5 Business Blogging Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make
More than 40 percent of businesses in the U.S. have a blog, and for good reason: blogs drive traffic to your website, showcase your expertise, and promote your services. But it takes more than splashing a bunch of words on a page to make your blog work for you to bring in more business.
Business blogging falls somewhere between art and science, and on the science side, there are a few hard-and-fast rules that need to be followed in order to reap the many benefits a business blog offers. If you’re making any of these five common mistakes, your blog may be as ineffective as not having one at all.
Mistake #1: Not updating your business blog frequently enough.
Search engines like fresh content, and updating your blog at least twice a month – but preferably once a week or more - is essential for success. More content on your blog translates to:
Higher relevance and popularity in the eyes of search engines.
Better search engine rankings.
More ways for potential customers to find you.
More back links to your website.
It’s very easy to fall behind on your business blog. It takes a lot of time and energy to come up with fresh content every week, write the post, and promote it on social media, all while trying to run a business. But setting aside time to regularly update your blog is one of the most important factors for its success.
Mistake #2: Posting content that’s not practical and helpful to customers.
Writing posts that highlight awards you’ve won, provide a general overview of your services, or announce company news is great every now and then, but if that’s all your blog consists of, you’re not fully engaging your customers. While a business blog is a great promotional tool, its main purpose should be to engage and educate.
Your blog should be packed full of information and tips that are helpful and relevant to your customers. If you own a salon, that means writing posts about beauty issues that your existing and potential clients can put to immediate practical use, such as ways to protect your skin from the sun, how diet affects the skin, the importance of adequate hydration, and so on.
Mistake #3: Not taking advantage of keywords.
The proper use of keywords is essential for successful business blogging. Search engines detect keywords by recognizing that the same phrase has been used several times in one article. This information is stored in the ginormous search databases, and so when someone searches for “clear a drain clog,” the article you wrote entitled, “Three Effective Ways to Clear a Drain Clog,” (which includes the phrase “clear a drain clog” several times throughout the article,) will be more likely to show up on the first page of search results.
Mistake #4: Not linking to other blog posts and website pages.
Putting lots of quality content on the WWW is a surefire way to engage existing and potential customers, but an essential part of a blog’s success is linking to other blog posts and pages on your website. Links are the path search engines follow to help determine the relevance of your content and the popularity of your site, which plays a large role in getting higher search engine rankings. In addition to improving search engine optimization, links also lead readers to other helpful posts and pages on your website, which results in a higher level of customer engagement.
Notice how I’ve included links in this post that lead to other posts on my blog and to pages on my website. That’s what you gotta do to improve search engine rankings and keep readers with you longer as they explore the wealth of helpful information your blog and website contain.
Mistake #5: Not including a clear call to action at the end.
The call to action is a very, very important part of each blog post. It ties all of the information you’ve provided back to the services you offer. The call to action should be just a few sentences long, very clear, and actionable. Kind of like this:
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