Five Mistakes That Are Hurting Your Blog and it’s Growth

mistakes that are hurting your blog growth

For the past few weeks, I’ve taken the time to engage more within the blogging groups/communities that I’m part of. Needless to say, I’ve read a ton of posts and encountered lots of mistakes that I’m sure has hurt their blog growth. Regardless of the niche, these same five mistakes are annoying and can cause people not to visit your website again. . . hence, hurting your growth. So here’s five annoying mistakes that you need to avoid!
 

Not Having a Read More Link

When I enjoy a blog, I tend to scroll through to see what other posts they’ve written. It’s a huge inconvenience and slightly annoying to scroll through an entire blog post just to see the next one. I know some people don’t like using read more links and I can’t for the life of me figure out why! If you have a great preview paragraph, people are going to click. To be completely honest, I click by just reading the title because it interests me and I want to know more! If you don’t have the read more link, there’s a high chance people get annoyed and just click off. No one wants to be forced to read a post that doesn’t interest them.
 

Complicated Website Design

I know everyone loves those high end websites with all their pretty buttons, slide down menus, features and all that other stuff. Sure, it looks great aesthetic wise but the issue is, it isn’t user friendly! You know the ins and outs of your website because it’s YOUR website. The average random reader doesn’t know to slide this over to see that feature and to hover over whatever other pretty button you added to find the categories page. All we want to do is. . . get to where we want to go. . . NOW! People don’t have time to figure out your website, so it’s more than likely that they’re clicking off.
 

Ads, ads, ads

Oh my goodness. . . the amount of ads that I’ve seen on these blogs and websites are absolutely ridiculous! I know y’all want to get your coins (we all do) but there’s no need for you to have 8 ads pop up in my face in less than 60 seconds. I’ve seen SO MANY annoying ads that I have to make this section its own sub section.

  • Too many ads – Do we really need to see your Nissan ad 5 times throughout the post?
  • Too large – What is it with the ads that take up the entire screen? Some of them I couldn’t find the exit out button. Just an FYI, this is SUPER ANNOYING for anyone whose visiting your site via mobile.
  • Nonstop – One blog I visited, had the same popup every time I went to a new page. I had to physically exit out of it every. single. time. Of course I was sick of reading that popup ad more than their actual content, so I left their blog completely.

 

Not mobile friendly

I rarely know anyone that does things on their computers anymore unless it’s required. . . this includes reading blogs. If you do not have a mobile friendly website, then you’re seriously hindering your blog growth! Not only does your audience appreciate it but Google does as well. It’s a known fact that Google ranks mobile friendly websites higher than those that aren’t.
 

Complicated comment section

The point of these blogging groups/communities is to engage, so naturally I will read their post and leave a comment. I can’t tell you how many issues I’ve ran into by just trying to engage on a website! Some of these blog comment boxes require way too many steps and are too complicated. It’s hard enough to get people to engage, so when someone tries/wants to, it should be as simple as possible. All I want to do is enter my comment, type in my name, email address and hit publish/post. That’s it! Why do I have to sign up for your blog? Or choose how to post the comment via whatever social network? Just let me post the comment and go on my way!
 
I know this post sounds very nick-picky and harsh however, it’s exactly what your audience may be thinking! People are busy and want quick satisfaction/results; they come to get what they’re looking for and move onto the next. So everything on our blogs/websites should be quick and easy to do, with no additional thinking required! I hope this post helps you to avoid these small nuances and if you have any additional mistakes to list, please let me know in the comments! Don’t forget to subscribe and we’ll speak soon!
 

Until next time ASSASSINS. . . Stay Disciplined!

 

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