Operating your business takes up a lot of your time, and some days the last thing you want to do is take additional time to work on your website. That’s understandable, and sometimes the daily needs of your business here in the real world take precedence over writing a blog post or sending an email to your writer. So, it’s tempting to bump your blog even further down your to-do list when it seems like your return-on-investment is low to begin with.
But if nobody is reading your blog, that’s part of the problem right there. If your blog isn’t pulling its own weight, then that is a sign that something is wrong. A healthy blog that gets a good amount of traffic, will bring in leads every month and will prove its value over and over again. If it isn’t doing that, then check to see if you are committing one or more of these five common blogging mistakes.
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1. You Aren’t Posting New Content Every Week
To attract new blog readers from search engines like Google and Bing, you will need to publish fresh content on your blog on a consistent basis. Studies have shown that blogs that put out new content four times per week get about four times more traffic than those that publish only once a week.
More content means more traffic, so it just makes sense to post daily or almost daily – as long as you can keep up with that schedule. To keep your audience coming back regularly, you want to stick with a steady schedule. So, whether you post once a week or once a day, keeping it consistent will let readers know what to expect. And a steady flow of fresh blog content will let search engines know that your blog is alive and well and is deserving of more traffic.
2. You Aren’t Actively Promoting Your Blog to Earn Backlinks
Publishing on a blog with no traffic is a bit like giving a keynote address to an empty room. Obviously, you need to have some content to give people a reason to stop by, but you also need to promote your blog. You wouldn’t stock your sales floor or warehouse with products without marketing your products to bring in sales, right? Well, the same principle applies to your blog.
You must market your products to drive sales. And you must promote your blog to drive traffic.
Share your blog posts on social media. Write guest posts for industry blogs and news websites to get backlinks back to your own website. Send press releases to local media outlets to attract new visitors to your blog.
3. Your Blog Content Lacks a Consistent Voice
Branding is more than just a buzzword. It’s a real strategy to present your company, your products and your services to the world and build your business. Publishing blog posts that sound like they were written by different people from different companies can throw people off and dilute your brand rather than strengthen it.
This is especially common when you deal with multiple writers, but it can be avoided by either using a single writer or by ensuring everyone in your writing pool takes time to familiarize themselves with your blog and your brand’s voice before they write your content. Outsourcing your content creation to an experienced content marketing agency like articlez.com can also help you create content that is consistent with your brand voice.
4. You Aren’t Interacting with Your Readers and Customers
Your blog is more than just a vehicle for pushing out sales materials and articles to an audience. It’s a platform for engaging with your customers and potential customers. Like social media sites, your blog should encourage comments and conversations to build a relationship between you and your customer base.
Make sure that comments are enabled on your blog posts. Install a spam filter or plugin like Akismet to sweep away the rubbish and then take the time to respond to every sincere reader who attempts to interact with you there.
5. Your Blog Isn’t Converting Readers into Customers
Are you tracking your conversion rate? Do you know how many of your blog visitors actually fill out lead capture forms or make purchases? If you aren’t analyzing these numbers, you should start doing that immediately. Once you know how well your blog is converting, then you can begin tweaking various elements on your landing pages to improve that conversion rate.
If you’re getting traffic but aren’t converting at all, then that might mean that you need to change up your content to attract a different kind of reader. Traffic alone won’t guarantee sales. You need to create content that your target customer is searching for online.
Your blog has the potential to be a powerful weapon in your fight to increase sales and profits. But to do its job effectively, you need to make sure it’s functioning properly, and you also need to make sure that you are wielding it correctly on a regular basis. Follow these tips to make sure your blogging style avoids these blunders and gets the job done right.
