These days it seems like every company or small business – from a dentist to a software company – has a blog. However, just because everyone has a blog, doesn't mean everyone does it well. Even if you are just launching a blog for your business, or if you have been doing it for some time now, it is very easy to fall into bad habits.
As a small agency, we want and really need to seize the opportunities that social media offers us. We have been developing this blog over the last two years, and we have learned several things along the way, including blogging mistakes not to repeat.
1. Confusing your blog with a promotional platform
There are many who rush to write on blogs and social networks, generally seeing them as free advertising. However, when your blog articles focus too much on your company, products and services, your blog is no longer credible or useful. There will be few readers who will come back, week after week, to find out how spectacular you are.
If the majority of your articles are centered around your company or products, you will need to change the way you are approaching your blog. Focus your content so that it offers information that is useful and relevant to the topics that the community around you is interested in. For example, since we work within the scope of digital marketing, of design, desenvolvimento e web design, it makes sense that many of our articles focus on helping our readers develop their skills in this area.
There are experts who advise maintaining a ratio of 90:10 or 75:25 when it comes to the relationship between educational content and promotional content. You won't have to stick to any magic equation, as long as you keep your audience's needs and interests at the forefront of your blogging strategy. This is the first of six blogging mistakes you should avoid.
2. Not posting consistently
It's easy to start a blog, but it's harder to maintain it. A blog usually fails due to lack of commitment or resources. Studies in the area have shown that companies that update frequently and consistently benefit more from the efforts they put into their blogs.
Before launching your blog, determine the ideal publishing frequency so that you always keep your blog updated, for example, once or twice a week. If necessary, monitor competitor blogs to measure the average number of articles they publish per week. Ideally, you should create a four-monthly editorial plan for the next topics to be covered. For periods when you don't have time, create a handful of articles with more generic subjects (not very sensitive thematically and temporally), which can automatically feed the blog in times when your schedule is tighter. This is the second of six blogging mistakes you should avoid.
3. Not engaging with your readers
A blog is not a press release or a static page where information flows from you to the sender. Social media provides you with a direct connection to interact with your customers and community. It would be a shame not to take advantage of this opportunity. If you're lucky enough to have engaged readers who comment on your blog posts, make a point of showing them recognition – whether it's thanking them for their kind words, answering a question, providing more details or starting a conversation.
While we're all different when it comes to moderating and controlling a community, we can all agree on the following: if you encourage engagement, you need to make comments easier to post. Login systems and captcha forms help limit spam, but make it harder for anyone to post a comment. This is the third of the six blogging mistakes you should avoid.
4. Focusing too much on SEO
Blogging can have an incredible impact on your organic search rankings and traffic. We always encourage developing an SEO strategy for your blog. Identify the main search terms for your business area and optimize your articles with those terms. There are several tools that can help you with search engine optimization.
However, the most successful blogs are those that are written for people and not machines. Don't hire someone who simply fills their articles with specific key words or phrases, without even thinking about whether the content is useful or easy to read. This strategy may bring you visits, but these visitors will never stay, read, engage or share your content if it is poor. Keywords do not create credibility. Write interesting articles, invest in a few keywords here and there, and your efforts will be rewarded. This is the fourth of the six blogging mistakes you should avoid.
5. Not using images in the correct way.
While many bloggers focus on words, images are the best way to capture people's attention quickly. Additionally, breaking up longer articles with images that illustrate what you are talking about will help keep readers interested, making the most of the attention readers have to give.
For many blogs, the problem with images has to do with resource allocation. In principle it will take about an hour to write an article, but only a few minutes to find an image. However, finding the right image is rarely that easy.
Before you start searching, take a few minutes to think about the main concept, feeling or idea that your article wants to convey. You should always use images that are visually engaging, attractive and relevant to the article. Your image needs to express a concept, not looking like you placed the first image you found along the way.
Additionally, many small businesses violate copyright and best practices by thinking they have the right to use any image they find on the internet. The best way to make sure you don't get into trouble is to use images with a Creative Commons license. You can search for these types of images on Flickr, the Creative Commons website or through search engines like Compfight or Photo Pin. This is the fifth of the six blogging mistakes you should avoid.
6. Not listening to your readers
Not sure what type of content appeals most to your audience? There's no mystery: your blog statistics can give you valuable data about what types of articles are pleasing your readers the most.
When you fail to pay attention to statistics, you are ignoring valuable information that can take your blog to the next level. Continuously monitor all the responses that arise depending on each article. Think about different topics, titles and types of articles. Which articles generate the most activity (comments, shares, likes)? Increase the frequency of whatever is most popular. This is the sixth of the six blogging mistakes you should avoid.
And are you guilty of any of these six blogging mistakes? What are the main lessons you learned from your blog?