10 Common SEO Mistakes You're Making on Your Blog

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Friends don’t let friends walk around with food in their teeth.

I know I’m truly friends with someone when they can stop me and say, “Hey, Nina, you’ve got a little something right there.”

Bam!

We’re besties.

I hope you feel the same cause I’m about to tell you that you’ve got something in your teeth.

And you aren’t alone!

SEO mistakes are like having an unsightly bit of broccoli stuck in between your front teeth.

You may not be able to see it, but anyone who looks at your mouth will notice it.

I’m an SEO specialist, but the way I learned almost every one of the mistakes I’m about to share with you is that I made them first.

AND NO ONE TOLD ME!

I had to wait until I looked in the metaphoric mirror to see the massive chunk of broccoli that had been ruining my smile for 4 years.

I’m a good friend, so let me tell you about the food in your teeth so you can grab some floss and get it out ASAP!

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10 Common SEO Mistakes Bloggers Make

1. Writing for you rather than for your audience

Most of us start blogging because we have things we want to talk about.

Maybe your friends are tired of hearing you go on and on about living in Italy or finding dog friendly restaurants in California. Others start to have a diary for their family to read.

BUT if you want to create a travel blog (or really any blog) you need to know who your ideal audience is and write for them.

I started off writing for my 90 year old Russian grandma and my mom, so they’d know where I was in the world.

… suffice to say they were NOT the target audience of my 20-something solo female travel blog empire that I planned to run.

What to Do Instead:

Find out what your audience actually wants to read.

You can do this in a number of ways:

Ask your audience on social media or your email list
Look at common questions and pain points in forums about your niche
Think back to your pain points and interests when you first started doing whatever your niche is
Look for SEO keywords that have traffic

#4 is my favourite.

If people are searching something, then they want to know about it.

So write a post for them and help them out!

2. Constantly changing your tactics

I was SO guilty of this for years. I’d jump from platform to platform, technique to technique every week.

I’d start with SEO for a few days, then decide I was gonna be Instagram famous even though I don’t have a camera. Then I’d see no results in 24 hours so I was on to the next place.

Good things take time!

There’s a reason not everyone has a blog making $30k/mo. It’s because it’s hard and takes time to kick in.

What to Do Instead:

Pick one strategy and stick with it for at least 6 months.

SEO starts to work around the 6 month mark for a beginner blog. With an established blog, you should see success even sooner.

But the same goes for Pinterest, Instagram, Tiktok, or whatever platform you want to be a content creator on.

Learn the strategies, implement them for 6 months, then see if they’re working or not.

For me, Pinterest hasn’t worked because I just don’t get the board structure for it. I’ve tried it for 6 months and the results weren’t mind blowing.

So I stopped doing it and pivoted to emails as my second source for my main site’s traffic.

Now I get over 1,500 new subscribers per month and have a massively engaged email list over there that brings me more income than Pinterest would for the same number of clicks.

There is no one right way to have traffic or income, just the right way for you.

3. Only looking at keyword volume

Keysearch, Ahrefs, SEMrush, Ubersuggest, and all the other options for keyword research show you a monthly page volume metric.

But that’s not the only metric to check.

Volume does not mean the amount of actual pageviews you’ll get.

In fact, volume = “impressions” in Google Search Console.

The numbers won’t be an exact match, as these tools estimate it over a period of time, and GSC is actually tracking it for your keywords on page 1.

The reason we want to check traffic instead (this is an option in Ahrefs, but in Keysearch you’ll need to check the “organic keywords” area for person in the #1 spot to see their traffic for this keyword).

Traffic will be the clicks you’ll get from that keywords (aka. “clicks” in Google Search Console). Again, it’s an estimate.

Why do we care about the difference?

On average, the #1 spot on Google gets 31.7% of the impressions converting to clicks. So a 100 volume keyword would get 31-32 clicks per month.

“Ok, Nina, well I’ll target a 100k volume keyword then and get more views, right?”

Maybe.

But if you get stuck on page 5 for that keyword because the competitors all have much higher DA’s than you do (find out what domain authorities you can compete with here), then it’s not worth it.

If the #1 spot gets 1% clicks, then it might not be worth it.

This can happen if there is a Google Maps widget at the top, and the intent is that people want the map.

It can also happen if people are clicking over to Google Images.

We want to check this CTR (click through rate) to ensure we’re actually going to get some traffic from this keyword.

What to Do Instead:

Check that there is a DA you can compete with on page 1.

Learn how to grow your DA here!

Check the CTR for the blog in the #1 spot. If it is less than 20%, you’ll want to consider whether the traffic you’ll get is worth it.

If it’s still 1k pageviews, then it probably is. But if it’ll only be 80/month, then is it worth your time right now?

Look beyond the volume metric to see what traffic you could actually get and determine if you could really rank for the keyword.

4. Thinking that publishing more posts automatically equals better rankings

Quality > quantity.

I see so many people saying “I have 300 blog posts but I only have 10k pageviews monthly”.

In fact, I’ve done a blog audit for a site with over 1k posts and it got under 15k monthly pageviews.

The number of posts you write does not automatically mean traffic or better rankings on Google.

What to Do Instead:

I did an informal poll in the Mediavine fb group when I first got in and found that on average, sites have 120-180 posts when they first get into Mediavine (50k sessions requirement).

BUT there were a ton of people whose sites had way more.

That’s because not all posts are made the same.

We want to write the best quality posts, even if it lowers our quantity of posts we publish.

I recommend you write 2 posts per week, but I know life can get in the way. I’d say the minimum is 2 per month. But those posts should be the best possible piece of content on that subject.

The less you can put out there, the better you want each blog post to be.

5. Using black hat techniques

I will say, I’m not just against all black hat SEO techniques.

Technically, guest posts and link swaps are against Google’s terms of service since they are “unnatural” links. Aka. you sourced them.

But 99% of bloggers do those things.

What I’m against are black hat techniques that feel like cheating and often are super spammy, like buying links in a package off of Fiverr – I’ve never known someone who had that go well – or participating in 10+ link swaps per month.

Just don’t do it!

What to Do Instead:

We all want to have success quickly, but putting in the work is going to do the most for your site in the long run.

If you buy links, use a PR link building service like Linkifi – not some random dude on Fiverr or Upwork selling 100 links for $5.

Yes, it costs more. But they’ll get you quality links (they even got me some in Go Banking Rates!) when I trialled their service.

Or do guest posts.

Yes, they take longer. But they work much better than link swaps and collab posts.

I’m such a proponent of guest posts that I rounded up over 100 sites in the travel niche accepting guest posts.

6. Aesthetics over function

Pretty blogs are usually the worst for users.

This probably sounds familiar: you saw The Blonde Abroad’s blog and wanted yours to look the same. So you bought a theme that looked kind of similar, downloaded a map plugin, and added a ton of animations and graphics.

DO NOT DO THAT!

I’ve met Kiki, and she told me her site is 100% custom designed. That means she has a developer who coded every element and made it as speedy as possible for her.

And it wasn’t cheap!

Pretty blog themes that cost $75 aren’t going to be nearly as speedy as hers.

I once had a stunning theme that was an absolute vampire draining my pagespeed. It had custom fonts, an instagram reel running in the footer, had a fancy map widget, and came with about 5 plugins just to make it function.

But my speed was always over 8 seconds load time and failed Core Web Vitals.

What to Do Instead:

Site speed is vital for user experience and ranking on Google.

I recommend using a fast theme rather than a pretty one. This will help users be able to engage with your content quicker, which Google likes.

I find simpler themes are also easier for users to navigate. Don’t confuse them with a 3-tier navigation.

If a user has to work to find something on the blog, they’ll leave and go somewhere else.

With all my sites, I build something slightly custom with the Kadence theme. I have my essential plugins, and that’s it.

They may not be the prettiest things in the world, but they’re functional and I get over 235k pageviews on my main site each month.

7. Not updating old posts

Blogging isn’t just about publishing new things every week. It’s also about keeping your old content updated.

Unlike news sites or social media, where they’re just worried about what’s new, SEO requires us to look back at our old content.

You can’t just set it and forget it like your favourite leave-in conditioner.

If you don’t update content, you are actively hurting your site.

Google grades your site as a whole. So if you failed a course, even if that course is something weird like a bird course (Canadian slang term for “super easy A”) on pirate studies when you’re doing a medical degree, it still brings down your GPA.

Either delete the old content or update it.

What to Do Instead:

Updating old content is one of the easiest ways to improve your traffic.

Google already has an idea of that post and how users interact with it. If you give it a bit of a face lift, Google will consider those changes a lot faster.

Where a new post can take 6 months to rank, updated content can see upticks in as little as 1 day (although it’s also common for it to drop off for a month then rise really fast after).

Do regular content audits to keep content up to date.

Learn more about updating content in one of the modules in the Profitable Part-Time Blogger.

Not looking for a comprehensive course on every facet of SEO? Just need to know how to update content?

Then check out this amazing course by my friend Aisha all about updating your content for quick traffic wins.

8. Writing outside your niche

If your blog is on travel in Singapore, writing about travel in Morocco isn’t going to help you.

Even if you have a high DA, you may not rank for that keyword.

That’s because you have no authority there.

Think about it, if Gordon Ramsey showed up in front of you today and tried to sell you lip gloss, you’d be really confused, right?

But if he tried to sell you a new type of stainless steel pan, you’d probably still be like “dude, where did you come from?” but you’d at least trust his authority on the topic.

The same is true for you spouting information off about 1 million different places and things. It’s why it’s way harder for lifestyle blogs to succeed with SEO until they’ve succeeded on another platform. It’s also why general travel niches are much harder than hyper niche ones.

What to Do Instead:

Stay in your lane.

Pick a niche and write on it to death.

When I pivoted my general content on my travel site to expat content, I thought I’d be doing it for a month. That was in December 2021, and almost 2 years later, I still have a list of 3,000 keywords to go.

If you get bored and want to write about Morocco but your niche is Singapore, then give that post away as a guest post for some good backlinks.

9. Checking your stats every day

This is the fastest way to go insane as a blogger, especially when you’re just starting out.

At the very beginning, you are not going to have traffic or rankings.

I used to think it was motivating me to check my stats every day – even multiple times a day, as though I could will the day before to suddenly be double the pageviews. (G4 does now take about 48 hours to finalize traffic, but it’s still not going to change every 5 minutes.)

But it wasn’t. It just made me waste time pining over potential pageviews and rankings.

I should have been spending that time actually working on things that move the needle.

What to Do Instead:

Set weekly or monthly (I prefer monthly) check ins on your stats.

I track mine monthly in my SEO Spreadsheets – which includes my tracker for important metrics, and other organizational sheets to get on top of your SEO strategy.

Then spend the time you’d otherwise have spent obsessing over every individual pageview actually creating the content to attract those pageviews.

The same goes for rankings: if you’re not actively auditing content or picking posts to build backlinks to, you cannot change those numbers.

woman in black jacket lying on white snow

10. Giving up

I gave up so many times. It’s why I often jumped from technique to technique.

And it’s the reason why I’m only just hitting Mediavine traffic after helping so many other bloggers get there. I wasn’t practicing what I preached.

So I got disheartened and kept wanting to give up.

I considered starting other sites, as though the blog and not my failings was the problem.

I cried over the “wasted” hours working on this failed business.

And I definitely felt like a failure.

What to Do Instead:

Create action plans to give you check in points. If things aren’t running smoothly by the check in point, then you should pivot.

Yes, sometimes we need to give things up.

But sometimes the things we should be giving up aren’t the blog itself, they’re the poor strategies we’re using or the ways we’re self sabotaging.

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Conclusion

Now that you know the food is in your teeth, get it out so you can share your radiant smile with the world!

It’s ok if you’ve been making some of these blogging mistakes. I definitely made them, and still make other mistakes all the time.

The important thing is to realize you’re making the mistakes and figure out how to fix them.

Stop holding yourself back with limiting beliefs, not committing to a strategy, or not treating this like a business where the customer comes first.

Once you make the shift towards a solid strategy with the user as your priority, you’ll see your SEO start to pay off!

Learn more about the way you blog in my “Blogger Personality Quiz”.

10 Common SEO Mistakes You’re Making on Your Blog

Profitable Part-Time Blogger

10 Common SEO Mistakes Bloggers Make

1. Writing for you rather than for your audience

What to Do Instead:

2. Constantly changing your tactics

What to Do Instead:

3. Only looking at keyword volume

What to Do Instead:

4. Thinking that publishing more posts automatically equals better rankings

What to Do Instead:

5. Using black hat techniques

What to Do Instead:

6. Aesthetics over function

What to Do Instead:

7. Not updating old posts

What to Do Instead:

8. Writing outside your niche

What to Do Instead:

9. Checking your stats every day

What to Do Instead:

10. Giving up

What to Do Instead:

Want to Skyrocket Your Blog’s Traffic and Income?

Conclusion

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