Every year, more organizations are beginning to "get their feet wet" in the digital marketing world through blog posts, designed to educate prospects. However, as organizations have rushed to join in on the content marketing frenzy-- the search engine result pages have become satured with blog posts. If you're going to put in the effort to develop a reliable and informative blog, you'll want to make sure that you stay up-to-date on the best habits for growth. We've helped to grow blogs in the past, so we have an eye for the mistakes that are damaging to a first blogging campaign-- this post covers 7 novice blogging mistakes that sabotage initial efforts.

Readers Can't Scan Through Your Posts

There may be quite a few instances when you've crafted a compelling headline, and used engaging imagery to draw readers in, but your writing was too complex and difficult for the average viewer to scan. When you're writing blog posts, be sure to make your content scannable.

Make your content easily scannable by breaking paragraphs into smaller chunks-- use subheaders, lists, and brief paragraphs.

Your Focus Is Too Broad

This is easily one of the biggest mistakes that rookie bloggers make. For example, imagine you decide to write a post called "How To Create A Website 101." You won't find much luck with this direction-- a topic like creating a website is so broad that there's a slim-to-none chance that you're going to cover the topic adequately enough to appeal to readers and search engines.

It's generally a good practice to narrow down blog topics to something that you can cover in 600-1,200 words. Create headlines that are easier for the reader to wrap their head around. By staying focused, you will be able to better respond to your reader's needs and desires.

You've Foresaken Proofreading

This may seem obvious, but nothing frustrates a reader more than reading a post littered with typos, grammar mistakes and a train of thought that is hard to follow. Your blog will lose credibility when your posts contain numerous typos and grammatical errors. Make proof reading a habit before you publish your posts

You're Being A Slave To The Numbers To Early On

As a beginning blogger it is difficult not to obsess over your web traffic and comment section. Of course, you want a lot of people coming to your blog, a lot of people linking to you and you naturally want as many people as possible commenting on your posts. However, you shouldn't check your stats every ten minutes.

This habit will waste a lot of time that can be used for more productive blogging activities. Instead, set aside a time of day when you will check your stats.

Use your saved time for producing more content or networking with other bloggers. Rank chasing can cripple the overall effectiveness of an online marketing campaign. When outlining the best course of action for an SEO campaign, especially in its beginning stages, it is important to stick to the plan, even if there are temporary dips in rankings.

You're Not Posting Consistently

While you want your content to be surprising, your posting schedule shouldn't be. Readers expect consistency, especially if they have decided to follow a blog for advice or education.

Not replying to comments

When people leave a comment on one of your blog posts, see that as a compliment. For better or worse, they were emotionally compelled to leave feedback.

Responding to comments on your blog will help to build loyalty among your readers. It shows you care about them, even to readers who don't leave a comment behind. Note: Don't go overboard with responding to every single comment, but do respond to comments that are requesting your opinion.

Too Much Self-Praise

People don't always come to your blog only to read about how great your company, products, or services are. Readers are attracted by titles or headlines that pertain to their interest, needs, or issues that they want resolved.

Your blog needs to prove to be a valuable resource to people that could be customers in the future, like your target audience.

You need to put yourself in their shoes. What do they want to know? What questions might they want answered? What can you help, or make easier for them? Try answering questions about your industry that you think is important knowledge to have.