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Blogs are obviously very important to your business. We’ve found that blogging can be very influential in both the short-term and long-term range. We have discussed some characteristics of a good blog before: a good word length, appropriate links; relevant images; a good list; and a consistent time frame. We already know why blogging and other inbound marketing practices can benefit us. So now its time to revisit this subject in order to hone in on what truly makes for a great blog and what we should avoid doing.

We recently came across a great article on this topic called “7 Mistakes to Avoid With Your Corporate Blog” on Social Media Today. They had a great list of things we should all avoid doing when crafting our business blogs that we wanted to share with you.

“Using the Wrong Blogging Platform” This may come as a surprise, but not all software platforms are meant for blogging. Your website might utilize some expensive content management system, but in regards to blogging, that might not do the trick. You need something that has flexibility, usability, and SEO friendliness. If you install WordPress as part of your main domain (or a subdomain) and use it for your corporate blog, you would really be doing yourself a favor. Sometimes, simplicity goes a long way.

“Publishing Posts That Are Too Promotional” Blogs are not the way to directly sell your product. That’s why you have a product info page on your website. This isn’t the space to list all the great features of your company/services; it is the space to give your readers a way to engage with your content. Be a source of information! Teach them something or explain things in a user friendly manor and they will look to you for their future needs.

“Publishing Posts That Serve No Marketing Purpose” Okay, so here’s where things get a smidge trickier. You should not be posting crazy promotional blogs, but each blog should serve a marketing purpose. Your posts should be part of your content marketing strategy. Like we said, you should be that source of credible information.

“Lack Of Social Media Promotion” As great as your blogs probably are, they mean nothing if no one reads them. It is important to promote your blogs through your various social media channels. This could be as simple as posting the link on your Twitter or Facebook pages with a quick one-sentence hook to garner attention.

“Targeting The Wrong Keywords” One of the main points of blogging is to boost your SEO. If you don’t utilize those relevant keywords, your SEO will suffer.  It is not enough to just use the high traffic keywords—your competition are probably using them too—but you must also spend the time to research some lower competition keywords that are easier to target.

“Giving Up Too Early” You have to be patient. Blogging is a proven marketing tactic but it takes time. You can’t expect it to work over night and give you hundreds of new customers. It takes time to build up a following and a reputation. Don’t give up if you don’t see immediate results.

“Having No Conversion Goals For The Blog” Sometimes, corporate blogs focus on just getting more traffic. This is not the end goal for blogs! We know that blogs help in many ways, but the ultimate goal is to gain new customers. Use your blog to help convert those readers into actual satisfied clients.

With the Internet allowing for all the answers we could ever want to exist easily within our grasp, it is our job to bring those answers to our community. Blogs provide us a way to get our information out there and become credible sources in our fields. A great blog can really help convert potential leads into satisfied customers!