It’s no secret that content marketing is key to a successful blog. In fact, Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about three times as many leads. Without content, you can’t expand your brand’s visibility. For instance, you’ll be nearly unsearchable on search engines like Google.
On the other hand, what if your blog writing isn’t generating any interest? What are some possible reasons why you’re not receiving the views you had hoped for? In today’s post, we’ll take a look at five possible reasons why nobody is reading your blog and how you can address them!
1. You Only Write About Yourself
When you first start blogging, it’s easy to use it as an online journal. Or a place to store random thoughts you have throughout your day. You might believe it’ll make readers feel like they know you better, but in reality, it turns your readers away. For the most part, people are focused on their own interests and information you can provide through your blog posts.
While it helps to showcase your personality and differentiate your blogging efforts, it’s not the only way to generate engagement.
The best way to boost popularity is to focus on your readers needs by providing value in what you write.
Before publishing any post on your blog, ask yourself what the purpose for this piece of content is. Moreover, what type of value will the reader gain from browsing your article. Most importantly, what kind of reader are your trying to appeal to? As in who is your target audience or buyer persona? If you can’t answer these questions, you’ll want to re-write your article, with the above in mind before publishing it.
2. Your Content Simply Isn’t Good Enough
If your articles already are focused on your readers, then perhaps it’s time to consider the quality of your content. It’s essential to put time and effort into your blog so that it’s unique. Furthermore, ensuring that it doesn’t repeat the same information of what else is already available on the internet. For instance, if you’re writing on a well-known topic, add your own spin, context and opinion. Or provide the ultimate downloadable resource to ensure it’s a high-quality post.
Remember, you want people to read your posts so they can get the most value out of them! If your content is just not good enough. Either in terms of grammar or topic relevance. Then readers will be turned off from reading any further. This means fewer people will read what you have to say and provides less opportunity for future interactions with you.
To make sure that quality content is being produced, you’ll want to consider the following tips:
- Read through your content before posting it. If any mistakes in grammar or formatting are present, fix them before publishing anything else on your blog.
- If you can’t keep up with posting every day, transition to weekly or bi-weekly publishing. Don’t force yourself to pump out quantity low-quality content. One high-quality piece is worth more than ten poorly written articles.
- Consider investing in learning new writing skills either through an online course or through your local university. Keep in mind the different types of copy writing. For example, SEO copy is a worthwhile skill to help you generate organic readers.
- Hire a Freelancer to write your content for you. There’s plenty of talented writers available from websites such as Fiverr and Upwork to help with content writing.
3. You’re Not Focusing On SEO
If you’re not focusing on SEO (search engine optimisation), your blog posts won’t be found by readers who need them. Utilising paid advertising or social media marketing can help increase the short-term traffic to your website. However, it won’t help with your long-term growth strategy or search engine visibility.
It’s important to optimise your content for search engines. Therefore, you can rank higher on the search engines and be discovered by more potential blog readers. There are many ways you can do this.
Ways to optimise your blog articles:
- Including keywords in your titles, subheadings, and throughout your text so that search engines can find and show your post. Specifically, if someone is searching “how to bake cake,” a title such as “The 5 Easiest Ways To Bake A Cake” will rank higher. In comparison to a title like “My Journey With Baking Nightmares Turning Them Into A Win.”
- Use tools to help improve your contents SEO, such as the Yoast SEO tool. This will help you rank on keywords and make sure you’re optimising your post before publishing to your blog.
- Include internal and external linking. This means you should consider not linking to other credible sources as well as your own webpages or articles. This may include directing your readers to buy a product or read another related post.
- Separate your content with proper tags, including H1, H2, and H3. If your content reads like one long paragraph, it’s not going to be well-liked by search engines or readers.
4. You Don’t Have A Regular Editorial Calendar
Content marketing is all about having a strategy. Which means that you need to plan out what you’re looking to achieve through your content. If you’re not posting consistently, it makes it easy for readers to forget about your blog. And easier for Google to think you’re not highly relevant.
What most writers and small businesses discover is that their creativity and productivity ebbs and flows. For instance, one week they may find themselves publishing two or three pieces of content with ease. But then feel completely burnt out the week after. If this sounds like you, it might be time to rethink how you plan out your content. Here’s are a few easy steps to fix this issue.
How to manage blog content planning:
1. Brainstorm Topics
First, you’ll want to come up with content topics. To do this, take a look at what your competitors are doing. Additionally, invest in keyword research. Moreover, look at your top trending blogs to figure out what your readers find interesting. This will be a good hint on where you could focus on even more.
2. Batch Create Your Content
Once you have topics picked out, it’s time to start writing. Use your creative periods or bursts of energy to write as many articles as you can at one time. Do this according to your schedule and what works best for you. Alternatively, you could set aside one full day dedicated to smashing out as many articles as you can. Remember to work with your energy instead of against.
3. Schedule Your Content
Next, make sure to have an editorial calendar that has all your content scheduled in advance. This will help you be timely, consistent and targeted with your blogging schedule. For example, maybe you create a batch of six articles and schedule them to be published twice a week. This helps to create consistency in your posting. Also gives you three weeks to develop more content for your blog instead of feeling pressured into posting every day.
5. You’re Not Promoting Your Content Effectively
Writing and publishing is only half of the job complete; you still need to distribute your content and promote it. Even if you have the most exciting content in the world, if you don’t share it, no one will see it. Unfortunately blogging is not a build/write it and they will come type of exchange. Therefore, your content marketing shouldn’t end once you hit “publish” on your site. Instead, it would be best to focus on finding ways to distribute your content to your readers. This might include posting the article on your social media accounts, emailing it to your newsletter subscribers. Even personally sharing it with relevant industry influencers who may want to share it on their social media.
Remember, you are your own blog’s biggest advocate. Thankfully, you don’t have to put in a lot of work in order to see a significant result. In fact, 81% of marketers realise an increase in traffic with a minimum of 6 hours per week invested in social media marketing.
Create The Growth You’re Looking for In Your Blog Today
There’s a reason why 73% of organisations have someone in place to oversee their content strategy. As it takes a ton of work. However, every business owner can benefit from creating a solid content marketing plan. By making a commitment to post high-quality content, you’ll find the growth, viewership, and ROI you need from your blog.
Are you keen to go more in depth with content marketing, blogging and social media? Then it might be time to check out the Diploma in Digital Marketing. Which includes 10-week terms dedicated to subjects such as Content Marketing, Social Media, Websites & E-Commerce plus more! However, if you’re only seeking more on social media strategy then the Social Media Marketing Strategy course could be you. You’ll learn how to develop and grow social media marketing strategies that work in a short 7-week course. Click here to find out more about our social media marketing course.
