13 Reasons Why You’re Blogs Aren’t “Working” – and How To Change That!
13 Reasons Why You’re Blogs Aren’t “Working” – and How To Change That!
You’ve got a brilliant business idea, a brand you’re bringing to life, or maybe an innovative wellness product to bring to the masses. Point is you’ve got something to share with the world.
I know you’ve been working your booty off bringing your business baby to life, and it’s time to spread the word so that the people that need you can actually find you.
How do you do this? Through a comprehensive digital marketing strategy of course.
But where do you start? You’ve heard that blogging is the way to go (and I agree), but your blogs are just blobs on your website if they’re not doing the job that they’re meant to do.
If you’ve found yourself asking “Why aren’t my blogs working?” It's time to troubleshoot and get to the bottom of your problem, and how to fix it.
1) You’re Not Consistent
You write one blog post, then crickets…Two months later you remember you started a blog. You put “write a blog post” on your to-do list. It gets pushed to the back burner.
At the end of the year, you reflect on your content strategy and realize you only published a handful of blogs. Your audience needs consistency, that’s how you build trust and develop relationships with them. Not only that, consistency is a key component of boosting your ranking in search engines.
Which brings us to our next point.
2) You’re Not Using SEO Strategies
Well-written blogs can only get you so far if you’re not using SEO strategies. SEO, or search engine optimization, is a process used to increase your ranking on search engines and bring more traffic to your website.
If you really want to reach the next level a freelance copywriter or SEO specialist is the way to go, but there are plenty of SEO tools you can use on your own.
Use keywords strategically (Google Ads has a free tool, you just need an Ads account)
Write meta descriptions using your head keyword
Use internal links and backlinks to reputable websites
3) You Don’t Have A Clear Brand Voice
Your brand voice is what sets you apart from other people in your field. It’s how you communicate with your audience and showcase your values and overall vibe.
Without a clear brand voice, you lack cohesion and frankly, personality. Your brand voice is conveyed through the language you use and is used across your content marketing, including social media, email marketing, and of course – your blogs.
4) Your Topics Aren’t Interesting or Useful
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if your blogs aren’t boosting your business it could be that they’re just not something people want to read. Now that doesn’t mean you don’t have plenty of interesting information to share, but the topics you’re picking are not something people regularly search for.
While blogging consistently is important, you want to make sure that what you’re putting out there is actually something people want to read and not a bunch of word fluff, or dry topics.
One way you can help avoid this is by knowing who your target audience is and writing to them.
5) Your Copywriting Isn’t Engaging
You might have interesting topics, but the way they’re written is not bringing people back for more. The art of copywriting comes down to knowing how to communicate with and engage readers.
That often means throwing your writing rules out the window and speaking more casually, like you would in a conversation. This varies depending on your field and audience, but if people aren’t reading your blogs, ask yourself – would you want to read this?
6) You Don’t Have Catchy Titles and Headlines
Another component of SEO blogging is crafting titles and headlines that grab people’s attention and keep them engaged. Go ahead and Google something right now, any topic that you want to know more about. Look at the titles on the first page and notice which ones stand out to you.
That’s the power of a solid title.
It’s not just your title, but the headlines within your blogs that matter. Headlines help organize your content so that people know what to expect and can jump ahead when they want. They’re also incredibly helpful for breaking up your blogs visually so they don’t look too dense.
7) They’re Not The Right Length
A highly controversial topic in the world of content marketing is what the best length is for a blog. SEO copywriters have been at each other’s throats since the dawn of time arguing for the precise word count that makes a winning blog.
The right answer is…there is none. While you don’t want your blogs to be too short, you also don’t want to lose people with excessively lengthy blogs. It comes down to quality over quantity. Is everything you’re writing useful and relevant to the topic at hand? Are you able to seamlessly integrate keywords without them feeling awkward?
A sweet spot is usually somewhere between 800 to 1400 words for your average blog.
8) You Don’t Have a Balance of Content and SEO
If you’re actively trying to build up your platform and web presence, you’ll want a solid balance of content writing and SEO blogging. You might be asking yourself – what’s the difference?
The truth is there’s a lot of overlap and both kinds of blogs should accomplish both goals to some extent. That is increasing content and boosting SEO. While SEO copywriting should still be quality and engaging, you’re building blogs based on specific keywords.
Content writing focuses more on topics that are highly specific to your business, your story, company updates, or interviewing cool people in your field.
9) You’re Not Using Content Across Different Mediums
You have an incredible library of blogs, but people just aren’t finding them – what’s the deal? Besides taking a look at your SEO, you’ll also want to make sure your digital marketing strategy utilizes several platforms and tools.
The best way to do this is by repurposing content across your blog, social media, and email marketing so that you can bring people in from every corner of the internet and make the most of the winning words you’ve crafted.
10) Your Content is *Slightly* Plagiarized
I know you wouldn’t purposely copy someone’s blogs that they worked so hard to create, but let’s face it – there’s a whole lot of content out there. Of course, there’s going to be some overlap.
Having similar content is sort of inevitable to a certain extent, but be sure to create your own structure, use verbiage that makes sense for your brand, and find your own reputable sources. Otherwise, you risk getting flagged and harming your SEO, negating all the efforts you put into creating a blog in the first place.
You want to aim for 10% or less plagiarized content, and if you’re unsure – there are plenty of tools you can download that check the percentage of plagiarism in your blogs.
11) Your Formatting and Grammar are Off
Two huge things that often get overlooked when blogging are your grammar and formatting. It doesn’t matter how interesting or engaging your copywriting is if it doesn’t look or sound good.
Simple tools like Grammarly or hiring a freelance copy editor can keep you from getting taken down by subpar grammar.
As for formatting, is your blog easy to look at? Is it broken up using headlines? Are you using bold and italics when appropriate? Are you using relevant images?
12) Your Website Isn’t Aesthetically Pleasing or User-Friendly
Quality copywriting can only get you so far if your website isn’t easy to navigate or nice to look at. There are so many tools and platforms out there to help you create a nice-looking website with zero web development skills.
What I’m saying is that there are no excuses. If your website doesn’t look aesthetically pleasing, clean and simple, or if it’s difficult to navigate – no one’s going to read your blog.
13) You Don’t Have a Clear CTA
Ah the CTA. Your call to action is the difference between a blog that just sits there and a blog that moves readers to do something. Aka, take action.
Do you want them to take them to sign up for an intro call? Trying to get more subscribers for your newsletter? Are you swaying them to buy a product?
You never want to be too salesy, but if it makes sense for the topic at hand, you’ll want to create a clear call to action. Hint – hyperlinks are your friend.
3 Tips to Fix Your Blogs
Hopefully, this gave you some clarity about why your blogs aren’t performing. I know you want your business to blossom and flourish, so if you’re going to do something – you should try your damn best. That includes blogging.
Ready to whip your content marketing into shape with banging blogs?
1) Figure Out Your Issue
If your blogs aren’t pulling their weight, the first step is figuring out why. There’s a good chance the culprit is one of the reasons listed above. If not, you may need to bring in an expert – more on that later.
You might need a total blogging overhaul, but sometimes the smallest tweaks can make a huge difference. Time to figure out what the issue is with your blogs and take action to fix it.
2) Know Your Goals
You heard that having a blog is vital for any digital marketing strategy – so you made one, and that’s that. Great job getting started, but for your blog to be “successful” you need to define what success means to you.
Is your goal to…
Create organic traffic to your website?
Rank higher on Google and search engines?
Offer education on your area of expertise?
Build a community through your platform?
Increase sales or land new clients?
Knowing your goals can help you create a content marketing strategy that aligns with what you’re trying to accomplish so you’re not just throwing darts in the dark.
3) Create A System
Once you know your goals, you can create a system that helps you reach them. That involves developing a content marketing strategy but also using tools like planners and scheduling apps so that you can stay on top of your blogging.
This goes back to consistency. If you figure out a system that works for you, consistency becomes that much easier, and your blogs that much more effective.
4) Hire a Freelance Copywriter
You are so good at what you do. Unfortunately, you can’t do it all. You may even be an amazing writer, but copywriting is a different skill set. Even if you know how to write killer copy, you probably don’t have the time to.
The solution? Learn how to delegate.
As a health and wellness copywriter, I help clients just like you to build better blogs, supercharge their content marketing, and give their businesses a well-deserved boost. I know you can do it all, but you don’t have to. I’m here to help.
See that call to action? *Wink, wink, nudge, nudge*.
