Introduction to Blogging Mistakes
The mistakes that I made when starting my blog, slash the mistakes that you do not want to make starting your blog or that you have with a blog. Basically, it’s just talking about mistakes that can be done with blogging and things that I’ve had to learn the hard way.
Mistake 1: Overspending on Extras.
Starting the Blog.
I have made a ton of mistakes since starting this blog four years ago. My blogging journey started a blog called By Sophia Lee four years ago now, which is wild. And since then, I started when I was in sophomore year of college. I was in my dorm room starting my blog.
Growth and Team.
I have turned it into a business. I say “we” because it is not just me anymore. When we started, or when I started, it was just me, but now we have a team of six people, and every single person on the team is crucial. Business has changed a lot in the last four years, from going from when it was just me to making absolutely nothing to now being at this point.
Learning from Mistakes.
But I think in the process of all of it, there are things to take away from and things that I look back and think, pat on back, you did a great job. In other things, I’m like, “What were you thinking? Like, how did you not think of this? How just, I don’t know.” So many things.
Avoiding Unnecessary Expenses.
First things, don’t spend money on extras. First, don’t spend a lot of money on extras. So when you start your blog, there’s certain things that I think that you need to spend money on.
Upselling Tactics.
But what I have learned and what still isn’t an issue for me is that every single company’s job is to sell you something, and when they sell you something, they try to add in extras that you literally cannot say no to. Of course, they’re going to do that.
That’s good business practice as they should do that because they make a lot of money off of it because it’s hard not to say that you want to buy it. But I will give you an example. When you get blogging hosting, they’re going to try to throw you in a ton of extras like security and other things like that. I want to lightly go over this because if something happens, I don’t want it to be my fault. So do your own research, as with everything. Make sure that you’re looking into everything and not just fully listening to me or anyone for that matter.
Investing Wisely.
But I just find that it’s an upsale that you don’t need to spend. There are so many people that start blogs and then they go nowhere. Like, I know every single one of us knows someone that started a blog and it’s gone nowhere, and it’s not worth the money. Like, you should invest in your blog or invest more money, just put the minimum amount down that you need in the beginning to get you started. And then once you’re actually making money, then you can put more and more towards your blog.
Mistake 2: Not Publishing Immediately.
When to Publish.
Number two, publish your blog right away. This is a question that I get asked all the time, and it is, at what point should you publish your blog? So should you write a ton of blog posts and then publish it, or should you start publishing the blog post right away? This is something that I strongly encourage and believe is that you should be publishing your blog post as soon as you’re done with them.
Early Traffic.
The chances of someone other than your mom or your brother or your boyfriend or girlfriend or wife or whatever it is, the chances of someone else besides them looking at your blog in the beginning is so slim and rare unless you’re coming to it with a following already. Publish it right away. No one’s gonna be looking at your blog and the longer that Google has to read through your information, the faster that you’re going to get ranked, which ranking is so important.
SEO Importance.
So you’re gonna want—you’ll learn if you’re new to—you’ll learn all this verbiage, but basically, ranking is really important, key to having a successful blog. You want to rank on everything. There’s a strategy behind it. Publish your blog post right away.
Mistake 3: Ignoring Legal Aspects.
Legal Disclosures.
Number three is something that I never talk about. I refuse to talk about it. And I never will talk about it, but it is important and this is probably the biggest mistake that I personally made when starting my blog, and that was I did not think about anything legal at all. I did not nothing like that crossed my mind. One of my biggest downfalls in my business and just like with this house business that we’re doing and basically everything is that I don’t know what I don’t know. And so there have been multiple times in this blogging journey where I do something wrong but I didn’t know I was doing something wrong. So I didn’t know to avoid it.
Affiliate Disclosures.
So this is my little push to you on what I’ve learned is that you need to have disclosures. So you need to have like an affiliate disclosure at the top of every single blog post. You need to have other disclosures. So like now we have lawyers just because of like where we’re at with our business, but in the beginning, I could not afford a lawyer. Like, I was a broke college student, and so when I learned that I had to think about the legal side of things, there is a lawyer who is specific, who’s now works specifically for bloggers, and she basically has really inexpensive templates.
Legal Templates.
Moral of all of that is is that she has templates out there where you can go and then put in your own information. So she’s a lawyer by trade, so they’re like totally legit. And it’s just a way cheaper way to do it than hiring a lawyer, but it’s something that you definitely need to think about when you are in those first phases of your blog.
Mistake 4: Copying Content.
Copyright Issues.
Another thing with that again, copying. I do not want to be responsible for any legal things, so I don’t talk about this like ever. But you cannot use other people’s photos. You cannot copy other people. Like, I have seriously had people copy the exact way that my website has looked, like same theme. Um, their name will be “By this is like technically they can do it, but it’s just like ridiculous.” We do send cease assists. We’ve sent them multiple times. Don’t copy people. Don’t use other people’s photos. You can get in serious trouble for this.
Consequences.
And not only that, it’s just so annoying to the other blogger. And I remember everyone who has copied my blog, like because it is a long discussion. We get our lawyers involved. We’ve had multiple meetings with lawyers where we basically dig deep down and take screenshots of everything. So not to scare you, but that is something that I didn’t really even consider like when I first started my blog. I use other people’s photos. You can’t do that. And so I learned that.
Using Stock Photos.
So now what we do is we get permission for every single photo that we use or we take our own photos or we use a stock photo website. The best way to do it is to use your own photo. So we’ve like really started using our own photos way, way more now. But basically, don’t copy people. You can get yourself in big legal trouble. I’ve seen bloggers get themselves in big legal trouble. I’ve come after people who’ve done it, and it’s just not worth it. So think about that.
Mistake 5: Not Defining Your Blog’s Purpose.
Different Angles.
Next, think different angles about what you’re going to make money from. Like think about your angle. So are you starting a blog to simply make money? Are you starting a blog to talk about your life or like as a diary? Are you starting a blog like website for your business? There’s multiple different things that you can be starting blogs for, and I believe that there’s multiple different angles that you should be taking based on what you’re trying to do.
Diary Blogs.
If you’re trying to start a diary type of blog, don’t invest any money into your website. All you need for that is a Blogspot blog, a free Squarespace one. I just don’t, I mean, you can do whatever you want, but um I just don’t personally think that there’s like specific things that you need to be doing for those type of diary sort of blogs.
Money-Making Blogs.
If you are looking to start a blog that makes money, there are certain things that you have to do to set yourself up in the future to make money and just get yourself very legit and not in like uh your information’s legit, but like legit in a way that you can bring on affiliates and sell things and different stuff like that.
Business Websites.
And then the last one, I’m sure there’s other ones, but the last like main one is if you’re starting a website for your business. So like an example of that is my father. Well, he’s like my boyfriend and I are not married, but I always call like his siblings brother-in-law and sister-in-law. Some people think that’s weirder than his parents like mother-in-law and father-in-law because we’ve been together since we were like 14 years old. So at this point, I’m just waiting for the ring. But um, he has a website that is clearly a different angle.
Mistake 6: Overwhelming Social Media Strategy.
Social Media Focus.
Social media sites. Okay, this is huge. When you start your blog or even like in the beginning phase of your blog, you want to be really strategic with what social media sites you start on. And there’s a few reasons for that, but the only reason I’m really gonna hit on here is that it is so overwhelming. Like, I personally get so overwhelmed trying to manage all the different content streams, and I cannot even think about how I would have managed it as a full-time college student also having another job and trying to get this business running. Which, that was my situation when I started this blog. Like, I wouldn’t have had time for it, and I would have ended up failing with my website because of how overwhelmed I was.
Recommended Platforms.
So the only thing, the only social media sites that I recommend you starting on is and I’ve slightly changed this answer this in this past year, but it is obviously your website. Okay, so that’s like no-brainer, but then Pinterest. Pinterest has been my all-time go-to. So when I started my blog, I only had Pinterest for the first three years. So we only launched social media in the last year and a half. Um, and basically Pinterest is the only social media website that people go to specifically to get people to your website.
Pinterest Benefits.
So like Instagram, you scroll and look at pictures. The conversion rate from Instagram to our website, By Sophia Lee, is so so low compared to Pinterest, where Pinterest is like one of our top traffic sources.
TikTok Growth.
And then this is what I’ve slightly changed my answer to in the last year is TikTok. But that is similar to, you have to have the angle where TikTok makes sense for you because TikTok is something that you’re obviously like going to need to put your face on and talk to it.
So I think like TikTok TikTok, the reason I’m saying TikTok is because TikTok has such you can be found on TikTok on like any other platform. Like, Instagram takes so freaking long to grow on. It is like actually annoying, where TikTok, I started TikTok in August. I put so much more effort into my Instagram, it’s not even funny, and my Instagram is at like 40,000 followers and my TikTok’s at 300,000 followers.
So you can just grow so much faster on TikTok, and you can’t do that any other platform. I still have not figured out yet how to get people from TikTok to the website. So if you want to start a TikTok or you think that that’s worth it for your business, that would be a type of website where you’re really trying to brand yourself and not necessarily like rank on SEO. For more information.