Blogs are a wonderful thing. They can draw in new customers, create knowledgeable consumers, build brand awareness, and earn money. However, those positive benefits are only a result of good blogging behavior, not bad. There are several blunders your online business might be committing when it comes to blogging. Remember, online failure is because of a particular bad blogging behavior. Here are the reasons why blogs screw up and why you should avoid them:
Not Impressing the People You Should be Impressing
Do you know who your target audience is? It should be current and potential customers. It should not be your company’s upper-level execs. While the big bosses may like to read articles about the technical and profitable aspects of your company, your readers won’t.
Don’t try to sound smart. Don’t try to impress your boss. Write genuine, authentic articles that meet the needs of your visitors and customers (in the case of an e-commerce site).
Recycling Content
If it is your job to write blog content, write blog content! Don’t “recycle” information you get from other sources. While it may be tempting to fill your blog with re-purposed articles from other industry professionals, don’t do it.
Always write specifically for your audience. Make sure your content is always original, informative, and adds something valuable to the respective community.
Being Boring
The entire purpose of blogging is to be personable and write conversational-type posts. It is a chance to let your hair down. It is a chance to let your readers see the person behind the logo.
How will visitors get to know your personality (as a brand, as a company, as a publisher) if it is buried under a boring website design?
Being Absent
Don’t be spontaneous; be predictable. In the blogging world, posting only sporadically is a no-no. A blog that sits dormant for an extended period of time sends one very clear message to readers – We don’t care.
Make sure you are posting at least one new article per week. It would not only impress your human readers but bots also. Search engines love fresh content and reward traffic accordingly.
Posting a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
Your customers are smart – thinking otherwise is a dangerous assumption. If you try to pass a sales pitch off as content, there will be a huge backlash from your readers.
By providing useful content, make sure your blog gets visitors’ trust. This is the very first step and the basic principle in gratifying your blog.
Only Giving a Minimum Amount of Effort
If you are sharing skimpy 200-word articles just so you can meet your once-a-week posting goal, you are wasting your time. Readers want posts that will take them from beginning to end – no matter what the subject. It is impossible to thoroughly discuss a topic with so few words.
Although there is no hard and fast rule when it comes to determining a minimum word count for articles, in this post-panda world it is generally advisable to write brief articles (having more than 500 words) that cover a subject thoroughly.
Not Being Able to Compete
Remember, your blog is competing with Twitter, YouTube, and other bored-at-work distractions. You need to write content that will snag their attention. Even the most boring niches can find a way to provide an entertaining spin on a topic.
Try writing off-beat content such as lists – as they are really popular. Try also to use interesting images in each of your articles to make them impressive.
Turning Off Comments
Have you ever had a “conversation” with someone but didn’t manage to get a single word in? How did you feel? It was probably like your opinions, thoughts, and ideas didn’t matter. Your blog readers feel the same way when you don’t allow them to comment on your posts.
Blogs were not designed to be a one-way conversation, therefore allow your visitors to comment. Ok we get it, you get a lot of spam, right? Learn to deal with it. There are dozens of tools that can help you fight them!
Ignoring the Importance of Photos
A well-chosen photo can make the difference between someone reading your post and passing it by. Mind you, we said well-chosen. Sure, the stock is safe – but it is also boring.
Try to find graphics that are free to use (of course) yet also fresh and exciting. Visitors mostly scan a page instead of reading the text and this is where images play their part as they grab the attention of the visitor easily and let them stay on the page for a longer period of time.
Having Multiple Personalities
Your company can experience lots of SEO benefits from having your blog and website share a domain. The addition of a blog can allow the main company website to target a wide range of keywords that otherwise cannot be targeted with the company website itself.
Forgetting the Individual
If Bob wrote the post, give Bob the credit. Readers don’t relate to teams, committees, organizations, or departments. They relate to people. Even if you analyze future SEO trends, it becomes clear that blogging is all about individuals (authors of course).
There you have it; a pretty thorough description of bad blogging behavior. How many blunders have you committed? Have you stumbled upon another annoying habit newbie bloggers have? Let us know in the comments section below!
