This is a Guest Post by Carol Tice. Carol Tice blogs for Entrepreneur magazine, and at her own award-winning blog, Make a Living Writing. Say hi to her on Twitter.
Many businesses start blogs hoping to drive traffic to their websites. A few months later, one of two things has usually happened:
- The blog is dead. No one has posted in weeks.
- Someone at the company is posting like crazy, but nothing's happening -- the blog doesn't get any comments or subscribers.
Blogs take a decent amount of work. If you're going to start one for your business, you want it to get a result, like any other marketing tool.
Why do many business blogs flounder? Here is my list of the 10 most common mistakes business bloggers make:
- It's no one's responsibility. Putting up a blog and hoping team members will contribute isn't going to work. Someone needs to officially be the company blogger. If they want to solicit other employees' contributions, they can, but it needs to be on somebody's plate.
- No one is promoting the blog. When you create a blog post, you've created a marketing tool. Think of it like a hammer. You wouldn't expect that hammer to get up and start hammering nails by itself, would you? It's the same with blogs -- once you start posting, someone will need to promote the posts. Whether it's on Twitter or in your company newsletter, take action to let people know you've got a new post up.
- You don't write strong headlines. I recently reviewed more than 100 startup blogs, and I can tell you poorly written headlines are an epidemic -- so if you can get the hang of how to write great ones, you will give your blog a big advantage. Remember that on a search engine, your blog headline stands alone, so it needs to tell readers exactly who the post is for, and what topic will be covered. Try adding a little intrigue with a question, like I'm doing in the headline for this post.
- You don't add images to your posts. You may wish your amazing, highly useful post would draw readers all on its own merits, but study after study shows readers are attracted to articles with images. Add a video, and they'll stay even longer.
- There is no easy way to subscribe by email. Everybody loves that cute orange RSS button, but you really want email subscribers more. When people subscribe on RSS, you don't capture their email -- and that means you can't sell to them. You don't know who they are. Solution? Make a large, prominent subscription box and put it at the top of your blog, where readers can't miss it.
- Your blog isn't easily shareable. Make it easy for readers to spread the word about your post by adding Facebook, Twitter, and other social-media buttons for the sites that are popular with your target audience.
- Your website design is too cluttered. It's easy to load up your blog page with a ton of widgets, flashing ads, bright colors, and moving graphics. But know that too much stuff boggles readers and drives them away. Offer your readers too many choices, and they will often leave and take no action. Use Google In-Page Analytics or another analysis tool to find out exactly what readers click on -- then, get rid of everything else.
- Your design is illegible. Know that black or dark backgrounds with teeny white letters will drive readers away -- your blog is just too hard to read.
- You don't post consistently. Once you start blogging, you need to set a schedule. Ideally, post on the same day(s) of the week and even the same time of day. People are creatures of habit, and want to be able to rely on seeing posts from you on a regular basis.
- You don't engage readers. A blog post isn't a statement, it's the start of a conversation. Ask readers a question, take a poll, or hold a contest to get readers involved. Respond to comments, too -- it makes readers feel welcome.
Do you have a rockin' business blog? Leave us a URL and tell us about how you make your blog successful.
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For more practical advices on blogging, you can subscribe to our RSS feed. You can also choose to receive updates via emails.
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Very informative. All stratergies tried and tested
we do arts and business consultancy.
With systems available for explanation or implementation.
Written work also available. Another good SEO technique would be to
display your blog address on relevent media such as youtube.
Visit http://www.vimux.com
UK Business Consultants
you created a beautiful blog and it helps us to know how to avoid Common Mistakes in your business blogs.I always love to watch kind of blogging thanks.
Wow. I really interested to your post. It is really impressive. You gave me a lot of information about it.
Thanks
Mark
Mark Sanders -Tampa FL
Wow. I really interested to your post. It is really impressive. You gave me a lot of information about it.
Thanks
Mark
Mark Sanders -Tampa FL
I wouldn't call it rocking, our business blog. Your tips of making it easy to share and engaging readers have sunk in. Thank you.
http://wheninamsterdam-omyamsterdamtours.blogspot.com/