Stephanie Donelson

Blogging is one of my favorite marketing tactics as it not only gives your site’s SEO a boost and provides an easy medium for search optimization, it’s also a great way to showcase your brand’s authority and expertise in a certain industry.

Blogging also provides your sales team with great content they can share with prospects and help round out bigger demand generation and lead nurture campaigns. Blogs are a wonderful asset and should be a key component of any content marketing strategy.

Even though blogging can be easy, it can also be easy to fail with a blog. 

From overstuffing each post with keywords to not sharing your blogs, there are simple ways to set yourself up for failure with your blogging strategy. 

Make sure your blog is successful and pulling its weight as a marketing tactic by avoiding these common blog fails. 

10 blogging fails to avoid

1. No blogging strategy

Blogging will fall under the bigger content marketing strategy, but you shouldn’t just be blogging to blog. There should be a reason for each blog post and it should be relevant and provide value to your audience.  

Keep in mind other marketing campaigns or assets, like webinars or ebooks, and plan blogs around these anchors to supplement them or encourage registrations or downloads. 

Use an editorial calendar to plan blog posts, capture keyword research, and outline promotion channels. Your editorial calendar may change as you see which blog posts perform well with your audience, but at least you have a roadmap and content ideas to keep your blog fresh and cohesive. 

I like to map out blogs to the customer journey or certain topic clusters, which can be based on your company’s values or key benefits of your products and services. Say you sell beauty products in an online store. Your blogs could be educational and informational with posts like:

• How to use a concealer brush
• Top liquid lipsticks of 2020
• The benefits of hyaluronic acid
• Why you should use coconut oil-based leave-in conditioners
• What is eyebrow microblading

Your blogs can go outside your own products and services and more often than not, they should be about more than just your brand. They should be about industry trends, news, best practices, advice, etc. 

Blogs are not sales pieces!

It’s fine to link to your products or mention how your products can be used with these best practices, but if your blogs are solely about your brand, it’ll be hard to get new readers to your site or people interested in coming back. It’s like the 80/20 social media rule: 80% of your content should be educational or entertaining and 20% can be promotional. 80% of your blog content should be educational or informational and 20% can be about your brand specifically.

This is a great time to look at your competition and see what topics they cover and where there are content gaps that your brand can cover. If you find that your competitors only blog about themselves, you’ll be able to get ahead of them by establishing your brand as a leader in education in your space. 

2. No keyword research

We all search for things a little differently, some of us only use one or two keywords and some of us use long-tail terms for a more specific search. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Google Analytics, and Google Search Console to conduct keyword research. There are paid tools you can use as well, but if you’re just getting started, the free opportunities can help you optimize your blog. 

Use two or three keyword terms per post as well as creative variants and synonyms in your text. The search engines have gotten quite good at understanding people’s intent and what they’re looking for and will serve content that’s about the same topic even if the exact keyword phrase isn’t there. 

Also, be sure to add keywords to your blog posts’ meta descriptions to further optimize your content and help searchers find your content.

3. Obnoxious Keyword density

I’ll never forget one website I worked on during my time at a digital marketing agency that was so overstuffed with keywords I was amazed anyone made it past the first paragraph.

It looked something like:

Are you looking for things to do in Denver? When you stay at our Denver hotel you have access to the best things to do in Denver! Our Denver hotel is conveniently located near top Denver things to do, making our Denver hotel a top choice among travelers. When it comes to hotels in Denver, you can’t beat The Hotel Name in Denver! Discover our Denver hotel and book your stay with us to enjoy all the cool things to do in Denver on your Denver vacation. In this blog, we’re sharing the top 10 things to do in Denver that you can easily book when you stay with us at The Hotel Name in Denver.

*Locations and names changed to protect the innocent client and the guilty marketing agency that did the shady work. 

It was exhausting reading copy like that and it has the side effect of making the business look like a scam. Yes, you will want your keywords and its variants on the page you’re optimizing but aim for a keyword density of 1-3%, meaning one to three uses per 100 words.

Be strategic with your keyword usage by working them into headings and at the beginning of your sentences. People found your page because they’re interested in a specific topic, but they don’t need to be reminded every two seconds of what their keyword search term was. Work your keywords in naturally for a better reading experience. 

4. No structure

When we read on the web, we like to scan content and then zero in on the copy that interests us. A blog isn’t a term paper where you have to follow the rule of five to seven sentences per paragraph. In fact, you want to use one to three sentences per paragraph to help people scan the content faster.

You should also use subheadings to draw your readers’ attention to certain sections and use images to break up blocks of text or bigger sections of content. 

You might even create blog templates so each blog looks consistent and has the same style and look as other posts. 

5. No links

Within each post you should be linking to other internal content or linking them to external websites if you’re quoting someone or using a statistic you found on another site. 

Both kind of links are good for improving your brand’s authority in your industry and internal links can help the search engines associate your site with the right keywords and content. 

At the very least, at the end of each post you should have related content or a CTA to read another blog post or access a gated piece of content on your site to sneak in an internal link or two. 

6. Sleep-inducing titles

Click-bait titles can be fine if the content itself delivers! Your headline not only needs to capture the reader’s attention, but also compel them to click on it to continue reading. 

Headline writing tips:

• Ask a question: Are you measuring the right website metrics?
• Share a secret: 9 things you didn’t know about X
• Review a product: X vs Y: Which is the better software
• Use a statistic or numbered list: A X-point checklist for SEO
• Teach them how to do something or provide a tutorial: The ultimate guide to social media
• Induce fear: Warning! Don’t be a brand making this mistake

7. No original content

There are many evergreen blogs out there on the same topic that have the same information, so why should a searcher come to your site? You need to provide unique content or a new angle to grab their attention. 

Use your brand’s reputation to add new insight or share best practices that your audience may not be aware of. Have an executive share a quote or statistic or two. Find ways to add original content to the conversation. 

8. No regularly scheduled content

There has to be some consistency to the frequency you’re publishing blogs. Whether that’s weekly, two times a week, or every other day. 

Your blogging frequency can depend on your blog’s niche or your business. If you sell products, you should be posting about twice a week whereas if you provide services you can get away with once a week. How big your content and marketing team is can also dictate how frequently you’re blogging.

No matter what though, you should have an established frequency so people know when they can expect fresh content on your site, like every Monday morning. 

You can’t expect audiences to return to your site when you only publish new content twice a year and infrequent blogs won’t provide the value you’re looking for in terms of website metrics. If you can’t commit to a consistent schedule, it’s better not to blog at all. 

One easy way to commit to regular content is by planning it in advance with an editorial calendar!

9. No CTA

When the reader gets to the bottom of the page, what should they do next? It’s your job to tell them!

Have a Call-to-Action (CTA) at the end of every blog post. You might direct them to a related blog post, a gated piece of content, or tell them to add their voice to the conversation on social media. Just like in email marketing, your blogs should tell the reader what action they should take next or they’ll just end up leaving your site. 

10. No promotion

Finally, you need to have a promotion plan in place for each blog. Many blogging platforms let you auto-publish social media posts to new blogs but you should also have spots saved in your social media calendar to share evergreen blogs on a regular basis.

You might also plan ahead and think how you can share blog posts in email campaigns or have your sales team send current customers or prospects to your new posts. You have to have a plan in place to promote your new content while giving the search engines time to index and rank your content for organic searches – thanks to your keyword optimization! 

Like I said at the beginning, blogging is easy and by paying attention to some of these blog elements you can have a quality blog on your brand’s site that’s attracting new customers and nurturing them along the way. 

What other blog fails have you seen brands make? Share in the comments below or give me a shout on Twitter!