Having the blogging blues sucks! The blogs are posting but the leads aren’t coming. Seems like everyone should know this, but blogging is a ‘slow-paced’ effort. It’s a marathon, rather than a sprint. Effective blogging takes time. The problem is, a lot of people realize that they need improvements late in their blogging game. We want to help you avoid those blogging blues. Effective blogging starts with a few fundamentals, that EVERY blogger needs to be doing. In case you’re curious, yes, we’ve made a LOT of mistakes over the last 10 years of blogging. Fortunately, we can say we’ve learned even more from them.
If leads were potentially endless, would you really want them all?
Picture this: The ocean is the World Wide Web. The fish are a representation of your potential clients. Yes, this includes leads. There is a lot of fish, right? Lots of types too. SEO is the net that you can throw you catch these fish. Your blogs are the boat where you’re casting the net from. So, if you want to think about effective blogging, think about a very successful day out at sea, catching fish.
Because we don’t start out master fisherman, we have probably made a lot of mistakes fishing. And with blogging. Yeah, with SEO too. So let’s dive in (pun intended) and look at what mistakes commonly prevent effective blogging.
Casting Too Wide
What happens if your fishing net is cast in too wide an area? You don’t get the specific fish you’re looking for. Do you want 100 small fish, 10 medium fish, or 2 big fish? You have to know where you should be throwing your net out. Have you ever fished without a strategy? Casting your line out time and time again hoping to get a bite. If you did this all day across the entire lake, you’d be exhausted. You’d also have no fish. So, how do you catch fish? By strategically fishing in the right places. Casting at the right times. Remembering to use the right bait. Cover the smaller areas of water that have your desired catch.
Do you want to spend all day casting your net in as many places as possible or do you want to spend half a day in the right places, making the most of each cast of the net?
That scenario sounds exactly like blogging strategy. You don’t need to be everywhere. You just need to be in the right places, at the right times. Put thought into who your target audience should be. Think about what SEO would work best. Effective blogging requires an understanding of a targeted audience. Check out The Value of Target Audience Marketing for more info on that topic.
Having The Wrong Boat
Say what? We said that blogs are the boats, right? The boat needs to be the right size, shape, and speed. It needs to be equipped with the right tools. This is like your content. Effective blogging requires the use of compelling content. Information that is relevant to its intended audience. Content should be fun, easy to read, and accurate. What does your audience want to know? How will they best receive that information?
What would you do if your catch was much larger than you could accommodate?
If you’re struggling with writing your blogs, there are 9 Steps To Better Blogging that can help you with effective blogging.
Lack Of Data
There’s a science to fishing. Some might say an art. If you aren’t prepared, you may not catch what you want. There’s a lot involved when creating your fishing strategy. Time of year, time of day, location, lure, reel, line, methods of baiting. How else would you know all this unless you’ve done your research? That, or you’ve been doing it a long time.
There’s a science to blogging. It’s an absolute art. Your target audience needs to see the information that’s accurate. You need to have data that’s been researched. You also need to know where this audience is and how to reach them. Ever heard the expression “do your homework?” Do it, and you’ll be on your way to effective blogging.
Relying On Just One Net
We talked about how SEO was a net, right? Well so is social media. And email campaigns. Don’t just rely on SEO to do the trick of bringing in your leads. If we were out deep sea fishing, we’d hook several reels up with bait and wait for a bite. When a bite happens, we use that reel set to work on bringing the catch in. If we’re trying to catch salmon or trout, we may want more than one net sometimes. Use other digital marketing avenues to cast nets. As long as you’re following the ‘rules’ from above first, this will improve your results. Effective blogging requires getting your blog in front of people. The right people! The more ways you can do that, the better.
It’s not about the size of your nets. As long as you have a few, and you know where to throw them, you will be a successful fisher.
If you’d like to talk about effective blogging strategy, Let’s Chat! We’d love to answer your questions, tell you what you’re doing right, and where you have some room for growth.
Thanks for reading! I appreciate your stopping by.