I speak of mistakes that destroy the illusion and the spirit of those who suffer them.

So to help you navigate your entrepreneurial adventure in the most successful way possible and prevent your website from ending up in the graveyard of digital projects, I have compiled the 21 stones that most entrepreneurs stumble over when they decide to create a professional blog .

It is not that this week has come in a dramatic plan (in fact, I am quite positive), but the figures speak for themselves…

95% Of Blogs Are Abandoned In Less Than 1 Year

How do you hear it?

The blogosphere is full of abandoned websites that do nothing more than dust off statistics and desert traffic. Although the reasons can be very varied, there is a trend that is repeated frequently. I am referring to those mistakes that, if you make them, without realizing it, you move away from your goal: to set up a viable and profitable digital business in the long term with which you can stop asking yourself every two times what to sell on the internet to earn money .

Do you want to see how your dreams vanish for not creating a professional blog?

sure not.

Luckily, you’re still in time not to add to the list.

In this article you will learn how to avoid these common mistakes. You will see how with a dose of strategy, knowledge, motivation and dedication it is possible to create a truly professional blog . Not the kind that only friends or family read, but the ones that get thousands of qualified visits a day and get clients month after month on a recurring basis.

21 Common Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When Creating A Professional Blog

I know website bounce data is scary, so let’s take a look at what those mistakes are and how to avoid them to help you achieve your goals.

Use Free Hosting And Domain

When you consider creating a professional blog, it is easy to think that the best way is to do it through free tools such as blogger.com or wordpress.com . However, this is one way to fail miserably.

If you are not willing to spend a penny on hosting your own website or looking for an affordable provider, do you really care about your project or is it a passing fancy?

I ask this because if you yourself do not invest in the foundations of your business, it will be difficult for others (read your potential clients) to be willing to spend money on you.

To solve it, here I leave you a comparative hosting so that you can choose the one you prefer and take a leap in quality from today.

Hosting your business website on a free platform (such as creating a blog on Google ) is one of the most serious mistakes, because the consequences can be catastrophic.

Why? For 3 fundamental reasons:

1. The web is not yours: hostings and free domains are not really yours. This means that you can be left without a website overnight and you will not be able to claim anything.
2. You upload your image as a professional: because it will hardly differ from the rest.
3. The functionalities of the web will be very limited: you will not be able to install plugins and you will be tied hand and foot if you want, for example, to implement an email marketing strategy.

If you want to know in depth the reasons why I do not recommend creating a professional blog on a free platform, in this article you will discover why creating a free blog is a mistake that you will pay dearly for later .

Choose A Free Design Without Customizing

Why resort to premium themes or frameworks like Genesis that are code optimized for SEO and come with professionally designed templates? If there is a free option… go for it!

You are starting and you want to reduce costs as much as possible. Well, not investing in a paid template is a bad idea.

If you opt for one of the free themes available for WordPress, you will be saving a few euros, but the toll you will pay in return will be a soulless, cold blog that is not different from the rest .

Bearing in mind that leaving a mark on your potential clients is an essential condition for generating sales, going unnoticed is a mistake that will take its toll on you.

Do not fool yourself. Definitely, what you want is a design that is a magnet for your customers . Or not?

Not Having A Business Strategy

Typical.

You decide to create a professional blog and you believe that once you have designed, assembled and launched your website to the world, the hard work is over.

Now it’s time to get income and for that you consider  earning money with ads , affiliates… all are possibilities that are around in your head, but you don’t know very well how to direct them. You focus on all of them, and some will fall!

If this is your case, have you not considered that perhaps the first thing that falls is your blog?

If your intention is to create a professional blog as a base of operations for your business , you need a roadmap . Think that if you don’t know what your destination is, you won’t know which way to go. And no, “making money” is not a goal. You have to specify more. 😉

Defining a business strategy will help you move faster and more efficiently.

In your roadmap, set:

• Objectives: short, medium and long term. And be realistic! (We’ll talk about this a bit more later).
• Strategies you need to achieve each of the objectives.
• Tactics that you will apply to develop the strategies that will lead you to your goals.

Ultimately, you need a business strategy. Profitable and successful businesses are not run on the spur of the moment.

Not Implementing Seo In Your Content

As soon as you open and create a professional blog, you start writing the typical “we launch a new website” post.

I’m wrong?

As this content does not have the pull you expected and no visitors arrive, you consider starting to talk about your personal life.

You show your pet, you talk about your children, your hobbies… And you sit down to wait for that hit of virality that will lead you to fame.

But it never comes.

At most, a few visits from robots that mask your analytics.

What are you waiting for to implement effective optimization and copywriting techniques? You need to apply  SEO copywriting to your articles and create SEO content that will help you improve your positions in Google search results and get qualified traffic that converts visitors into real customers.

Believing You Don’t Need A Social Media Marketing Strategy

If you don’t have a business strategy, to think about designing one for social networks or email marketing… It hasn’t even crossed your mind.

However, as you know, today social networks are an extraordinary way to attract potential customers .

To you, what they have taught you is that virality is achieved without the need for anything else. One day you plug in your PC, start writing and the followers rain down on you. It’s that simple.

Let me tell you that although in some of the successful cases this may have happened, in most cases many days of work aimed at objectives and precise strategies are necessary to achieve it.

Creating a social media marketing strategy does not imply writing a thousand-page document. You just need to analyze your market and develop a (studied) presence in the most interesting networks for your business.

I repeat: in the most interesting for your business .

Forget going from doing nothing on social networks to opening profiles left and right.

For example, if your goal is to attract designers, Instagram or Pinterest are good options. In the same way, if you want to target minors, LinkedIn will not be a network in which you will have to invest a lot of effort. And if your audience barely uses social networks, perhaps your strategy should go through other more interesting ways.

Observe, analyze and make intelligent decisions.

Disperse Due To Lack Of Focus

Another common mistake when creating a professional blog is scattering.

Your website starts to roll and suddenly you find yourself overwhelmed with tasks : responding to comments on blog articles, managing email, preparing budgets and invoices, following up on clients, working on assignments, writing new content, updating social networks…

Conclusion? You get flustered and try to do 7 things at the same time. A while to this, another to that.

You have too many things to do, you have set yourself too many goals and the day, as bad as it weighs you down, only has 24 hours.

To avoid multitasking and move forward without dying trying, plan your weekly schedule and the tasks you will do each day. Establish the necessary hours for each one and until you finish with the first task, do not move on to the next one. Not even if you feel the temptation! 😉

Not Knowing How To Say No

When you start, it is usual to accept all kinds of assignments and clients .

Sure, you’ve only been here for a short time, you’ve just created a professional blog and you can’t be so exquisite as to reject proposals, right?

Well, I’ll give you some advice: distinguish between the projects that really interest you and those that don’t. And do not be afraid to say no to a client if you feel that there is no connection with him, you are not comfortable or the demand does not fit with your specialty.

Decide your hyper-specialization and do not go into unknown terrain beyond the limits of your offer.

The opposite will make you lose time, energy and you will end up burned. In fact, this is one of the reasons why entrepreneurs have a hard time getting customers .

Pursue Perfectionism

In this case, there are 2 phrases that summarize very well the essence that I want to convey to you:

Done is better than perfect.

The best is the enemy of the good.

I already know it. You don’t want to create a professional blog. You want a per-fect web. And until he’s an honors student, you don’t want him to see the light of day.

Error!

Don’t wait too long to launch your blog. Bet on the minimum viable product and let the market speak before implementing improvements.

Everything can be improved, but you don’t have to do it now. Launch yourself, test your audience, seek feedback and start making changes based on the real needs of your business.

Every day that you delay your launch for pretending perfectionism, you are giving an advantage to your competition and moving away from your dream.

And the culprit is only you.

Assume Instead Of Listen

Let’s see.

What you want to offer because you think it is what your clients need does not have to coincide with what they really want.

In other words, stop stubbornly offering the market something that it has no interest in.

Instead, listen to your audience, identify the REAL needs of your ideal customer , and offer a product or service that meets them.

Point.

If you want to create a profitable professional blog , base your decisions and offers on certainties, not assumptions.

Set Goals That Are Too Ambitious

Another classic mistake.

When you are going to create a professional blog , it is okay to dream big and imagine a promising future. But do not turn this dream into unattainable goals.

As I was saying before, set concrete and realistic business goals .

I’ll give you an example so you can see it more clearly.

If you are an urbanite who has barely set foot in the countryside in your life and you are physically untrained, do not expect to conquer the top of Everest on your first trip to the mountain. It is smarter to start with short excursions, then climb short peaks and gradually increase the challenges.

You see it?

Not Having A Unique Value Proposition

If right now they ask you what you do and what makes you a different professional from your competition, would you know how to answer concretely and completely in less than 30 seconds?

Do the test.

Have you hesitated?

Have you missed a few “mmm”, “eeeeh”, “that is…”?

Then you need to define your value proposition.

A unique value proposition sums up what you do, why you do it, who you do it for, and what sets you apart. It is what makes you unique.

To help you, keep in mind the 3 rules that every good value proposition must have:

• Promise a specific benefit to a specific customer profile.
• Be unique (something that the competition cannot offer).
• Be so powerful as to attract new customers on an ongoing basis.

Impose Impossible Deadlines

This mistake is our daily bread for novice entrepreneurs.

For a matter of self-demand, fear of what they will say if you take more than X time or who knows what other reasons, the fact is that it is very easy for you to set deadlines for completing tasks that are impossible to meet .

The good news is that the solution is simple: measure how long it takes to run a task from start to finish. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. Just measure. And from there, set reasonable deadlines .

If you don’t, I guarantee you’ll live in a constant sense of overflow ; and all for fooling yourself into thinking that you can finish in an absolutely unrealistic deadline.

Lack Of Rest

This error when creating a professional blog is a direct consequence of the previous ones.

If you don’t say no to anything, you don’t plan well, you pursue goals that are too ambitious and on top of that you impose impossible deadlines, you feel that you lack time. Solution? Dedicate hours of rest to work.

Well, you should know that working more hours will not make you more productive . Your mind needs to air out, so respect 100% your sleep hours and the time you spend eating.

oh! And between homework and homework, get up from your chair, stretch, and move around a bit . You’re going to stiffen, kid! 😉

Don’t Delegate

It is very possible that when you decide to create a professional blog, you will build a one-person business. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t have supports . Or put another way: delegating is essential to optimally scale your business.

Do administrative and email management tasks bring you down the road of bitterness? Delegate!

The technical part is not your thing? Delegate!

Does web design cost you? Choose a good web designer and delegate!

Your functions as the person in charge of your business are 2: 

• That the work of the clients goes ahead, with quality and in the established term.
• Develop new strategies and business channels.

If you are wasting a lot of hours on other tasks, it is time to create a team. For starters, you can start by having an outsourcing plan .

Forget To Create Community

Do you remember Uncle Scrooge? Donald Duck’s uncle whose greatest pleasure was swimming among his thousands of gold coins and banknotes.

He was an unsympathetic character, greedy and stingy.

I bring this Disney character to the post because I don’t want you to make the mistake of becoming someone like him.

If you want to be successful with your professional blog, worry about helping others and building a project with soul and purpose more than billing X thousands of euros per month.

When you focus on helping, creating community and cultivating relationships, the results end up coming, even if you had not set financial goals for yourself.

To do this, share content that really helps your audience and work on email marketing NOW.

Not Investing In You

If I told you before that investing in your business platform is fundamental if you are going to create a professional blog , now I tell you that investing in yourself is another basic pillar .

Quality training is an investment, not an expense.

Of course, be careful not to develop the training Diogenes syndrome, which is the compulsive purchase of courses that you store and do not finish.

As interesting as a training may seem to you, before paying for it, reflect and decide if that is really what you need at this time (let’s see if we are going to go from not investing anything in you at all to the opposite extreme). 😉

In conclusion, train and trust in quality courses , but only those necessary at any given time.

Mistaking An Original Idea For A Business Opportunity

You wouldn’t be the first person to think they have a eureka and then get the disappointment of their life.

An idea is not a product, service or business. It’s an idea. And it may be a fantastic idea, but it has no practical application in the market, there is no real demand or the target audience is not prepared to pay for it.

For example, in the world of marketing and online business, the US market is always ahead of the Hispanic market. So even if an idea is a hit there, it doesn’t have to be a hit here.

By the way, if you come up with a line of business and there’s no competition, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. In fact, it may not have a good response in the market. That is why I recommend that you bet on the minimum viable product and test it before developing it 100% .

Not Spending Time Selling

«Javier, if I have a business, how can I not spend time selling?».

Are you surprised that I mention this error?

As we have discussed, when creating a professional blog, there will be endless tasks that you have to do. And it is not uncommon that without realizing it you invest a lot of time in actions that are far from the sale itself (writing articles, updating networks…).

You must have a defined sales strategy and, if possible, a business calendar .

Underestimating The Power Of Networking

You’ve heard me tell you before: networking is a very healthy practice for your business. 

Don’t just hide behind your screen and engage with other people only through Facebook groups, tweets, and blog comments.

Go to face-to-face events where you can meet other professionals with whom you can share experiences, concerns and hopes. I guarantee they are a sensational motivation booster.

In addition, you will have the opportunity to talk to potential clients and who knows? Maybe you leave with more than one order under your arm… 😉

Being Afraid Of Failure

Fear of failure is an emotion that can become your worst enemy, because it blocks the mind and is paralyzing.

Would you like to create a professional blog, but are you afraid that it will not turn out well?

Nothing happens. What is the worst that can happen? I tell you: let it serve as a learning experience. Pivot and change course is not bad. 

Look, Bill Gates says that “It’s okay to celebrate success, but it’s more important to heed the lessons of failure.” And Steve Jobs said that “When you innovate, you run the risk of making mistakes. It is better to admit it quickly and continue with another innovation”.

Do you think that these two giants were never wrong? Of course they did, but they knew how to extract the learning and continue forward.

Do the same and fight that irrational fear that only lives inside you.

Not Measuring Results

Tell me one thing: if you don’t measure, how do you know if you’re going to get better or worse? By infused science?

Get used to measuring and analyzing what happens around your business and set aside time to draw conclusions and make decisions .

Measuring, measuring and measuring is the best way to move forward and grow.

That the numbers are not your thing or that analytics bores you and therefore it is difficult for you to spend time in Google Analytics is no excuse for not being aware of how your business is evolving.

What are the mistakes you are making now? Are there any more that have been left out of the list? Which one is the hardest for you to overcome? I wait for you in the comments!