The 5 “Un-Reasons” Your Blog Fails

So your business has content marketing in place. This may include a Facebook page to connect with local customers, Twitter, Instagram and a website. But what about a blog?

Smaller businesses often avoid blogging right off the bat because it’s too much to handle. A few Facebook posts a week? Easy. A 500-word article or two per week? Much harder. Still, there are a lot of awesome benefits to having a blog:

• Fresh content keeps your business high on search engine results (i.e. Google).


• You will have original links to share through social media.


• Interested customers and potential ones will have an opportunity to learn more about your business.


• A solid blog makes you look better than direct competition.


• You can use blogs as a news and PR platform to keep customers up to date.

See? There really isn’t a good reason not to blog in the first place. And if you are actively blogging and not seeing results of any kind, it might be because you’re making these 5 mistakes commonly found on small business blogs:

1. Unfocused: When it comes to content and topics, it’s all up to you! But you have to think of information readers would want to read from a business such as yours. This means creating posts that A) Are related to your business, B) Answer questions, and C) Provide insight and depth to your company. Stay focused, too, and avoid posting that weird, off-base post that draws negative attention to itself.


2. Unprofessional: We’ve all visited those blogs made in 5 minutes by that hobbyist who wants to change the world with his or her words. While this is totally acceptable, a tacky blog won’t fly in the world of business content marketing. Make sure that whomever builds your blog makes it professional, sleek and visually pleasing. (Less is often more!)


3. Unengaging: Trust me — your readers will know when you’re only trying to meet a quota. When you start blogging to meet marketing deadlines and whatnot, the quality and personality drops, leading to a bunch of boring, stale posts no one wants to read. You have to engage your readers by talking to them, being interested and actively responding to them.


4. Unfindable: Is your blog easy to find? Well, it should be. Make sure your blog is tied to your website, uses similar branding and is at least mentioned (and linked) to and from your business’ social media outlets. If you’re using WordPress.com, be sure to reach out to other bloggers with tags and through the platform’s Reader service.


5. Undesirable: Now for the hard truth: Not every business can pull off a blog. The craft store around the corner? Sure, blog away. A company that delivers sand to and from construction sites? Good luck.

The 5 “Un-Reasons” Your Blog Fails