Blogging Mistakes That Nearly Every Small Business Makes
Everyone tells you that, as a small business owner, you need to blog. But, you have zero time to blog because you’re too busy doing literally everything else.
So, when you do dedicate some of your scarce time or resources, you expect to get something back. Too many small business owners don’t see any sort of payoff from their blog and begin to start to see it as a time-suck with no ROI.
You should see sales leads, social traction or search engine wins. If you’re not seeing any of those, odds are good you’ve made one of 3 common mistakes that small businesses make in their blogs every day.
1. Not Taking Hosting Seriously
When building a blog, most small business owners pick their hosting company by:
- Going with a colleague’s recommendation
- Leaving it up to whoever is building the site
- Picking the cheapest possible host
If you choose option 1 or 2, odds are good you’re going to get quality hosting for a good price. But, if you choose option 3, you should know that cheap hosting could kill your blog before you even publish your first post. If you’re currently shopping for a host, you should read this to find the right hosting provider for your website and blog.
Cheap hosting leads to bad load speeds. And those slow speeds will kill your blog’s traffic. Data shows that over half of your visitors will leave your website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.
2. Not Having a Keyword Plan
A lot of companies will blog because they know it’s important, without truly knowing why it’s important.
In most cases, you’re blogging for SEO reasons and to climb Google’s rankings. Some businesses blog for thought leadership, but most do it for SEO.
SEO results don’t come from blogging. They come from blogging the right way. You need a full keyword plan and then you need to optimize those keywords in your titles, headings, actual blog, and meta description
You can plan your keywords for months in advance relatively inexpensively using Google Keyword Planner, SEMRush or ahrefs.
3. Not Having a Mobile-Friendly Blog
Be mindful of how your blog looks on a mobile device. You need a mobile-friendly blog for two main reasons:
- SEO: Google has announced that mobile-first indexing is now the norm
- For your user’s experience
Your site may be responsive and display on a mobile device. But, take an honest look at how it looks on your mobile phone. Do you have difficulty clicking around without pinching or zooming? Are the bottoms too close together and do you have trouble hitting the right one? Is there a cumbersome ad overlay that is difficult to close? All of these things could cause your mobile user to bounce in seconds.
If you’re making any of these mistakes, you’re not alone. Too many small businesses go with a bad hosting company, blog without a keyword plan, and ignore their mobile site. That’s actually good news for you.
If you fix these mistakes you can almost immediately stand above them!