At the HubSpot Blog, which gets a whopping eight million page views per day and has seen a 25% boost in traffic year after year, we've experimented with and written many key strategies that can make any blog successful.
We've learned how to harness the power of SEO and research to give our readers valuable content while also generating large amounts of organic traffic at the same time.
In this post, we’ll discuss some common blogging mistakes to avoid, according to HubSpot Blog managers. We’ll also provide some blogging tips for beginners.
Why do blogging mistakes happen?
Blogging requires more effort and time than a lot of people realize. Failing to properly plan and strategize can lead to major mistakes. Without a clear content plan, you may struggle with consistency, formatting, and promotion. This is especially true for new bloggers who may not be aware of best practices.
Additionally, bloggers who fail often don’t conduct research and prioritize their audience may struggle to engage and retain readers. Researching your target audience, industry trends, and keywords is crucial for creating valuable and engaging content.
Fear that you’re missing some of these elements? It’s okay! We’re here to help you and your blog become a success. Let’s delve into some common blogging mistakes and the solutions that will help your blog move up the ranks.
Blogging Mistakes to Avoid
- Thinking of ideas that only interest you.
- Forgetting about your audience.
- Only covering trending news.
- Not tying a niche topic into your reader’s broader struggle.
- Treating your writing like a brain dump.
- Not using data as evidence.
- Providing little context.
- Copying others’ work and not crediting them
- Thinking you’re done once the writing’s done.
- Writing without SEO in mind.
- Focusing analytics on immediate traffic.
- Not attracting new subscribers.
- Publishing text-heavy posts.
- Only using one medium to share your content.
- Not promoting your content on social platforms.
- Blogging inconsistently.
Most of a blog‘s traffic is driven organically — in other words, consumers will search for something on a search engine and click on your blog if it matches their intended topic. However, there are a lot of organizations competing for your audience’s attention, so it's important to avoid common blog mistakes to stand out.
Here are the most common blog post mistakes (and their solutions), according to HubSpot bloggers.
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1. Thinking of ideas that only interest you.
As much as you might read and re-read your blog posts after you publish them, you're not the intended reader.
When you start blogging, ideas will come to you at random times — in the shower, on a run, or while on the phone. While the ideas may come at random moments, the ideas themselves should never be random.
"Your blog is a honeypot, not a megaphone. Make it a point to position your content around what your audience wants to discover, not what you want to tell them,” said Amanda Sellers, historical optimization manager at HubSpot.
Solution: Align your blog posts with company growth goals.
The reason you're blogging is to solve problems for your audience and, ultimately, to grow your business. So, all of your blog post ideas should help serve those growth goals. They should have natural tie-ins to issues in your industry and address specific questions and concerns your prospects have.
Need help figuring out what those goals are and how to address them? Chat with your manager about the larger company goals, and then schedule a meeting with someone on the sales team to hear what questions they get asked most often.
After both meetings, you should know which goals you need to achieve and have some ideas on how to achieve them.
2. Forgetting about your audience.
If you want your blog content to perform well (i.e. generate traffic, leads, and sales), it must resonate with your audience and compel them to take action.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is assuming that your content will perform if you haven't actually considered your audience or the actions you want them to take.
"Your persona is the basis for everything you create. Writing for yourself won’t always resonate with your intended audience,” said former Senior Content Marketing Manager at HubSpot Christina Perricone.
She continues, “If you, instead, speak to your persona’s pains, challenges, and goals and they feel like you are speaking to them, they are more likely to stay on the page and convert on your offer."
Solution: Pick topics that speak to your target audience directly.
By defining your buyer persona and the things that matter to them, you can bridge the gap with your content. Remember, your blog should strive to connect with folks who are likely to eventually purchase something from you.
Your persona development should determine factors like what job your ideal customer has, what goals they want to achieve, and what pain points or annoyances they deal with on a daily basis.
“Once you have a solid understanding of who you want to target, this knowledge can inform not only your topic selection, but the tone, format, and complexity level of your content,” says Karla Hesterberg, the HubSpot Blog's Senior Team Manager.
“Without this foundational understanding of your audience, you're not going to connect with the right people in the right way.”
3. Only covering trending news.
Trendy or buzzy content can quickly become outdated and irrelevant. That’s why you shouldn’t craft your entire blog strategy around them.
For example, news about a petition to change the law surrounding sponsored content might become out of date when the law is struck down or goes into effect. If your post only covers the news, it will stop gaining traffic once the topic is no longer relevant.
Solution: Prioritize evergreen content with buzzy angles.
Evergreen topics often touch on overarching ideas that won't become outdated or irrelevant in the near future.
On our marketing blog, one example of this is, "What is Digital Marketing." Although we‘ve updated the piece to include new digital marketing strategies, the definition of digital marketing won’t change at its core.
At the HubSpot Blog, we often call our overarching evergreen topics “pillars” =because an overarching evergreen topic can lead you to brainstorm a number of smaller post ideas and story angles.
Going back to the previous sponsored post example, an evergreen version of this post would cover what sponsored content is, and highlight examples as well as current laws.
While we identify pillars for content inspiration, we also take it one step further by creating and regularly updating long-form posts, called pillar pages.
They give our readers comprehensive information about evergreen topics and link to a wide variety of our best blog posts on each topic.
Although stats and facts might need slight updating from year to year, foundational topics aren't likely to change drastically.
This means the content will be relevant, more shareable, and linkable. This might also mean a higher search authority and search engine ranking.
4. Not tying a niche topic into your reader's broader struggle.
You already know how important it is to resonate with your buyer persona and understand their pain points. However, there‘s a reason why they’re experiencing pain points and what is driving them to get it solved.
6 Free Blog Post Templates
Save time creating blog posts with these free templates.
- "How-to" Post
- "What is" Post
- Listicle Post
- And More!
Solution: Understand the challenges and consequences they're facing.
You should be asking yourself:
- What is at stake?
- What do they gain by taking action?
- If they don't take action, what will happen?
All of these things can manifest in the content that you write for your blog post. Doing so will signal to your reader that you understand what they're going through and that you want to help.
"If you‘re uninterested in a particular topic you’re writing about, it‘s probably because you haven’t stopped to think about the big picture,” says Senior Content Strategist at HubSpot Caroline Forsey.
“Understanding how the topic you‘re writing about will fit into a reader’s broader challenges will help you find meaning and value in any post you write, and will enable you to connect with your readers better."
For instance, let‘s say you’re tackling a post like “first vs. third-party APIs.”
While the topic is dry and allows for little creativity, the big-picture value is huge. You’re helping readers decide whether they should shell over the big bucks for an in-house API or save money and time by asking a third party for API development.
Essentially, “first vs. third party APIs” is a question that hits at computer security, efficiency, and budget constraints, all of which could have big consequences for your reader.
5. Treating your writing like a brain dump.
Sometimes when I get a great idea I‘m excited about, it’s really tempting to just sit down and let it flow out of me. But what I get is usually a sub-par blog post.
Why? The stream-of-consciousness style of writing isn't really a good style for blog posts. Most people are going to scan your blog posts, not read them, so it needs to be organized really well for that to happen.
Solution: Structure your blog with a template, outline, and section headers.
The first thing you should do is choose what type of blog post you're going to write. Is it a how-to post? A list-based post? A curated collection post? A SlideShare presentation?
For help on this, download our free templates for creating different types of blog posts. Once you have a template down, it'll be easier to write your outline.
Your outline is the skeleton from which you build your sections and fill out your content
“More experienced bloggers might dismiss this, but creating an outline can have a big impact on the clarity, organization, and flow of your final piece — particularly when you‘re trying to teach a complex concept,” says Hesterberg. “I can always tell when someone’s skipped an outline.”
If you're new to outlining posts or still are unsure of where to start, consider formats like listicles or step-by-step guides, These can be more readable to audiences and easier to write.
Using headers is also critical for the reader experience.
“While it‘s nice to imagine that your readers hang on your every word, the reality is that they’re probably mostly skimming your posts,” says Hesterberg.” As you write, be sure you're making your piece skim-friendly: including plenty of paragraph breaks, clearly titled sections, relevant images, and formatting that makes it easy to find the piece of information they came for.”
6. Not using data as evidence.
Let‘s say I’m writing a blog post about why businesses should consider using Instagram for marketing. When I'm making that argument, which is more convincing?
- “It seems like more people are using Instagram nowadays.”
OR
- "Instagram’s user base is growing far faster than social network usage in general. In the U.S, Instagram will grow 15.1% this year, compared to just 3.1% growth for the social network sector as a whole."
The second, of course. Arguments and claims are much more compelling when rooted in data and research.
As marketers, we don’t just have to convince people to be on our side about an issue — we need to convince them to take action. Data-driven content catches people's attention in a way that fluffy arguments do not.
Solution: Leverage recent data and mix in industry trends.
In any good story, you’ll offer a main argument, establish proof, and then end with a takeaway for the audience. You can use data in blog posts to introduce your main argument and show why it's relevant to your readers, or as proof of it throughout the body of the post.
Some great places to find compelling data include:
You should also dive into industry trends, such as new social media platforms or recently published research. This tactic allows our blog to keep readers in the loop of new trends, while still covering more stable marketing topics.
“Evergreen content is a necessary backbone of any successful content strategy, but don‘t ignore the trends happening in your industry — because your readers certainly aren’t,” says Hesterberg.
“Offering your take on industry trends is an opportunity to build a thought leadership presence and show your target audience that you're a knowledgeable, active player in your space," she continues.
6 Free Blog Post Templates
Save time creating blog posts with these free templates.
- "How-to" Post
- "What is" Post
- Listicle Post
- And More!
7. Providing little context.
“When I first joined the HubSpot Blog team, I would consistently get the edit that I wasn’t adding enough examples to support my statements,” says Prater.
“For example, I might write ‘SMBs should expand their social media strategies to experiment with newer, cheaper channels.’ Sure, that might be true, but it’s a pretty broad suggestion.”
Solution: Illustrate ideas with examples, customer stories, and quotes from industry experts.
As bloggers, we become experts in our industry. Because of this, it's easy to forget about specificity when giving advice, explaining examples, or walking through a common process.
It’s important to build upon your point with details, Prater says, as she follows up with her previous example.
“A stronger way to share this with an audience might be to add on, ‘For example, test running ads on question-and-answer platform Quora, or go live on Tiktok to engage your audience.’”
Prater shares that by adding specificity to a previously broad statement, she made her point more actionable.
Another way to illustrate your ideas is by leaning on industry experts.
“Seeking out guest pieces from qualified experts on subjects you want to cover can help fill knowledge gaps on your own content team,” says Hesterberg.
If that contributor is well-known in your industry or considered a thought leader, this might also make the post more shareable on social media or through backlinks.
On the blog, we regularly host expert contributors and thought leaders who give research insights and discuss their successes. If you can't get a full blog post from a contributor, you can also consider reaching out to experts for quotes that will add a touch of expert insight to your pieces.
Here’s a post that features several experts written by Forsey.
"I've found including original quotes from experts helps you reach a new audience whenever that expert shares your post on their own social channels,” Forsey says.
She continues, “Best of all, it helps the user experience. For instance, if I‘m writing a post about social media consultants, I’d much rather interview and use quotes from someone in the field, rather than rely on my own second-hand knowledge.”
8. Copying others’ work and not crediting them.
Plagiarism didn‘t work in school, and it certainly doesn’t work on your company's blog. But for some reason, many beginner bloggers think they can get away with the old copy-and-paste technique.
You can't. Editors and readers can usually tell when something's been copied from somewhere else. Your voice suddenly doesn't sound like you, or maybe there are a few words in there that are incorrectly used. It just sounds off.
Plus, if you get caught stealing other people‘s content, you could get your site penalized by Google — which could be a big blow to your company blog’s organic growth.
Solution: When drawing from others' ideas, cite them.
Instead, take a few minutes to understand how to cite other people's content in your blog posts.
It‘s not super complicated, but it’s an essential thing to learn when you're first starting out.
9. Thinking you‘re done once the writing’s done.
Most people make the mistake of not editing their writing. It sounded so fluid in their head when they were writing that it must be great to read ... right?
Nope — it still needs editing. And maybe a lot of it.
Solution: Take 30 minutes to edit your post.
Everyone needs to edit their writing — even the most experienced writers. Most times, our first drafts aren‘t all that great. So take the time you need to shape up your post. Fix typos, run-on sentences, and accidental its/it’s mistakes. Make sure your story flows just as well as it did in your outline.
To help you remember all the little things to check before publishing, check out our checklist for editing and proofreading a blog post.
10. Writing without SEO in mind.
When people want to learn more about a topic, they go to Google, Bing, or another search engine and type a phrase or a question.
This means that to ensure your intended audience finds your website, you’ll need to use SEO strategies to optimize your website and blog content. Otherwise, you risk putting in all this work without getting any eyes on it.
Solution: Identify relevant keywords, design a backlink strategy, and optimize your content.
Let’s start with keywords.
Leveraging keywords or phrases in your blog post's subheads, body text, and image alt text can help to optimize your piece so search engine crawlers can find it and rank it more easily.
Once you have a list of topics you think might be interesting to your audience, research phrases or keywords related to them using a tool like SEMRush. If you find that a phrase has a high MSV (monthly search volume), you should work that phrase or keyword into the titles or subheaders of your post.
Want to learn more about this? you can find a detailed guide on how to do keyword research for your blog posts.
Next up: Linking to your own website's posts and credible sources.
“Interlinking your own content is an important strategy from both an SEO and content discoverability perspective,” says Hesterberg.
From an SEO perspective, any link to your page is like a vote. The more votes you get, the higher your search ranking and authority will be. Linking to your own content can count as a vote for yourself.
You can also earn links from external websites, which are called backlinks.
A backlink, or inbound link, is earned when another site links to your blog post. Because search engines want to show people the most credible, original content first, these backlinks will help you move up in search rankings.
Aside from SEO, quotes, thought leadership, and original research will also improve the reader's experience.
Lastly, optimize your alt text and images.
You might not realize it, but even your images can be holding your search engine ranking back. While search engines like Google analyze the alternative text of your photos to ensure that they have consistent keywords in them, they also look at how fast these photos actually load.
If a photo loads slowly, it creates a poor user experience. If users bounce from your page quickly because photos aren't loading, search engine crawlers will catch this and move you down on search result rankings.
To avoid this, we like to compress our images as much as possible before they lose quality. If you‘re not a Photoshop expert, don’t worry. You can do this quite simply with websites like Squoosh.app.
6 Free Blog Post Templates
Save time creating blog posts with these free templates.
- "How-to" Post
- "What is" Post
- Listicle Post
- And More!
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