You’ve launched a blog for your small business and you’re doing your level best to get it up and running. So why, if that’s the case, is it having no beneficial impact whatsoever? Or worse still, is it actually driving folk in the opposite direction?
In the right hands, the power of a small business blog can be near limitless. But this doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible for things to go extremely wrong, if the most critical rules aren’t followed to the letter.
So if your own small business blog appears to be backfiring, it’s probably due to one of the following:
1 – Short, Pointless Posts
First of all, if your posts aren’t rich and relevant enough to warrant reading, why would they bother? For the sake of winning over web crawlers, 500 words and up should be considered mandatory. And for the sake of your readers, it’s simply a case of posting entries that have a point and a purpose. If you fill it with fluff, it’ll flop.
2 – No Consistency
Another common mistake is posting on a completely random basis with no consistency. One day there’s a full dozen-strong set of posts uploaded, then nothing at all for a week. If you want folk to keep coming back, you need to make it clear when they should come back to expect new content.
3 – No Set Goal
For a business blog to be successful, you need to decide on what success means to you. Are you looking to improve sales? Build brand authority? Spread the word about your business? Earn some brownie-points with Google? If you don’t decide exactly what your blog is for, how can you expect it to succeed?
4 – Lack of Focus
You can’t appeal to all of the people all of the time – blogs being no exception to the rule. If the content you post is too broad or vague, you will fail to engage anyone. If by contrast you focus on one or two very specific subjects or industry-relevant topics, you stand a much better chance of maintaining reader interest.
5 – The Hard Sell
The pages of your website are for selling your product – your blog most certainly is not. Blogs are about engaging your readers, building authority, inspiring conversation and generally upping your image in their eyes. It’s very much not about throwing products, promos and sales pitches out like they were going out of a fashion – a guaranteed recipe for immediate and total blog failure.
6 – Careless Mistakes
Ask yourself – would you trust a brand that couldn’t discuss its own industry without making a bunch of silly spelling mistakes and grammatical errors? Of course you wouldn’t, so you can’t expect to be taken seriously if your own blog isn’t flawless in quality.
7 – No Variety
Research has shown that when it comes to the type of content web users respond best to, text is actually right at the bottom of the pile. From video clips to photographs to infographics and more, anything you can use to break the monotony of unbroken text is your friend.
8 – Yawn-Fest
Last but not least, your blog’s content may be relevant and accurate, but is it even remotely interesting? Take a step back and ask yourself – are you publishing riveting and enjoyable posts, or are you simply boring your readers half to death?
