Bad Blogging Habits + How to Break Them

Bad blogging habits are basically anything that keeps you from achieving your goals. Every blogger from new to established has some form of bad habits. Whether you become complacent, or you don’t spend enough time creating content – there are things you can do to become better at blogging and reach your goals!

Comparison

Comparison really is the thief of all joy.. but I think more so in the blogging world? There are so many blogs out there and half of them are terrible- but most of the time we only look at the ones that are much more established or making a full-time income. I’m not sure it matters how many blog posts you have- if you’re always trying to copy someone else you’ll never reach your goals.

That’s not to say there aren’t some truly amazing blogs out there to learn from. I’ve personally got about three or four that I look at when I’m really at a loss for what to do. The struggle for most of us as less established bloggers is feeling like we’ll never catch up. That’s just not true and there is room for everyone to have a successful blog.

How to Break The Bad Blogging Habit: The last thing you need to be doing is obsessing so much over what other people do. You’ll end up not creating content that speaks to you and your readers- which puts you further and further behind. Not to mention that you’ll also lose your confidence. If I look at every blog that was 9 years ahead of me – I’d NEVER get going!

Use a time blocking schedule for blogging and include ‘research’ as one of the things you time block for. This gives you a time for the things you feel you need to look up and a time to stop so that you don’t become overwhelmed.

Being Afraid To Share Your Knowledge

Have you ever been in a Facebook group and found that there are people doing so much better than your blog and you’re intimidated? Ya. Me too. This has stopped me many times from sharing secrets about blogging until I realized there was really nothing to worry about. The traffic your website generates from becoming a good resource is so important!!

How to Fix This Bad Blogging Habit: This is where the abundance mindset comes in to play. If you haven’t heard of it- it basically means that there will always be more and you shouldn’t be afraid to take risks. Sharing your knowledge freely, embracing change, and taking risks are all pretty big cornerstones to blogging. {More on this another time.. but if you look at the chart below you can kind of get an idea of which one you are as a blogger. I used to have a scarcity mindset but I’ve realized how much more I’ve grown as a blogger when I adopted the Abundance Mindset!!}

Not Being Consistent

Ahhhh procrasrination. My old frenemy. { Friend-enemy for those of you who don’t speak Millenial lol}

But really! This is probably my biggest problem. I get excited about something or I don’t finish other things. In general in life I allow myself to become scatter-brained and it keeps me from consistently creating content. You’ll know this is happening to you too if your list of ‘Drafts’ keeps increasing and your ‘Published Posts’ number doesn’t change.

How To Break This Bad Blogging Habit: I created a weekly Blogging Schedule that I’ve been using and I REALLY love it! It’s been incredibly impactful for me to keep myself on track because I visually have to write it all out and plan each week. I check off SEO, tags, images, and Pinterest pin creation for every single post.. and this created habits for me. This habit formation is what’s most important! Eventually, I won’t need that list, but for now, it’s incredibly helpful!

Not Proof Reading

Probably one of the most tempting bad blogging habits I have! I try really hard to proofread and I just get bored. It’s like the thoughts leave my brain and jump on to the page– and then I just can’t read the thoughts anymore!! As tempting as this is – nothing ruins your credibility like a blog post full of grammatical errors and bad spelling.

How to Correct This: Get Grammarly! Grammarly is the proofreading service that I use. I pay for Premium which gives you tone corrections etc. You can make corrections directly in your post editor! Notice the different types of corrections below for Clarity, Engagement, Delivery, and Correctness. See a sample of the Grammarly functionality below:

How to Market Your Blog

This is probably one of the most major blogging mistakes you can make. If you don’t take the time to publicize and market yourself – all the hard work you do doesn’t matter. Like really really doesn’t matter! No one will read something they don’t know exists!

How to Correct This: Delete all social media off of your phone except the ones you’re truly comfortable with. Focus on really marketing yourself on those few or that one. I think there are probably 30 different channels you could market yourself on. But if it’s juussssst you working on your blog? You do NOT have the time for all that. You have time to be an expert at one or two!! The channels I use are Facebook and Pinterest. I have an Instagram and I love Instagram. But I’m not going to spend all of my time there fighting the algorithm.

How much Should It COst to Start a Blog?

The biggest and the baddest blogging habit that all newbie bloggers make – trying to start a blog for free. You literally can’t do that unless you’re willing to have no authority over your content, to not make any money, and to not have anyone take you seriously. I tried!! I really really tried, but starting a blog for free just isn’t going to get you anywhere in 2020. Please ignore all the blogs that tell you that you can and make a career out of it.

The statement that you’re not going to get anywhere with a ‘free’ blog, also assumes you actually want to get anywhere? Some people just do it for fun. And that’s ok too. If you have dreams though? You need tools and you need guidance. None of that comes for free. (Even this Keyword Research Too. I’m not affiliated with Ubersuggest, and I don’t pay for it yet while I’m learning- I’ve just found it incredibly helpful!)

How to Avoid Spending Too Much: Figure out what you really want out of your blog. If you know what you want – you’ll be able to do research to find the right tools. All the plugins in the world won’t make a difference if you don’t have the functionality that makes your content stand out, shareable, and easy to navigate. By having a focused goal you can determine where to invest your hard-earned money.

Obsessing Over Perfection

One of my favorite quotes of all time:

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Airman’s Odyssey

Im so guilty of trying to create the ‘perfect’ space and not taking the time to make content. The last thing I should be doing every week is wasting time agonizing over how something small looks like ‘button text’ and yet I do it?! It’s a bad habit I’m trying to break.

Here’s What I’m Doing To Try And Stop Obsessing: I’m working on time blocking and creating followable weekly blogging outlines. (The one I’m sharing above!) If you’re doing this – just remember to time block for things you want to change. I write them down in my notes and during the time I’ve time blocked to change actual things on my blog – I do them all at once. This keeps me from not writing and creating!

Skipping Behind The Scenes Work

Metadata, image optimization, SEO.. these are all things you need to do. You literally can’t blog without them and I really do mean that! You’ll be lost among the masses, because as good as your writing may be – Google’s search engines will not find you – and if they do – you won’t have credibility.

How To Correct This Toxic Blogging Habit: Install Yoast for SEO and do everything they say. You literally can’t mess it up if you write with a focus on your keywords. You want your ideas to be concise! Include relevant keywords in your metadata with the Yoast plugin.

Easy Tip:Want your images to have an impact? Start using alternate text so that Google knows what you’re images are about.

RELATED LINKS

How To Add An Affiliate Disclosure On Every Post

How To Use Pinterest Trends To Drive Blog Traffic

Should You Start A Blog?

Create a Blogging Community

This links relates back to being afraid to share your knowledge, and in a more self-sabotaging way. Blogging is HARD. You can’t do it alone! You need help and others can be there to help you if you want! But you have to be willing to help others as well.

How to create a blogging community: The first thing you should be doing is finding and joining relevant Facebook groups. There are many more tactics I have to help encourage growth in your blog-o-sphere but this is a good first step. You’ll find that people are asking the same questions you are, or that when your site breaks – someone else has been there too!!

How to Organize Your Blog Post Ideas

If you’re anything like me – you have been at the stage where you have post it notes alll over the place!! This means your blog post ideas can get lost, not make sense or even that you might not be able to read your own handwriting! Don’t lose out on your own creativity because you couldn’t get organized!!

The App I Use To Organize My Blog Notes: Evernote!! This really is the best. It’s free, and I mean really free, and it syncs across all of my devices. This is what it looks like when I open the ‘Notebooks’ tab. All of my notes are organized and easy to find!!

Inconsistent Branding that Confuses Your Readers

Consistent branding is NOT easy – but it can have a really big impact on your reader’s experience while on your site. Not only should you chose visually appealing colors, but they need to be easy to read!! Easy to read i.e. not causing me to strain my eyes because you have yellow writing on a hot pink banner??? People won’t even look at sites like that. They’ll just leave because they assume you’re not professional.

How to Create Consistent Branding: Chose colors that make sense for your vibe, save all of those colors in Canva, and create everything from a template of that saved file. (More on this another time!) Just remember that in order to grow – you need to be recognizable! Consistency is key for your posting habits, how you edit your photos and your site’s colors!

Grow Your Email List

This is a huge one. I know I keep saying that- but the more that I write these down? The more I realize how far I’ve come and how much these mistakes impacted me!. I’m scowling at myself as I write this over a glass of wine ya know? Regardless of what blogging platform/hosting you choose – if you don’t grow your email list – you could lose all following that you had.

How to Create Your Email List: Create an email list. Create a freebie that gets subscribers and create content people are excited to read. Make sure you’re sending emails and make sure that people are getting them often enough to be reminded of who you are.

Take a Break from Blogging

Don’t get burnt out on your blog. Create a schedule. Stick to it and give yourself room to breathe when you don’t. If you find things to inspire you, write them down. Get the Evernote app to store all of your thoughts (and your notes as discussed above) and write when you can.

You probably started blogging for a reason and that reason has to be good enough for you to continue pushing even when you’re tired. ‘To make money’ is not a good enough reason. ‘To create a different life’ however? THAT’S a good reason.

Enjoy the process and cut out your bad habits. You can do this!!

Thanks for sharing!