16 Common Mistakes Companies Make With Their Blogs
A company blog is a fantastic platform for informing and persuading readers to purchase a product or service, or simply building trust and thought leadership. While many company leaders know having a blog is key, they don’t always know how to properly implement one. This leads to mistakes that often turn consumers away.
But what exactly do these companies get wrong on their site? Below, 16 professionals from YEC explore some of the most common mistakes and issues they’ve seen with company blogs, and suggest ways to address those problems and help ensure blogging success.
1. Generating Content for the Sake of It
I see blogs that seem to generate content for the sake of churning out content. It’s crucial that blogs be part of a strategic communication plan, delivering the right information to the right leads at the right time. I’d encourage companies that utilize this type of “marketing by fire” to take a step back to understand their ideal leads and develop a strategy that speaks to their target audience.
2. Trying to Publish Too Many Blogs
Trying to publish too many blogs doesn’t help. We made this mistake in the beginning and corrected it later. First, you should spend time researching the topics that are relevant to your audience and then write good, engaging content. Don’t try to write a blog in one or two hours and publish it. Once you write good content, you need to do some social marketing for it, as well.
3. Failing to Organize Your Content
Many company blogs fail to organize and publish their content accordingly. Trying to plan their content marketing strategy is a hassle because they don’t use an editorial calendar to track their progress. If you’re going to start a blog, then organization is necessary to ensure you receive the engagement and views you deserve. – Jared Atchison, WPForms
4. Lacking a Thoroughly Developed Funnel
A common mistake I see is the lack of a thoroughly developed funnel. Crafting chaotic content would not deliver marketing or sales results at the end of the day. Breaking content pieces across the different stages of the funnel enables the marketing team to create extensive campaigns that flow leads through different stages, including remarketing and lead generation efforts through multiple hoops.
5. Not Having a Consistent Schedule
I often see blogs making the mistake of not being consistent. As part of our digital marketing services, we review company blogs on a regular basis. The typical issue is inconsistency — the last blog post was two months ago and the previous one was six months ago. To fix it, set up a content calendar to consistently post to your blog.
– Jean Ginzburg, JeanGinzburg.com
6. Lacking Exciting Content
There is a real lack of exciting content. Just because one can blog does not mean one should blog. If you are going to put your company on the line (online) via a blog, make it worth your reader’s time. Get creative, show interesting content, make the content unique. Give your supporters a reason to follow along.
7. Keeping a Narrow Focus
A company blog shouldn’t be too narrow. Remember, an entire lifestyle surrounds most industries. If you sell yoga mats, you’re in your wheelhouse to talk about the best herbal teas for wellness. If you sell coolers, a list of barbecue recipes for the perfect tailgate is a great piece. A blog is a place to inform about your products and services, but it’s also your company’s space to branch out.
– Tyler Bray, TK Trailer Parts
8. Not Creating Real Unique Value
Not creating any real unique value in the blog is a big mistake. It’s better when the content is, at a minimum, thematically focused. Ideally, you want to present information that is interesting — a lot of people just go after keywords and don’t really find real value. Another big issue is credibility and proper sourcing — it’s a terrible thing to not source information properly and instead claim it as your own.
– Nicole Munoz, Nicole Munoz Consulting, Inc.
9. Posting Only Promotional Content
Many company blogs only publish promotional content. If you’re trying to sell your product in every single post, readers can get turned off. Instead, provide a mix of promotional content and informational content that helps readers with their pain points and goals.
– Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster
10. Not Adding Actionable Advice
I’ve noticed that plenty of blogs fail to add actionable advice to their posts. When consumers find your content, they are likely looking for answers and a clear sense of direction. Before clicking the publish button, ask yourself, “Did I explain to my readers how to put my advice into practice?” If you’re still not sure, have someone outside of your industry read the post for clarity.
– Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights
11. Not Including a Call to Action
A mistake I often see blogs make is not including a call to action. The purpose of a blog is to nurture and build trust with your prospective clients or customers. If you don’t give them an easy option to subscribe or download a gated piece of content so that you have permission to contact them again, you are decreasing the chances they ever return. Make sure your blog is set up to convert readers into contacts!
– Kelsey Raymond, Influence & Co.
12. Failing to Optimize for SEO
Many blogs fail to optimize for SEO or create succinct and catchy titles. Google will rank your blogs depending on how well they appeal to readers, and you can reach more people as the top result for a certain keyword. Viewers will also see your title first. You want to appeal to them, so a catchy title designed for SEO will do the trick.
13. Not Including Personalization
Bloggers and business owners are missing out on a big opportunity by not including personalization in their content strategy. Consumers like getting recommendations for unique products, but content also plays a role in this situation. Group together relevant blog posts and offer content that matches users’ behavior on site.
14. Using Poor Grammar and Spelling
I find so many company blogs that have grammatical errors. This is a problem that can be fixed very easily by taking an extra five minutes to read over the content or by hiring a proofreader.
– Kristin Kimberly Marquet, Marquet Media, LLC
15. Failing to Provide Context
Failing to provide context and links to other content on their site is something we see when we first start working with clients. Your blog does not need to be a novel with one running narrative, but it does need to refer back to itself and your guiding principles and products frequently for links and for context.
16. Being Too Professional
A lot of company blogs tend to be too professional. Your company blog shouldn’t read like an essay, it should be more like a conversation between two friends: you and the reader. Your writing should be more casual — this will help you connect with your potential customers more effectively.
– Josh Kohlbach, Wholesale Suite
How to Improve Your Site Content and Make It Even Better!
If you want to stand out from the crowd and make sure your site content is better than what’s already out there, you need to not only focus on your own content, but what’s already out there. Instead of pushing out as much content as possible, focus your efforts on creating better and longer articles and marketing them as much as possible.
With more than a billion active websites and blogs on the internet today, it’s now more important than ever before to make sure your content is of the highest quality and value possible. Be sure to follow all of the expert tips above to accomplish this in the best way possible.
