Are these common mistakes hurting your business blog?

How to avoid common blogging mistakes for your small business Click To Tweet

If your small business website isn’t generating the amount of traffic you were hoping for, it might be time to consider adding a blog to your site.  Blogs can help your business engage with potential clients and have the potential to produce 67% more leads a month.  You may also find that 80% of your readership will appreciate learning about your company through the custom content that your blog will generate.

Common Blogging Mistakes for Small Business

Before you begin putting fingers to the keyboard, however, it’s important to know common mistakes small businesses make when blogging so you can avoid these pitfalls yourself.

Mistake #1 – Bad Writing

Before you hit publish, make sure you review your post for grammatical and punctuation errors.  If the post contains many grammatical errors, you run the risk of the reader leaving the site because they believe that the post provides nothing of value.  You can avoid this by doing some simple proofreading.

 

While proofreading for grammatical errors, take time to also review the post for readability.  Is your writing style too stiff or too formal?  Not sure?  Ask someone you trust to give you an honest opinion of your writing style.  If they say your writing is too stiff, try rewriting the article in a more conversational tone.  People like to learn but do not like to be lectured.  A post written in a conversational tone has less of a chance of the reader wandering away than posts written to inform in a very dry, flat tone.

 

 

Mistake #2 – Posts are too short

While the subject of your post is important, it’s the post title and post length that can really influence the amount of traffic you receive.  On average, only about 18% of company posts are 750 words or longer.  Now the top-ranked content on Google, on the other hand, has an average word count of 1,140 – 1,285 words.  Therefore, if you want to get noticed by the big search engines, you need to focus on writing longer posts.  You also need to be mindful of your word count when choosing a kick-ass title for your post.  Those that are between 6-13 words get the highest and most consistent amount of traffic.

 

 

Mistake #3 – The subject matter is too broad

When choosing a topic, it might seem tempting to write about very broad topics like “Social Media Marketing 101” or “Industry X 101”.  The inherent problem with this is that the topic is so large that you can’t adequately cover it in one post.  You will end up writing about the topic in such general terms that only the most novice readers in this subject will be interested.  If you want to appeal to a larger audience, it’s better to write about smaller, more specific topics.  This allows you to go into levels of detail that your readers will find engaging and interesting and will keep them coming back for more.

 

 

Mistake #4 – Blog posts don’t relate to a central theme

When a reader clicks the link to your blog post, it means that they have some degree of interest in this subject area.  Therefore, it’s important to keep the subject of your posts tied-in in some way to either your business or your industry in general as that’s what your target audience is looking for.

 

 

Mistake #5 – Posts are too promotional

The purpose of adding a blog to your business site is to reach a large pool of potential clients or customers, build a rapport with them and hopefully convert them into actual clients or customers.  To do this, you need the reader to see your blog as a valuable resource, a place to get new information or perspectives.  Whether you are giving a behind-the-scenes look at your business, providing new recipes each week, or giving blogging tips and advice, these are all reasons to keep the reader coming back for more.

 

Now, you might be asking yourself what’s so important about giving away all this information?  You just want the reader to be your customer or to engage your services.  Why not focus your blog on advertising your services?   The answer is, if your blog is too heavy in self-promotion right off the hop, your reader is going to get scared off.  You haven’t built up a rapport and they haven’t learned to trust you yet.

 

 

Mistake #6 – No blogging consistency

If you’ve decided to add a blog to your business’s website, it’s important to make a commitment to add new posts on a regular, frequent schedule.  Not only will adding new content help your site’s ranking, it’s possible to also get 4.5 times more leads if you able to commit to posting 16 or more times a month.

 

 

Mistake #7 – Too many pop-ups and banners

Pop-ups and banners can be an important tool in converting visitors into subscribers or customers, but too much of a good thing can also be bad.  Visitors are interested in what you have to say and want to learn more.  If you make them wade through pop-up after pop-up just to get to that content, however, they are going to get frustrated and leave.  One prompt to convert the reader is fine, but hounding them for their email address is just going to leave a sour taste in their mouth.

 

 

Mistake #8 – Forgetting to promote your blog

Whether it’s you or a staff member, someone has spent time adding content to your blog, but all that work is for naught if no one knows it’s out there to read.  That’s why it is critical to let people know what you have been up to and where they can find it.  If you have a subscription list, send a regular email out detailing the new post additions.  If you are on social media, make sure you use each platform to promote all your hard work.  The wider you cast your promotional net, the bigger your chances are for catching some great clients.

 

 

Want more tips for blogging success?

Our trained specialists can help guide you through the process of starting a blog for your company.  Contact us today!

 

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