4 Reasons Why Your Blog isn’t Working
…And How to Fix Them.
Tell me if this sounds familiar - You know that statistically, blogging is one of the most effective divers of early-stage demand generation (Source: Content Marketing Institute), so you meticulously craft and publish blog post after blog post, only to have them fall flat. No engagement, no demand generation…crickets. It can be incredibly discouraging.
Fear not. In my experience, when a blog “isn’t working,” it’s because of one (or more) of the following reasons. Once you can pinpoint the issue, understand the solution, and how to implement it, your blog content will have more impact.
1. Your blog topic doesn’t resonate with your audience.
Solution: Keyword Research
Successful blogs are strategic, and keyword research is the first step to that strategy. As business owners, we know our ideal customers’ characteristics and pain points. However, the same cannot be said about our customers’ specific language when searching for our products or services.
Keyword research provides us with the data we need to create content that reflects the language of our customers.
Keyword Research Priorities
Each blog post should have one primary keyword but may have several related secondary search terms.
Resource: If this is your first encounter with keyword research, I recommend Moz.com. Of the well known platforms (including semrush.com and ahrefs.com—both are also great), it’s the most user-friendly for non-SEO nerds.
Start with a site overview, including two competitors, followed by keyword suggestions, then explore by keyword.
2. Your blog content doesn’t provide value to the reader.
Solution: Understand Search Intent
In addition to keyword research, your content also needs to demonstrate that you understand the search intent categories for your keywords- or why a search term is being queried. (Source: semrush.com)
If the majority of queries for a search term are commercial, but your content is informational, it’s likely to fall flat - and vice versa. Understanding the different reasons for searching and using that data to determine the focus of your content will make it much more successful.
Keyword Search Intent Explained
Resource: Mangools/KW Finder. This tool will show the search intent for each term and reference the top content formats for each.
3. Your blog content is difficult to consume.
Solution: User Experience Formatting Best Practices
Content Writing
Keep it simple, straightforward, and authentic. Write your blog posts in the same tone you use when having a conversation with your ideal client. And remember, this is a blog post - not a dissertation. Also, be mindful of the following.
Proper spelling and grammar are essential, but you can take some license with sentence and paragraph structure.
Storytelling is a great way to engage your audience.
Your content must provide value to your audience. Consider what takeaways or action items you will include.
Images, graphics, and videos can be powerful tools, but they should serve a specific purpose and follow file size guidelines (as referenced below)
Formatting
The formatting of your blog can also make or break its success. Both readers and search engines favor a well-structured, scannable post. Best practices include
Minimizing page load time—Several technical SEO factors affect the speed of your website, (Source: Moz.com) but following best practices for incorporating media in your posts can help minimize your website’s load time.
Videos tend to have enormous file sizes, so uploading them to your website can slow down your site. Instead, consider storing your videos on YouTube or Vimeo and linking them to your blog. This will provide the same user experience without weighing down your website.
Images are another source of large file sizes. As a best practice, keep your image file size at or near 500 KB and 70 dpi to maintain resolution quality without impacting load speed. The ideal dimensions of your images vary according to platform and usage. (Source: HubSpot)
4. Your blog is "invisible.”
Solutions: Follow SEO Best Practices
Real talk - Although (it should be) indexed for search, the blog post you just published on your website will most likely not rank in organic search results for a while. There are numerous reasons why this is the case, but that’s a rant post for another day.
With all of that said you should still follow SEO best practices for two simple reasons.
1. Without following best practices, you ensure that your post will never rank in search engines, and
2. SEO best practices are grounded in what provides a good user experience for your reader. These include
On-page SEO
Your content should reflect an understanding of the language that your audience uses.
Optimize your title tags to include keyword
Use short, descriptive URLs.
Follow best practices for HTML header tags (H1, H2, H3…)
Use alt-text tags on images and graphics
See the link below for a free resource checklist for these items.
Make sure your content incorporates E-E-A-T.
In an age where many believe that robots can create all of our content (spoiler alert - no, they absolutely cannot.), E-E-A-T couldn’t be more critical. It refers to Google’s guidelines for evaluating the quality of content. (Source: Search Engine Journal)
E-E-A-T Explained
Off-page SEO
And finally, sharing your blog content beyond your website broadens its reach and ability to engage your ideal audience. Specific tactics to consider
Cross-post your blog content on platforms such as LinkedIn and Substack.
Include it in your email marketing campaigns
Reformat and repurpose your blog content as social media posts
And there you have it. Follow these guidelines, and you’ll create blog posts that are both engaging for your readers and search engine optimized, attracting more traffic, valuable to your readers, and achieving your blogging goals.
Free Resource:
To ensure that your blog posts follow on-page formatting best practices, click here to download my On-Page SEO Elements Checklist.
