Your own blog can be an incredibly effective tool for your business. It can engage customers, help define your brand identity and voice, increase awareness and drive traffic and sales. Starting a blog could be one of the best moves you make for your business this year, but it is essential that you do it right otherwise you’ll be wasting your time.
The fact is, a poorly written or ill-thought out blog could actually do you more harm than good, or at least fail to bring you the benefits that a well-written blog otherwise can.
In this article we will take a look at some of the common mistakes first-time bloggers make, and how to avoid them…
Contents
1. The topic
The first and possibly most obvious mistake that you can make with your blog is on the topic. You can err in many ways:
- Picking the wrong topic that doesn’t interest your target market
- Being too broad
- Simply not knowing what you want to write about
You should always begin with your ideal customer – what it is they want to know, what they are interested in, and how you can deliver on both of these.
There are many benefits to blogging for your business, but if you haven’t targeted your blog and its topic well enough, you won’t see any of them.
Write with intention and deliver the goods.
2. Inconsistency in uploading new content
Some new bloggers charge in and create a punishing and unrealistic publishing schedule for themselves that cannot be sustained. Starting off with several or even one post a day can seem like a necessity, but if you struggle to maintain quality your customers lose interest.
Either way, the best option is to set a realistic schedule and stick to it. That could mean one post a day. It could be one or two a month. Just make sure that you are consistent both in when you post, and how much value you deliver in terms of quality of writing.
If you post sporadically or far too often to the detriment of the quality, you’re wasting your time.
3. Lack of SEO
Your blog can be an SEO goldmine. So, make sure you optimise your posts accordingly and follow the best practices for delivering the kind of ‘people first’ content that Google loves.
For those who aren’t experienced in SEO, or would prefer to leave it to the experts, the right SEO agency can handle this for you quite easily.
4. Lack of promotion
It doesn’t matter how good your blog is if no one knows it is there. Promoting your blog is just as important as writing it, and can be a great way to combine digital marketing strategies. Utilising social media, influencers, email and more to increase awareness of your blog will also increase awareness of your products. A win-win.
Again, just make sure you are optimising your posts accordingly, that you invest in proper topic research, and that you deliver quality content consistently. There’s no good promoting a blog if you aren’t going to properly maintain it.
5. Lack of evaluation
You could have created the best post ever with tons of views and engagement leading to increased sales, but if you aren’t monitoring your progress, how will you know what to replicate next time?
You should use analytics on your blog posts to judge how successful they are, and constantly be tweaking and adapting your strategy to best appeal to your target market.
Creating a blog is an excellent first step, but now you must maintain and evaluate it thoroughly to truly avoid mistakes, and make the most of the benefits it can bring to your business.
Conclusion
As the saying goes: “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail” and this speaks volumes when it comes to blogging. If you are writing about the first topic that springs to mind without conducting proper research, it’s a waste. Similarly, if you don’t optimise well or keep up with consistent quality then you will struggle to secure loyal readers.
If you’re gonna do it, do it right!