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5 Business Blog Mistakes to Avoid

5 Business Blog Mistakes to Avoid

 

Making mistakes is easy. And lots of great philosophers and thinkers emphasize the benefits that we get when we learn from our mistakes. Take this quote from Albert Einstein: Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

Some mistakes, however, shouldn’t be made, and even though they may seem small, they can have huge impacts. Like that time you thought “tsp” meant tablespoons and added so much salt to your cookies that even the dog wouldn’t eat them.

Just as that small error wrecked your favorite chocolate chippers, little missteps can wreck an otherwise great business blog. Here are five business blog mistakes to avoid at all costs.

 

1. Ignoring the need for a great title.

Don’t think that just because the title is only a few words, you can rush through it without putting thought into it. Remember that if a reader isn’t inspired by the title, he isn’t going to bother with the rest of the post. There is simply too much competition for our attention these days. But please don’t fall into the trap of a click-bait style headline, either.

Here are 6 rules for great titles.

 

2. Presenting readers with a page full of unbroken text.

Remember that you are writing a blog, not War and Peace. Readers will be turned off by never-ending blocks of text. Instead, break it up. Use subheads, lists or pulled quotes to make your blog easier to read and understand.

Images are another great way of making your content more interesting and useful. They can include diagrams, photos, infographics or embedded videos.

Do (Click to check out the entire post to see the blogs HubSpot says are great):

 5 Business Blog Mistakes to Avoid

Don’t:

 5 Business Blog Mistakes to Avoid

 

3. Writing only about your products or services.

It’s OK to talk about yourself a little, such as when you have big news to announce, but most of your blog posts should be written with your customers’ needs in mind. It’s a tricky balance, but if you get it right, you can satisfy both your need for publicity and your customers’ need for information.

Similarly, write in terms your customers use, not the inside jargon of your industry. Just think how frustrating it might be for someone unfamiliar with inbound marketing to read a blog filled with acronyms like these.

 

4. Ignoring keywords in business blog posts.

I know we just told you not to focus on your own products and company too much. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore your core mission. Each blog post you write should be written with a purpose.

In general, that purpose is to draw visitors to your website. More specifically, the purpose is to attract visitors for whom you have solutions, who can potentially be converted into leads and then customers. In order to do that, you need to pay attention to the terms your potential customers are searching for online and use those in key places within your blog posts and other website content.

Identify in advance the keywords each post will target. Then use them — judiciously — in the blog post title, page titles, and image alt-text. Don’t overstuff the post, but make sure both readers and search engines can tell what your post is about.

 

5. Failing to include calls-to-action.

Again your blog’s purpose is to attract visitors who can become leads and customers. In order for that to happen, you have to provide a way for them to become a lead. That starts with a call-to-action, which brings them to a landing page for an offer, where they input their contact information and enter your lead nurturing program.

Calls-to-action can take several forms. They can be as subtle as a one-word in-text hyperlink to a landing page for a related offer or as obvious as a slide-in or pop-up ad.

Calls-to-action and landing pages are where the magic happens, transforming a visitor into a lead. Luckily, this magic doesn’t require a wand or fancy potions.

Neither do the rest of the items on our 20-point Business Blog Checklist. Download it now for better quality content and search optimization.

 

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