Blogging is exciting, thrilling, and yet utterly overwhelming at the same time. It's easy for a new business blogger to make mistakes because much of your learning phase (what your audience likes and dislikes) can only be learned by actually blogging… But, before you start blogging you need to be sure your website is fit for purpose.
Setting up a website can feel completely draining, and it often takes a lot of trial and error. The good news is nothing is written in stone. You can always fix, tweak, change, and evolve as your business blog grows.
To help you get started on the right foot, below are some common mistakes to avoid that new business bloggers make when setting up their website and starting to blog.
These mistakes aren’t anything “bad”, they are simply things that you may overlook, or not even be aware of when getting started.
And while content is king, avoiding these simple “behind the scenes” mistakes can help give your blog growth a “boost” without too much extra effort.
Mistake #1: Using a poorly constructed theme
Not all WordPress themes are created equal, but with the millions of theme options available, how do you know which ones are good and which aren’t? Unless you’re a coder, it’s nearly impossible to know!
Invest a little money and purchase a premium theme. Not all free themes are bad, but a premium (paid) theme will better your chances of having a solid foundation for your blog.
I recommend you take a look at Thrive Themes as they make website creation very easy with their wizard set-up (a step by step walkthrough of how to customize your theme).
Mistake #2: Not using an SEO plug-in
You don’t have to be an SEO expert to apply good SEO practices to your site.
It’s very easy to optimize your blog posts for the search engines by simply installing a free plugin such as Yoast or Rankmath through your WordPress dashboard.
With either of these plugins, you can enter keywords and descriptions for each blog post right on the blog post edit page – helping the search engines understand your content easily.
Mistake #3: Not collecting email addresses
You may be thinking, “I don’t need to collect email addresses, I’m just blogging!”.
That may be true if you never plan to monetize your site, but you're blogging for business! This means keeping in touch with your ideal customers as well as
- Sending them useful content
- Sending subscriber-only deals
- Having conversations about how you can help them with their challenges
Your list will grow faster if you can offer a fun and valuable freebie when someone subscribes. This is often called a “lead magnet”.
Your lead magnet could be a free downloadable printable, a free eBook, or anything else that would provide value to your readers. Delight them with something amazingly valuable and you have the foundation for an excellent business relationship!
Mistake #4: Using poor images – or no images
Good images can grow your site, bad images? Well, they're an expensive hobby!
When you blog for business, the images you use in your blog post represent you, your brand and what you stand for. They not only tell your content story visually, but also suck in traffic to your blog via Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram.
Even if your image is just a simple graphic with the title of your blog post, try to use some sort of visual with every post to add interest to your content.
Remember you can create nice-looking graphic images at Canva.com for free!
Mistake #5: Letting your blog sit idle
This is definitely one of the most common mistakes new business bloggers make…lack of consistency.
It can be hard to get a new blog off the ground when you feel like no one is reading but keeping that regular content flowing is essential to growing your blog.
Don't struggle for blog post ideas!
Create an editorial strategy and schedule and stick to it. Blogging regularly even if it’s only once a week, is better than blogging every day for a week, and then not adding anything new for a month.
Give your readers a reliable schedule so they have a reason to come back and find out more about you and your business.
Avoid these (very common) business blogging mistakes listed above and you are already ahead of the game when it comes to growing your blog.
