21 Blogging Engagement Mistakes You’re Making (and How to Fix Them)

Blogging engagement mistakes are quietly killing your blog’s potential to thrive.

You invest your time and energy into crafting content, yet your readers merely skim, bounce, and never return. This can be a source of frustration and a roadblock to your blog’s growth.

The good news?

By identifying and rectifying these 21 common mistakes, you can transform passive visitors into dedicated readers who engage, share, and eagerly anticipate your next post, unlocking your blog’s full potential for growth.

Blogging Engagement Mistakes Related to Content

Blogging engagement mistakes related to content are some of the most damaging mistakes that you can experience.

 

1: Ignoring Your Target Audience

Do you know who your target audience is?

This is something you should know before you start your blog. If you don’t know who your target audience is before you launch a blog, then who exactly are you writing for? Not knowing before you launch is a good way to waste your time and blog for no one.

Before you launch, determine your target audience and always prioritize their needs when creating content.

 

2: Lack of Storytelling

To keep your readers engaged, you need to captivate them with compelling storytelling. In a saturated blogging industry, storytelling can set your content apart and keep your audience coming back for more.

Blogging is a saturated industry. That means there are a lot of blogs out there, and it’s more challenging to compete with all of them these days. By telling a good story every time you write a new blog post, you can keep readers hooked to your content and wanting more of it.

I suggest you read some good stories, like [insert examples], to learn more about how to write a good story with your blog content.

 

3: Not Formatting for Readability

The days of big blocks of text are over.

Don’t kill your blogging engagement by writing long sentences in huge paragraphs. Readability is important because most of your target audience will be reading with their phones nowadays. You need to make sure your content is easy to read and understand by the masses.

Write short sentences, take advantage of line breaks, and make sure anyone of any age can understand what you’re blogging about.

 

4: Writing Clickbait Without Value

Clickbait isn’t always a bad thing unless there is no value involved.

Clickbait is nothing more than a hook. However, clickbait becomes a bad thing when it promises something that it doesn’t deliver. Bad clickbait is the best way to lose a reader for good and ruin your reputation as an authority in your niche.

If you plan to use clickbait as a hook in your content, make sure you deliver on your promises.

 

5: Publishing Inconsistently

Inconsistent publishing is a good way to chase off readers and search engines.

Consistency is important for both keeping readings and doing better on search engines. If you post in an organized and uniform fashion, then others know when to expect new content from you. If you’re sporadic about it, no one will know when to check for updates.

Choose a comfortable posting routine and schedule and stick with it consistently.

Interaction and Blogging Engagement Mistakes

There are plenty of blogging engagement mistakes to be aware of when interacting with your target blog audience.

 

6: Not Responding to Comments

You should reply to every comment made on your blog and social media.

That sounds like a challenging task, right? Is it really that challenging? If someone has taken the time to comment on your content, the least you can do is acknowledge it by commenting back. If you don’t keep the conversation going for as long as you can, you’ll miss out on many opportunities.

If you can do it, try to reply to every comment made on your blog at least.

 

7: Ignoring Social Proof (Shares and Testimonials)

Ignoring social proof is basically ignoring your ability to grow as a blogger.

Social proof, which includes shares and testimonials, is how you convince your readers and potential readers that you’re an expert in your niche. It’s necessary to gain new followers and even convert people into paying customers if you want to make money with your blog. If you ignore it, accomplishing blog growth and profit will be much harder than it has to be.

Headline any social proof that is made for your blog for the world to see so that others know you have a blog to trust in your niche.

 

8: Failing to Ask Questions

Engagement means that you have to start the conversation with your target blog audience.

Engagement doesn’t start with your reader. Engagement starts with you, the blogger. If you’re not asking questions in your content, on social media, and in the comments, then engagement doesn’t exist on your blog.

Start asking your audience valuable questions every chance you get.

 

9: Not Offering Actionable Takeaways

Have you ever heard of a Call-to-Action or CTA in blogging?

If not, then you’re truly missing out on one of the best ways to grow your blog, readership, and customer base. A CTA is a prompt you include in your blog content that encourages a reader to act, whether it’s to buy your product, subscribe to your email list, or leave a comment on your blog. Consider a CTA as a way to create actionable engagement on your blog.

Every blog post you publish should have at least one really good CTA, which means each post should have a goal that you want to achieve with your readers. For example, if your post is about [insert topic], your CTA could be [insert example].

 

10: Not Encouraging Reader Interaction

If your readers are not interacting with your blog, you cannot tell if it’s working.

Interaction is a great way to improve your blog based on the feedback and actions of your readers. Inviting them to interact with your blog will allow them to give recommendations and tell you exactly what they want you to create for them. If you disable these features or ignore them, how will you actually improve your blog?

Turn on your comments, encourage readers to leave a comment, and engage with them for every interaction they make on and off your blog.

 

Blogging Engagement Mistakes in Promotion

There are plenty of blogging engagement mistakes to avoid making in terms of promoting and growing your blog.

 

11: Not Promoting Blog Posts on Social Media

So many people ignore the benefits that social media can provide for their blog growth.

Social media is likely where most of your target blog audience is on a daily basis. If you’re not using social media because you dislike it, you’re missing out on many opportunities for blog growth and potential reader-to-customer conversion. You can easily find your exact niche and audience on social media, making growing your blog with it a simple process.

To start, create a social media page for your blog and start building a community of followers.

 

12: Neglecting Email Marketing

Neglecting email marketing is basically bowing down to the algorithm Gods and doing as they please.

Email marketing isn’t dead, and it’s far from dead. Your email list is a direct line of contact between you and your target audience without algorithms getting in between. Social media doesn’t give you direct access to email contacts like your newsletter does.

You should start building your email list the moment you launch your blog, and if you’re not doing that yet, start now.

 

13: Avoiding Guest Posting or Collaborations

One of the best ways to build up your backlinks and reputation in your niche is through collaborations.

Suppose you avoid collaborating with other bloggers in your niche. In that case, you’re likely missing out on a lot of growth opportunities. It’s so important to get your blog name and link out there because it builds up your backlinks and adds credibility to your brand. This can easily be accomplished with guest blogging and other collaborations with bloggers and social media creators.

Try to collaborate with creators and bloggers every chance you get to make the most of this awesome tactic of blogging growth.

 

14: Ignoring Analytics

Are you ignoring your analytics because they look confusing to try to understand?

Many bloggers do this, and because of that, they miss the biggest opportunities of their blogging careers. That’s because analytics can tell a story and show what parts of your blogging activities are doing the best and doing the worst. By ignoring the analytics, you never really get to see the bigger picture of your blog.

You should take the time to learn each metric of your analytics and how they relate to your blog, and you should watch them consistently to improve your blog’s growth opportunities.

 

15: Being Too Self-Promotional

Being too self-promotional is a big problem, especially when trying to grow your blog on social media.

Social media algorithms and systems are designed to rank those who keep people on the platform higher. They give fewer viewing privileges to those who promote links, and sometimes, they even penalize those who do it. It’s important to find the right balance and use social media more as a reputation builder than a promotional tool.

I always recommend a 90/10 strategy for social media, where 90% of your content is native, and 10% is promotional.

 

Blogging Engagement Mistakes with User Experience

Ensuring the best user experience is essential to avoiding blogging engagement mistakes that can really lower your success rate.

 

16: Slow Page Load Times

If your blog post doesn’t load in 2 seconds or less, you’re in trouble.

I know that 2 seconds or less sounds pretty fast, but that is basically the page-loading speed standard of today. Many things can slow a page down, such as large images, too much scripting, and bad blog themes. Slow pages are a quick way to lose a reader for good, so it’s a mistake that you really can’t afford to make.

You should constantly improve your website speed, check it often, and take action to make content load faster.

 

17: Ignoring Mobile Optimization

If you ignore mobile device optimization, then you’re ignoring more than 90% of your target blog audience.

9 out of 10 visitors to your blog will likely be using a mobile device. You’re probably reading this blog post on a mobile device, and if not, you’re part of a very tiny percentage of people. By ignoring mobile optimization standards, you’re losing more blog growth opportunities than anyone else out there.

Be a smart blogger and always put mobile before anything else.

 

18: Too Many Pop-Ups or Ads

Ads make us money, but they can also scare away our readers too.

If you want to make money from ads on your blog, that’s fine as long as you do it the smart way. Too many ads will decrease the user experience on your blog. Page take-over ads and pop-ups will likely push readers away-I know those kinds of ads will push me away in a heartbeat.

Limit your ads and put them in positions where they can still be seen but are less intrusive to the reader.

 

19: Hard-to-Find Comments Section

If your comment system isn’t in its normal spot, it might kill your blog engagement.

If you allow comments on your blog, you should make finding the comment section easy for the reader. Some bloggers will move the comment section to other parts of the blog without realizing the damage they’re doing to their blog. If it becomes hard for anyone to find how to engage with your blog content, then they will likely not engage with it.

Your comment system should be right under your blog content, like every other comment system on any other blog.

 

20: Complicated Navigation

Your navigation needs to be as simple as possible, just like the rest of your blog.

A flashy blog theme with many features might sound like a great idea. The problem is that most of them change the standard blog look and make navigating the website a difficult task because readers are not used to it. This can often be a significant turnoff to readers and might make them not visit your site due to it not being user-friendly.

Try to keep your theme and navigation as simple as you can.

 

21: Being Too Generic or Impersonal

Generic content is among one of the worst blogging engagement mistakes that are often made.

As I said before, the blogging world is highly saturated, and competing is a significant strategy among niche bloggers. In order to stand out from the crowd, your content MUST be of the highest quality and packed with value that addresses the pain points of your target blog audience. If you resort to generic content or content created solely by AI, your blog will never amount to anything.

You need to be real, set the tone to match your personal tone and write the best damn blog posts you’ve ever written if you want to be successful.

 

Final Thoughts About Blogging Engagement Mistakes

I hope you’ve enjoyed this article today and have learned about some of the most significant blogging engagement mistakes to avoid in order to have a more successful blog. Follow the tips above if you truly want to maintain the best blog possible.

I want to hear from you. Comment below, telling me if you’ve made any of the mistakes included in this post. I know I have, and I’m sure many of us have. Let’s talk about them.

If you enjoyed this post, please share it with other bloggers, especially on your favorite social media pages. If you want to support me even further, you could also give me a one-time donation.

I’m really trying to get my blogging community active. It’s free, and there are no ads. Blogging Collective is where it’s at. Please consider joining, and feel free to jump right into the discussions.

Lastly, subscribe to my free newsletter for even more blogging tips and resources.

About the Author

Shawn Gossman has created content, blogged, ran online communities, and shared a passion for digital marketing for over twenty years. Shawn believes the best way to help content creators, businesses, brands, and marketers is to give away more than you sell. The same advice is recommended for the readers who follow this blog. Shawn also offers various services for extra help in content creation and blogging.