Business blogging is one of the most valuable marketing tactics a company can employ online. And in light of Google’s recent “freshness update”, having a business blog to drive your SEO is more important than ever. However, running a successful business blog is not as simple as many site owners think. It is a huge time commitment (with no end date) and the potential for taking a wrong turn is very real.
Here are 4 things that could end up killing your company blog
You can’t get at least one post published each week.
Blogs need fresh content in order to survive and help build your online brand. I’d rather one of my SEO clients not even bother with a blog if they can’t commit to at least one post a week, and it’s no secret that I am a big proponent of business blogging. New blog posts not only tell the search engines that they need to come back and re-crawl your site, they also help keep your brand involved in the online lives of your target audience. One haphazard blog post every now and again isn’t going to help build a loyal readership.
You’re relying too heavily on guest posts.
This is still your company’s business blog; shouldn’t you be the main voice your readers are hearing from? Guest posts are a great way to supplement your own writing, not replace it entirely! Even if you are closely monitoring what kind of content is going live on your blog, if you are just serving as the curator and not the actual expert responsible for producing great content, you are missing out on some of the long-term value of business blogging.
You’ve thrown SEO out of the window.
Even great blog posts need a little help in getting found and read by searchers. While you don’t have to optimize every word of every blog post, incorporating elements of SEO into your company blog and new blog posts is going to go a long way in helping them rank well.
All that matters is monetization.
If you’re a professional blogger or just writing a personal blog for fun, there is nothing wrong with trying to monetize your blog. However, a business blog should not be slathered with ads. Every one of those ads acts as an exit point from your blog (and your brand) into the great unknown of the Internet. Your blog should focus on keeping your readers engaged for as long as possible, and eventually pushing them over to your company website. Is potentially losing a customer to an ad worth the few bucks that click will get you?
