Ways to Look Like a Newbie Blogger –25 Common Mistakes

Posted by Danelle Ice - Mommy Blogger Me on April 14, 2010

Do you ever wonder how other bloggers can tell when you’re a new blogger?  There are common mistakes that many newbie bloggers make that are a dead giveaway for showing the world that you’re just figuring this whole blogging thing out!

If you are a new blogger, but don’t want the world to know, then print this list of common new blogger mistakes out and hang it near your computer monitor.  (Yes, some experienced bloggers do a few of the things on this list too, but not ALL of them!)

Common Blogging Mistakes

1. Writing in overly familiar style (“Hey buddy”, “dude”, “lol”).
2. Writing in all caps.
3. Putting your titles in all caps.
4. Having a title that is a paragraph long.
5. Putting smilies in your writing (or frownies).
6. Using animated gifs on your site (circa 1996).
7. Putting words other than the title of your post in header 1 tags.
8. Not capitalizing the first letters of words in your titles and subtitles.
9. Underlining text that is not a link.
10. Overusing bold in posts.
11. Using acronyms without defining them first.
12. Not using periods at the end of sentences.
13. Forgetting how to use paragraphs and writing posts as collections of 1-line-in-a-row sentences.
14. Not setting links to other sites to open in a new window.
15. Not providing alt text for your images.
16. Writing a “wall of text” (not putting spaces between paragraphs).
17. Putting dashes between words that don’t need dashes (e.g. week-end).
18. Assuming that your readers already know what you’re talking about.  Jumping right into the topic with no introduction or explanation.
19. Labeling the conclusion of a post “conclusion”.
20. Writing “The End” at the end of a post.
21. Not linking your header to your front page.
22. Not having a navigation bar at the top of your blog.
23. Not providing contact information for yourself or your company.
24. Setting photos in posts to click through to a full version of the same image.
25. After not posting for a while, writing a post that says, “Sorry I haven’t posted for a while…”.

The above list of 25 common blogging mistakes are things you do NOT want to do (unless you have a specific reason to do so)!  Can you think of other common mistakes that new bloggers make?  Let us know in the comments and we’ll add it to the list.