7 Blogging Sins or 7 Reasons Why Your Blog Strategy Isn’t Working

Using blog posts as part of your marketing strategy can get you up to 67% more leads than ignoring it altogether.

So, if you’re already blogging, but have yet to see those leads coming in, it’s only natural that you ask yourself why your blog strategy isn’t working. It seems to work for everyone else, doesn’t it?

First of all, let me spare you the whole drama: there are literally billions of blogs in the world. And most of their owners (whether they are businesses or individuals) would like them to work better. Some of them don’t work at all.

However, just because there are other people who share your plight, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do something about it. Business blogging can be a gold mine for literally any type of business – provided you do it right.

Now let’s see some of the reasons that might be behind your blog strategy not working and what you can do about them.

7 Reasons Why Your Blog Strategy Isn’t Working

As with any strategy, in order to understand why it doesn’t work, you need to be honest and critical with yourself. Take a look at the reasons below and think about how many of them you are “guilty” of.

1. You Don’t Really Have a Blog Strategy in Place

Don’t be too quick to dismiss this one. At Idunn, we received a lot of inquiries from clients who wanted to blog, but they couldn’t tell us why.

Before you write your first blog post, you need to know exactly why you are blogging. It could be to get brand awareness, boost your SEO, get leads, nurture leads and so on. The only constant is that you have to have a reason. Otherwise, your blogging won’t fit with the rest of your content strategy or marketing strategy and it will be all for nothing.

2. You’re Impatient

“I published my first blog post. When will the money/leads/conversions start pouring in?”

If I had a cent for every time I heard this question, I’d be writing this from my private plane.

As I explained to hundreds of people already and in tens of articles: blogging, much like content marketing, is a long-term game. It doesn’t produce results in a week. Not even in a month.

If you’re VERY lucky and in a very narrow niche, you can expect some results within six months. But in most cases, results appear after one or even two years.

Why?

Because it takes time for pages to be indexed by search engines, for your website to get a good domain authority and for you to build reputation and credibility. None of this happen overnight.

It doesn’t really matter if your first article is the perfect blog post. It will still take time for it to bring in cold, hard cash.

3. Your Headlines Aren’t Powerful enough

80% of people only read the headline. 20% of them will actually give the rest of your copy a chance. But that only happens if you write great headlines, the kind that can go viral.

Think about it this way: your audience is bombarded with content via email, social media, ads and other sources. Why would they click on your article? They literally have hundreds of other options in a single day.

Plus, they are already busy. Give them a reason to read your blog post. Create headlines that make it impossible for them to say: “neah” and move on.

4. Your Content Isn’t Useful

At the core of a successful blog strategy lies a thorough knowledge of your buyer persona. You need to know what makes them tick and, most importantly, what it is they need.

How can you sell them your product or service if you don’t know what they really need?

The same goes for every blog post you create. What problem are you solving for them? What new information of interesting point of view are you bringing to the table?

A good headline is an immense help to get people to read your content. But if they don’t find it useful, why would they give what you’re selling a chance?

5. You Create Mediocre Content

Being useful is just the first step of blogging success. You also need to create authority content, not just mediocre blog posts.

Unlike your typical 500-word blog post, authority content is usually long-form, thoroughly researched and backed by data. Plus, it is written in the right tone of voice and brings value to the readers.

If SEO copywriters would spend one hour on an “OK” blog post a few years ago, this no longer cuts it today. Planning and researching the topic alone should take more than that.

Add the time it takes to craft the perfect headline, do inbound linking, proofread and, of course, actually write at least 1,500 words and you’ll see that you need at least two to three hours (depending on the topic and typing speed) to craft a compelling piece of content.

6. You Blog “when You Have the Time”

Your readers need predictability and a steady stream of content. If you’ve gotten them used to two blog posts per week, deliver two blog posts per week. The same goes for one or seven.

Of course, the more, the better.

But I wouldn’t encourage everyone to write seven articles per week if they don’t really have the time for it. While posting a lot of content is beneficial for SEO and brand awareness purposes, posting a lot of mediocre content helps with none of these.

Thus, if you only have time to write one piece of content per week, don’t stretch yourself thin. Your readers will notice you’re “winging it”.

Blogging regularly and offering consistent quality is more important than quantity. However, if you decided on a blogging schedule, stick to it. If you post Wednesdays and Fridays, keep doing that. Don’t disappoint people who are already accustomed to tune in every Friday to see your new post.

The good news is that you don’t have to do all this alone. You can always work with skilled blog writers for your content. When they take on all or part of the blogging efforts, you will find it easier to stick to a routine and deliver constant quality.

7. You’re Promoting Your Blog to the Wrong People

Even if you don’t check any of the “sins” above, you may still not be seeing any real benefits just because your content isn’t promoted where it should be. A lot of bloggers and business owners feel pressured to be everywhere.

Forget that. You need to focus your efforts on the channels where your buyer persona likes to hang out. If you’re not seeing any results from Facebook, you can ditch it and focus on Twitter or LinkedIn. It’s not a loss. In fact, it’s the right thing to do.

If your audience doesn’t like to be spammed with tons of email, stop sending newsletter for every blog post you publish. Try to engage them via social media or paid ads.

Of course, there is no way you can get all this right from the very beginning. Do some testing and see which channels work best for your blog and stick to those.

Too many things to keep in mind? You don’t have to do all this alone – we can help! Our team has designed and implemented a lot of winning strategies for businesses just like yours. Get in touch and let us create your successful blog strategy!