The trend of blogging is on the rise. People do write blogs for various reasons; some take it as a hobby, others are eager to share the information and knowledge they have regarding a particular subject while some even approach it as a business. It’s an empowering concept as it gives you the authority to say what you want, influence the views of the readers and best of all generate income out of it.
But it’s not as simple as you may think. Yes, setting up a blog space hardly takes a few minutes while writing one may take a couple of hours or more; but if you don’t employ a smart blog strategy, the results would be far from what you expect. This is why big brands hire professionals through talent acquisition strategies for their content marketing activities.
Whether you’re an aspiring blogger, a newbie, or a regular one, you constantly need to review your blog strategy to reach the right audience and have the desired impact. If your blog is not performing well despite all efforts, it means you need to make certain alterations or changes. Here are 4 signs that imply that your blog needs a better strategy.
1#. Your Content Has No Definite Goals
One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a blogger is writing without any real purpose. Each one of your articles must offer something unique, new, and useful for the readers. This is how you can build your brand and earn a loyal following. In content marketing, the very first step is to outline what you wish to achieve from your efforts. You must set a benchmark for yourself in terms of email lists, subscriptions, leads for consulting, etc. If you don’t function with a clear direction, you’re likely to fall behind in the bloggers’ network.
2#. Your Blog Is Not Updated Regularly
Your blog post should always be constantly refreshed. If you discover that a blog you wrote a long time ago is still attracting readers, it’s time to update the information. This is because while the topic and content may be of interest to the reader, they may not be getting the latest information on it. So have a thorough look and refine the content. See which stats and figures need to be updated. Does the blog include any dated terminology, does it make any references to technologies or concepts that have changed since the time it was published. Once you’ve done a content audit, make the required changes. Replace old examples with new ones and if need be, change the infographics so that they go well with the updated piece.
3#. Low Engagement
If your blog post has a low level of audience engagement, it’s also an indicator that you need to review your blog strategy. Firstly, you need to check if you’ve chosen the correct platform for your blog post. This is crucial to get your blog to the audience that it’s meant for. Besides, the platform should be user-friendly and give ample opportunities for content updates and comment sharing.
However, if you’ve chosen the right audience and platform for your blog post and still face low engagement in the form of lesser clicks, higher bounce rate, and fewer comments, it means it’s not able to retain the attention of the reader. So, try adding an interactive element to it to kick start a conversation with your readers.
4#. Low Search Visibility
High audience engagement is not sufficient for a blog strategy to qualify as successful. Your piece also needs to have high search visibility. If you’re getting appreciation from your followers but the blog is not ranking high on the search engine results, you need to work on increasing its visibility so that you can reach more people. For this purpose, you need to make use of SEO. Determine which keywords you should target and once you have the list with you, incorporate the relevant keywords in the blog in a natural way.
