Top 10 Mistakes Business Bloggers Make

Last month, I wrote an answer for a freelance journalist who put out a question on Profnet about the mistakes business bloggers make. Well, I haven't heard back from the guy, so I'm going to post it on my own. Because this stuff is GOLD! Well, maybe not... but Lord knows we don't have enough Top 10 lists in the world.

1) Editing or deleting negative comments: The greatest, No. 1 problem business bloggers have is understanding that negative comments will happen, and they should not be edited, deleted, or blocked. Spam comments should be deleted and blocked, of course. No one will take issue with this.

However, if someone has a legitimate gripe or difference of opinion, censoring this opinion is only going to hurt the blog. Think of it: Someone has taken the time to actually respond to something you’ve written. That’s someone asking to be engaged by you. The right way to handle this is to respond back. If they are complaining in a way that really requires customer service, steer them off line where you can deal with their problem directly. (Because you don’t want to do customer service in public.) But do not ignore this person simply because what they are saying isn’t a good advertisement for your company. Doing so may get them to leave negative comments on several other sites you won’t be able to delete.

2) Writing blog posts that are strictly ad copy: No one wants to read an advertisement. People will watch a commercial on TV if they’re waiting for their favorite show to come back on, but no one would ever tune into a cable station devoted to only showing advertisements and infomercials 24 hours a day. Similarly, no one would read a blog that only pitches the products and services of the authors. Instead, try to make your blog a resource to other people – give them information they might be looking for, rather than telling them how you have the answer to their question but want them to pay for it first. If you can become the place to go to for answers, you will be sought out by people wanting to buy your products or services directly.

3) Not commenting on other people’s blogs: If a blogger isn’t taking part on other people’s blogs, they are missing out on several opportunities. First, by commenting on someone else’s blog, you can make others aware of your own expertise, without even having to write an entire post of your own. Second, you find out what is of concern to other bloggers and blog readers. Third, through the use of trackbacks and links within your signature, you can give other readers the opportunity to find your own blog. If you are commenting on blogs with similar interests as your own, these readers would make good readers of your own blog as well.

4) Not posting regularly to one’s blog: A blog that only updates once every two weeks is at best an article site. Neither search engines nor readers – who might otherwise be interested in the topic you are writing about – will wait long for you to post again. If you cannot be bothered to think of more to say, readers won’t bother to keep checking.

If you cannot spare as little as 15 minutes every other day or so to post something - or anything - relating to your company or industry, you probably shouldn’t be blogging. There will definitely be dry spells, which most every blog has from time to time. However, if one only posts something every two months because they feel they have to, then the blog can be doing more harm than good.

5) Writing off-topic posts for the sake of drawing in traffic: A post about some star going to rehab may catch the eye of some readers, but if your blog is about your shutter installation business, you won’t keep them. Keep your topics interesting but related to your blog’s overall theme.

6) Only posting links to other people’s posts: Linking out to other blogs is a good thing, within reason. It shows that you are a member of the community, not just trying to box people into your blog. However, when you rely entirely on the writings of others, either to link to or to write synopses of, then all the people you link to are the experts – not you.

7) Being outrageous to gain readership: There’s a belief that if you start a fight on your blog, it will gain attention, and gain popularity. There are two problems with this. Even if your argument or position attracts a certain number of people, it will also alienate a number of others with differing opinions. These people can then go forth into the social media world and bleed poison into your brand perception, doing more damage than good. Secondly, it shows a lack of professionalism that will likely turn off new business leads.

8) Not knowing keywords relevant to your company: This relates to your second question about SEO and blogging. One of the simplest ways to maintain search rankings for a blog is to know what people are searching for. This isn’t some random figure, but a statement about what the zeitgeist is interested in.

A simple keyword list can be created using Google Adwords’ keyword tool, which will show you the topics people are searching for. If these terms are also related to your business or industry, you stand a good chance of becoming a resource by writing about them.

9) Not applying keywords relevant to your company: In order for these keywords to be of use to a post, the post obviously needs to be about that keyword. If that’s the case, you can then include the keyword liberally throughout the post.

For example, a post on the Off Madison Ave blog “Phoenix Business Blogs and writing to succeed” was written specifically to rank in search for the phrase, “Phoenix Business Blogs.” Therefore, the phrase was included in the blog title, the post’s URL, tags, and the text of the post itself. (It is important to remember that this only works if what you are writing about is directly related to these keyword phrases. Trying to write to the keyword phrase, “Phoenix Business Blogs” in a entry about how to train a Doberman will make your post sound like gibberish.)

10) Not establishing a voice: Writing style becomes very important to a blog, and it is dictated by what the audience of the blog should be. If one is too formal, it will turn off some readers. That could be good or bad, depending if they are the kind of readers one wants. After all, a B2B blog for investment professionals has no reason to refer to its readers as, “dude.” At the same time, a skateboard shop blog will want to write with a voice similar to the audience they want to attract. In short, one has to consider its audience before deciding at is the “right way” and the “wrong way” to sound in a blog post.

About the Author: Eric Reid

I am the Social Media Services Manager for Off Madison Ave. I've been with the company since 2006, when I was hired to do SEO, and link building in particular. When social networking sites started cropping up, at first I started using them to create backlinks - but they weren't the best for that, given all of the "nofollow" attributes. However, I did see the potential for all of the direct referral traffic they represent. Since then I've been actively pursuing both tactics for clients: Links that can help them for search, and social postings that get them involved in the conversation. It's about the coolest job you could ever get. ;)