5 Mistakes That Will Destroy Your Blog

Blogging Mistakes

Blogging is such a fun way to express yourself and interact with other like-minded people. A lot of people really enjoy a lot of aspects of blogging but the one thing most people I have interacted with enjoy is the social part of blogging. The WordPress community is a truly unique place on the internet because for the most part people are super friendly, enthusiastic, supportive and helpful. 

After blogging for a while a lot of bloggers (my phone just tried to autocorrect the word bloggers to voyagers?? 🤔) realise that growing your blog is actually pretty difficult but having a larger platform is great because you get to interact with even more people. There are a lot more benefits of having a larger platform too especially if you would like to blog professionally or make money on your blog at any point. 

I have a lot of posts you can check out about how to grow your blog but today I decided to do something a little different and write about things that will instantly slow down the growth of your blog or that may destroy your blog altogether. I’m not trying to tell you what to blog about because blogging is obviously a very personal thing and you should blog about whatever you feel that you want to blog about. However, if you want to grow your blog or increase your growth I would recommend avoiding these things:

Buying Followers, Likes And Comments

There are so many issues that come along with buying followers, likes and comments but since we don’t have forever I will keep it short and highlight some of the main issues that are associated with buying bot likes, follows and comments. 

The first issue is that everyone’s going to know. It’d often extremely obvious when people buy likes, comments and followers. Bot followers usually have no profile picture, no real posts etc. The comments are often really basic or generic like “nice post” or “great post” without any real reference to the post itself. The likes are often disproportionate compared to the comments and followers which is a big tell-tale for fake likes. If you ever want to make a profit from your posts you will likely be interested in sponsored posts however the first thing sponsors do is check how many of your followers are real which is extremely easy to do. Most people have some fake followers because bots just follow sites randomly sometimes (you’ll notice some bot followers in your following too) but if the largest majority of your following is fake obviously sponsors are not going to be interested in working with you because what’s the point? You won’t direct any traffic to them since none of your traffic is real. 

Another issue is again concerning making a profit from your blog because I’m assuming that if you’re buying followers it’s because you want to make money off your site. A lot of times people will sell services or products on their blog which is a great (maybe the best) way to make money online but if all your followers are fake who are you going to sell to? If you build a genuine following it may take longer but it’s worth so much more than a fake following. 

Buying followers, likes and comments can be pretty expensive. Especially buying followers, however, from stuff I’ve read these followers don’t last very long because WP has been cracking down on bot accounts (they’re not doing a good job with it but they’re trying) so your followers are going to decrease as time goes buy and you will have to continue buying followers every few weeks to maintain your following. Instead, spend some money advertising on other blogs or through Google or Bing. You’ll gain genuine followers for a much cheaper amount. 

The last and probably the most important reason is because if you’re buying all these things you’re probably missing the point of blogging. In my opinion at least, blogging is largely about putting your work out there and interacting with other bloggers and honestly it’s the best part of blogging. WordPress is really unique because unlike most platforms on the internet people are super supportive and kind here. People genuinely want to connect with one another and I feel like the majority of people actually use their platform how it was supposed to be used- to express oneself. If you ever want to buy followers just take some time to interact with people here instead. It will help you connect with others and grow your blog. 

Spam Comments

Literally everyone I have talked to on WP hates spam comments and in my opinion these kind of comments are one of the worst parts of WP. I don’t mean spam comments like the obviously spam ones that try to sell you viagra or something (although if you’re the person who keeps leaving spam comments trying to sell me viagra please stop 😂). I mean the comments that say nothing about your post but tells you to visit their blog. Here are some examples:

Why would anyone follow your blog when you can’t take a few minutes to read theirs? Most people would automatically check out your blog if you left a genuine comment on their blog. However, when you leave comments like this people are just going to get irritated and probably block you or at least avoid your blog. 

Not Using Features Correctly

WP offers a lot of really great features but a lot of people don’t do a lot or any research on how to use them to their advantage. Features like tags, categories, featured images etc are there for a reason and can be vital in growing your blog. Using these features incorrectly can actually slow down your blogs growth.

For example, if you use more than 15 tags your posts will be taken off the tags section in the Reader and this will decrease your traffic and consequently your following. Using incorrect hashtags can also do the same. Using really specific tags is great for SEO but not so much for the WP community. I mean when was the last time you searched something on WP that was super specific like “post about how to grow your blog and use the tags feature on WP.” Most people will search something like “how to grow your blog” or even shorter like “grow WordPress.” Using specific tags is fine but don’t forget to add some broader tags too like “food” if you’re writing about food. 

Clickbait

Clickbait is okay to an extent if you do it once in a while and your title does relate to your post to an extent but if you constantly use clickbait-y titles that have nothing to do with your post people are probably going to get irritated and end up not following you or unfollowing you. What you want is loyal readers and followers because that’s what will help you grow long term. 

Spreading Hate

Most people have heard this at least a few times in their life- if you don’t have anything nice to say than don’t say anything at all. I think most people are fine receiving feedback because it helps you improve your writing or your posts and it helps you understand your readers better. However, if you are going to use your platform to leave hateful comments that attack the blogger you are not going to be very popular on WP because like I said we’re like a family here. If you’re going to leave feedback make sure you’re not attacking someone and leave it in a positive manner.

If you’re just going to leave a hateful comment think about the fact that there are thousands of other blogs out there. No one is forcing you to follow a blog you don’t like or read posts you don’t want to. If you hate something that much just read other blogs you agree with or connect with more. Don’t waste your energy ruining someone else’s day. You don’t personally know this person, you don’t know what they are currently going through and frankly it’s their blog and they can do whatever they want on their own blog.  

Thoughts

What are some blogging mistakes you wish you had known about sooner? Have you missed my blogging advice posts? Do you think I should do more blogging advice posts- I feel like I haven’t done any in forever? Did you find this post helpful? What is some blogging advice you wish someone had given you?

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