When executed correctly, business blogging can help you increase sales and build up your customer base considerably. You can draw in more potential clients that have an interest in the products or services that you provide.
Blogging helps to personalize your business making it appear friendlier, more trusting and inviting. Visitors read your blogs to learn more about you and if you provide quality, interesting content, they will not only continue to visit your site but they’ll refer it to their friends and family, too.
Creating a business blog does take time and lots of hard work but it’s worth it. Knowing what not to do is just as important as knowing what to do because certain mistakes can quickly ruin your site and turn visitors away.
Here are some of the biggest business blogging mistakes made and how to avoid them. Use this information to create a successful business blog that continues to grow with time.
Not Making It Easy to Find New Content
The whole point of having a blog and posting content is to draw in the visitors but that’s not going to happen if they can’t find you. You can make it easy for your regular visitors and new ones to find your new content by adding the link to your blog on your business website.
You can also add it to your business cards and email signature or use a full RSS feed to direct traffic to your business blogging site. Other options available to help readers find your new content include using SEO keywords in your post and taking advantage of social media sites.
Not Conversing with Your Visitors
The purpose behind blogging is to hold conversations with your existing and potential customers to learn more about them, what they look for in a company and the products or services they use regularly. However, you can’t do that if you don’t allow and encourage your visitors to express their thoughts, both the good and bad ones.
Don’t be afraid of a little criticism. This free, quality feedback is crucial in the growth of your company. For this reason, you should allow commenting on your blog and don’t forget to respond to these comments in a fast, friendly and professional manner.
Not Adhering to a Regular Blogging Schedule
If you’re not blogging and putting up new content on a regular schedule, you’re not giving readers any reason to come back. Would you continue to visit a blog that only adds new content once in awhile at random? There’s nothing new or interesting to see, so why bother? However, you can make blogging regularly much easier by creating a blogging schedule.
Decide which days you want to add new content (for example, you could do this every Monday, Wednesday and Friday) then create a weekly or monthly schedule with the topics of the articles, news stories and other information you want to post on those days. When you give readers a reason to return, it won’t take long to build a large, thriving community.
Publishing Press Releases on Your Blog
Your blog is not a press center so don’t publish press releases on it. This is not what visitors come here to see. Visitors are searching for friendly conversations, not an impersonal press release promoting your business. Consumers will visit your blog to read about the products or services you provide because this is information they can use.
Instead, post news stories related to your business, tips on using your products more efficiently or even use it to make important announcements about your company but stay away from the press releases. They will drive customers away.
Not Giving It Enough Time
It can be easy to get discouraged when you’re putting so much time and effort into your blogging site and very few visitors stop by but you can’t rush things. It takes time to build a community of people so you need to exercise patience and don’t give up after a few short months.
You should give it at least one year of providing excellent content, while searching for new ways to draw in users if the methods you’re using are not paying off. You can start by encouraging more users to visit by making your content easy to find and make it easy to share posts and comments on your blogs. This encourages visitors to share your information with family and friends.
Blogging is a great way to build brand awareness, as Lisa Mason, content marketing professional knows. Branded items and gifts such as those found at Blue Soda Promo are also great for brand awareness.
