Sure. Blogging done well improves your search rankings. But it’s also a great opportunity for small businesses to position themselves as thought leaders, build a reputation and leverage that into more leads and faster sales cycles. But that’s only if people are reading your blog. More and more, blogs are being created but not read, losing all power and benefit to the company. So let’s look at why it is nobody reads your blog and what you can do about it.
IT’S NOT USEFUL
No one has time to engage with content that doesn’t add value to their lives. How does your blog, and each post, add value to the lives of your audience? Despite all the hype around SEO and keywords and promotion, all of that activity is for naught if the content is not good. Good content is table stakes in marketing so make sure you start with a good product before you move on to the rest of the list.
Not sure how valuable your content is? Look at your metrics. How long are visitors spending on your blog? Do you have a high bounce rate? Do you have a good CTR on your newsletter promoting the blog? These types of behaviors give you insights as to what your audience thinks about the content you’re producing.
IT’S A SECRET
One of the most common reasons no one is reading your blog is because you don’t talk about it. We say it all the time but it’s worth repeating; content alone worthless unless you promote it. Go beyond the obligatory “new blog” social posts and really put some effort into promoting your ideas. Is it easy for web visitors to find your blog and sign up for alerts when new blogs are posted? Are you repurposing your blog into infographics or videos, all linking back to the original post? If so, then are you promote all the different kinds of content on social, in forums like Quora, and LinkedIn groups and in your newsletters?
Is it easy for web visitors to find your blog and sign up for alerts when new blogs are posted? Are you repurposing your blog into infographics or videos, all linking back to the original post? If so, then are you promoting all the different kinds of content on social, in forums like Quora, and LinkedIn groups and in your newsletters?
IT’S STUCK IN THE DARK HOLE OF CONTENT
In a world of increasingly saturated content, it is becoming harder and harder for yours to be found serendipitously. Even keyword laden posts will be buried beyond the first page of search results unless you’re writing on a topic that is not common. Not sure? Do your own search and see how many blogs come back. More than 10,000,000? Probably worth finding a different topic or narrowing your focus to a niche instead.
Go further and by looking for ways to get inbound links to your blog, one of the best ways to improve your rankings. Guest blogging can help if you link back to your site. And search engines reward posts by experts so having a description about the blog’s author on your website can help boost your blog’s ranking too.
Blogging remains valuable if only for SEO. But to really leverage your resources, make sure you’re promoting quality content that is easy to find.
Image: Photospin