Last Updated on November 18, 2019 by Ryan Hamner
It seems everyone is blogging these days, or are they? Heck, I’m doing it right now, but is blogging dead? Is it still something your company should be doing?
In this, you guessed it, blog, we’ll give you six ways to revive your company blog—techniques that can improve your blogging game and build massive traffic.
Is Blogging Dead? 7 Ways to Breathe Life into Your Company’s Blog
So is blogging dead?
First, you need to consider how a “blog” or “blogging” is defined.
For many, a blog is thought of as just a whole bunch of text thrown onto a page—just lots of words. Wow, that can get boring—and it does.
You know, blogs with these super long paragraphs that give you a headache if you pull one up on your mobile device (or any device for that matter)—some of these blogs can be like trying to read encyclopedias. Who wants to do that?
Well, that’s kind of how a lot of the older styles of blogging were—big walls of text. Bam, in your face. Very few pictures, not engaging, ugh. That reminds me.
There, I just added a picture of a cute puppy to help with user engagement. I hope you liked it.
So anyway, is blogging dead? No, not at all. But, has blogging changed? It has.
Things Change…
Let’s look at a few other things that have also changed over the years.
- Myspace out, Facebook in!
- Barnes and Noble, eh, okay, but Amazon can get you pancake mix, dinosaur socks, and your favorite book to your door overnight!
- Napster out, Spotify, and Pandora are everyone’s new jam!
- Step aerobics, “like so 80s,” Crossfit and beards, everywhere!
- Wordy text blogs out, engaging multimedia blogs in!
Blogging is very much still a part of the digital landscape. It’s always a handy tool for driving traffic. However, the rules for how companies should be producing their blogs have changed. Yes, the word is “producing” as blogs today are not just about words, as you will see in a few minutes.
And, for those who are asking is blogging dead, take a look at these stats from databox.
- Google gets over 75,000 searches per second.
- The first five organic search results receive 67% of clicks in a search. Many of these organic search results are blogs.
- 50% of search engine searches are four words or more (blog titles are always longer than four words).
Now, let’s take a look at six things your company needs to do to get more traffic to its blog.
1. Laser Focus on the Right Audience
Laser focus on the right audience?
To some, this may sound like a no-brainer. Though, it might be a little more than what many think.
For example, if a business owner has an online store that sells vintage vinyl records, but they write a blog on the “best selling music of the 80s,” and talk about cassette tapes, there’s a problem.
That’s because this is not in line with the company’s ideal customer—people interested in vintage vinyl records.
Although the topic, if written correctly, might generate traffic, it’s not laser-focused on the company’s ideal customer. And, it probably won’t produce as much business as a topic such as, “best selling vinyl records of the 70s.”
Also, who buys cassette tapes anyway?
2. Don’t Write in Vain
Blogging is dead for your company if you don’t write using the right topics and keyword phrases—that get search volume.
For example, if your site consists of blogs using keywords and keyword phrases that get zero to no searches—keyword phrases that you think might be the perfect keywords for a blog, but actually, aren’t. This one thing can kill your blog.
Also, don’t write for keyword phrases that your company can’t compete with. We discuss this in our article on how to write a business blog—another piece you might want to read if you want to learn more about the importance of blog structure, how to redirect poor-performing blogs, blog promotion, etc.
3. Use SEO Professionals for Your Content
This one can be tricky and frustrating for many companies.
Clients often say, “We’ve hired bloggers in the past. It didn’t work. The blogs didn’t help us get any traffic or business.”
As a website development and SEO agency, anytime we hear this, we go directly to the blogs and take a look. And we also ask lots of questions, too.
Almost always, there is a good reason a company’s blogs aren’t generating traffic and business. Usually, it boils down to plain out bad on-page SEO, and poorly written/designed blogs.
The blogs are dead usually because they:
- Use horrible grammar
- Are very short
- Don’t engage
- Don’t provide useful information
- Are not optimized
- Have a bad link structure
- Don’t align with the core of the business
- Only utilize text
- Etc!
4. Is Blogging Dead? Not if You’re Engaging
This blog has discussed engaging readers with blog content a couple of times now. So let’s dive a little deeper into this topic.
Engaging content is excellent for the end-user and also for a blog’s SEO. That’s because Google awards blogs where the user stays on the page and doesn’t hit the back button.
The way Google sees it is basically like this, “That user was on that blog a while. It must have been an informative blog. They must have gotten the answers they needed. Let’s give this blog a point.”
So, the next part is making the blog engaging. How is this done?
It’s done by incorporating pictures, infographics, and videos into a blog. And outside of these things, in terms of text, blogs should be written with short paragraphs and easy to read sentences—text that is broken up on the page.
This type of blogging is no longer like reading an encyclopedia. It’s way more user-friendly on mobile devices.
5. Reference Reliable Sources
Ideally, you want your company to be a trusted source for its industry.
When a company is trusted, potential customers will go to its blog regularly to get their questions answered and get new information. They may want to see what your company thinks about specific topics. Building this rapport is a great way to create a connection with potential future customers.
To establish your company and your blogs as a trusted source, it’s often a good idea to reference reliable sources. Sometimes this is as simple as referencing stats from a website, that is not a competitor, of course.
Other times, your company can put informative data into shareable infographics branded with your company info. These can often be shared through social channels boosting your company’s visibility and building social signals. These are all great things for SEO.
6. Promote Your Company’s New Blog
Once your company’s new blog is created and published, no matter how well it is optimized, promote it.
Publish the link to the blog through social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and others.
Also, be sure and send the blog out to those on your company’s email list.
Remember, blogs with useful and valuable information can grow legs and spread from one reader to another.
If your company wants to take things a step further, a simple Facebook “boost,” or Twitter promotion can also bring in targeted traffic.
7. Build that List
Let’s take number six a step further.
Remember that part about the email list? Well, you want to grow your company’s email list, if you’re not already. There are all sorts of tools and ways of doing this. There’s the popular and free version of Mailchimp, Aweber, and of course, Constant Contact to help you. These programs can help you build, manage, and keep in touch with subscribers almost effortlessly.
Basically, the process of acquiring email subscribers might look something like this.
The end-user arrives at one of your pages or mind-blowing blog posts. From there, you can simply have a widget or invite placed on your page encouraging a reader to join your email list. But, something more effective is to offer a visitor some sort of a freebie. I don’t know, maybe do something with a burrito?
Other than sending specials on Mexcian food, your company could also offer to send subscribers a report entitled, “5 Things Your Business is Doing that is Killing Your ___!”
Email marketing is a science in and of itself. So we won’t dive too deep into that in this blog, but just know there are many techniques to getting that response you need.
With a properly designed strategy, you can stay at the forefront of your subscriber’s minds by sharing newly published blogs, whitepapers, YouTube videos, etc.
Is Blogging Dead? – A Recap
In this blog, we answered the question, “Is blogging dead?”
We showed that it’s not dead and is very much alive. Blogging is needed for any company looking to build traffic to its website. Think back to some of the databox stats quoted earlier, and you should understand why an adequately executed blogging strategy, which should incorporate building an email list, can help your business.
Nevertheless, while blogging isn’t dead, the strategies and methods for successful blogging have changed quite a bit over the years—old blogging methods don’t work. And, big blocky text, short-form blogs, and poorly written blogs can be detrimental to overall blog performance for any company.
Laser focusing on the ideal customer, though, through the use of optimal keyword phrases that get search volume is critical for getting a blog to rank and get visitors. Companies should be sure that any keywords written on are keywords they have a chance at ranking for. In other words, take a look at the competition—can your company compete?
A key takeaway from this blog is a company’s blog should be engaging by utilizing easy-to-read text, including infographics, pictures, and incorporating video.
As a reminder, always have SEO professionals write your company blogs. Companies need to publish blogs that are written and designed the correct way—according to SEO best practices.
If your company’s blog seems to be dead, we should connect—we want to learn about what you do and help you create an online strategy that builds visibility and gets you more business.
Contact our professional SEO agency for a short chat. You might also want to check out our free SEO audit tool—it’s effortless and easy to use.
