Blogging’s a great way to grow
awareness of you and/or your brand and, with bloggers now getting book deals and
media contracts, it can also be a lucrative one.

Unfortunately, many
bloggers shoot themselves in the foot by making some basic errors that holds
their blog back from its true potential.

Knowing how to avoid these
mistakes can mean the difference between just another blog online, and one that
stands out as the kind people take notice of.

1. Owning your own
domain
Having your own domain – as in, blogname.com – certainly
isn’t a must-have for all bloggers. But if you want to be taken seriously,
having a professional domain makes that much more likely.

2. Owning
your online property
For anyone serious about blogging, a self-hosted
option is the only way to go. Not only does it give you more options for styling
and customization, it shows you’re in this for the long haul, which can be an
attractive proposition for brands looking to sponsor blogs.

3.
Optimizing your blog’s permalinks
Usually, a new blog’s permalinks are
set to blogname.com/?p=123. Pretty ugly, eh? It’s not very search engine
friendly either. As soon as you set your blog up, change your permalink settings
so they just show the post or page name after the main URL. So,
blogname.com/posttitle or blogname.com/pagetitle.

4.
Forgetting to change your favicon
When you have a browser tab open,
there’s a little icon on it that shows which site you’re on (Gmail has a red
envelope, for example). This helps your site stand out when multiple tabs are
open. Use a favicon generator like favicon.cc to make your own.

5.
Having a generic logo
While you don’t need to go all out and custom
design your complete blog as soon as you start, at the very least get your own
personalized logo. This is one of the first things new visitors see and can say
a lot about your blog.

6. Not using a web-friendly font
A lot
of bloggers want their blog to stand out, so go for a font that looks cool.
Unfortunately, on the web, it might be painful to read. Stick to a sans-serif
font for all your main body content, and try not to use too many different fonts
on one page or post.

7. Not submitting your blog to the search
engines
While a blog is incredibly search engine friendly as it is,
because you’re offering fresh, new content, they need to know you exist. You can
speed this up by submitting your blog to search engines when live. Google makes
it really easy to submit your blog.

8. Not learning SEO
Many
bloggers will tell you content is king. It’s a good point – but if content is
king, SEO is blogging’s queen. If you want people to find your blog, understand
how SEO works – there are many free resources as well as paid
options.

9. Not taking the time to format posts
Web pages that
have nothing but lines of continuous text are horrible to read. Make your blog
jump from the page by using short sentences, bullet points, headlines and great
images. Even long posts can seem shorter with great formatting.

10.
Not offering more than one subscription method
Many bloggers offer just
an RSS subscription feed for their blogs. But email subscription is hugely
popular for those that prefer it, while services like Odiogo offer another great
option for the visibly impaired. Make sure you offer more than one
option.

11. Not offering social sharing options
For many
bloggers, social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Google+ are big drivers of
traffic. Make sure you offer the most popular social networks as sharing options
on all your posts, and make them prominent.

12. Wanting to be someone
else
Perhaps the biggest mistake new bloggers make is to want to be
someone else. But the other bloggers you want to be like already have that
audience – so be you, be cool with making mistakes, and grow your style
naturally.

These are 12 of the most common mistakes I see new bloggers
make. While they may not all be crucial to where you want to go with your blog,
they will play a big part in how soon you get there (if at all).
Blogging is
fun. It can also be hugely rewarding. By making sure you don’t make these 12
most common new blog mistakes, it’ll be more fun and rewarding for you too.