Why Your Blog Isn’t Working
Having a blog is one of the most reliable and efficient ways of driving traffic to your website, but what are you supposed to do if your blog isn’t working?
You write the content, you post the content, and you share the content on social media. But even with your best effort, you’re not seeing the traffic to your website that you would like. Or maybe you’re seeing some traffic, but you’re not seeing any of that traffic convert to sales.
“Why isn’t my blog working?” you’re asking yourself every time.
The truth is that there might not be any one clear-cut reason your blog isn’t having success. It could be a combination of things. With that in mind, here are five reasons that blogs frequently don’t work for brands—could yours be guilty of any of these?
1) It’s Too Promotional
People aren’t coming to your blog to be sold to. Any blog that engages in way too much promotion is going to turn people off. The idea behind a blog is to provide value to your followers (aka your potential customers) without any expectation from them in return. You establish a relationship before you win them over for the sale.
But if your blog isn’t valuable, then why would those potential customers stick around to read it? They want to gain useful knowledge from an expert on the subject (that’s you). So your blog should be providing them with that level of expertise. You want to give them information that will make them say, “Hey, this is good to know. I want to check back here frequently whenever I have a question about this topic.”
Once they start coming back for more, then you know you have their trust—and that converts to sales.
However, don’t make the opposite mistake and avoid any kind of promotion at all. If people don’t know you have products or services to complement your free knowledge, you can’t expect to convert them to customers.
2) It’s Not Light Reading
Imagine the way most people are probably going to read your blog. They will probably be on their phones. They will probably be looking for specific information. They might even be pressed for time, or they’re dealing with a thousand distractions. Whatever the case may be, they’re not looking to kick back with anything too heavy.
You want to be concise and direct. You should keep your sentences and your paragraphs short. Make it easy to skim. It’s best to keep your tone conversational and informal. People want to have an easy time reading it or they’ll move along to another source that’s easier to process.
3) It’s Not Taking Advantage Of Keywords
Even though you want your blog to be an easy read, there are still certain writing components it needs to include. Namely, you should be including keywords. These are words or phrases that people will be searching on Google that could direct them to your blog. If you’re not using keywords that people are searching for, it’s going to limit the traffic you get.
You can find relevant keywords (along with how many other sources are using them, and how much competition you’re going to have in search engines) by using research tools like keywordseverywhere.com.
Using the right keywords will ensure that your blog is optimized for search engines. Another way of optimizing your blog for search engines? Make sure each of your posts are long enough. Google won’t direct traffic at pages that have fewer than 800 words, so make sure you’re including enough content to show Google you’re informed on any subject you’re covering.
4) It’s Not Consistent
Have you been posting to your blog consistently for a long time? Often when people don’t see the results they want, it’s because they aren’t posting consistently to their blog—they’re only posting once every few months.
Or maybe you have been posting consistently every week, but you haven’t given your blog enough time to gain traction. Posting to your blog once a week can be effective, but you need to be patient. Don’t expect traffic to happen just within a month. Give yourself six months to a year, and track your insights to see what works and what doesn’t.
5) It’s Lacking In Vision
Finally, consider the overall vision of your blog. A successful blog is one that has high-quality, informative content and encourages people to check back later and keep learning more.
Take a critical look at the quality of your content. How good is it? Consider whether you’re giving your readers a strong incentive to keep coming back. Determine whether your content is shareable. Do people feel as if they can relate to YOU—the blogger and business owner—and if your blog is a place where they can feel part of a community?
Having this kind of vision for your blog will elevate it from mere words on a screen to an actual place where your followers feel as if they can learn and grow.