Blogging? Are you making these mistakes too?

1. Not blogging at all!

(Whether you think you are above blogging, or you think it’s not your thing, or you can’t write.)

Well, say you are going to a business conference this weekend, would you go there and not say anything at all? What if a conference participant (who could also be a potential customer) walks up to you to find out what you and your business are about and all you can say is some standard generic stuff about your business, something they could find from the about page on your website. Would you do this? Of course not, you would engage with the potential clients and ask questions, show interest in their endeavours, and most of all you show a bit of personality to show what a fun person you would be to work with.

Then why is your website any different? Apart from the design of your website, generally speaking, your blog will be the first point of contact of your business that shows a bit of personality. If you don’t have a blog on your website, you are presenting that standard content with very little personality; what does this say about your business?

This is why a blog on your website is so important these days. It shows the personality behind the business, and most importantly the people, the expertise and knowledge that user will engage with and will be willing to part some money with.

Solution:

Start with a small step, a blog post once a month. Think about it, that is just 12 blog posts per year, not much really, is it!

2. Inconsistent Blogging

(Just look at our blog…)

We’ve all done this, had a time when we are flooded with great ideas to blog about, we write it and publish straight away. Thinking we have done a great job and that these great ideas will always come in, so we move on to the next task. The next thing you know, you forgot about doing any more blogs because you were always working on the more important matters of business. And the weeks go by before you realise you haven’t added any new blog posts!

There are many reasons to blog consistently, the main ones are:

a) With most website CMS’, especially true with WordPress, each time you publish a post a ping is sent to Google, Bing, and other search engines that you have published new content on your website and therefore they should send over the SEO bots to check it out.

b) It encourages users, current clients, and potential clients to return to your website regularly to engage with you, which in turn strengthens your brand.

c) Give yourself authority in your market by having regular content that demonstrate your knowledge. Just having one or two posts about a topic, does not make you an expert, anyone can research two blog post on a particular topic. Whereas having ten or more blog posts about a topic will show that you have quite a lot of knowledge about this topic.

Solution:

Set up a blogging calendar and schedule in regular publishing dates. If you have a number blog posts written, spread out the publishing dates.

3) No post from business owner / CEO

In a total contradiction, this is one of my big bug-bears, when a business owner thinks they are above blogging or that they just don’t need to (and yet, there are few posts on this blog that are from me!).

When in fact, the blog could be the most powerful communication tool. Not only can the owner express to their clients and potential clients the philosophy behind the business, and why their business is different, better than anyone else in their team but the blog also communicates to the business staff members, teaching and reinforcing company philosophy and practice. When a business owner blogs, they are shining the torchlight forwards for everyone to follow.

Solution:

Allow a morning once a week to give the business owner/ CEO time to write or dictate into the iPhone a blog post.

4) Blogging on a third party platform and not on their website URL

Yes, there are reasons that you should use a third party blogging platform, whether it’s for SEO purposes or to develop a presence in a new market. However, the first priority is that you should have a well maintained blog on your website URL, not yourbusiness.wordpress.com or yourbusiness.tumbler.com and so on.

By having your blog with your website URL, your website content gets updated regularly and strengthens your content keywords, both of which will affect your SEO rankings. Also, when the blog is on your website URL, you are not sending users away from your website to check out your content; who knows whether they might come back?

Solution:

Use a website platform that has a blog inbuilt like WordPress.

5) Outsourcing the blogging to the wrong third party

It is quite popular these days for businesses to outsource the blog content production to freelance writers, digital agencies, and overseas content farms. We are not against this, but I am against it when the contractor is selected because of their rates and not because what they write is well written and engaging content for your business’ market.

The blog showcases the business’ knowledge, expertise and personality. If you have some generic content that is either poorly written, or reads weirdly because of the high (unnatural) keyword use, what does this say about your business?

Solution:

Get your staff involved with producing blog content, they engage with your customers, why not let them attract and engage with potential customers.