Blogging is a super way to keep your business website fresh. Plus it gives you the opportunity to share your expertise with clients and potential customers in a useful way. In fact, many may visit your website for the first time by finding your handy blog articles online. What started as a click through from a search result could end in a sale; and hopefully, lasting brand loyalty. The potential for leads makes it essential for every business to start a blog.
But starting a successful blog for your business is not as simple as opening up your website, jotting down a few thoughts and waiting for the page views to roll in.
Here are some of the common mistakes businesses make when jumping on the blogging bandwagon and, because I like to help, how you can fix them:
Making it all about you
Successful blogs and blog posts put the reader first rather than the business. When you start a blog the key is to reserve your company updates and boasts for marketing brochures and direct mail shots.
Instead use your blog to talk about what matters to your customers.
Style over Search Engine Optimisation
Dump clever magazine style headlines and think more like that person typing questions into Google. That’s how the search engine works. Your blog will be ranked higher in search results and attract more visitors if you can answer their queries, desires and concerns in your posts.
It’s also important to leave Google in no doubt about the topic of the blog post. Make sure your keywords are in your blog post URL, your first paragraph, in a subheading and used once more in the body text.
This may sound repetitive, but if your posts are more than 350 words – which Google prefers as it knows knows you have plenty to say on a topic – your reader will hardly notice.
There are lots of tools available online to give you tips on what people are searching for. One of the easiest is Google itself. Simply start typing a key phrase into the search bar and popular queries appear below.
No call to action
People have very short attention spans online and will skim read most web pages they visit. This is why it’s so important to guide them towards their next action. If you fail to include a call to action in your blog posts then that reader may just click straight off your website after reading your blog post.
Every post needs to link to another useful page on your website, preferably a page with further information about what you do or a sales page. The longer they continue clicking around the site the more likely they are to make a purchase or booking.
Forgetting the multimedia elements
By now you’ll know that what you write in a blog post is a key part of making it easy to find and useful. However, the multimedia elements, like images, video and interactive maps are also important.
Google loves content rich pages. We’d recommend adding a few images to each post as well as a striking featured image at the top. If you can embed YouTube Videos and Google Maps then that’s even better.
Maps are brilliant for ‘things to do’ posts as you can create bespoke maps showing the places you are talking about. And Google loves it that you are using its tools.
When you are adding images make sure you fill out the image description and alt tag data to make your post as accessible as possible.
Not promoting content
Even if you create a beautifully written blog post answering all of your audiences’ questions and include clickable content, it’s likely to take a while to begin ranking well in Google search returns.
One of the biggest mistakes businesses can make is to sit there and wait for this to happen. What they should be doing is promoting their shiny new content to their existing customers and social media followers.
Do this by sharing it on your social media accounts and write about it in your customer newsletters. Here are some of the blogging tools I rate to help you ace these tasks.
Have you made any of these blogging mistakes or do want do you want to freshen up your business blog? Travel Influence can help you start a blog, as well as offer training, blog planning and content writing.
Find out more about our digital marketing and social media services for the travel and tourism industry.
Are you on Pinterest? Why not pin this post about how to start a blog and the common mistakes to avoid using the image below.
Main image by rawpixel from Pixabay
I’m a Devon-based PR and digital marketing pro with 20 years experience in the media and communications industry. As well as helping companies boost their online presence, I’m an award-winning family travel blogger who writes about adventures in the UK, Europe and beyond.