Curious about blogging for profit? Learn about the common mistakes businesses make and 4 steps you can take to get your blog working for your business.
“What’s stopped you from getting started blogging for your business?”
Last week I surveyed 50 entrepreneurs and asked them this question.
Some of the responses I got were:
- Writing takes so much time and thought, longer than just recording a live or video of some kind
- Planning the content subjects
- Understanding how to leverage the blog
- What strategy to use to promote
- How it fits into the funnel
- How to repurpose the content effectively
- I feel like I need to blog much more than I do, so I feel I’m failing before I get a good start.
- Not really my thing. Leave it up to ‘hip youngsters ‘ like you.?
Do any of these resonate?
Well, you’re definitely not alone if they do.
The top 3 issues here are time, perceived return on investment, and a lack of strategy.
So why should you blog? There are many good reasons, but let’s start with the following four.
4 Good Reasons to Blog
- Just in the United States alone, 42.23% of people from the ages of 18 to 49 read blogs.
- Because people want to read blogs, Google has no choice but to rank them. The average page that is listed on page one of Google has 1,890 words
- A blog is the only way you are going to rank well on Google and generate organic traffic directly, without paying for it by using paid advertising eg. Facebook Ads or Google AdWords.
- Content marketing gets three times more leads than paid search advertising. (Content Marketing Institute, 2017)
The average page that is listed on page one of Google has 1,890 words. How long are your blog posts? Click To Tweet
3 Mistakes That Can Cause You to Fail at Blogging
1. Your blog posts are not targeted enough
The content is not targeted to a specific buyer persona, and at a specific stage in their buying cycle, then you’re unlikely to see positive results from blogging.
2. Your blog posts do not answer questions your customers are actually searching for
In other words, your blog posts are not focused on specific questions (and keyword phrases).
If you want to be found on Google (and other search engines) then you need to produce content that answers the questions that people are typing into search engines!
Have you observed that your prospective customers are asking the same questions again and again during their buying process?
Now, are you producing content that addresses those questions and concerns (and using the words that they are actually using to search with)?
Also, are you producing “evergreen” content that is not time-sensitive? I.e. A post about the latest trend or political drama might be good for getting attention at the moment, but it’s not very useful after the event has come and gone is it?
Create evergreen content, and make it better quality than what the highest ranking blog posts are on Google search results.
Have you observed that your prospective customers are asking the same questions again and again? Are your blog posts addressing those? Click To Tweet
3. Your blog posts are only being promoted once.
If you’re only promoting your posts at the time you hit publish, then you’re not promoting enough.
Yes, you might see a boost of traffic to your site the same or following day that you also push the content out to your social media channels and email list, but after that, it’s crickets because you’re not re-promoting it.
4 Steps to Blogging For Profit
1. Focus on writing amazing, well-researched, and SEO-optimized content consistently
If you don’t have the time, consider outsourcing it (this is a service we actually provide to clients – contact us if you’d like to learn more).
2. Promote your content more than just once
Hitting the schedule button on Buffer or Hootsuite once immediately after you publish won’t do the trick.
You need to recycle your content every month for at least a year, to get the best chance of having people see each evergreen blog post and visiting your site to read it.
I recommend using an awesome time-saving tool like MissingLetter to do this. It takes each blog post you create and automatically turns into a 12-month social media campaign (in less than 10 mins per post!). Seriously, how much of a time-saver is that?
Here’s a video demo of MissingLettr:
Here’s what the MissingLettr campaign dashboard looks like:
It’s also worthwhile coming up with a repurposing strategy i.e. re-format and re-use your blog content on different channels. Want some ideas on how to do this? Watch the following video for 6 ways to repurpose your blog content.
Related reading: Repurposing content: Should you post the same content to multiple places?
3. Focus on monetization, but make it the final step of the process
Increased traffic doesn’t mean increased revenue. You need to know how to convert readers into leads, and then into buyers.
The majority of people coming to your site are not going to be in “ready to buy” mode, so you need to produce content that meets them where they are mentally at when they are in research mode.
4. Don’t forget about the rise of voice search
50% of all searches will be voice searches by 2020, according to comScore.
In other words, these are the moments packed with lead-generation and conversion potential.
Typically, people using voice search don’t say things like “top 10 marketing tips” but are more likely saying things like “How to cook eggs” or “Why won’t my computer turn on?”.
So you need to consider how you can create content that addresses those micro-moments i.e. moments when people are trying to solve a specific problem and are turning to voice search to find their answers.
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