I’m sure you have heard that blogging takes time to take off. Yet I have seen many bloggers who make the mistakes of giving up early when the matter of fact is, they are on the right track. So how do you tell?

1. Growing subscriber count – If your blog’s subscriber base is growing, even slowly, you are making some progress. Gaining trust and subscribers is not easy, so try not to get your expectations unrealistically high. If you have realistic goals for subscriber growth you will more likely be able to feel good about your progress and stay consistent with your blogging.

2. Increasing Numbers of Inbound Links – For bloggers, incoming links are also representative of how well you are known in your industry and your number of links will grow as you start to become recognized as an authority.

3. Increasing numbers of valuable comments – The more comments you have, the better. If you are seeing an increase in the number of comments in your blog, make sure to participate in the discussion as well. If you have little to no comments, try commenting on other blogs for starters. This way, other bloggers will be aware of your blog. If they find your blog interesting, they would usually leave a comment.

4. Increasing visitors and pageviews – Many bloggers are stats junkies. While growth in traffic isn’t always representative of meeting or surpassing your blogging goals, it certainly isn’t a bad thing. There are many channels for you to market your blog and increase your visitors. Guest posting and making use of social media is some of the ways to reach out to new readers. If you make use of these channels, over time your blog stats will increase as more and more readers visit and subscribe to your blog.

5. Consistent posting – Consistent posting is perhaps one of the most important element to blogging success. For new bloggers, in order for your visitors to pay attention to your blog, it’s vital for you to provide new articles for them to read. If your blog looks dead, the chances are, they won’t subscribe. If you are posting consistently, you’re already one step ahead of the vast majority of bloggers.

6. Improving quality of articles – Though this may be a subjective issue, but I think most bloggers can make good comparison through going through their older posts. If the quality of your articles improves overtime, which it should, you’re on the right track.

7. An increasing network of bloggers – Networking is crucial. Look at it this way; bloggers support each other. Instead of seeing other bloggers as your competitors, try to see them instead as your partner. By networking with other bloggers, you are more likely to get links, guest blogging opportunities and comments.

Nik Imran is the author of IMakeABlog, a blog that provides guide on how to make a blog. If you are interested in building your own blog, check out his guide on how to install wordpress.

What is the best way to learn from mistakes other than learning it from the experience of others. Here are some of the mistakes that I see many new bloggers are making, and in which I have made myself in the past.

1. Writing for search engines before humans – You can always tell when a blogger discovers Search Engine Optimization for the first time. Suddenly titles don’t make sense, keywords appear in posts for no real reason, links to other pages on the blog that are irrelevant to the post keep being used. Learn SEO – but keep your readers as your #1 priority.

2. Putting off starting a blog – waiting until everything is just right before launching can mean you never do it. The longer you take, the stronger the competition.

3. Expecting readers to come to you – The blog world is amazing because of the reader interaction and it’s the reason why I continue to publish on a consistent basis. When I first started out I had no idea how to attract new readers, commenters, interaction etc. I had the impression that if I published new content I’d automatically find readers in my niche.

4. Not using a self hosting blog – The problem with hosting a blog through WordPress.com is that you don’t have full control over customisation. WordPress owned and stored my content. On top of all that, I was using a blog template that thousands of others were using. That’s no way to stand out from the millions of blogs that are online.

5. Neglecting article headlines – Most people new to blog publishing will spend all their time writing the article, and not thinking too much about the headline. Here’s the thing, if your headline doesn’t catch my attention, the chances are your article won’t be read.

6. Giving up too early – blogs take time to take off. Instead of hoping for an overnight success, try to set attainable goals and realize that you’re in it for the long haul. Don’t cancel your blogging efforts after three months – give it at least a year of regularly putting out quality, original content. And make sure that your blog is easy to find, and that your readers are able to easily comment and share posts with others.6

7. Assuming it’s easy – Blogging takes real effort and man-hours into organizing thoughts and even coming up with schedules as to what you’re writing and when you’ll publish the posts. Taking into account the networking, reading, and commenting on other blogs takes time, it’s not something you should do half-heartedly.

New bloggers are bound to make mistakes, one way or another. Although theoretically speaking, it’s best to learn from other people’s mistakes, but reality is always harsher. The best thing you can do is to avoid as many mistakes as possible, and don’t be harsh on yourself when you make one.

Nik Imran is the author of I Make A Blog, a blog that provides guide on How To Make Blog. Besides providing steps on setting up blog, the blog also provides blogging tips.