In today’s episode I’m breaking down one of the most asked questions I receive: what do you wish you would have known when you started blogging? I’m sharing my top tips, favorite tools and platforms, and mistakes I learned the hard way, and how to set up a successful blog in 2023.
After reflecting on this question, I have 10 blogging mistakes to avoid with solutions and alternatives.
As a reminder, my primary blog, The Urben Life is a food blog with a touch of travel and lifestyle. So while these experiences are through the lens of a food blogger, and some are food blogging specific, many of the things we’ll be talking through are general enough to be helpful for all new and beginning bloggers. Let’s just jump right in?
My first mistake was starting a blog on the free wordpress dot com. If you’re starting a blog, you want to own that blog. That’s why I highly recommended starting a self hosted blog using wordpress dot org, rather than wix or squarespace. This took me a while to understand, but Wordpress is so highly recommended because its framework makes it easy for search engines to crawl, plus it has several integrations with 3rd party platforms and powerful plugins. WPopt takes care of my hosting and I couldn’t be happier! Be sure to really do your research on hosts so save lots of confusion down the road. You can always switch hosts, but definitely start with a reputable one.
Moving right along, choose a mobile-friendly theme! I played around with several free themes over the years but when I finally understood the site speed, user experience, and SEO benefits behind certain ones – it all clicked. I currently use Foodie Pro with the Feast Plugin. It’s incredibly popular with food bloggers and for good reason! The developer stays on top of best practices and pushes updates with new features honestly more often than I expect.. Yes, it’s an investment but much cheaper than hiring a designer.
Plugins are another huge part of blogging and they’re tools that eventually become second nature. However, these are the things that you just don’t know about until you’re told. One of the most powerful plugins that all food bloggers need to have is a recipe card plugin. I use and love wp recipe maker but spent years not using a recipe card plugin at all. WP recipe maker takes care of the recipe meta-data that helps food bloggers rank on search engines! It’s also optimized for speed, easy to customize, and mobile friendly. I really encourage you to use a recipe card, there’s a free version, from the start! Learn from my mistakes!
By the way, I’m mentioning a lot of products and services in this episode. I’ll have all of them linked in the description and show notes. If I have any discount codes or affiliate links, I’ll be sure to include them as well!
Okay, so this is something that I just started doing about 5 months ago. Don’t use precious brain space and power on formatting your blog posts time after time.. Save time by creating a reusable outline! Most blog posts will follow the same or similar format with certain headings and whatnot. You can create a reusable block in wordpress and then when you go to write or update a post, simply insert it in and get going. Not only does it help you stay on track, it provides a good user experience for your readers.
We’re halfway through and this is a biggie! One of my biggest blogging mistakes was putting so much focus and spending so much time on Instagram. Yes, it was helpful for connecting with certain members of my audience and worked to my advantage for sponsored posts. But it doesn’t drive significant traffic to my blog and that’s ultimately my number one goal and priority. Looking back, I wish I would have invested a majority of my time learning about SEO rather than scrolling through hashtags. Of course, we live and we learn but unless a social media platform fills you up or provides a return on investment - consider what you’re really doing and if it aligns with your goals.
In the same vein, instead of wanting so badly to grow on social media, looking back I wish I would have put that energy towards growing my email list. If you’ve already established an email list, good for you! You can and should start emailing out regular newsletters with your first post. In addition to regular emails going out to your subscribers, nurture them! Create an opt-in freebie they automatically receive when they join your list. Once they’re subscribed, put them in your welcome sequence so they can get to know you and the type of content you create. While I’ve had different freebies in the past, I didn’t create a welcome series until last year. Let me tell you, people who subscribe to your email list want to hear from you! They want to connect and chat back and forth. It’s been incredibly rewarding to form connections with new subscribers within days or weeks of them discovering my content. Don’t wait to start any of that, get ahead now!
We’ve only got a few more to go but this is another big one. If you follow me or have listened to my other episodes, you knew this one was coming. I can’t really call this one a mistake because I genuinely didn’t know of its existence or understand what it meant. So I want to pay it forward in case you’ve never heard of this blogging technique. I would like to introduce you to keyword research! I’m certainly no expert but essentially you’re researching what actual search terms and queries users are actually typing into search engines. This is so impactful because it will let you know what content users want to know about. There are a handful of really amazing resources to learn more about this and along with that there are several keyword researching tools. I use and recommend keysearch! It’s quite affordable and gets the job done. If I was starting my blog today, keyword research would be the first thing I do to help guide my decisions on which blog posts to publish first. I can’t stress enough how highly I recommend this!
The last 3 aren’t exactly tools or platforms but they’re just as important.
Blogging can feel really isolating at times. I used to be nervous about reaching out to others or asking for help because I didn’t want to be a bother. Don’t make that mistake! Find your people. Join groups. Attend conferences. Put yourself out there!! It’s one of the best parts of blogging and some of my best friends are now creators I’ve met in person maybe only one or two times but since we stay connected virtually, it’s like we’re always together. It’s so incredibly important to always stay curious and surrounding yourself with other creators helps you to stay inspired and motivated!
It’s also really, really, really hard not to compare yourself or your blog to others. If you find yourself falling into this, first off you’re not alone and second, remember that you’re comparing your start to somebody else's middle. We all start somewhere! To combat this, I recommend celebrating your wins on a weekly basis! No win is too small. Keeping track of these wins over time will help you see how far you’ve come and all that you’ve accomplished!
Have an abundance mindset! I used to think I would never get on mediavine or reach my income goals. I would set goals thinking these are mega stretch goals and I’ll never reach them. You know what happened? I met or exceeded them! Of course I haven’t reached all my goals and I fall short just like everybody else with certain things, but I’m acutely aware of when those limited mindset beliefs start to creep in. Keeping a gratitude journal and again celebrating those wins, big or small, really helps!
Lastly, published is better than perfect! Now I’m not telling you to push out poorly written or ill researched blog posts, but stop obsessing. Stop over thinking every single word. Don’t get too caught up in the process. If you have a post with helpful, relevant information, it’s a disservice to not share it with the world! Stop doubting yourself and take the leap. Once published, you can always go back and edit. The first step of publishing is often the hardest, after that you’ll be on your way.
I hope hearing about my previous blogging mistakes and what I wish I could go back and do differently helps you along your journey. If nothing else, I hope it inspires you to keep going and not give up. Even if you make a mistake, learn from it, and grow! I just listed my top 10 biggest blogging mistakes and I’m still here and doing alright.
If you found value in this week’s episode, I would really appreciate you leaving me some feedback through ratings and reviews. And if you have any topics you’d like for me to cover, reach out. I’d love to connect and chat with you!
Thanks so much for joining me, Jenna Urben, in this episode of Bloggerbytes. See ya next week!
