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The Internet is full of convincing reasons to start a blog. It boosts your social media presence when you have good content to send out through links. Smart blogging can increase your site’s SEO to help you rank for important keywords and phrases. Learning how to start a company blog can help you add value for your readers and position you as an expert in your field.
Studies have even shown that companies with regular blogs get more leads than their competition. Why not give it a try, then? The truth is that only effective blogs get all those great results. A mediocre blog can do more harm than good by exposing weakness in your online presence. Here are 12 reasons why you shouldn’t blog for your business.
You maybe surprised by how difficult it is to start a successful blog, even if you're an expert in the field. It’s not as simple as banging out a few words and hitting “publish.” You’ll have to learn about effective blogging techniques, social media, basic web development and design, and some general marketing strategies. If you don’t already know about those subjects, and you aren’t ready to deal with the learning curve, you aren’t ready to start a blog by yourself.
Learning about everything mentioned above (and more) is time consuming. If you don’t have time to dedicate to your posts, they’ll be underwhelming or even sloppy.The same is true if you lack the writing skills to create engaging content.
A gap of several months between posts can make it look like you’re no longer in business. Worse yet, your audience may think you’re lazy. Don’t start blogging now if you’re going to let it go by the wayside later. It’s important to publish frequently, but don’t churn out garbage just to keep the pace.
Poorly written blogs can convince your readers that you don’t know what you’re talking about, and your audience will project your incompetence onto your business as a whole. Mark Twain has been credited with saying, “it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
Don’t create an online presence that will make your readers think you don’t know your industry. Even a thorough understanding of your field will come across as uninformed if you don’t know how to write well and create a good content strategy.
Even the best content can’t do you any good if no one finds it. Optimize your posts around specific keywords and phrases to make sure you’re giving yourself a boost in search engines. Know what your audience is searching for, then give them what they want. Use your research to guide your subject matter, and incorporate the keywords naturally into your headings and body content.
Thorough keyword research will help you write effective content that yields exposure through organic search results. This is an absolutely necessary step toward creating an effective blog, and your efforts will be wasted without it. Don’t start a blog without completing your keyword research.
This problem is also related to a lack of research. Simply put, you won’t be able to engage your audience if you don’t know who they are. Take the time to find out who you’re writing for, and you’ll be able to reach them more effectively.
Build clear personas that represent different members in your target audience. Who uses your product or service? Make sure you’re writing posts that add value for these personas. If your blog is helpful and interesting to your target audience, they’ll look into your brand to find out more, an eventually move further down the marketing funnel.
This is an extension of understanding your audience and doing your research. Consistent posting requires you to have a lot to say. To keep finding new things to talk about, you have to be tuned in to the discussion surrounding your field. If you’re not committed to adding to the conversation, your posts won’t add anything worth reading. Help mitigate this problem by creating a calendar and writing posts in advance.
An SEO-driven blog that adds value for your target audience will eventually generate traffic all by itself. Unfortunately, it will take a long time. You can use your social media, newsletter, and email communications to promote your blog to people who already love your brand. Your existing communication methods will kick start traffic to your posts. If you don’t have those resources, you’ll have a hard time getting results from your blog.
Blogging is a long-term game. You almost definitely won’t increase sales with your blog right away. Blogging is critical to a broader content marketing or SEO strategy, but is not its own magic bullet solution. Understand how your blog fits into your content marketing and SEO goals, or you won’t know how to measure success.
If you expect to see an uptick in sales the day you start your blog, you might as well not spend time on that initial post, because you’ll only be disappointed. These efforts help build out the top of your marketing funnel. Focus on gaining exposure and adding value for your readers, and your sales will increase naturally over the long term.
Those who want to increase sales immediately are more likely to fall into this trap. Nobody loves blogs that are constantly trying to hawk a product or service.Treat your posts as resources or entertainment for your readers, not free advertising space.
Establishing your expertise in front of your target audience is its own kind of marketing. Focus on adding value, and your delighted readers will come seek out your products on their own.
Your blog posts should have a consistent voice. Your regular readers will want to know what to expect, and a consistent voice makes them comfortable. Develop a tone that fits with your message and your brand at large.
Some of your tone is up to you, especially when it comes to how informal or authoritative you want to be. It's also important to think about what will speak to your audience. You can choose to be funny, helpful, or both. Make any tone you choose as consistent and error-free as possible.
If some of your employees or a third party will be responsible for some posting, you need to be sure you can trust them as representatives of your brand. Further, you shouldn’t be afraid of the way your readers will respond to your posts. Publishing a blog invites commentary from the digital peanut gallery, and can attract some unwanted attention if people already have a negative opinion of your brand. If your followers are only there to enter complaints about your product or service, that might be worth addressing first.
Your blog should be an extension of your existing website. Make sure your website is of high quality before you try to focus your efforts on a blog. Is your site mobile responsive, visually appealing, and well-written? If you aren’t willing or able to create and maintain a strong website, you’re definitely not ready for a blog.
There’s plenty of research that shows how useful blogs can be, so this reason is actually mistaken. Engaging posts spread awareness and pull potential customers into a company’s marketing funnel. That said, if you don’t feel like starting a blog, don’t. You won’t be good at it if you aren’t committed.
If you want all the positive effects of a blog, but you aren’t willing or able to create a good one yourself, you still have options. Delegate it to one of your employees if you think there’s someone at your business who could do it well. If not, outsource it to a professional content marketer to ensure you’re getting effective work.
If you need guidance while you prepare to launch or upgrade your company's new blog, please feel free to reach out.
