Sometimes, when I tell people that I blog for a living, they roll their eyes. "That's so easy," they say. "You get a paycheck for sitting on the internet all day and writing. A monkey could do your job!"
That's when I roll my eyes. See, people are quick to deem blogging as a no-brainer job. But when they actually sit down to write their first couple of posts, it hits them: This is way harder than I thought. Like any person starting a new job, they mess things up.
That's okay -- it happens to pretty much every new blogger. Luckily, it's pretty easy to avoid these roadblocks if you know they're coming.
So for all of you beginner bloggers out there who are looking to get up-to-speed quickly, keep on reading. Below are common mistakes most beginners make and some tips on how to avoid them.
What Is a Blog?
Simply put, a blog is a tool that can help develop an online presence, attract leads, and engage with an audience. It's often a series of editorial content centered around a central topic that demonstrates industry expertise -- for instance, a catering company might write blog posts like "The 11 Best Appetizers to Serve to a Crowd" or "Stress-Free Dinner Parties: Recipes that are Prepared Ahead of Time".
Blogs can help drive traffic to your website, convert that traffic into leads, establish authority in your industry, and ultimately grow your business. In fact, organizations are 13x more likely to see positive ROI by prioritizing blogging.
Blog Post Mistakes to Avoid
Most of a blog's traffic is driven organically -- in other words, consumers will search for something on a search engine and click on your blog if it matches their intended topic. However, there are a lot of organizations competing for your audience's attention, so it's important to avoid common blog mistakes to stand out.
Here are the most common blog post mistakes (and their solutions), according to HubSpot bloggers.
1. Create blog posts that serve your larger company goals.
Mistake: You think of ideas that only interest you.
As much as you might read and re-read your blog posts after you publish them, you're not the only reader, or the intended reader.
When you start blogging, ideas will come to you at random times -- in the shower, on a run, while on the phone with your mom. While the ideas may come at random moments, the ideas themselves should never be random. Just because it's a good idea in general -- or something that interests you personally -- doesn't mean it's a good idea for your company.
Solution: Align your blog posts with company growth goals.
The reason you're blogging is to solve problems for your audience and, ultimately, to grow your business. So, all of your blog post ideas should help serve those growth goals. They should have natural tie-ins to issues in your industry and address specific questions and concerns your prospects have.
2. Identify what resonates with your audience.
Mistake: You forget about your persona.
If you want your blog content to perform well (i.e. generate traffic, leads, and sales), it must resonate with your audience and compel them to take action. One of the biggest mistakes is assuming that your content will perform if you haven't actually considered your audience or the actions you want them to take.
Solution: Understand your persona's pains and solve for them.
By defining your buyer persona and the things that matter to them, you can bridge the gap with your content.
3. Write like you talk.
Mistake: Your writing is too stiff.
Writing a blog post is much different than writing a term paper. But when bloggers first start out, they usually only have experience with the latter. The problem? The style of writing from a term paper is not the style of writing people enjoy reading.
Let's be honest: Most of the people who see your post aren't going to read the whole thing. If you want to keep them interested, you have to compel them to keep reading by writing in a style that's effortless to read.
Solution: Try to write blogs that feel personable.
It's okay to be more conversational in your writing -- in fact, we encourage it. The more approachable your writing is, the more people will enjoy reading it. People want to feel like they're doing business with real people, not robots.
So loosen up your writing. Throw in contractions. Get rid of the jargon. Make a pun or two. That's how real people talk -- and that's what real people like to read.
4. Show your personality; don't tell it.
Mistake: You think people care about you as a writer.
It sounds harsh, but it's the truth: When people first start out blogging, they think that their audience will be inherently interested in their stories and their interests ... but that's not the case. It's no knock against them as a person -- it's just that when you're new, no one is interested in you and your experiences. People care way more about what you can teach them.
Solution: Infuse your personality without eclipsing the topic.
Even though people don't really care that it's you that's writing the post, you can infuse parts of your personality in your writing to make them feel more comfortable with you. How you do that is entirely up to you. Some people like to crack jokes, some like to make pop culture references, and others have a way with vivid descriptions.
To infuse personality into your own writing, try looking for ways to relate to your readers on the topic you're writing about -- then write in the first person as if you're hanging out with them and chatting about it. Make your tone personal, approachable, and engaging, just like you would in a face-to-face conversation.
5. Make your point again and again.
Mistake: You digress.
Although you are encouraged to let your own personality shine through in your writing, don't abuse the privilege. It's one thing to be yourself in the topic you're covering, but it's another thing to bring up too many personal experiences that bury the point you're trying to make.
Don't digress into these personal anecdotes and analogies too much -- your readers aren't sitting in front of you, which means you can't guarantee that you have their undivided attention. They can (and will) bounce from your article if they lose patience.
Solution: Repeatedly assert your argument.
To prevent your writing from losing its audience, restate your point in every section of the article. The best blog posts commit to an overarching message and then deliver it gradually, expressing it multiple times in small ways from beginning to end.
If you're writing about how much water a potted plant needs, for example, don't spend three paragraphs telling a story of how you came home to a dead fern after returning from a two-week vacation. This story offers real evidence of your point, but what is your point? Certain plants can't go without water for more than 14 days. That's one possible point, and it should be stated upfront.
6. Start with a very specific working title.
Mistake: Your topics are too broad.
When people start blogging, they generally want to write on really big topics like:
"How to Do Social Media Marketing"
"Business Best Practices"
"How to Make Money on the Internet"
Topics like these are far too broad. Because there are so many details and nuances in these topics, it's really hard to do a good job answering them. Plus, more specific topics tend to attract smaller, more targeted audiences, which tend to be higher quality and more likely to convert into leads and customers.
So, to get the most short-term and long-term benefits of blogging, you'll need to get way more specific.
Solution: Begin with a clear, concise idea.
Nailing really specific blog topics is crucial to knocking your first few posts out of the park. Let us help you brainstorm with our Blog Ideas Generator. This tool allows you to enter basic terms you know you want to cover, and then produces five sample blog titles that work for business blogs.
Keep in mind that a working title isn't final -- it's just a concrete angle you can use to keep your writing on track. Once you nail this stage of the ideation process, it's much easier to write your blog posts.
7. Specific posts should still tie into the bigger picture.
Mistake: You're don't tie a specific topic into your reader's broader struggle.
You already know how important it is to resonate with your buyer persona and understand their pain points. However, there's a reason why they're experiencing pain points and what is driving them to get it solved.
Solution: Understand the challenges and consequences they're facing.
You should be asking yourself:
What is at stake?
What do they gain by taking action?
What are they afraid of happening if they don't take action?
All of these things can manifest in the content that you write for your blog post. Doing so will signal to your reader that you understand what they're going through and you want to help.
For instance, let's say you're tackling a post like "first vs. third-party APIs." While the topic is dry and allows for little creativity, the big-picture value is huge: to help your readers decide whether they need to shell over the big bucks for an in-house API or whether they can save money and time by asking a third-party to develop their API. Essentially, "first vs. third party APIs" is a question that hits at computer security, efficiency, and budget constraints, all of which could have big consequences for your reader.
8. Use a specific post type, create an outline, and use headers.
Mistake: Your writing is a brain dump.
Sometimes when I get a great idea I'm excited about, it's really tempting to just sit down and let it flow out of me. But what I get is usually a sub-par blog post.
Why? The stream-of-consciousness style of writing isn't really a good style for blog posts. Most people are going to scan your blog posts, not read them, so it needs to be organized really well for that to happen.
Solution: Structure your blog with a template, outline, and section headers.
The first thing you should do is choose what type of blog post you're going to write. Is it a how-to post? A list-based post? A curated collection post? A SlideShare presentation? For help on this, download our free templates for creating five different types of blog posts. Once you have a template down, it'll be easier to write your outline.
Writing an outline makes a big difference. If you put in the time up front to organize your thoughts and create a logical flow in your post, the rest becomes easy -- you're basically just filling in the blanks.
Using headers is also critical for reader experience.
o write a blog post outline, first come up with a list of the top takeaways you want your readers to get from your post. Then, break up those takeaways into larger section headers. When you put in a section header every few paragraphs, your blog post becomes easier and more enjoyable to read. (And plus, header text with keywords is good for SEO.) When you finally get to writing, all you'll have to do is fill in those sections.
9. Give your audience something to walk away with.
Mistake: You're relying on the conceptual instead of the concrete.
One of the first things you’ll do in your blog research is look up how other publications are writing about a topic. However, if you notice, almost all the results on the first page of Google are writing about conceptual, vague ideas. How can your blog stick out? You can include actual, actionable steps to achieve success.
Solution: Include actionable steps to achieve success.
One of the biggest tenets of content creation is that it should be useful, and that means your audience should walk away with something.
This might come in the form of a "how-to" as you recommend they implement a particular strategy, or it might simply be a suggestion for a tool or tactic to make a process easier.
10. Use data and research to back up the claims you make in your posts.
Mistake: You don't use data as evidence.
Let's say I'm writing a blog post about why businesses should consider using Instagram for marketing. When I'm making that argument, which is more convincing?
"It seems like more people are using Instagram nowadays."
"Instagram’s user base is growing far faster than social network usage in general in the U.S. Instagram will grow 15.1% this year, compared to just 3.1% growth for the social network sector as a whole."
The second, of course. Arguments and claims are much more compelling when rooted in data and research. As marketers, we don’t just have to convince people to be on our side about an issue -- we need to convince them to take action. Data-driven content catches people's attention in a way that fluffy arguments do not.
Solution: Use data to support your arguments.
In any good story, you’ll offer a main argument, establish proof, and then end with a takeaway for the audience. You can use data in blog posts to introduce your main argument and show why it's relevant to your readers, or as proof of it throughout the body of the post.
