The tough thing about blogging is that we are all learning from scratch. I didn’t take classes on blogging when I was in college (I don’t even think there were professional bloggers back then). Instead, you need to actively learn new skills and research new developments. Today I am sharing a few mistakes that bloggers make. But don’t worry – these mistakes are really easy to correct.
You Aren’t Adding Alt Text to Your Images
It is easy to forget this step. You need to be adding Alt Text to all of your images, and make sure that you are including your keyword in that text.
Your Posts Aren’t Long Enough
Your blog posts need to have at least 300 words in order to be indexed by Google. If your post isn’t getting indexed by Google, you are missing out on lots of potential traffic.
You Aren’t Using Header Text
I resisted this, but it helps SEO. Work a couple of headers including your keyword into your posts.
You Aren’t Posting Vertical Images
It has become the standard for bloggers to post full width vertical images. Pinterest is a big reason for this trend since vertical images receive more re-pins.
You Aren’t Planning in Advance
Sharing a Valentine’s Day recipe on February 13th? You are about a couple weeks too late. It takes a couple weeks for a site to build up some traffic and to get some action on Pinterest. If you post too late, your blog post won’t reach its full potential. You can use Google Adwords Keyword Planner to research when Google searches for specific keywords peak and use that information to choose when you post about certain topics. For example, you can see when searches for Valentine’s Day recipes peak and choose to post just before then so that Google has indexed your post by the time the search traffic for that topic peaks.
You Haven’t Defined Your Niche
This can evolve with time, but you should have a clear idea of what type of content you are posting. You should also have an idea of who your ideal reader is. Think about your favorite bloggers – you can probably define what they write about in one sentence.