In my last blog post, I discussed four major blogging mistakes companies make. Today’s mistakes will focus on optimization and measurement, because without these components, your blog won’t produce the results you seek.
Mistake #5: Failing to optimize for search
You probably spent lots of time and money optimizing your website content for search. Just as you need to optimize your website to help you get found in search engines, you should also do the same for your blog. Blogs have a tremendous influence on your search results, and you are missing out on opportunities to increase your keyword rankings and organic search traffic if you don’t take blog SEO seriously.
The Fix: The size of a website greatly affects the number of terms the site can rank for. A blog can take your company’s website from a 50-page site to a 500-page site. This means blogging is an important part of your SEO and traffic-building strategy. When you have more indexed pages, you have more opportunities for keywords, so be sure to optimize your blog content with keywords just as you did for your website content.
Mistake #6: Failing to optimize for lead generation
Not only does your blog present opportunities for SEO, but it also gives you the chance to ramp up your lead generation efforts. If you have few, or zero, calls-to-action (CTAs) on your blog, you are missing out on chances to convert blog readers into leads and customers. Many businesses generate large portions of their leads from their blogs – why not your business? Don’t limit the value of your blog’s ROI by failing to view it as a lead generator.
The Fix: Start by placing CTAs on the top and/or sidebar of your blog. Then, commit to lead generation by including a CTA in every blog article you publish. It might be wise to revisit old blog posts to add CTAs to them as well. A CTA could be as simple as asking readers to find further information on another page of your website, or you may ask them to participate in a poll, or even to take advantage of a special offer.
Mistake #7: Not using analytics to evaluate your blogging efforts
You probably use analytics to understand and tweak your website’s performance, so why would you ignore your blog analytics? Analytics can help you see whether your efforts are paying off and help you justify your blogging efforts to your boss and management team. They can also help you decide which articles are working best, and worst, for your audience. This valuable information can help you improve your blog and increase its effectiveness for your overall marketing strategy.
The Fix: Incorporate studying your blog’s analytics into your (or your blog editor’s) duties so you know how well your blog is performing. Your metrics will depend on your blog’s goals, but you may want to consider studying monthly visitors, keyword performance, subscribers, page views, lead generations, social media shares, inbound links and comments.
Are you guilty of making any of these blogging mistakes? It’s OK – we all make mistakes. What did you do to correct and learn from the situation?
Image courtesy of creative design agency Arrae
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