We all know you started a blog for your business to get more leads, traffic, to showcase your expertise, or for numerous other reasons. However, it’s all too easy to make mistakes with your blog that could be turning off your visitors, forever.
Below we highlight five avoidable mistakes that could be killing your blog. Fix these mistakes and you’ll have a blog that has a better chance of delighting your visitors and turning them into fans for life.
1. There’s Too Much Clutter
When a visitor lands on your blog are they actually able to read your content? Often, we have blogs that are too overwhelming to actually end up being useful. They’re either too cluttered with ads, or have too many widgets in the sidebar, or even have an unreadable font.
Think of your blog as an oasis across the internet. When the user lands on your blog they should be able to relax and easily digest whatever you’re writing. This means you’ll want to include plenty of whitespace, a readable font, and consider doing away with sidebars, popups, and other distracting elements altogether.
2. You’re Trying to Extract, Instead of Add Value
How do you treat your users? When dealing with internet traffic and the online world it’s easy to think of people as nothing more than a number. It’s all too easy to distance ourselves from the fact that there’s a living, breathing, eating person, on the other side of the screen.
When we optimize our blogs for profit, it’s easy to get wrapped up in conversions, or placing ads all over our site to maximize revenue. But, we should consider our long-term goals here. A site that’s built upon adding value to the lives of your readers, rather than trying to extract every cent from them will always fare better in the long-run.
3. Your Site Performs Poorly
Do you know how you site performs in comparison to others in your niche? If you’ve never used a tool like GT Metrix, or Google Pagespeed Insights to measure the performance of your site, then it’s time to start.
These free tools will analyze your site and determine how fast your site loads, and give your recommendations for improving the speed of your website. Sites that load quickly provide your visitors with a better user experience and you’ll start to rank better in the search engines as a result.
This is something you can’t afford to overlook.
4. You’re Not Writing for the Web
Writing for the web takes a different style of writing than any other medium. First of all, your writing must be scannable and easy to digest.
Sure, you can cover complex topics if that’s what your audience demands, but make sure you present it in a format that works for the web and reading on a screen.
This means you’ll want to include things like, bullet points, use of bold and italic for emphasis, and the use of headings and subheadings to break up your content.
5. Um…You Forgot About Mobile
Is your site optimized for the mobile web?
The way that people read online is continuing to expand over to mobile devices. In the future we may find ourselves using nothing more than insanely powerful mobile devices.
In order to get the most out of your traffic, and please your users, you need to be ready to handle the mobile revolution. Your site must be easy to read and access no matter the screen size it’s viewed upon.
If you’re interested in a content strategy that helps your blog stand out, or a redesign of your current site to get the most out of your online efforts, then reach out to our creative team today.
