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My wife was (and probably still is) a New Kids on the Block fanatic. I may have hummed one of their songs. Just once I promise!
Guys, please don’t judge.
Being the new kid on the block can sometimes be scary and very intimidating. That’s even more evident when you start your blog.
When Mandy and I both launched our blogs we quickly realized how much we didn’t know about blogging.
We both made several newbie mistakes. Heck, we still make mistakes!
Remember, my Pinterest fail? Or Mandy’s stubbornness with SEO?
We’ve been blogging for years and we still make mistakes.
What we don’t want you to do is make some of the same newbie blogging mistakes we’ve made.
This Week’s Show
On this edition of the Dollars and Roses podcast we share some of the common newbie mistakes that we see bloggers still making. Here’s a rundown of what we discuss on the show:
- Own Your Own Domain. Don’t ask why. Just go to GoDaddy.com and buy your own already.
- Your Site Looks Like Crap. Premium WordPress themes are cheap. We like Genesis. Need some graphics? Go to Fiverr.com.
- Drop the Clutter. Too many ads, badges, buttons dilute your message. Use Google Analytics to see where your visitors are clicking.
- Numbers = Following. Don’t promote it until you actually have something to promote.
- Tell Me More About You. Your about page is your time to shine. Make sure you don’t leave new readers hanging.
- Don’t be Boring. Catchy blog post titles make or break somebody reading your post. Check LenPenzo.com for some good examples.
Are you making of these newbie blogging mistakes? It’s not too late to fix them. 🙂
Great post! When blogs don’t have an About page, it’s just very confusing. That is something that really bothers me!
@ Michelle Same here! Your about page is great by the way. 🙂
Great post:)
My husband and I recently started blogging together- these tips come at the right time! We have our own domain and are self-hosted (thanks to tips from your other posts). We’re working on making the site pretty now; we haven’t been willing to invest in a theme yet and just relying on googling abilities for coding tips and tutorials.
@ Emily If you can hack your way to a good looking theme, that works, too. I messed around with free themes for 6 months before I eventually upgraded to Thesis. Back then it ended up being totally worth it. I’m just now getting familiar with Genesis and thus far I like it.
Great Podcast guys! I finally just started building my blog a few days ago and it’s been a huge learning curve and experience. I’ve written a couple posts now but am wondering something. When’s a good time to start sharing it with everyone? Do I wait until I have more content or do I share it right away? Thanks for all your advice again and I look forward to learning more from you both! Keep it up!
@ Sean If your content is solid, it might not be too early to start sharing. I don’t remember exactly, but I think I waited until I had 10 posts published before I shared it.
Another great podcast guys! Some really good tips and I loved it when your kids joined you at the end – “Oh my gosh, you’re 3 and you don’t know your last name?!” haha 😀
I’d love it if you’d stop by my blog and let me know if you think I’m making any obvious mistakes, I’d really appreciate your expert opinions! 🙂
Jeff/Mandy,
A few weeks ago, I can recall reading an article specifically about blog “About Us” pages.
In the article, the author wrote about how “About Us” pages are generally the most visited, but, simultaneously, the most neglected on any blog.
Though it is still a work-in-progress, we have put alot of effort into our “About Us” page, and, our metrics through Google Analytics seems to indicate the same, and validate that that author was correct.
Just from purveying different blogs online, I’ve read, I’d estimate, over 100 blog “About Us” pages. Not to be critical, but sometimes it doesn’t seem like those bloggers nearly put as much effort into them like they should….because of that, I think they may be loosing an awesome opportunity to make the best possible first impression. First impressions are truly everything, and, that seems like a pretty big thing to neglect….
Thanks for another great post, guys!
Hi guys!
I stumbled across your website when doing some searching for starting up the blog I’m planning to launch in 2014. It’s self-hosted and I bought a domain name. My question is – is it better to have my URL be my name or the name of the blog? I bought both domain names and they’re both .coms. I’ll forward whichever one I don’t use to the other, but am having a hard time deciding which will be the primary one. I’m thinking if I go with my actual name, then if I change things up on the blog later, it won’t matter as much as if I go with the URL of the name of the blog. Do you have some insight to share? Thanks for your podcast! I’ve already enjoyed 3 or 4 episodes and am getting caught up with the others. You share great content in an easy to understand way. So helpful!
@LeeAnn Personally, I don’t think it matters unless you wanted to sell your site one day. The other benefit also depends on your blog name and if it has a targeted keyword in it that you want people to find you for. An example would be Pat Flynn from SmartPassiveIncome.com. Pat was trying to rank for “passive income” in Google and by having that in his blog name it definitely helped.
Hope that helps!