7 Things you should never focus in the initial stages of blogging

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Blogging is no more an old-fashioned hobby any more. It actually started as an online dairy where people are supposed to write about their daily life and share it with some of their close friends and relatives but now the story is different it has grown in leaps and bounds. People now blog or write content not focusing on family and friends but to a global audience and of course if you write well your voice will be definitely heard.

Though there are people reaping millions out of their blogs still it stands as one of the most misunderstood art. Though people leave their full-time jobs still, it is not accepted by many people as a career choice. In this post you will learn about things which a newbie blogger should not focus on.

Newbie-Blogger

1. Money:

First and foremost reason why most of the people blog is to make some money out of it. Blogs do serve the purpose of earning money but it is not all for what we should blog. In the initial stages a blogger should focus more on creating content rather than monetizing. Even if we get approval for Adsense account within one month of starting a blog its OK but we can’t earn six figure income straight away.

We need to build good readership, subscribers and loyal followers who actually love the stuff which we post. People are often too quick to apply for Adsense or some other advertising networks to monetize their blog. But it is advisable to do so after gaining some good traffic then you can think of monetizing your blog. After all it is traffic what one need’s in order to earn some decent amount of money.

2. Stardom:

Hey did you land up with a blog after watching an interview of Amit Agarwal or Harsh Agarwal? Do you also expect the same status in an overnight, then you are wrong my dear friend. Blogging is not an overnight business, it actually takes time to reach a respectable status in the blogosphere. When Amit Agarwal had created a blog there were very few blogs but now we have more than 450 active English blogs and nearly 1 million blogs being created every day.

Technorati has estimated 200 million blogs in the beginning of 2009. So now where would you stand in this race by creating a blog and expecting thousands of followers. You might have also started to create Facebook page, Google plus page and a twitter account for your blog but don’t expect followers the very beginning of your journey. Don’t even check for stats on daily basis or try for some quick ways to gain them. People these days are buying some fake followers just to make their blog look popular but that doesn’t add an inch to your success.

3. Multiple blogs or Multiple niche:

Are you into creating a network of blogs or are you writing articles on multiple niche. Then wait a newbie blogger just can’t imagine his/her blog to be a Huffington post or Engadget. One needs to focus on one blog and single niche until you reach to some landmark in your blogging career. We might have knowledge on variety of topics but don’t be too quick in posting it all in a single blog or starting various blogs at a time.

You might actually reach to a point of saturation with your blogs or niche. You might not be able to focus on all the blogs or can’t bring about an equilibrium in all the topics you write in your blog. So be wise in choosing a niche before you actually start writing your blog. Single blog and a focused niche is all enough to kick start your blogging journey.

4. Giveaway’s & Contests:

Too quick too run a contest or a give away in your initial stages of your blogging career, why don’t you just hold on. Yes, this is surely a good way to earn few subscribers and visitors but how long would they stay? As your blog is new people who participate in the contest too would be less. There won’t be any healthy competition among the visitors. These days people are smart enough they see your Alexa rank, page rank etc before they actually start believing in your blog. You might well spend some money and you really did plan to give some thing for genuine but people wont come in so soon and trust in your giveaway. You need to build suitable audience before you actually plan for a giveaway.

5. Affiliate Marketing:

Did you read that people make good amount of money from affiliate marketing rather than the third party advertisements. You actually found a great truth but do you know the other side of the story? Do you actually know how many visitors come to a successful affiliate marketers blog? Do you know what kind of traffic does their blog get? Have you ever thought what kind of stuff does an affiliate marketers promote to their visitors? If you don’t know answers for these questions then drop the idea of affiliate marketing but instead start research on in and out of affiliate marketing.

You could master the techniques soon but before that you need to be patient as you don’t know what kind of traffic visits your blog. You have a blog on web-hosting and you just can’t start promoting books or mobiles as people who visit your blog actually came for web-hosting not for books or mobiles. So be an expert blogger before you start off with affiliate marketing.

6. Premium Stuff and Plugins:

Before you spend some money on buying premium stuff have an eye on your requirement. Do you really need that plugin? Try searching for an alternative to suit your needs. You don’t need to buy an email marketing service(like Aweber or mail chimp) when you actually don’t need one as you would have very less subscribers in the initial stage. One can have feed-burner which is free and also serves the purpose of sending updates of your blog to your subscribers.

You need to do an extensive research on each and every premium plugin on which you need to spend few bucks. For pro-bloggers these premium plugins do work but for a newbie blogger there is no point in buying a paid plugin. There are many free plugins to try, learn and implement. After mastering about various plugins and depending on the requirement of your blog you can plan for going with some premium plugins or stuff.

7. Alexa Ranking:

This is one of the least thing a blogger should ever consider focusing on that is the reason why it is last in this list. It does have some importance in the blogosphere, but most of the time it does not give an accurate statistics of a blog. Even then don’t worry if your Alexa ranking is not accurate, just rely on your traffic stats. More the visitors you get automatically your Alexa rank would come to a respectable figure but don’t try for methods to manipulating your Alexa rank. Only thing you need to do is just verify your ownership of you blog with Alexa, install the tracking code in your blog and forget. As you keep on getting more and more traffic automatically you Alexa rank would be lowered, their is nothing much you need to think about Alexa.

Conclusion:

I would recommend a newbie blogger to keep the above discussed points in mind in the initial stages of their blogging journey. Blogging is not just for fun but you can actually learn many things from it. So learn to create content before you actually think of the above said things. Is their still anything which you feel I have not discussed then you can speak your opinion by submitting a comment.

27 COMMENTS

  1. Brilliant article Vijesh…In this article you handled every distraction of a Newbie blogger. Unfortunately I did some of those things like looking for quick Money,Stardom,Multiple Niche and Alexa rank.

    Thats was the case in my first blog but ever since,I have learned the things you mentioned above and now successfully going with a blog.

    Thanks a lot for sharing these tips.. ( correct the gramatical mistakes in money and stardom para)

  2. Thank You Vivek, Actually when I was proof reading my article unfortunately current went off, so after that I was getting sleep and in that mood I posted the article, anyways thanks for patiently reading my article. I will correct them now do check again and mention if any?

  3. I agree that you shouldn’t “spread yourself too thin” by starting too many blogs. I know I have made that mistake in the past.

    However, you can have a problem if you focus on only one blog the whole time. That is when you have chosen a saturated niche, which makes it much harder to gain a bit of momentum with it.

    That’s when there’s an advantage to starting two or three blogs in different niches (or sub-niches). One of them is sure to start taking off. And when that happens you can focus exclusively on that.

    • Rightly said Matt, we can have two or three blogs or niche at a time so that if any one among them catches the momentum then we can concentrate on it, but in the initial stages it is preferable with a single blog as there are many things to learn. As a newbie we cant just start many blogs and get struck. Anyways I too liked your idea, it works for some it might not work for some.

  4. Just read the subtopic : Money – “subscriog does serve the purpose of earning money” and “But in the bers and loyal followers who actually love your stuff” remaining article is perfect.

  5. Great post, Vijesh! We see people writing about ‘What new bloggers should do’. But you have mentioned other side which is equally important.

  6. Truly an excellent article Vijesh. I did some of these mistakes when I started blogging and had a great lesson “Blog for passion & not for money. If you blog for passion, the latter comes automatically”. This is a good read and guidelines for newbies!!

  7. Hello Vijesh great points and think most blogger when starting out spend far to much time focusing on these 7-tips you mentioned in this article.

    I see more and more bloggers starting more then one blog, now if you’re starting out for the first time why would you need more then one blog?

    I think after they realize they have gotten way over their heads they tend to drop off and abandon their blogs because it was overwhelming.

    Thanks so much for a great read my friend nice to connect.

  8. Hi Rob firstly thanks for your comment, I too agree with the fact you said about starting more than one blog becomes overwhelming to newbie bloggers which might end their blogging career abruptly before actual knowing the true potential of a blog.

  9. You see Vijesh, the main motive of newbie bloggers is to start making those six income figures in no time. That’s what actually brought me into blogging but reality is far fetched.
    I now do enjoy writing and the money aspect is now secondary. I don’t even remember the last time I checked my Adsense earnings.

    • Hi Emmanuel I was just checking my old posts and found your comment unanswered here, so sorry for the late reply. As you have said the main motive of newbie bloggers is to make those six figure income fast but in reality is is too hard to achieve that figure in an overnight,

      Try to reapply for Adsense hopefully if you get approved you can again make few bucks…

  10. Hi Vijesh,

    You know something you always write a very good article. It always sparks my interest & I’m always excited to read it and what you have to say. You are a great writer!!!

    Anyway, I cannot agree with you more on MONEY. Anybody should never blog concentrating on how to make money. They should have a PASSION for what they do. A passion to do social network and that the social media should be part of their life already before they even start blogging. The difference between writing your diary vs. blogger is, blogger concentrates more on “helping others.” Whereas, writing your diary the FOCUS is just you…you…you…your everyday life!

    In the old days, before computer was even invented, people buy from their friends. So, I don’t think there should be a difference in blogging. We concentrate more on quality network relationship. People are not going to buy from you unless they TRUST you. Unless they create that INITIAL relationship with you. The first impression is always important. When the person gets the feel of trusting you, everything follows. You can convince them just about anything…including buying your product.

    I always wonder about these “fake followers.” You know I always see them on Twitter. They sell like 10,000 followers for $5-$20. I really wonder how they do this. And yet they claim they’re not fake followers!! Yeah. Right. *rolls eyes*

    I could not agree with you more!!!! You don’t need 7 bizillion blogs to be successful in “affiliate marketing.” You only need ONE NICHE, ONE BLOG to be successful. Keeping up with 1 blog takes a lot of time & energy. Let alone having 7-10 of them. It’s impossible to create 100,000 visitors a day!! When I first started blogging I had like 7 domains!!! CRAZY!!!!! Until I talked to Adrienne Smith and she told me, just drop them…and just concentrate on ONE. And so that’s what I”m doing now.

    Affiliate Marketing can be tricky. You have to really know your product. Or, the best way to sell this product is even buy it yourself or subscribe it yourself so you can tell your readers how wonderful it really is. If say a product you see on ClickBank looks good, sounds good….but you have no idea what it really is, you bet you have to do RESEARCH not his before you can really persuade your buyer. People are that stupid. They know when you have a lot of puff. And not telling the truth. So, it’s better to be honest on this area, rather than concentrate on just making a buck.

    You know something, I just read this “Alexa” thingy on Linkedin. One person said there says that one should do some sort of review on Alexa and I have no idea what they’re talking about….until I read here!

    Angela

    • Hi Angela,

      Thanks for your opinion as you have said its true that when we write a dairy it is always focused on an individual but as a blogger the story is different they have to focus on helping other more and more rather concentrating on themselves. I also agree with you that we need one blog and one niche to be a successful affiliate marketer.

      glad to know that you came to know about Alexa ranking through my article. I am happy if somebody learns at least a point from what I write.

      I have already added social sharing buttons so that you can share these articles if you feel they are worth sharing with your friends…

      Thanks for your comment Angela…

  11. Thanks for sharing this article. I am newbie into blogging and always look for some tips of guidance. This article has given me some good points which i will implement in my blogging career.

    • Hi Mridula,
      Glad that you liked this article, hope to see you as rocking as possible in your blogging journey. All the very best and Happy Blogging…

  12. hi there. same here i do not first engage in affiliate marketing when i am starting a new blog, i will just feel disappointed since no one would purchase it considering i havent establish myself as a blogger. we need to earn trust first from our readers before we even consider affiliate marketing. i am currently focusing on one niche and that is make money online

  13. Hello Vijesh,
    Good article for the starters. Thanks for guiding the starters like me. It will help me a lot.
    Regarding money making, it is right that we do not think at start. Instead we should develop the practice to read more and more related blogs. This will enhance our knowledge and increases our ideas too. 🙂

    • Hello Ashish,
      Thanks for your comment, as you have said we need to focus on increasing knowledge and one day when you could create quality content money will automatically follow you.
      Happy blogging Ashish…

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