to find it. Some day soon I’m going to start moving all my photos one by one to Flickr. And when all the good ones are moved out I am going to blow up Picasa and every out of focus piece of trash that’s left behind in it.
Reviewers
April 6th, 2008 11:22 am
don’t take it so seriously :(, i regret that
nadiva olivier
April 6th, 2008 11:43 am
I think that start a blog without a strategy is the biggest mistake I´ve made.
When we start blogging, the novelty Blogsphere offers and its youthfull scenario seduce us and we feel the impulse to do something at a sudden. Immediately we choose a blog site, and then create a title, and start writing something. Weeks later we discover that we are mixing different subjects, talking to different targets and… panic! What have I done?
Delete posts, improve features, learn some more on techniques, and maybe, maybe we do it right.
So, start really classy! Do your blog strategy plan. Check out Darren’s 31 Day project page. Read Skelliewag tips, go for Michele Martin and other pro bloggers articles before starting. You will get rid of a lot of useless pain.
Acting by impulse and not planning before was my biggest mistake at all.
Nadiva Olivier (brazilfactor).
Mr MultiVar
April 6th, 2008 11:48 am
Using nofollow in comments to not reward commentators that added valuable input to my blogs.
Also, not having a clear reason and purpose for blogging.
Mike
April 6th, 2008 11:59 am
Not joining the blogging sites sooner. I met a lot of nice people and fun blogs along the way.
Michael Henreckson
April 6th, 2008 12:12 pm
I’m far too young at blogging to have a long list of mistakes. The ones I’ve made have been made because I still don’t know better. :)
Kishor
April 6th, 2008 12:28 pm
I have not been updating my blog regularly and that’s a bug mistake I am making.
Kishor
April 6th, 2008 12:28 pm
I have not been updating my blog regularly and that’s a big mistake I am making.
Rick
April 6th, 2008 12:48 pm
Luckily my biggest mistake so far has been short lived but I failed to fully develop the idea for my first blog. I ended up trashing it and moving on to a blog I was passionate about. In hindsight - that first failed blog might have been a bust but I learned a lot about site design and promotion.
sikantis
April 6th, 2008 1:05 pm
I’m too young in blogging so I was reading all comments to learn. I think everybody is making his own mistakes. I just feel good with my blogs because my theme is so extraordinary that people get aware of it very fast.
Lamonte
April 6th, 2008 1:16 pm
@sikantis - a theme is great to have, but without the content, its useless.
paula
April 6th, 2008 1:46 pm
I MADE a music blog that covers the same boring topics as anyone else. AND I signed up for too much blog directories knowing that not all of them could make the viewers easily see my blog. AND adding too much ads that doesn’t work. BUT! right now, I’m happy with my new blog because it became instead of a music blog, just a personal blog with all my thoughts about the world. In this blog, it’s more simple and neat and not too much annoying ads and directories, but on on getting my viewers to subscribe, comment, and trackback.
Warren Kelly
April 6th, 2008 1:56 pm
I took an extended vacation from blogging about a year ago. I posted infrequently, and when I did the posts were insubstantial. My readership plummeted, and now I face an uphill battle getting them all back. I was once rather highly ranked on the TTLB ecosystem, but not anymore.
Personal Finance Money Tips
April 6th, 2008 2:15 pm
Didn’t use a backup hosting company.
KimC
April 6th, 2008 2:16 pm
My biggest mistake: I stayed on blogger until my blog was well-established with good traffic and incoming links, and *then* got serious and moved to my own domain.
Most of my readers followed me but my old inactive blogspot still outranks me on the search engines, and most of my internal links point back to the old blog as well. It’s too much work to change them all…
Neerav
April 6th, 2008 2:29 pm
1. Not realising just how much money I could make until big brand companies started contacting me directly to place ads on my my blogs
I definitely missed out on thousands of $$ because of this
2. Not starting up my separate “Road Less Travelled” Travel and Photo blog until early 2007
Although the site is already PR4 and doing quite well I definitely missed first mover advantage in the travel website sector
Louis Liem
April 6th, 2008 5:32 pm
start blogging without knowing how to maintain a blog. like jumping into the warzone with a walter, but have no idea how to use it.
amylela
April 6th, 2008 5:52 pm
My mistake…
-make few blogs and let them as rubbish
-not focus, sometimes feel too many ideas and wasting on reading others blog
ikd
April 6th, 2008 7:19 pm
1) starting two blogs with two different topics/interests
2) after some time working on both blogs, realizing there is not enough time even for one of them :(
I.
FIRE Finance
April 6th, 2008 7:20 pm
1. Staying on Blogger for too long and not moving to own domain earlier.
Disadvantage: Now our blog has earned more than 35k incoming links, a PR of 4, a healthy traffic and is generating good revenues. So its much more difficult to move it to a private domain while retaining the PR, traffic and position in Google Searches. Moreover serious advertisers prefer blogs hosted on private domains and shy away from blogspot sites.
2. Not networking and finding out about other great blogs in our niche early on. Was too focussed on generating content and implementing various features for blogger’s template (which lacked basic amenities before it was acquired by Google).
3. Reading too much about blogging and its success metrics. Its better to get in the game with some basic know how and then learn the ropes through first hand experience.
Sheamus
April 6th, 2008 7:53 pm
My biggest regret is letting go of all the blogs I started over the years. I began in September 2002 but the only record of that blog is what’s left on Archive.org (which is minimal).
Hence, I’m now looking to rebuild all of that with my current personal blog hub.
Kacper
April 6th, 2008 8:13 pm
I surrended with my first blog way too quickly. There was no reason to do so, except my laziness.
Fortunately, great urge to write on my own blog emerged so strongly, that after few months I launched new blog.
Now, I won’t make my mistake from the past.
Lea
April 6th, 2008 8:15 pm
I should quote every answer :)
First, it is so difficult to find your own niche, your “blog personality”, that you spend months or years before focusing on what your blog is really good at. Maybe I should have taken some time reading other blogs instead of opening mine without any idea.
Then, in my case, I still have doubts about closing the comments.
Mark McGuinness
April 6th, 2008 9:01 pm
Hosting my blog at a .co.uk domain instead of a .com
And installing wordpress in a /blog directory instead of the root. I thought the blog would be an addition to my ‘main’ site, never realised it would end up the other way round.
Bit late to change those now.
Mike
April 6th, 2008 9:07 pm
I started a blog on blogger which had good rankings. I moved it over to my own domain. I think I hindsight I should have kept all of the old posts on blogger and then just started blogging fresh on the new domain rather than moving all of the old posts across.
all things bright and beautiful
April 6th, 2008 9:27 pm
Ive been blogging only 6 months but my biggest mistakes include
1. starting with blogger and not wordpress or my own domain name
2. taking a week off just after a guest post from a much bigger blog
3. not using “original” material form the start but using my blog as a “visual diary for all the things I find that I like” (often from others blogs)
4. going too hard too fast at the start
5. not getting around to doing that thing that I think’d be great for the blog - e.g contacting that person for an interview etc …….OK OK I’m off to do that now :-):-)
6. spent too much time on the blog to the detriment of life in general -
Ha ! No ones mentioned this but its a real problem!!!
Darren Ive only just started joining your RSS but you should do a whats the BEST thing you’ve done with blogging, if you havent already - tho’ I’m sure you have:-)
Kevin
April 6th, 2008 9:55 pm
Showing RSS feed count
Web 2.0 & Usability Blog
April 6th, 2008 10:06 pm
On my first blog the subject area I chose was too broad - Science, Multimiedai & Technology, and I didn’t have much expertise in most of topics I posted about.
My new blog is about web 2.0 and usability, which I have studied as a degree.
Shamess
April 6th, 2008 11:09 pm
Setting a schedule. On my first blog I flat out, publicly said “I’m going to do this blog every weekday.” It was exhausting (since blogging isn’t my full time gig) and I eventually started to slack off. With my newer blogs, I’ve decided just to post when I have something to say, and as long as I post three times a week or so, it’s fine.
Roni
April 6th, 2008 11:17 pm
I DIDN’T BACKUP MY DB!!
My hosting company has a hardware failure and I was out 2 years of posts.
I salvaged what I could from google cache and rebuilt on blogger so I wouldn’t have any downtime but my site just isn’t the same now.
Garry Right
April 6th, 2008 11:20 pm
My biggest mistake was writing comments for posts that has nothing to do with my site - http://www.soitbemaybe.com
Oblogit
April 6th, 2008 11:33 pm
I think my biggest mistake was not putting effort into my blog, instead I would post and not do anything else such as network or get involved with other’s blogs, ect. I guess you could say I remained anti-blogger (social)?
vutha
April 6th, 2008 11:35 pm
For the young blogger, when they start to create blog they did not think clearly what kind of content will be produced. it is like me when i started i did not think what the content is i need to make. That is one mistake that we did not clearly make specific topics.
Frank Warren
April 6th, 2008 11:44 pm
I have made many mistakes while growing the PostSecret Blog. (I am probably unaware of the largest ones).
The biggest mistake I am aware of is not collecting email addresses early enough. You can’ t begin your email mailing list soon enough.
So my advice? If you are not asking your interested readers to share their email addresses with you currently. Set something up for that today.
-Frank
heena Mehta
April 7th, 2008 12:06 am
I did not do any research before starting my first blog and it went into crap of bag.
Heenamehta.com
http://www.heenamehta.com
Mike Stelzner
April 7th, 2008 12:19 am
My mistake was purposefully deleting a valid user comment that made me look bad. It created a backlash. Bad scene…
Kelly
April 7th, 2008 12:24 am
I agree with Alejandro. Not starting sooner was my biggest mistake. I adore the medium and when I started last year that was the first thing I realized. I wish I’d started years earlier!
Second biggest mistake may have been TypePad. I’ve customized it to death but there’s still some things they don’t let me do, and backing out and moving is a lot harder than being on WordPress in the first place would have been. I like the hand-holding and the easy start, but if I had it to do over again I wouldn’t go hosted.
Andrew
April 7th, 2008 1:07 am
After a long series of clear cases of plagiarism, I publicly accused someone of plagiarism where it was not clear.
Lex G
April 7th, 2008 1:18 am
Trying to outdo people who are knowledgeable in my own field by writing too in-depth articles …
Basically ending up proving things to myself in stead of a target groups who needs it …
Stopped that in a hurry …
Kristen
April 7th, 2008 2:58 am
Two big mistakes so far — I wish I had hooked up w/ Feedburner sooner so that my stats were up to date and I wish I had found my specific community sooner. I was lost in the publishing lit blogs for 4 months and have just now found the lit blogs more like my own. Community participation is really important!!
Cindy Sue Causey
April 7th, 2008 3:13 am
Biggest mistake I’ve made as a blogger..? Hm.
Would say that it would be not responding immediately to my earliest poster comments.. Just the Nature of the beast that is of which I typeth.. The Voice is strong in cyberspace, much, *much* shyer when it is actually heard and answered.. :))
Am living by that it is absolutely *never* too late to respond, ever, though.. Having just become home computer-empowered again last weekend after a near year’s sporadic hiatus, still going back’ards the other way down the list while trying to keep keying my friends’ own Voices forward..
Cyber hugs.. :)
Rusty Moore - Fitness Black Book
April 7th, 2008 3:22 am
I wish I would have started by just concentrating on building one site, instead of trying every new internet marketing “flavor of the week”. I wasted so much time trying to make money online, instead of adding value to the internet. Thank god I finally woke up, since my site is getting great traffic now. I am building a long-term business and a site that I can be proud of instead of junky pages.
Lisa Gisczinski
April 7th, 2008 3:23 am
I wish I had not set my expectations so high. Starting a blog/business takes time to build a foundation. Be PATIENT!!
Joseph Ratliff
April 7th, 2008 3:24 am
Geez, mistakes…this blog post already has 130 plus comments, does it have another website to devote to my mistakes? :)
I will give a few here…
- Not providing a unique “voice” for my blog in the first 50 or so posts (my blog is now nearing 300). This probably reduced traffic along with a host of other things.
- Starting with Blogspot. No offense to the free platform, but once I registered a domain and went WP, I started to discover the TRUE benefits of S E O. The plugins helped a lot with that as well.
- Theme. Can’t go with a “canned” theme that comes with WP. Especially the “Blue” one. I did in the beginning, and wondered why the sound of “crickets chirping” eminated everytime I looked for comments.
- Social Marketing/Networking/ the overused “Web 2.0″ term. I had NO CLUE what these were, didn’t know that Digg could provide traffic at all, or anything else about this topic until about 4 months ago. Go ahead, beat me up :) Now, I am an avid social marketer.
Well, there is the short list.
If you want to see more mistakes, go to my blog and look through the old posts (2006).
Joseph Ratliff
Ulla
April 7th, 2008 3:37 am
Not to know exactly in the beginning what I wanted to do. (by the way, I’m German, so be kind with any language mistakes) I wanted to do something with photos, and it took me some time that there is a niche with photos and short texts, which sort of comment on the photos. The second thing is that I originally only wrote in German; google analytics told me that there were some people from english speaking countries - so I decided to change to comments written in English and German. And the third mistake I made in the beginning was not to work systematically on my blog, which means putting up comments regularly and commenting other blogs.
Aaron Nimocks
April 7th, 2008 3:50 am
This one is easy!
Started a blog about a topic I knew nothing about and really didnt care to learn. :)
Sunday Nite Dinner
April 7th, 2008 4:02 am
Biggest mistakes…
1) Not starting sooner
2) Modified robots.txt without testing and denied Googlebot and other bots access to site for a few days. Luckily, I caught it quickly and only a few pages were de-indexed. Key lesson learned: Test any robots.txt changes using Google Webmaster Tools.
Jamey Lucas
April 7th, 2008 4:06 am
I would have to say not having enough content before I started to spread the word about my blog. In the first two weeks I had about 2000 unique hits acording to Google.
I didn’t have enough content in place, and now those 2000 people will probably never give me a second glance.
Bujes
April 7th, 2008 4:34 am
My blog had quite a lot visitors and than I stopped updating it. I lost all of my traffic and now I’m trying to get it back, but it is hard.
Roshan Bhattarai
April 7th, 2008 4:40 am
Payperpost , payperpost and only payperpost, I’ve lost my PR due to this and until the next PR update, I can’t sell any private ads in my blog…
Meta Teen
April 7th, 2008 6:02 am
I didn’t plan ahead. Make sure you know your plan for your blog.
Also budget in money for hosting etc.
-Thomas Flight
My Dollar Plan
April 7th, 2008 6:04 am
This will sound silly, but I didn’t realize it would be so much about writing instead of my actual topic (personal finance). It’s still great, but different.
Graham
April 7th, 2008 7:00 am
Not creating my own product. Whether it is an ebook, software, or what ever.
Cindy
April 7th, 2008 7:34 am
I just started a blog this year. My biggest mistakes are not taking the time to post funny interesting topics. I tend to just drone on about my boring life. No one wants to read that. I’m trying now to keep it light and enjoyable. Secondly, I’m sitting here wondering if I should check into Wordpress. But I’m not sure how to direct my readers to that site if I decide to change. I’ll have to google about it.
Jenson
April 7th, 2008 8:48 am
A few years ago when blogging, I didn’t quite comprehend how big my audience was or who it could contain. I assumed my friends were the readers (when my blog was more personal) so I posted the address to a party I was having.
People showed up to my house unexpectedly– boy, was that awkward. I learned a valuable lesson that day– filter public content and be cautious. You never know which weirdo will integrate themselves into your life. I have had blog readers come up and introduce themselves to me– it’s weird (and kind of creepy). You can’t totally close your mind though because I have met a lot of neat bloggers because I gave it a chance.
Sheamus
April 7th, 2008 8:59 am
@ Cindy
It’s definitely worth switching to WP over a hosted Blogger account. The latter is so limiting, and WP has so many options (although naturally you can take or leave what you don’t want, making it as simple or complex as YOU choose - that’s the beauty.)
It’s also definitely worth making the move now - i.e., early - as opposed to later on when you have a lot more traffic and have a lot more to ‘lose’ by telling people you’ve now somewhere else. I’ve made that mistake enough times myself over the years.
I say: do it! Register your own URL, install your own Wordpress and away you go. You won’t regret it. :)
Sean Kelly
April 7th, 2008 9:30 am
The biggest mistake I ever made as a blogger would be to ignore other aspects of my life in order to progress the state of my blog. It was initially meant as a side project, and it took me awhile to realize that it was lower on my priority list (although still very high).
Carolyn
April 7th, 2008 10:38 am
The biggest mistake I’ve made cost me lots of traffic and the highest ranking on Google in my niche. I didn’t pre-post content in advance just in case something came up where I couldn’t. I came down with the flu in the middle of February this year, and I didn’t post on my blog for 10 days because I was bed ridden. I can’t believe how my traffic fell off so rapidly. What a painful lesson it has been.
Cindy Sue Causey
April 7th, 2008 10:40 am
@Jenson
Glad I wasn’t drinking anything when I read yours.. You get my vote for Most Humorous Booboo.. :))
Crossed my Mind I may have been recognized the other day.. I was getting on our “MATS” local transport, and some gentleman almost hit the bus.. The lady driver said he just kept looking over my way and paid no attention to where his car was going.. :))
@Myself
Take my own medicine.. Forgot this one in my earlier post.. I helped out a cyber friend I’ve never met but who lives locally.. He typed to me maybe a year later and said he was making [four digits] a month in large part by following up on tips I’d gotten places from like, get this, ProBlogger.. Granted, his niche is a lot easier for people to publicly attach their identity to, but still.. :))
Falls under some people does, some people teaches (them what does), I guess.. :S
PS.. Rather than “creeped”, proactively safe, most definitely.. And flattered.. If you have a pretty high profile, wouldn’t hurt to make nice with your local law enforcement who do perform wellness checks on neighborhoods when asked.. ;)
Dex
April 7th, 2008 12:00 pm
My main two are:
Not realizing the full potential of blogging as a business.
Starting too many projects and letting them fall by the wayside.
2ThePoint
April 7th, 2008 12:37 pm
No mistakes. Just lessons.
nadiva olivier
April 7th, 2008 1:09 pm
Believe that blogging was just about writting was the real big mistake. 1 - Blogging is about writting and knowing all devices geeks/nerds like and that all professionals - from areas that are not IT related - do not know. It is easy for me to have ideas and to write but it is a hell to understand what is CSS and so on. They tell blogsphere is friendly but it is not for whom who does not know all these IT stuff. It tooke me hours and hours without sleeping, and a good part of the energy I used to dedicate to other studies to understand them better. 2 - Blogging is about building relationship. You have to be the factory (that produces) and also the distribut