Content marketing is a big part of Digital Marketing. And blog posts are a reliable option you have in your content marketing strategy.
However, 60% of businesses using content marketing do not get good traffic from it. So if no one is reading your blog, you have fair company out there.
Several companies set high and unrealistic expectations from blogs, anticipating every blog to be a viral hit. But that hardly happens.
Blogging needs long-term and continuous effort to gain a substantial readership. Even if you have been blogging for months, there’s still no guarantee that you will get hundreds of visitors. However, that’s not a reason to stop writing. Instead, reassess your content marketing strategy and what possible mistakes you may be making.
This article outlines 5 major reasons that don’t allow your blogs to reach your audience. Check out if you are making one or more of these mistakes mentioned here.
1. Your content lacks quality
People look for quality everywhere, in content too.
No one likes repeated stuff, including you. Imagine yourself walking past a row of shops selling shirts. What will be your reaction if all the shops are selling similar designs?
We all want fresh and something new whenever we search for anything, isn’t it? Then how will things be different with blogs?
The internet is flooded with tons of similar blog posts on the same topic. Why will people care to read your blog post?
Unless you give them unique quality, people will just ignore your blog. Your efforts should be to add value to your readers with information and knowledge.
Poor quality blog posts can turn off customers, so give your readers something worthwhile to read! If you don’t have enough time to post every day, switch to a weekly or biweekly publishing schedule. It is preferable to produce one high-quality piece rather than ten embarrassingly low-quality articles.
2. Your HEADLINES are not catchy enough
Headlines are the reason why most people read an article or a blog. You would have done it yourself. You clicked on a topic only when you felt the headline interesting on the Google search results page.
It does not make any sense if you spend days writing a blog post but no one even likes to click on it. So you have to drive the users or in other words compel them to click on the headings. Hence boring headlines can kill a blog post, no matter how good it is.
Headlines are basically ways to guide your users to read your content and with good catchy headlines, you keep them hooked till the last. Therefore create click-worthy headlines for your blog posts.
You can research how to write killer headlines for your blog post before you actually begin writing.
3. Not implementing the latest SEO practices
SEO or Search Engine Optimization has become an integral part of content marketing strategy. SEO is the ultimate long-term solution for driving residual traffic into your site and thereby, making your site achieve high domain authority.
But you must note that SEO takes months to show results. It’s not a shortcut to get overnight success. Although some black-hat SEO tactics, you should avoid them altogether.
SEO needs continuous improvements in your article, from both technical and non-technical aspects.
Keywords are the most important part of SEO. Hence always start your writing by doing keyword research. Unless you know how to choose the right keywords in your blog post, it’s of no use to write it.
Always include the focus keywords in the title of the blog, and within the text. If you can include them in the subheadings, it highly boost your site’s SEO ranking.
All in all, always write content according to what people are searching for.
4. Your content focuses on promotion rather than education
People are not interested in your product or services. Yes, it sounds strange but true. Rather they are interested in what values you offer to them. So promoting your product or services extensively isn’t a wise idea.
Why? Because it backfires on the purpose of writing content.
As said earlier, the internet is flooded with blogs. Adding one more blog into the pile won’t change anything.
On the other hand, rigorous promotion on blog posts can scare your readers away. Most readers look for insights or entertainment in blogs, not marketing ads.
It’s true that blogs are to drive sales but not by aggressive overstuffing of self-promotional ads.
5. You are not promoting your blog effectively
This is crucial for everyone, but it’s especially important for a new blog. If you don’t share your content properly, it will never have the desired impact, no matter how appealing it is.
Promoting your new blog posts is an important aspect of your digital marketing strategy. Your digital marketing team should spend considerable time promoting the blog on social media channels. For better results, you should email it to your newsletter subscribers and personally share it with influencers. Sharing it with relevant industry influencers helps you reach new audiences who actively follow these followers.
Remember that no one will campaign for your blogs more than you. So make a proper strategy to promote your content once it is published.
Closing Thoughts…
Most businesses employ a dedicated team to look after their content strategy and there’s a good reason for that. They understand the strategic importance of content marketing. Therefore, you should also focus on generating high-quality, targeted material that adds value to your customers and viewers.
When you adopt blogging to add value to your users, your ROI will automatically increase. You just have to avoid the mistakes mentioned in this article, continue with your efforts and stay patient.