Our first effort at building a company blog was a very familiar story. It sort of resembled most elementary school kids running the mile on track and field day: the first lap was full of energy and excitement, but right about the time we should have been catching our stride, the excitement and energy fell victim to client priorities and the finish line was nowhere in sight.
As most distance runners will tell you, “you can’t win the race in the first lap, but you sure can lose it.”
Sound familiar?
To avoid the common pitfalls that can quickly derail a blog, here are five tips we learned firsthand to building, and perhaps more importantly, maintaining a successful blog.
Have a Plan & Execute It
This seems obvious, but one of the top reasons blogs fail is because there is no plan in place, or the one that is in place is not executed. Take the time to sit with a team and walk through the various assignments involved with a successful blog including relevant content, frequency, SEO, distribution, etc. And here’s the most important part, once you have the plan, stick to it.
Divide & Conquer
A sustainable blog will require multiple team members. Task staff so that one person is not left creating the editorial menu, tracking down the blog from the writer, proofreading and posting. Keeping multiple people involved is good time management and will help maintain the energy and excitement.
SEO
The importance of creating content that is relevant to your business, and can be found by search engines, should be a high priority. This, however, is an often overlooked piece of the equation. Take time throughout the editing process to make sure your blog body copy and page tags are optimized and can be found by those searching for subject matter experts.
Have a Backup Plan
All content is not equal and creating relevant, compelling content for your audience is a must. Maintaining a high level of content is one of the biggest challenges of a blog, and with busy schedules and client priorities, deadlines are not always met. Therefore, it is important to have a few posts “in the can” that can be used when the dog ate someone’s homework.
Images and Video
Use images and video to help tell your story. Not only will the visuals help reader retention, but they also play a huge role in gaining the attention of users on Facebook, Twitter and other vehicles you use to promote your blog. Humans process images hundreds of thousands of times faster than text so take the time to find the right image to help tell your story.
These tactics really helped us get back on task and eliminate many of the challenges associated with maintaining a regular blog. It also helped us maximize the exposure for our efforts. Do you have a success story and tips to share about resurrecting a blog gone bad? Share it here.
