9 Worst Business Blogging Mistakes (And How To Fix Them)
Having assessed and reviewed a fair share of blog articles, I’ve seen some great blogs and some… well, not so great blogs.
According to the Hosting Tribunal, there are over 500 million blogs on the Internet in 2020. Merely putting up a blog and hoping for the best is not good enough. It requires research, strategizing, and a bit of trial & error to really glean the benefits of blogging.
Below, we’ll list some of the top 9 most common small business blogging mistakes and ways to fix them.
Jump Ahead
1. No blog
Let’s start out with the most obvious business blogging mistake. If you have no blog, you’re missing out on traffic, potential leads, and audience engagement.
In fact, 57% of marketers say blogging has led to new customers. Moreover, B2B companies with blogs gain 67% more leads than those with no blogs.
In today’s digital age, people are turning, first, to a company’s website. A blog is the first step in building trust between you and your customers.
The Fix
This one’s quite simple. If you have no blog – start one!
Do some research before you start. Develop a content strategy and determine topics, keywords, and blog frequency. You can write your own blogs or hire an experienced SEO content writer to create articles & blog posts.
2. Inconsistent posting
One of the biggest blogging mistakes is inconsistency.
When first launching your blog, excitement levels might’ve been high. Maybe you’ve posted once a week. After a while, you blog less and less – until your blog is likely no longer active at all.
What makes consistent posting so difficult for businesses? Perhaps it’s:
- Too much effort required
- Lack of ideas
- Not seeing results
- Too busy
However, consistency in blogging is key to traffic and results. Too often, blogs fail due to lack of activity. Why would users check out your site if you have nothing to say?
Legitimate SEO companies typically say it takes 6-12 months before you can expect results. Sometimes it takes longer.
Blogging is a long-term game. You can’t expect to see immediate results. To succeed, you need to be consistent.
The Fix
The key to consistency is good planning. Planning can take on many forms, but a good idea is to develop a content calendar.
A content calendar helps you track:
- Frequency of blog posts
- When to post your blog posts
- What topics have been and will be posted
- Who will post it
Tools to use a calendar can be as simple as your phone calendar. You can also use a spreadsheet or any number of paid editorial calendars, such as Trello, Asana, CoSchedule, and more.
3. Not writing for your audience
Neglecting your audience is another extremely common blogging mistake. As a small business, it can be tempting to focus inward – what you offer, your services, your brand, your innovations, etc.
I’ve seen too many blogs go on and on about the internals and fine details of their company. While some may find it interesting, this type of info would likely go over the heads of most average customers.
While you obviously need to talk about your company, you need to remember who you’re talking to. Your primary objective is always to provide value to your audience.
The Fix
Don’t always just talk about your company news, updates, products, or services. Instead, identify what your clients are searching for. What kind of questions are they asking? What are their pain points?
Jump onto forums, Facebook groups, review sites – anywhere where your customers/clients are hanging out. Try to identify the questions and issues that are regularly brought up.
Once you’ve identified some of these common issues, write a blog post addressing it. Mention how your company’s services address these issues (rather than focusing primarily on your services).
Another common business blogging mistake is including too much industry jargon. You are the expert in your fields, not your customers. Write in a way that is easy to understand and explain complicated terms, if necessary.
4. Not writing for search engines
We’ve all heard the phrase, “Content is king.”
This phrase basically implies, ‘as long as you write good content, traffic will come.’
While there is truth to writing ‘great content,’ it’s not quite enough. There are millions of other blogs out there with great content.
The fact is, you need to write for both users AND search engines. Even though search engines are increasingly becoming more sophisticated, they are, after all, an algorithm.
The Fix
Make sure you’re abiding by the best on-page SEO practices. This includes:
- Writing a killer headliner (or title tag) that is SEO-friendly.
- Keep your paragraphs short and readable – max three sentences.
- Break up your text with H2/H3/H4 headers.
- Use LSI keywords – synonyms of your primary keyword.
- Write in the active voice as much as possible.
- Avoid long, rambly sentences.
- Include inbound & outbound links.
- Avoid ‘fluff’ – filler info that provides no value to the reader.
We offer a free comprehensive on-page SEO Checklist for 2020. Make sure you use that for every article/blog post/web page you write!
5. Not updating old blogs
Over time, your blog post can go stale. Data, stats, products, services, or industry news can all change.
In this day and age, people are expecting accurate and relevant information. With your competitors pumping out new content, it’s vital you keep up and have your articles as up-to-date as possible.
Updating your old blogs is important for two reasons:
- You spent a TON of effort writing the blog post
- You still get traffic filtering through (i.e. people are still reading it!)
Rather than creating a new post, spend the time to update your old blogs instead.
The Fix
What if you have a lot of old posts? Which ones should you update first?
Start off with updating your best performing posts. Then, check for the following items within your post:
- Remove outdated content: Remove any information that is no longer relevant or accurate.
- Add new content: Add new data or best practices that have emerged recently.
- Links: Make sure there are no broken links.
- Title: It’s best to keep the URL the same, but update your title if required.
It’s also a good idea to include an editor’s note at the end of the post, letting your readers know you’ve updated it.
6. No keyword research
The first step to a client/customer finding your company is through the keywords they enter in Google. What you think your customers are searching for and what they’re actually searching can be two different things.
For example, let’s say you’re a personal injury attorney in Calgary. What you think people are searching for is “Personal injury attorney in Calgary.” As such, you target your home page for that keyword.
Here are the top five organic results for the keyword “Personal injury attorney in Calgary:”
Now, let’s say users search for “car accident lawyer in Calgary” instead. Here are the five organic results for that particular search term:
As you can see, only two firms, Vogel LLP and Rodin Law remained in the top five results for both keywords. The rest were all unique firms occupying different positions as shown in the following chart:
This example shows the importance of keyword research. Keyword research is the foundation upon which your blog should be based on.
Slight variations of wording – even if they mean virtually the same thing – can make a difference on where you are ranked. You could be missing out on potential clients/customers by neglecting to include certain variations of keywords.
The Fix
Before you get started on writing, find out what keywords users are searching for. While the topic of keyword research deserves a whole post by itself, here are some high-level ways you can find some keywords relevant to your topic:
- Brainstorm: Brainstorm a few primary keywords that are extremely relevant to your topic. Write it down in an Excel or a Google Doc.
- Google Autocomplete: Enter your keywords into Google. As you type, you’ll notice Google suggests other related words. Add any relevant keywords to your list.
- Google Related Searches: Enter your keywords into Google and scroll down to the very bottom. You should see “Searches related to XXXXX.” Again, see if any keywords there are relevant.
- Online keyword tools: Online tools like Ubersuggest, Google Keyword Planner, AnswerThePublic are free and give you tons of keyword suggestions. Paid options like SEMRush, Ahrefs, Mangools not only give you suggestions but lets you know search traffic and difficulty levels for ranking for the particular keyword.
- Online forums: Search Reddit, Quora, Facebook, etc. for questions and keywords people are asking.
7. Too little words
Long-form articles tend to rank higher in search engine result pages. In fact, the average content length of the top 10 results was more than 2,000 words.
Long-form content positions you as an authority in your space. People tend to trust a comprehensive article, compared to a bare-bone article.
Longer articles also allow you to incorporate more keywords. The more you go in-depth about a topic, the more you’ll naturally use related keywords to describe the topic.
The Fix
There’s no ‘magic’ number for word count. However, as a general rule of thumb, try writing posts that are over 1000 words.
Do a bit of research on your competitor’s sites. Check to see what the average length is for their articles. You want to meet or exceed their content length.
Finally, always prioritize quality over quantity. Don’t write fluff for the sake of meeting a certain word count. The aim of writing long-form content is to provide as much value as possible.
8. Missing call to action
Another blogging mistake not to make is to omit a call to action.
Granted, blog posts are generally top-of-the-funnel content. Your primary aim is to educate, inform, and offer valuable information to your audience.
However, you are a business. You’re not writing this blog article for no purpose whatsoever. Eventually, you’d want prospective readers to become converting customers.
A call to action effectively ties your informative article to your services. It reminds customers/clients that you offer them something of value.
The fix
The last section of your article should always contain a brief summary of your post, as well as a call to action. The call to action could include:
- Contacting your company for more information.
- Clicking somewhere for the free lead magnet.
- Leaving your contact information.
If there is no call to action, your readers won’t know what to do after reading your post. It doesn’t matter how informative and how great it is – they may even want to buy your product right then and there!
But, if you don’t have explicit instructions, you may frustrate and even lose a potential client or customer.
9. No sharing buttons
Here’s another common blogging mistake to avoid. So you’ve written the best guide article that blows your competitor’s articles out of the water. Your reader is excited about what they just read and want to share it with their friends and family.
But, there are no sharing buttons.
Your reader has to copy the link from their browser, open another browser, and then paste the link.
The Fix
The fix is easy – add the sharing buttons. Whether it’s for Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, place them on the top of your article and at the bottom of the article.
Make it easy for your readers to share your content.
Josh Lee: Calgary SEO Content Writing Services
Avoid these top business blogging mistakes next time you write your blog post.
If this seems like a lot to remember and keep track of, you may want to consider hiring a professional SEO content writer.
We offer high-quality content for your small business, so you can start gaining traffic and ranking on search engines.
Josh Lee
Josh is an SEO copywriter, marketer, and blogger. He is passionate about helping small businesses grow through engaging and captivating content. Josh runs his writing company, Josh Lee Copywriting and blogs on digital marketing, SEO, and writing.