5 Reasons You Should Not Write a Blog
As a small business owner, you’ve heard all about the benefits of having a blog for search engine optimization (SEO) and getting noticed online. But just because everyone else has a blog doesn’t necessarily mean you should write one too. Here are…
The Top 5 Reasons You Should Not Write a Blog.
1. You are a horrible writer.
If you are a terrible writer and hate to write, please do not write a blog. Not only will you provide a bad impression, but most people will not even read your entries because they are so badly written.
2. You have nothing to say.
What are you going to write about? You need to offer your audience valuable insights, tips and information. If you can’t think of anything to write about, your blog will turn into a weekly nightmare of staring at a blank page.
3. You can’t provide new entries each week.
Blogs are a part of social media so that means you need to be social and interact with your audience on a regular basis. If you are unable to post a blog entry at least once a week, and respond to reader comments when they are posted, you and your business will appear outdated and that you don’t care.
If you can’t post regularly, it’s better not to post at all.
4. Your customers don’t read blogs.
Hold on! Before you start writing, have you checked your audience demographics? Do your customers read blogs on a regular basis?
Some traditional companies will not do well with blogs simply because their audience members are not online. Know your customers. If you’re not sure whether or not a blog will work, conduct a test. Write a few blogs and see if anyone comments on them or clicks on the links you provide within the blog entries. If no one responds or reads your blogs, it’s best to find another medium your audience will react to more favorably.
5. You don’t have an action plan.
What are you trying to accomplish? If you are just writing to write, you are wasting time and effort. Create goals for your blog entries and ways to measure the results. This way, you’ll see what’s working and what isn’t to provide the best content possible in the most cost-effective way possible.
Blogs aren’t for everyone.
Blogs are a great way to interact with your customers and get noticed by the search engines. But if you are a bad writer, can’t provide value and don’t have end goals, your blog may end up wasting you time, money and effort.
Study your audience and figure out what they want and how they like to receive information. Then, set goals based on this information and your overall, marketing plan. At this point, it may be wise to hire an SEO copywriter to write and manage your blog process for you so that you can focus on your core, business responsibilities.
By approaching your blog process in the right way, you can provide value to your audience, increase SEO and improve sales and customer relations.
For more help with your SEO copywriting and blog writing, please write to me below or at www.rembrandtwrites.com.
April 25th, 2012 at 3:37 pm
Melanie,
Good points. I’d add…Your customers don’t care about your blog. Sound horrible but really, many of us just aren’t that interested in reading blogs authored by our insurance agent, realtor or business banker.
And in reality, there are plenty of places to guest blog if you’re only going to do it occasionally.
Paul,
Boss Rocket
Daily Deals for Small Business
April 26th, 2012 at 7:45 pm
Paul, you got a smile out of me. And your input is insightful; I had not though about using guest blogging as an alternative to self blog.
April 27th, 2012 at 12:14 am
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April 27th, 2012 at 11:41 am
Good article and great points to consider. Just because you CAN blog doesn’t mean you should, basically. I’ve been trying to read as many new blogs as possible lately and it’s similar to watching the first episodes of American Idol … some good, some bad, and some so terrible they make you laugh. I’m working on collection of the worst blogs I come across and will share when I have enough.
The best advice is to hire someone if you want your OWN blog and as Paul said to guest blog if you really want to add your own voice but lack the discipline to have your own full fledged blog.
April 27th, 2012 at 11:45 am
Paul and Mark,
You are so right. I think the key is to think about it before you blog. What are you trying to accomplish with your blog and are you being realistic about how much time and effort you can put into it?
Thanks for your comments!
Melanie, rembrandtwrites.com
April 27th, 2012 at 4:25 pm
The question is, if you do start a blog when and what are the factors that indicate that you should quit? A lot of people say that it takes quite awhile to grow your blog and retain an audience, when should you know it will take off or die?
April 27th, 2012 at 4:32 pm
Hi Ben,
Good point. Before you start your blog, you should know what you are trying to accomplish and when and have processes in place to track how you are doing along the way. By looking at your audience demographics early, you should have a good idea of what your target market wants and how they react to new content you place online.
If you see that people are not clicking on the links in your blog or you are not getting the results you want within a couple of months, it’s definitely time to make changes, review your goals and even check with an SEO expert. After all, you don’t want to waste time and money on efforts that do not provide results. It all comes down to having a plan and tracking actions along the way.
Hope this helps.
Thanks,
Melanie, rembrandtwrites.com
April 28th, 2012 at 10:32 am
[...] By the way, I just found a great article on when NOT to blog if you’re promoting your business online. You can find it here. [...]
April 29th, 2012 at 5:34 am
A great check-list of reasons business owners shouldn’t write a blog. Blogs are so easy to set up now that several business people I know have tried to start one, with mixed success.
In my experience they are usually okay writers (no better or worse than a lot of what’s on the web), they do have something to say, and if their potential customers find the information they do seem to read it.
In most cases the problems come with points number 5 and 3. They don’t have an action plan and, apart from putting some information on-line to try to increase business, they don’t have clear goals. Also, they can seldom provide new entries at least once a week, so their blogs start to look sad and neglected, which hits their business credibility.
One way around this is to put together a number of posts on helpful topics, not include dates with the posts and present it as a useful customer resource. Then if they ever get around to posting some further information, so much the better.
April 29th, 2012 at 6:19 am
I agree with blogs not being for everybody I would suggest that content is still important though. Due to recent algorithm changes on Google it is now possible to improve your website ranking by writing guest posts. You can also improve your brand awareness and share useful information with potential customers.
Good PR has been important for as long as businesses have been around and writing content is free PR and content for other peoples blog are valuable for them.
So as you say blogs are not for everybody but in most industries providing content for blogs is.
May 1st, 2012 at 11:01 am
Thanks Melanie, it seems like there is so much information you can get caught up in online, the only true measure is actual results though.
May 1st, 2012 at 4:11 pm
Thanks for your great comments Keiran, Martin and Ben. There is so much hype about writing blogs that it’s important to take a moment and think about the process and goals involved. I’m glad you found this entry helpful and appreciate your insights.
Melanie, rembrandtwrites.com
May 2nd, 2012 at 7:46 pm
As Paul mentioned, guest blogging is a great alternative, there’s no pressure, no cost unless you want to hire a writer and you can post sporadically on all kinds of topics.
May 3rd, 2012 at 9:50 am
Great article. I work for a printing company that has an online presence, and part of my job is to promote, promote, promote the website. I come from a political background doing campaign communications, and I could get the message out like you would not believe for that — but I can’t even begin to tell you how hard it is to get people interested in what we’re doing. I thought about a blog, but I realized very quickly that no one was going to go out of their way to read what I wrote — so I’ve been guest blogging for a couple different blogs, and it IS working — we’ve had some hits off of the blog posts, but so far, very little response in terms of purchase. That’s ok, one step at a time if necessary, I suppose. Thanks for the tip.
May 3rd, 2012 at 1:30 pm
I have a lot to say on my new blog and I love writing it — my greatest challenge is navigating around learning what I should be doing (tweeting, FB, etc.) I’m running behind the train and don’t really know how to connect to the community that fits. Any suggestions? thanks, molly
May 3rd, 2012 at 4:56 pm
Hi Molly,
Do you have access to your Google Analytics statistics? This way, you can find out what your audience is clicking on most and what content they find most valuable.
Before getting involved with Twitter and Facebook (and other social media), you want to make sure you have an action plan for your efforts and know the results you want to obtain.
Here’s an idea…Start by finding out what your target market wants and then figure out how to fulfill their needs. Monitor your activities regularly and go from there to see what’s working and what’s not. This way, you’ll save time and effort.
Hope this helps!
All the best,
Melanie, rembrandtwrites.com
May 10th, 2012 at 6:16 am
Sometimes we are so busy that we are not able to write new entries every week. It disappoints our reader so it is better not to give birth to the expectations of readers if we cannot maintain the blog.
May 21st, 2012 at 2:01 am
Blogging indeed needs time and effort if you want it to be income generating or if you want huge traffic from it. I agree that writing a blog is not for everyone but it is great for building links for SEO and even web 2.0.
June 30th, 2012 at 1:51 am
There’s certainly a great deal to know about this issue. I like all the points you made.
July 31st, 2012 at 12:13 pm
How to make real money online with your own website!?
August 8th, 2012 at 10:42 pm
Great points. I still enjoy blogging but found that if I have guest bloggers on my site it helps keep it interesting and attract new people to the blog.