From social media to SEO, the world of online marketing can be confusing for new bloggers to navigate. The following are a few common mistakes that could cost you potential readers. By learning how to recognize them, you can avoid them and market your blog more effectively.
1. Not Having a Goal
Before you even write your first post, you should have a clear goal or target audience in mind. One of the most common mistakes made by new blogs is to throw up as much content as possible to try and establish an audience, without thinking about how these posts tie together in the bigger picture. By defining a goal, you can focus on specific topics and how to reach your audience more effectively.
2. Writing Bland Content
It may seem difficult to stand out from the crowd with so many different blogs already out there, covering every topic under the sun. Yet by focusing on unique, genuine, and well-researched posts you’ll draw in more readers. While it’s important to write SEO content to help readers find your blog, try to keep topics current to make it relevant to a reader’s daily life and interests.
3. Ignoring the Importance of Titles
Along with writing interesting, relevant posts, don’t forget about the importance of a catchy title. This is the first thing your readers will see and will be the basis of whether or not they choose to click through and read the post.
4. Forgetting about Branding
Along with having a niche market or goal in mind, you should also make sure that your blog has a sense of personal identity or “brand.” You might work hard to provide high quality posts, but worry more about how to get your website on Google search rather than how the work will stand out once readers have found it. Spend some time creating a unique, interesting “about me” page and don’t be afraid to put your personality into your work.
5. Overdoing Self-Promotion
Many bloggers have products or interests to promote. It’s natural to use the blog or social media profile as an outlet for self-promotion, but this can ruin your credibility as a blogger. Similarly, if you post too much information about your personal life online it can cloud your message and read more like a diary than an informative blog.
6. Only Sharing Links on Social Media
If you’re using social media to promote your blog, it’s a common mistake to use it solely to post links back to your blog’s main content. In addition to posting links to your best blog posts or other articles, you’ll also want to post questions, comments, or outside links related to your niche. This will allow you to interact more efficiently with members of the network.
7. Sharing Confusing or Irrelevant Posts
This goes hand in hand with staying true to the goals and personal brand identity of your blog. You don’t want to clog up your readers’ feeds by sharing irrelevant links or personal rants on social media. Although your blog is your personal domain, new posts should reflect the overall style and tone of earlier content to maintain a sense of quality and consistency.
8. Responding Inconsistently to Comments
If someone asks you a question in real life or gives you a compliment, it would be considered rude to ignore it. The same basic rules of courtesy hold true for blogging and social media interactions. If your readers leave comments on your posts or social media profiles, it’s important to show your appreciation and take the time to give a quick response.
9. Not Using Multimedia Options
Most internet users are visual creatures. If you want your posts to really pop, you can use images, infographics, and videos to bring your message to life. This can grab a reader’s attention and make them more likely to share your content.
10. Ignoring Analytics
To make your content more effective, you’ll want to know everything you can about your readers. How do they find your blog? Where are they located? What search terms are they looking for? With analytics, you can find out the answers to all of those questions and then use this to tailor your posts to what your target audience might be most interested in. Not only can this yield more page views, but it can also increase the chances of repeat visits from new readers.
Although these ten mistakes may be common, they’re very easy to fix and can open up the doors to a wider audience for your blog.
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