There are many reasons why a business blog can be beneficial for your business. Not only is it an excellent way to boost your search engine optimization and rank higher in the search results, but it also helps you establish your business as a leader in your industry.
Blogging helps you build trust, demonstrate your knowledge, and highlight your experience. It also helps you develop and strengthen relationships with your customers while increasing brand awareness amongst potential leads who have never heard of you.
However, not all business blogs are doing these things. In fact, plenty of business blogs are simply yawn-fests, with ‘company picnic’ style posts that tell prospects random information about their business.
If you’re hoping to enjoy some of the many benefits of a great business blog, here are 6 signs you may need to overhaul your current blog:
1. Your Blog is Irrelevant
No one likes to think that their business blog may be irrelevant to leads and customers, but it’s easy for this to happen. How? By not providing actionable information that will help visitors to your website.
There’s nothing wrong with the occasional post about your business, however, the majority of your blog posts should be tailored toward your customers’ pain points. For example, an HVAC company could write a post about their latest heat pump, or they could write a post titled ‘5 Ways to Reduce Your Heating Bill This Winter.’ The second post is helpful, shareable, and can still increase leads with a call-to-action at the bottom.
2. Your Blog is Written Solely for Search Engines
We’ve all seen content stuffed with keywords. For anyone even slightly familiar with digital marketing, it’s easy to see exactly what those keywords are and even easier to cringe when you read them repeated over and over.
But for potential customers who may not be familiar with SEO, this content still seems weird, unnatural, and annoying. Not to mention, Google’s algorithms are now smart enough to penalize businesses for this type of shady SEO.
For this reason, it may be a good idea to go back through your older blog posts and check if you’ve overused your keywords. Look for ways to change them up, and focus on long-tail keywords instead.
3. Visitors are Bouncing Away
Google Analytics can give you a wealth of information about your website. If your bounce rate is high, and your visitors are staying on your website for less than two minutes, this is a good indication that you need to step up your game.
Look for ways to keep people on your website for longer. One way to do this is to link to other blog posts within each post and install a Related Posts plugin. This makes it more likely that your visitors will click to learn more about a particular subject- as long as you’re writing with the ultimate aim of helping them.
4. You Have No Call-to-Action
What do you want your visitors to do after they’ve finished reading your blog? Whatever it is, you need to tell them. Maybe you’d like them to share your post on social media, comment with their thoughts, or get in touch for a consultation. However, they’re unlikely to do any of these things unless you specifically ask them to.
You’d be surprised just how well a great call-to-action can work. Hubspot found that including anchor text CTAs resulted in a 121% increase in their conversion rates, while Invesp found that multiple CTAs increased their conversion rates by 20%.
Make sure that every one of your blog posts includes a clear, compelling CTA to increase engagement and move your leads down your funnel.
5. You Have No Blog Strategy
Is your blog all over the place? Maybe you choose your blog posts the moment you sit down to write, or perhaps your blog posts are often completely unrelated to the types of products you offer?
A solid blogging strategy can make life a lot easier for your whole team. By planning your blog posts in advance, you can see opportunities for internal linking and check if each topic is really relevant to your target audience.
Take an hour or two to think about what you want your blog to achieve, and consider how it contributes to your overall marketing strategy.
6. Your Blog Posts Are Boring
No one wants to read an overly formal ‘corporate’ blog. It’s more important than ever that you keep your reader in mind while writing every post.
Think about your target customers and use the type of language they would use. This doesn’t mean being overly ‘hip’, but it does mean avoiding formal, jargon-filled posts that bore your readers.
Adding a little personality or humor can do wonders for your blog. Use contractions, remove industry-specific jargon, and write as if you’re having a conversation with a potential customer.
Not sure where to get started with your business blog? We’ve got you covered. Get in touch today to learn more.