7 blogging practices that are hurting your cause

Perhaps the most powerful practice an organization undertakes is storytelling. The right story delivered to the right audience can make a huge impact. Blogging is a great way to continue to tell this story, demonstrate domain knowledge, build trust and delight your audience. Being aware of bad habits that are hurting your storytelling cause will set you up for success. Your content can continue to bring that magical "umph" that pushes someone from just reading about doing something, to actually doing something!

1. Trying to hard to create the most incredible headline, EVER!

In another useful post on this topic, co-founder of KISSmetrics, Neil Patel writes for Moz:

"The goal of the headline is to stop readers cold and draw them into your post. You can’t do that if you use cute, clever or confusing headlines."

Assigning titles to your work is important but is still perhaps the least complicated task because your title should really just reflect your content. When you think too hard about your title, more often than not, the title takes on too much contrast from your article. 

Thinking critically about how people will find your content should also be top of mind. 

Standing out, when it comes to writing blog content, is not about being different it's about being right, the right post for the right person!

For help, here's a post we did on writing a title that is search-friendly, descriptive and creative.

*Side note: please no puns. I mean that.

2. Assuming your readers really, really, love reading

Don't get me wrong, I know that most of us like to chew on a fat book or two in our free time. However, blogs are something different. Right now, the best content on the web quickly solves problems for users.

Think about that for a minute.

Remember the last time you turned to the web for a solution? Perhaps it was to a WordPress question or a "how-to cook __" tutorial.

Your content should land somewhere between one of those IKEA instructions (frustratingly simple) and this post about Elon Musk's Neuralink with a complete history of the human brain's development (warning: it's long).

Keep in mind general rules of thumb: A picture can say a thousand words whereas big blobs of text are quite intimidating. Know your audience and get your point across quickly.

3. Forcing conversation to happen where you'd like it to happen.

How are your visitors choosing to talk about your content? It's an important question because you are the facilitator and you want people to feel comfortable.

Consider tools that allow you to monitor social media conversations across your various accounts like Hootsuite and for your blog posts consider Disqus which has a Facebook integration for comments.

4. Forgetting your alts, metas, and titles

Sending your content out into the world without spending some time to optimize that content for SEO is like forgetting to wrap a present.

Those who read your content might enjoy it, but you can maximize that delight if you make sure the right people find the content. Let Google give you some free attention by making it easy for Google.

Make sure you consider these SEO tools to give your content game a boost.

5. Playing it safe and avoiding vulnerability

The number one thing your content should be? Authentic. Putting yourself out there is the best way to show people who you are and what you care about.

Let me just say this. Try new things! Don't sit on the dock with your toes in the water, jump in!

For example, video content is absolutely buzzing right now and it has the power to show consumers who their brands really are.

This is widespread and only growing: From Google's recent update giving a boost in ranking of search results that include a video to Facebook's aggressive promotion of Facebook Live and Instagram Stories to free tools like Google Hangouts and Zoom.us for webinars and virtual meetings.

Look what you can do with a video focus: boost SEO and page ranking, grow your social following, and engage in face to face conversation with your most interested 'readers.'

Don't worry about the quality of your video content too much, it's just not what visitors expect anymore.

In a live video settings, it's the personal touch that goes a long way. For your videos to be posted on YouTube for a newsletter later, keep it simple at first touching on key concepts or content you know has worked before.

6. Lack of scheduling

Many great organizations have a blog that they update with maybe one post per month and it's usually a post related to an event they just finished or a new hire in the company. This is a clear sign that the blog is only an aspirational asset.This is probably the biggest pitfall of most blogs—don't be that blog.

Making sure that creating content is on your to-do list is crucial because it puts other important tasks in motion, building efficiency.

When you're publishing weekly about issues that are important to your mission and solving problems for your following, you're doing so much more. In fact, you're already writing your newsletter content, your social media posts and giving yourself a boost in recurring organic traffic from search engines.

By ensuring your blog posts are at the center of your online effort, you're actually doing yourself and your following major solid.

7. If you do one thing:

Check in on your analytics to see how long your visitors are spending with your posts and take a look at what they're most interested in. Only you know your story well enough to tell it, but on the flip side, only your visitors know what they want. So leverage your digital tools and try to strike a balance there.

Generally, these bad practices will help your cause and give your content creation process a boost, but don't be afraid to investigate what's already working for your visitors and take it to the next level!

What are your conditions for a great content creation? Tweet at us, @arcstone or email me at jgreenisen(at)arcstone.com