Blogging is on the rise.
According to a recent survey by Curata, a whopping 42.5% of companies increased content marketing efforts in 2016, and those numbers have only continued to grow since then.
And this effort makes sense because content marketing costs less than traditional outbound marketing, yet generates more leads and promotes higher rates of customer recognition.
Unfortunately, the learning curve can be steep with blogging, and many retailers unintentionally make simple mistakes that can cost them big time.
Don’t worry, though, there’s good news. By being aware of these mistakes and understanding what you can do to avoid them, you can craft a top-notch blog quickly and easily.
Read on for expert tips.
7 Things You’re Doing Wrong
Blogging mistakes happen, but they don’t have to persist forever, and they don’t have to damage your business. If you’re working on developing a better blog, avoid these common errors.
1. Letting Leads Slip Through Your Fingers
When it works well, your blog will be a lead-capture machine. Unfortunately, few blogs work as well as they should, in this regard.
Lots of retailers write blogs, publish them, but then fail to take the steps necessary to capture leads on posts. As it turns out, though, traffic and conversions don’t just happen. Instead, you need to work for them.
How to Avoid it: Get proactive about collecting emails. Don’t forget that email generates an average 38x ROI, and can easily be one of your most valuable marketing channels. There are a few different ways to develop a functional lead capture strategy. One is to use a toolbar like Hello Bar to capture leads, while the other is to input a subscription form on your blog page and use a powerful CTA to get people to subscribe.
2. Blogging Sporadically
With few exceptions, any marketing effort conducted sporadically won’t work as well as it should. Because blogging takes time and effort, many retailers only do it when they can get around to it, which generally isn’t as frequently as they should.
Over time, this decreases readership and makes it more difficult for people to engage with your blog. Plus, since Google loves fresh content, you can rest assured that blogging frequently is one of the best ways to help your content rank and stand out in the search engine results pages.
How to Fix it: Blog as frequently as you can manage while still maintaining quality. The formula here is simple: more blogs mean more traffic. While most companies are comfortable committing to a content calendar of about two posts a week, you can flex this up or down (be sure to blog at least once a week, no matter what) depending on your company and offerings.
3. Writing Low-Quality Material
Some retailers make the mistake of thinking quantity is more important than quality in the world of blogging, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, putting out lots of low-quality content will hurt your brand much more than it helps it.
When it comes to publishing content on your company’s blog, it pays to publish high-quality material, or not to publish anything at all.
How to Fix it: Create a content calendar that allows you to schedule your content in advance. This provides more time and organization for the writing process and keeps you from feeling rushed and frantic. Once you’ve written the post, have an editor look it over before it goes live.
4. Making it All About You
Sure, you love your business and you’re proud of your success, but you won’t hook readers by going on and on about it. If you want them to stay engaged with your material, you’ve got to give them something they can sink their teeth into; something that they can relate to and take meaning from.
How to Fix it: Dedicate your blog to helping customers solve problems. Write content that helps them find and implement new solutions, route around common pain points, and live easier and more productive lives. The more you make your material about them, the more effective it will be!
5. Writing Short Posts
Long-form content is essential if you want your post to perform well. Recently, some of the top minds in the world of content marketing have found that long-form posts (typically defined as those 750-1,500 words) perform better and earn more traffic than their brief counterparts. Here’s an example from SerpIQ to demonstrate the fact:
While long-form content takes more time, energy, and effort to write, it also provides more value to customers and helps them connect more deeply to your brand.
How to Fix it: Aim to create a library of long-form “evergreen content,” which will remain relevant and helpful to your readers for years to come.
6. Not Including Images
Did you know that blog posts with images get 94% more views than those without images? With this in mind, it’s clear that, if you’re not adding images to your posts, you’re missing out on a serious amount of traffic.
How to Fix it: Include relevant images throughout your blog posts. These could include pictures of your products, charts demonstrating information you’re trying to convey, or even pictures of your staff and facilities. No matter what you do, make sure they’re high-quality, professional, and relevant.
7. Not Sharing on Social
If you write it, they will come, as long as you share the news on social! As you work to establish your blog, social media will be one of your most powerful tools. Unfortunately, lots of retailers overlook this critical connection and fail to grab the traffic they deserve.
How to Fix it: Share your new posts on social media. Not only are your posts easy to share and spread the word about in this format, but it’s a great way to earn new readers. Feel free to share each post more than once; just be sure to change the description you write.
Blogging for Business The Smart Way
Blogging is an essential marketing tactic for your retail company. When you do it right, it has the potential to increase your readership and earn you dozens of new leads. Unfortunately, lots of retailers miss out on important tactics and end up falling short, as a result.
By avoiding these seven common mistakes, though, you can boost your blog’s benefit and start raking in leads, right from the get-go. To give you even more tips, here’s an infographic we created that details the steps you’re going to want to take to create your own content marketing machine.
