The Biggest Mistake You Have Made as a Blogger?

30 January, 2010 - 07:00 AM - 14 Comments

My real name is Justin Germino for those who don’t know, and I have been blogging since August 23rd 2008. DragonBlogger.com has become my flagship blog out of the three blogs I run, but I also publish guest posts on about half a dozen other blogs, while writing over 150+ articles for SocialSpark and helping my wife admin her 3 WordPress blogs. I am going to share with you what I consider my biggest mistakes that I have made by blogging and they may not be everyone’s mistakes but they certainly are mine.

My biggest mistake is that when I first started DragonBlogger.com I didn’t have any original purpose or niche, I was in a pretty rough financial situation and needed to find a second source of income without having to leave the house. I figured I could blog while my kids were asleep and decided to give it a try after seeing reading articles on the “Blogging Giants” sites that said how much money they made blogging, and if they could do it “You can too”.

I started DragonBlogger.com as solely a site to provide product/content reviews and as a hybrid personal blog, poetry, share whatever I wanted, with some Technology news as well. This lack of focus and spam of information in so many categories and topics that didn’t jive well cost me readership early on. I had people subscribe to my RSS, only to flee day’s later and leave me emails saying they enjoyed the Technology / Blogging articles but weren’t interested in Poetry or political views….etc.

This went on for about a month before I decided to split my primary blog into three blogs:
JustinGermino.com is the blog where I share my personal thoughts, family happenings, opinions and some Arizona specific articles
WandererThoughts.com is my dedicated poetry / creative writing blog which features all of my poetry and original short stories.

I left DragonBlogger.com to focus on Technology and product reviews and also to share my blogging experiences and things that I have learned. I also enjoyed doing Movie Reviews and kept these in here just for fun and to break up the monotony of being too technical. I have more people now who read DragonBlogger.com for my information and topics about blogging than I do for my technology reviews and movie reviews. I still am not positive mixing the three is perfect for this blog, but I get a good portion of traffic to all of them so I can’t decide whether to cut out any of the categories and be more focused or not. As a result DragonBlogger.com is still a mixed Niche blog.

This does still cause some issues with readers, but not as much as previously, as I have developed fans now who read articles just because I write them, even if they aren’t on the same genre. In this “DragonBlogger” has become kind of an entity, an icon (small one) that people follow and read just to see what I have to say on things. I am honored and exhilarated that 400 unique visitors per day pay visit to this site.

I do know that DragonBlogger.com would be 3 times as big today however if I had started it as a specific niche blog from the start and had not divided my time to run 3 blogs, and though each blog does fairly well, I would have written 2500+ articles across three blogs, that would have been 2500+ articles just for DragonBlogger.com had I not been divided. I wonder if this was the wisest move as most people who achieve major blog success usually put all of their time and focus into one blog, not divide time among three as there isn’t enough time in the day to promote three blogs as heavily as you can promote one.

This would be what I consider one of my biggest blogging mistakes that I made at first, yet I don’t consider it a mistake anymore. I enjoy writing for all three blogs and each serves a purpose and fills a hole with my own creative outlet. I just wouldn’t recommend to other bloggers to start a 2nd or third blog until their first one was already a major success and you can take the time away from the first to promote a second or third.

Have you made any mistakes or things you consider setbacks for your blogging adventure? Share with me some of your biggest blog mistakes, I want to hear what other major mistakes there are.

-Dragon Blogger

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Written by Justin Germino (1518 Articles Published)

Working in the IT Industry for over 10 years and specializing in web based technologies. Dragon Blogger has unique insights and opinions to how the internet and web technology works. An Avid movie fan, video game fan and fan of trying anything and everything new.

Follow Justin Germino on Twitter @dragonblogger

Dave Doolin

Started too many too early.

Had to cut back to just one for now. I post monthly on another one, just to help Google understand it's not going away.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Refreshing Your Pillar Content By Recycling Blog Posts =-.

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Robert Moore@Dinosaur Toys

Great! This makes me think about silly things I've done :) For niche blogs my biggest mistake has been not doing a proper keyword research BEFORE registering the domain and building the site. For personal blogs - not being committed enough and being too lazy. If you look at the successful bloggers (Dragon Blogger, for example) - they are all committed and they love what they do.

dragonblogger

That is important, I didn't do any keyword research or even look for a niche when I started blogging. I didn't know what I was doing when I started out.

Damien Riley

Multiple blogs was/is a huge monkey on my back. I don't know if I can ever afford to just have one though. Each of my 3 brings in money in its own way. The time I spend on them is shameful. I have a longterm goal (prayer) to one day soon combine them but I really have no game plan yet. Great post.
.-= Damien Riley´s last blog ..Wordpress Mobile Pack =-.

I hear that, way too much time consumed with blogging. Thanks for sharing, glad you enjoyed the article. What do you think of my new author bio? I am opening dragonblogger.com up to contributors and have added the author bio box, fully customized my theme to include twitter profile in the wordpress profile section too.

You are always great. You make a change to your about page and ask me and I just think ... hmmm great once again. no duh ;)

Eric

It's always good to confess our mistakes as it shows we're human and taking risks is going to bring failure which leads to opportunities for success.

One thing I would do is not to have started my second or third blog so darn early. I'm still working on BluePop13.com and my main focus really is on that. I love the ideas and what I want to do with my other blogs but really didn't even pick a niche for my main blog.

Time to start planning out how this is all going to work.

Good post - good stuff to think about. :)
.-= Eric´s last blog ..Lets Help Each Other =-.

You did the same thing I did with starting too many blogs at once and focusing all your time on one while trying to keep up the others. Thanks for sharing.

Yeah and I have big plans for this blog and my other is going to survive, I hope, by what I'm planning on doing with it. As for my Linux blog, I'm actually going to be turning that into something just a bit different from what it is now.

It pays to learn from mistakes and help each other out, that's for sure.

Good luck with all your future plans! :)
.-= Eric´s last blog ..Lets Help Each Other =-.

Ralph

I started blogging with no thought of making money and ran a blog - now virtually abandoned for over a year. Then stopped. Then converted it to a garden blog and started my current one to "establish my presence on the web." I read that somewhere from one of the too many places I was getting information from. The "web presence" was to be the precursor to money making through MLM and affiliate programs.
Currently, I don't know what my niche is. I guess I was hoping that it would emerge from the fog. I think that I know a lot more about the technology of blogging and I am finding people who can teach me better marketing skills but I am still making the basic mistake I started with of not knowing my niche and what I expect to do with it.
.-= Ralph´s last blog ..The Top 10 Reasons to Post Daily =-.

Heather Kephart

I'm so glad you are on the right track now. Try not to lament for what might have been, and take comfort in knowing that you are headed in the correct direction for you, if possible. I know it's easy to say.

I have made every mistake in the book. My biggest was to keep switching domains. I've been all over the place. HUGE mistake. If I'd been in one place since I started blogging I'd probably be a lot better off. Also, another mistake for me was to think I might be a money blogger. I am not. At least I know that now.
.-= Heather Kephart´s last blog ..Around the New House by Joe Joe =-.

Ane

Hey Justin! :)

I remember I got a boost of traffic when I did that BlogUback post for you on Social Spark, it was about the Simpsons, remember? :) You are one of the first bloggers I met through the blogosphere and I did learn a lot from you about blogging and exchanging links and stuff, I want to thank you for that... :)

I think the biggest mistake I ever did was that I didn't get my own domain right away and lost my PR of 3 after I moved to a new domain, I didn't know I'd lose the PR if I moved... Oh well, I guess like everything else in life you learn from your mistakes, so now I know better... I haven't regained my PR 3, but I'm good with a PR 2 for now... :)
.-= Ane´s last blog ..A Birthday Wish =-.

Thanks for sharing, I remember that post. That reminds me, I haven't done any sparks in a long time, time to start creating some fresh ones on SocialSpark.

jan geronimo

If I can reset the time I'd do my darn best not to break my posting schedule. Not again. Because I find it hard to get back into my blogging rhythm.
.-= jan geronimo´s last blog ..When a Question Is the Answer =-.