Blogging is an important investment all businesses, large and small, should make, since it’s a critical aspect of an overall content marketing plan.
Statistics suggest if your company actively blogs, it’ll enjoy an incredible 126% higher lead growth when compared to its non-blogging counterparts.
Over time, we’ve seen many businesses abandon their blogs because they aren’t immediately gaining the traffic and leads they’d hoped to see. As a result, they throw in the proverbial towel and lose out on one of the best ways to grow their customer base.
Abandonment of your blog is probably the single biggest blogging mistake you can make. You’ll be surprised at what a little proactive TLC can do for the success of your blog.
Before you give up, identify the following additional ten blogging mistakes companies often make and take immediate steps to fix them.
1. Using the wrong name for your blog
Sometimes, companies try to be clever and create a blog that appeals to them.
The problem with this is it’s not appealing to their audience. As a result, they quickly bounce off the page — that’s if they even click on it at all.
When designing your blog, be sure to choose a blog name that is interesting, identifies who you are, aligns with your brand, and is easy to remember.
Also, strive to provide readers with an inkling of the kinds of topics they can expect to find when they land on your page.
2. Not publishing frequently or consistently
A key ingredient to successful blogging is to publish frequently and consistently.
Sometimes, companies set up a blog, send out a flurry of posts, and, going forward, their page languishes. An old, stale page isn’t appealing.
Furthermore, no one will turn to you as the expert in your field if you aren’t sharing that expertise and knowledge on a regular basis.
Other benefits of consistent, frequent publishing include:
- Web visitors being more engaged on your site.
- Showing audiences your website has a healthy pulse.
- Google and other search engines crawling your content more frequently.
Bottom line, adhering to a publishing calendar your customers can count on demonstrates to readers that you’re committed to helping them and providing them with the information they seek.
Aim to publish a minimum of twice a month, but ideally do it once a week or even more often.
Pro tip: Quality matters. Always choose quality over quantity if it comes down to a choice.
3. Focusing too heavily on self-promotion
A colossal blogging mistake a company might make when designing their blogs and creating content is putting emphasis on self-promotion.
When businesses put the focus on themselves, they often inadvertently get caught up in these self-accolades and neglect to think about who the blog is actually supposed to appeal to.
The focus should always be on the customer. At least 80% of the time.
While it’s OK to throw in some self-promotion here and there, using a blog as a podium to run an ongoing commercial is going to quickly turn your readers off.
To avoid this problem, focus your content on subjects your readers will find useful. What might they be interested in? What problems do they have that you can solve?
Design your topics around helping buyers make their purchasing decisions and you’ll find far better blogging results.
4. Choosing the wrong topics
The fundamental purpose of blogging is to answer your customer’s questions.
Unfortunately, many businesses that fail at blogging do so because they neglect to anticipate providing the information they want to know.
Ask your sales team what types of questions customers most often have — these are all great potential blog topics.
Once you learn what top inquiries your company gets, aim to provide your audience with answers through steady blog posts.
Better yet, anticipate what they want to know and then give it to them before they ask.
With enough blogging experience, combined with your industry expertise, you’ll learn how to provide the perfect topics people actively want to read about.
5. Missing best SEO practices
Identifying a topic and assembling words on a page to create interesting content is only a part of the equation.
The other, perhaps less exciting aspect, of content marketing is to invest in best SEO practices.
What is SEO? SEO stands for search engine optimization and it’s an important component you need to generate traffic to your blog.
While primarily you want to write with your readers in mind, you do need to write for search engines as well, else you won’t get good positions on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
Important SEO best practices include:
- Developing SEO-friendly blog headlines.
- Integrating good keywords.
- Understanding user intent for search queries.
- Using links (both internal and external).
- Optimizing each blog post’s URL.
Add these practices to your routine and you’ll have an easier time drawing audiences in so you can dazzle them with your content.
6. Not linking to other content
Each blog post should cover a comprehensive topic, but let’s face it, reading information often generates additional questions.
It’s impossible to anticipate every question and thoroughly cover them in one singular blog post.
The best way to offer more information is to link both internal and external pages to your blog content.
Internal links are a great way to drive additional traffic to your own site and further show readers the value of your website and blog.
External links add to your credibility, improve your website’s SEO, provide readers with references, and, generally, offer audiences more value.
Don’t worry that linking to external sources will undermine your efforts. If anything, doing so shows readers you’re putting their needs ahead of your own.
Plus, you can always link to external content by setting it to open to a new page, keeping visitors on your site while simultaneously offering additional information.
7. Not using a variety of content
Crafting words together is a key component of constructing a good blog post, but it’s not the only type of content businesses should be sharing.
Breaking up posts with a variety of content types can go a long way toward developing an appealing blog that people want to return to again and again.
For instance, imagery is an increasingly important type of content and generates more than 90% more views than blogs that have text-only.
To vary your content, use words, but augment them with video, photos, and infographics. This not only breaks up the page but also helps keep content fresh and audiences engaged.
Interactive video is steadily becoming a vital part of blogging. But remember to use videos and other imagery strategically and not as a replacement for your content.
8. Not having a content manager
Businesses often make the mistake of not having a key person to manage their website content. They might just hand off the responsibility to the group and instruct them to publish content.
Without a focus person, even well-written blog posts are likely to languish.
To fix this problem and ensure you publish high-quality content on a regular basis, it’s important to select a content manager to oversee everything from conception to the publishing of blog posts. This includes:
- Creating an editorial calendar
- Researching and writing
- Editing and proofreading
- Designing good formatting
- Integrating good SEO
- Publishing finished content
- Posting to social media
- Reviewing analytics to measure success
If you don’t have the resources or expertise to do so (many businesses don’t), you can find a solution in a partner who does possess the know-how needed to successfully run a content management strategy.
9. Trying to do everything by yourself
When you manage a blog, you’d probably want to have the whole control about it, and that is a good thing because you are engaged with your project.
However, when it comes about writing and producing content, there are a lot of things you have to consider if you want to be successful.
That is why the job of an independent freelancer is to decode the essences of your project and communicate it the best way possible.
Working with them, will help you to reach new audiences and guarantee the quality of your pieces.
10. Not revisiting old content
Blogging is far from a turnkey operation — you can’t set your blog up and forget it.
To truly succeed, you’ll want to routinely revisit old blog posts and provide simple updates or other fixes. For instance, statistics become outdated, links may become broken, or information is no longer relevant.
By providing updates from time to time, you’ll keep your content optimized, interesting, and applicable.
While time may be limited, at a minimum, you should regularly revisit high-performing blog pages and ensure they’re in tip-top shape.
Even if your content is perfect as is, try to add new information or at least change imagery or add an infographic, so Google and other search engines will continue to crawl these well-viewed pages and draw new visitors in.
11. Forgetting to track your progress
This perhaps goes hand-in-hand with #9, but many companies will publish web content and then not invest the time in following up to see if it’s successful or drives business goals.
Like other areas of business, you need to keep track of the data and utilize it to make better decisions. Like any other marketing investment, you want to know if your efforts and resources are driving the right results.
Using tools, such as Google Analytics to name just one, can be quite helpful in identifying which types of content is high performing and which ones aren’t performing well.
Not just for your pages, but for your social media and email marketing analytics as well.
Blogging is an excellent tool to use to attract new audiences, generate leads, and grow your conversions.
The net positives associated with a dedication to business blogging are numerous. Companies of all shapes and sizes, in any industry, can benefit from good blogging practices.
Want to learn more about how to get started? The first step is to identify a blogging platform.
We invite you to check out our post about the best free blogging platforms!
