Ah, website traffic. You ask, “Where does it come from…and how can we increase visitors so that we make more sales and expose more people to our product and message?” If you have a blog, research indicates that it will help the website generate 55 percent more website visitors, 97 percent more inbound links and 434 percent more of your business’ website pages will be indexed – meaning that you will inherently drive more traffic based on the fact that you’re going to be “seen” more in searches and come up for more keywords. Okay, now that you know that, I’d like to focus this post on letting you know that there’s a right way and a wrong way to blog for your business. These corrections, although easy, can result in the difference between a steady, targeted flow of traffic — and no visitors. Read on to see what should be avoided for a strong blogging strategy for your company.
Common Blogging Mistakes Business Make
Common Mistake #1 — The blog isn’t integrated with the website. Why is this so important? Well, you should think of your blog posts as “bait” that get people to notice your business. Every time something is written, search engines notice that there is new content to index in a particular place online. Then, if your blog is properly optimized, when someone searches for the topic you’ve written about, your post will appear in search results. Common Mistake #2 — Topics are too company focused. Have you ever heard of the term “WIIFM” (what’s in it for me)? There’s a reason why people are taking the time to read what you post, and it’s not usually because they want to hear all about your company. Focus in on the features and benefits that will improve the lives of your customers in some way, shape or form. Bottom line: content that is full of interesting data that can help, content that is educational and content that is thought-provoking will get the most mileage and will be more likely to create trust and a sale vs. content that is all about touting what you have to offer. Write about common problems that people have and how you can help. Blog about frequently asked questions. Since people turn to search engines first for answers, they oftentimes phrase searches in the form of a question. When they do this, they’re likely to stumble across a blog post that you wrote on that particular topic. Then, if they find it interesting, they’ll post it on Facebook, Twitter or another social sharing site. Common Mistake #3 — The blog’s load time is too SLOOOOW! Use this free tool from Pingdom to see how fast your blog loads. It should be under 2 seconds! This matters because it affects how long a visitor stays on a page. If the visitor has to wait too long for the page to load, he or she will leave, resulting in a lower bounce rate, which has an affect on the overall site analytics. Common Mistake #4 — No images We’re all human…and no matter how heady the content on your blog may be, chances are that the person reading your post will enjoy an image that goes along with it. Studies have shown that images increase readership so find something eye catching and paste it in! Common Mistake #5 — Not Enough Thought is Put Into Post Title Don’t underestimate the power of a great blog post title! Post titles have a lot of search engines power that can pull in a healthy amount of leads based on how much traffic that a particular keyword / keyword phrase pulls in. Common Mistake #6 — Content isn’t Varied If you happen to be the main blog writer for your company, encourage other employees to write. Even one post a week will help to make for more unique content and will keep readers interested. Keep all of these things in mind. But please remember, at the end of the day, the most important thing is not to be perfect, but to WRITE. You have something valuable to share with the world, and they want to hear from you. Share what you have to offer by keeping your audience in mind and giving them what they’re looking for.
