The term ‘blogging’ originally referred to keeping an online journal for friends to read, but has since grown to encompass much more. Most websites now have a blog, which often makes up the majority of the site.
It is beneficial for companies to have a blog because it helps attract customers, is great for marketing and SEO, and helps build customer loyalty.
Blogging is a complex process that takes time to perfect. If you are unsure of how to properly utilize a company blog, it can be a waste of time or even hurt your organization.
Many CEOs and entrepreneurs who have little experience in running a website or writing content nevertheless start posting without fully understanding what they’re doing.
To avoid making costly mistakes with your company blog, read on for a list of the most common errors businesses make.
1. Lack of Indexing
A blog can be a powerful tool for SEO and marketing, as Google prefers sites that regularly post new content. The downside is that many business owners don’t put enough effort into their blogs, using either duplicate content or repurposing existing material instead of creating original posts.
Some website owners try to avoid being penalized by Google by preventing Google’s spiders from indexing their site. However, this prevents the site from reaping the SEO benefits of incoming links.
If you want to improve your blog’s SEO, write unique content. It may take a bit longer, but it’s worth it if it means you can make full use of your blog’s potential. If you don’t want to write the content yourself, you can hire a writer to do it for you.
2. Keyword Stuffing
Some companies will try too hard to make their blogs the best in the ranking. They might use old methods that could get their site in trouble. An example of this is keyword stuffing, which is when too many keywords are put in a post. This can result in the blog being penalized by Google. People will stop reading the blog if they see posts like this. Companies should make sure their posts are interesting and have good quality, not just full of keywords.
Write around your topic, using synonyms for your keywords and phrases to avoid repeating yourself too much. This is good writing and something Google looks for.
When it comes to on-page SEO, there are a few things you can do to make sure your website is as optimized as possible. In the opening and closing paragraphs, try to use your main key phrase. This will be a good indicator to Google that your website is relevant to that topic. In addition, pick smart headings and use tags like the ‘alt’ tag on images. This will allow you to hide a few more keywords and variations. These subtle changes can have a big impact on your website’s SEO.
3. No Moderation
Although comments are generally positive, spam comments promoting Viagra are not beneficial. Not only do they include links that take users away from your site, but they also make it appear as if you do not monitor the site or do not know how to set up proper defenses. Install a spam filter, but also manually approve comments to ensure that no spam gets through.
One tip that all bloggers should consider is setting your site as your homepage in your browser. By doing this, you can check your site as the first thing you do every day. This will allow you to respond to comments more quickly, to find and delete spam, and to notice the little tweaks that could help make your site more usable and accessible.
4. Low Quality
Your main focus when running a blog should be to ensure that the content is high quality. People are more likely to read and Google is more likely to index content that is well written and useful.
If you’re unsure if your blog is great or just average, the best way to find out is to survey your visitors and get feedback. Another way is to watch a friend or family member interact with your blog.
If you want your blog to be a powerful asset in promoting your organization, don’t treat it as an afterthought. Develop it as part of your business model and marketing strategy.
In order to bring more traffic to your site, you need to invest more time in your blog. This can be done by engaging in the comments section or by doing research to find topics. Once you have found the topics, you can then start putting them front-and-center on your site.
5. Choosing the wrong topics
One of the biggest mistakes companies make when blogging is not writing on topics that are relevant to their audience.
They are not using their blog to provide answers to questions that potential customers have during the process of making purchase decisions.
Some companies use their blog to talk about themselves instead of their customers.
Instead of writing content that is more fitting as company news, they should write content that is more educational. Your audience likely doesn’t care about who got promoted or what local sports team you sponsored. Your company culture and values are important, but they shouldn’t be the main focus of your blog.
Your customers have their own problems to solve, not watch you celebrate your own successes.
Consult with your salespeople to determine the type of questions potential customers are asking during sales interactions and what their primary concerns are before making a purchase.
This means that nearly every question a customer asks could be used as a topic for a blog. This could be a great way to come up with ideas for new blog content.
6. Not publishing frequently (or consistently) enough
You should blog correctly if you are going to blog.
Another important aspect of being successful is doing things often and regularly.
Your blog needs a regular schedule if you want to nurture a community and grow a following. If you only publish content on your business blog sporadically or once a month, you won’t get great results.
We recommend that for a business blog publish three articles per week.
Why should you publish frequently?
Every blog article you publish helps improve your search engine ranking.
Your potential customers are researching potential purchases online and have many questions. If you are able to answer more of their questions, it is more likely that they will visit your site.
The more content you have, the more opportunity you have to keep people engaged on your site.
If you want your website to show up in search engines, you need to publish content regularly. This shows search engines that your website is active and therefore more likely to be relevant to searchers.
If you post content regularly, search engines will send their bots more often to check for new content.
This means that if you want your business blog to be successful, you should publish new content regularly, rather than just occasionally.
The best way to ensure your content is published on a regular basis is to create a publication calendar and make sure you have the people and time necessary to get the content written and published.
7. Not having one person manage the content
It’s not easy to consistently produce high-quality blog content.
There needs to be someone in your organization who is in charge of the content for the best results.
And that’s why you need a content manager.
A content manager typically has a lot of responsibilities, like creating an editorial calendar, researching and writing blog articles, editing and publishing them, posting on social media, developing premium content, and analyzing data.
Oftentimes, businesses attempt to utilize an “every person helps out” approach to their company blog, which while I am all for any company that has content marketing buy-in, you will still need one specific person to be in charge and oversee everything.
Without this role, your efforts will undoubtedly unravel.
You could either hire a new team member to handle the blog, or assign the task to someone who is already on the team. If you decide to give it to someone who is already busy with other tasks, make sure to take some of the other things off their plate so they don’t get overwhelmed by the new blogging schedule.
8. Not linking to other content
Let’s say that someone discovers your content through a search engine. They read the whole article and feel that it satisfactorily answered their question, but now they have other questions about the topic that they want to explore.
Do you have those answers somewhere on your site?
Can you name any sources that have the answers to those questions?
If you want your business blog articles to be effective, include links to help the reader navigate.
They want to continue researching and if you have more content on your site that is relevant, then links are the best way to guide them from one of your pages to another.
There are huge SEO benefits to linking:
- Linking to internal content helps search engines better understand your website architecture and what important pages you have.
- Linking to outside resources helps establish you as an expert in your field that puts the reader’s needs ahead of your own.
9. Not providing the next action
Always think about what the next logical step for your audience should be after reading your article.
- Are there other articles they should read?
- Do you have any premium content that would be of value to them?
- Is there a webinar or trial they can sign up for?
Oftentimes, blog articles will conclude without having the next action in place.
If a customer can’t make a purchase directly from a specific page, that shouldn’t be the end of their journey.
It is important to keep your audience engaged by providing links to extend their experience. You can recommend a few articles for them to read or include a call-to-action for a related offer.
10. Not repurposing great content
Other than just being blog articles, high-performing content can also work for you in other ways. If you only keep them as blog articles, you’re not taking full advantage of what they can do for you.
You could use the same topic and subject matter for other content, like podcasts, pillar pages, gated content, videos, guidebooks, infographics, and more.
If you have a successful blog post, you can use the same ideas to create new content in different formats to reach more people.
YouTube is a great place to look for answers to your questions since it is the second largest search engine. You could also try making a video on the topic you are interested in.
If you’re not comfortable being on camera but could easily talk about your chosen subject matter with anyone who wants to listen, you could turn it into a podcast episode.
One way to make your information easier to understand is to create an infographic. This way, you can take a complex topic and present it in a visually appealing way that is easy to follow.
If you have multiple blog posts on the same topic, you can compile them together to create a great downloadable eBook.
If you only use text in your content, you won’t be able to reach as many people.
Conclusion
By eliminating these simple mistakes you can significantly improve your site’s overall performance.
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Your post helped me find the potential mistakes I was making.
Thanks for saving me though
Thanks Jatin – I notice your post at https://discoverthetech.com/how-to-make-money-blogging/ also has some very good tips.