Do you have a company blog? Excellent. But you’re shooting yourself in the foot if you’re committing these business blogging mistakes and losing sales.

1. 6 Deadly Business Blogging Mistakes Free
2. 6 Deadly Business Blogging Mistakes For Students
3. Business Blogging 101
4. What Is Business Blogging

Here’s what I mean.

First off, you do deserve credit given the fact that websites with blogs get 434% more indexed pages than those business websites without one. That’s a solid win for bringing more traffic to your site.

7 Ways to Stop Your Business Blog From Crashing and Burning. And noticed similar blogging mistakes between all of them. Below I’ve compiled a list of the seven most deadly business-blogging. Books Online Pdf Free. 3,573 likes 13 talking about this. Download free books in PDF format. Read online books for free new release and bestseller.

His specialties include profit-generating product launches, building backends and funnels, article marketing, search engine optimization, affiliate marketing and business management consulting. BusinessWeek recognized him in the Top 3 of the Best U.S. Entrepreneurs Under 25. Get the latest science news and technology news, read tech reviews and more at ABC News. 16 Deadly Business Sins Committed By Startups. Although this is by no means a comprehensive list there are many classics here. The problem is that it is often very hard to recognize them when you are in the middle of them. The most deadly: '42,' or 'the four toos.' Too much too soon, too little too soon, too much too late, and too little too.

Though don’t be too proud just yet. Because there’s a big difference between having a blog and getting every ounce out of it to improve your customer acquisition and cash flow.

The level of business production from a master blog to the regular blog on the internet is like a Tesla Model S (world’s quickest car) compared to a horse and buggy. It’s not comparable.

For example, the average blog does little to grow a business.

An excellent blog will help the marketing department raise awareness about your products and services to your ideal customer segment, relieve the customer service reps from answering questions callers can find the answers to online, position your company as an authority in the space, and—most importantly—tee up leads for your sales team to close deals.

Name something more effective at wearing multiple hats for an organization?

This is why I promise your business will grow if you avoid the following mistakes and invest in your company blog.

9 Common Business Blog Mistakes

Mistake 1 – There’s not a Blog page to be found.

Ok, maybe I tricked you to start this list. The first problem is that millions of companies choose not to have a Blog at all.

According to statista.com, only 36% of Fortune 500 companies had a blog in the last year. These are conglomerates with unlimited resources and who should have their act together more than a local mom and pop shop, but still choose to ignore this critical piece to their online presence. It blows my mind!

6 Deadly Business Blogging Mistakes Free

But where there’s undervalued attention, there’s a business opportunity to profit from—I see the blog in this light.

While the giants in your space are paying for online traffic, you can eat up market share through organic traffic to your website (and a mix of pay per click ads if it’s in your budget).

And if you’re already paying for Google, Facebook, or some other form of online advertising, don’t count out getting enough organic traffic that you no longer need to spend company money on paid ads. At least that should be the motivation to start publishing and promoting content to grow your B2B or B2C operation.

Mistake 2 – Inconsistent blogging makes you look like an amateur.

Stuck in a cycle of publishing a few blog posts in a row and then going six weeks without publishing a single piece of new content? That should never happen.

This mistake does more damage than you can imagine. Your website visitors will see the gaps between published dates and you’ll instantly lose credibility. Plus, this bad habit kills SEO growth since Google prioritizes blogs that consistently publish new content. And you’re costing your company sales since the less posts published equals less incoming traffic and sales.

What’s the solution? On a macro level, stop putting up with lazy blogging habits. Clearly you see the value of blogging if you started one in the first place. It’s time to commit to your business’ growth by committing to your company blog.

On a micro level, get extremely organized to help your team or yourself publish new content, every single week.

I use the content calendar Editorial Calendar to map out my articles in an organized fashion—it’s easy because all the users on your WordPress site can see what article is due when and who is responsible for writing it.

Heck, use post it notes or a Google sheet to plan your articles if you have to. Do whatever it takes to keep publishing new blog posts without skipping a beat.

As I say in this guide on writing a blog post that ranks on Google, content marketing is a marathon—not a sprint.

Mistake 3 – Your articles are too short and don’t provide enough value.

During a busy season where you’re juggling 10 different responsibilities, it’s tempting to jot down a 250 word post and publish it.

But answer these questions: How much value can you really provide your audience in 250 words? Will you get any SEO traffic from this short of a post when the average articles on Google have 2,000+ words of content? And does that make your company look lazy? (Hints: Little to zero value, no traffic, and yes it does point toward laziness.)

Your blog posts need to drown your audience in value. Hate to break it to you, but that can’t be done in a wimpy post with 10 total sentences.

For example, a cleaning company would fail miserably if they just mentioned the name of the product and a brief summary of what customers it serves. The reader is going to finish the post with unanswered questions—then go to your competitor.

Instead, this cleaning company needs to describe the pain of not having their cleaning solution to show they understand their customer, mention the problem it solves for all office buildings, dive into the science behind it, share the cost of the service, and say how they can learn more or buy it now.

If your team or you the business owner don’t have the time to write high-quality articles, then it’s time you hire someone else or hustle during non-work hours (nights and weekends). Something needs to give if you truly want a blog that brings in more leads to your business.

Mistake 4 – There’s no email capture to collect leads.

People don’t randomly end up on your website. If they’re there, it’s for a reason like information, curiosity, or they’re ready to make a purchase.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could collect their email and follow up with them to ask for a sale later?

And what about those visitors that come from clicking an ad but then never come back again. If they don’t buy right then and there, you just spent advertising money on someone who will never visit your site again.

Don’t you wish there was a way to get them to come back and keep your brand top of mind?

Adding an email capture form that adds your customers emails to a mailing list is the solution you’re looking for. This gives you the opportunity to get in their inbox at any time—a study found 58% of adults check email right when they wake up—and after building trust you can send a sales email to reap the profits.

Not having an email capture form on your website is the equivalent of your business burning a pile of cash on the office doorstep.

Related: 5 Tactics That Will Quickly Increase Your Email List Subscribers

Mistake 5 – There’s no multimedia, just text.

Visitors expect a solid experience when they read your content. It will get really boring, really fast, if you don’t spice up your articles with images, charts, infographics, and videos.

Images, graphs, and charts are perfect for aiding the reader’s understanding—and you get an SEO boost by placing the article keyword in the image title and alt text.

Adding multimedia also has some other huge advantages to keep readers engaged on your site for longer periods of time.

For example, people love watching videos online and actually retain 95% of a video message compared to 10% from text. Plus, the average person spends 88% more time on a website with video.

Just adding some different media and colors to that otherwise black text on a white background blog will go a long way.

6 Deadly Business Blogging Mistakes For Students

Mistake 6 – There are no social media sharing buttons to be found.

If a main reason to blog is to spread brand awareness, why limit the exposure of your blog? It’s stupid to, right?

That’s what business blogs with no social media sharing buttons are doing—limiting their traffic growth and the opportunity for fans to share your content with their friends.

This rookie move is the equivalent of shooting your blog in the foot or making an unforced error in sports.

Plus, you have no excuse since it’s easy to add social sharing buttons including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, for example.

The website Winning WP listed their 10 best social media plugins. Download one from that list and you’ll make it effortless for visitors to share your online content.

If you’re reading this article from a computer, you’ll recognize we follow our own advice with our share bar on the left of the screen.

Mistake 7 – There’s no effort to gain traffic through SEO practices.

Many businesses do the publish and pray approach where they write articles hoping people online search for it and find them.

The reality is there are people Google searching for the exact product or service your business offers. With a solid search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, you can influence Google to have your website show up on the first page and capture these ready-to-buy customers.

And with far greater potential than any other source of traffic, free organic search traffic has to be a focal point of any digital marketing strategy.

It doesn’t take many steps to attracting more visitors to your website with SEO. You can get started by:

1. Doing SEO keyword research.
2. Placing these keywords on your site in the correct places on your website.
3. Writing valuable content that people actually want to read.

Mistake 8 – There’s no data to support the blog post’s opinions.

Who are you more likely to trust: The loud guy yelling nonsense or someone who backs up everything they say with hard evidence? Most people, and your readers, are going to side with the stats.

This logic applies to your company blog, too. While writing your article, remember opinions never hold as much weight as something backed up with data.

Adding support to your statements will always increase your credibility.

So if you can make it a habit to have a 1-2 punch of opinion then data to back it up—your blog will receive more links to your content, social shares, and traffic, which accomplishes the ultimate goal of acquiring more leads.

Yes, I know, executing this requires more time to research data that you can use to support your point. But it makes all the difference in being memorable.

Mistake 9 – There’s no call-to-action to buy.

Having a blog to build brand positioning, online presence, and your authority in the industry are all nice ideas, but you’re in business to make money. You need to sell to keep your company going.

So, last but not least, every piece of blog content has to play some part in persuading online visitors to spend their money with your business instead of a competitor. Maybe the content supports lead generation of your product, raises awareness, goes for the sale, or answers questions to customers who already bought from you.

The problem many blogs make is they’re afraid to ask for the sale. That’s ludicrous! If you write a killer guide, by all means you should be comfortable adding a blurb about what you’re selling and where they can click to learn more.

Remember, once you provide value and get these visitors hooked, you’re doing them a disservice by not selling them your services. And the people on your email list are actively communicating that they’re interested in your business and might want to buy. Give them the opportunity on your website to buy from you!

Start Blogging The Right Way

Business Blogging 101

Business blogging is guaranteed to work as long as you commit to the cause and don’t commit the 9 deadly sins above.

Many times it’s just a simple fix to improve your blog and get radically better results, like setting up an email capture or social sharing buttons. Then you don’t have to think about it again. However, other improvements, like including pictures and data, need to be applied to every post.

Though I promise you’ll receive real business results from your blog when you do it the right way. Your traffic will come slowly at first, then build momentum, and eventually your blog will be flooded with new business opportunities.

It’ll be an intoxicating new growth point to build upon.

What Is Business Blogging

So hire a writer or do whatever you need to do to ensure your company is consistently publishing high-quality articles—even if it means you as the business owner have to set aside time to blog yourself—it’s worth it!