Blogging is one of the most effective digital marketing strategies that drive leads, increases sales, and establishes a small business’s credibility.
According to Optinmonster.com, marketers who prioritize blogging in their online marketing strategy are 13 times more likely to experience a positive ROI in their business. Furthermore, business websites with blogs tend to get at least 67% more leads than companies that don’t.
It can be difficult to create blog content that both readers and search engines will find relevant. If you are looking to integrate a blog into your company’s marketing strategy, we’ve gone ahead and broken down four common blogging mistakes to avoid:
Skipping SEO
If you want your business blog to rank higher on the search engine results page (SERPs), you need to implement a good SEO strategy. SEO is usually time-consuming and business owners may think the investment isn’t worth it. It is. You want search engines to recognize your blog so you have a greater chance of people seeing it, thus driving more traffic to your website. No matter how informative or helpful your blog is, your efforts will go in vain without an effective SEO strategy.
Consider starting your SEO strategy by doing keyword research for the topic you’re planning to write about. There are a lot of tools to help you with your keyword search, including Ahrefs and SEMrush. Be sure to consider the other on-page SEO blogging strategies, too, to boost your chances of ranking higher on SERPs.
Poor Choice of Topics
Another big mistake company bloggers tend to make, is choosing the wrong topics to write about. Instead of providing answers to some of the most common questions from their audience, they use their blogs to talk solely about their company. When the site’s visitor reads this, chances are they will find this information irrelevant to their buying process.
According to Oberlo, 60% of consumers find relevant blogs a vital part of their buying decisions. If you want to use your blog to funnel sales, you have to create a blog that is informative, not promotional. If you’re stuck on what topics to write about, consult with your sales team as they’re usually the ones that handle customer inquiries and concerns. Gather customers’ frequently asked questions and choose your topics from there.
Inconsistent Posting Schedule
Another essential part of blogging is consistency when it comes to posting frequency. Blogs can become reliable resources when companies post to them regularly. As your audience grows, people will come to anticipate new posts and you’ll want to make sure you are consistently delivering that new content. If posts begin to fall off, it could adversely affect the number of organic traffic that is driven to your company’s website.
Regular activity on your website also helps search engines detect that your website is active. Search engines usually check a site’s activity by having bots “crawl” it to determine whether you’ve posted new content and if you’re doing it consistently. The more blog posts you publish or update, the better your chances will be for ranking higher on SERPs.
Skipping Proofreading
Too often, bloggers skip the critical proofreading phase before they post content. As an informative resource, blogs should be thoughtful, concise, and easy to understand. This means that posts should be free from grammatical and typographical errors that come off as sloppy and careless. Consequently, if your readers frequently find errors in your blog’s text, it could ruin your business’ credibility.
Consider hiring an editor to comb through and proofread your articles before they are published to your website. In addition to making grammatical corrections, they can also provide useful insights to improve your writing.
Final Thoughts
Blogging is a powerful tool that can significantly boost your company’s bottom line if it’s done correctly. If you’re planning on incorporating blogging into your digital marketing strategy or improving your existing blog’s performance, we hope that identifying these common mistakes will allow you to avoid them so you can develop high-performing articles that successfully drive traffic to your website.
