Why No One Cares About Your Blog and What You Can Do About It

Creating a company blog is a great way to embark on your content marketing strategy. A company blog is a good place to start a dialogue with your audience, establish your company as an industry leader, build a brand and company voice, grow your online brand presence in the search engines and more.

Let’s say you launched your blog; announced it with a press release, scheduled three months of posts, optimized the headlines so they would rank well in the search engines, promoted them on all your social networks and more. You should have a loyal band of happy readers in no time, right? Not necessarily.

Here are 3 reasons your blog is failing and what you can do to make it right:

1. It’s all promotional fluff

Yes, it is your company blog, so of course you are allowed to use it for a little self-promotion—once in a while. Great content marketing plans are all about educating the consumer, not selling a product. Why would anyone want to read a dozen posts that are thinly veiled advertisements? Your blog posts need to inform and educate the reader about your industry and related issues. Once you’ve convinced your readers that you’re not just in it for you, you can start slipping in a promotional blog post every now and again.

2. It’s old news

Your blog has to be up to speed with the times. You can’t be writing about the ways things used to be done (unless it’s a post comparing then and now), you have to center your blog on what is happening right now. What trends are big? What is coming around the corner? If you want your blog to gain loyal readers, they need to know that you are the best place to go for breaking news and information.

In the same vein, if there is a hot topic in your industry right now, don’t write a post and schedule it for three months down the road. Get in the conversation while it is still relevant. Playing catch-up doesn’t do anything for you or your readers. Take a unique spin on the issue and go live with it that day. Get your opinion out there while it matters. If you can’t stay ahead of the curve, at least keep pace with the pack.

3. It’s not resonating with your audience

You have to be really honest with yourself about who your readers are. Is it potential clients? Other industry professionals? A blog about baking could (theoretically) appeal to professional bakers, amateur bakers, bakery owners, culinary students, foodies, chocolate lovers, people with special diets, caterers, food writers and photographers, food critics and so forth. It is up to you to decide who your audience is and what kind of information they would want to read. If your company sells commercial bakery equipment, who is your blog really going after—the stay-at-home mom who likes to bake or the restaurateur who owns a dessert cafe? Your blog posts have to mesh with the needs and expectations of your audience; give the people what they want! If you aren’t sure where to start, check out some of your competitor’s blogs. What topics and issues do they focus on?

You also have to remember that you need to give your blog time to gain a following. It isn’t going to happen overnight. While your blog is maturing, take the time to develop relationships with other industry bloggers, build your online network so they can help promote your posts and develop some great content.

About the Author: Nick Stamoulis is the President and Founder of Brick Marketing, a Boston SEO services firm. With over 12 years of experience, Nick Stamoulis shares his industry knowledge by posting daily SEO tips to his blog, the Search Engine Optimization Journal.