5 Top Reasons Business Blogs Fail And How You Can Succeed

In 2012 a HubSpot survey found that 57% of businesses which had a corporate blogs like SocialMotus had gained a customer because of their blogging activities. While that is an encouraging statistic, it implies that about two-fifths of businesses either have not gained a customer through their blog or don’t know if they have or not.

That suggests that two-fifths of business blogs are failing to attract the kinds of people who will convert into customers. That is the best case scenario. Worst case, they are failing to attract anyone at all.

So why are so many business blogs failing?

1. They don’t know what readers want.

People come to blogs for one of two reasons: to be educated or to be entertained. Business blogs, however, often report on corporate activities or try to sell the products or services they offer. These topics should be covered elsewhere on the website, like product pages, the ‘About Us’ section or the news and PR category.

The people who run business blogs can fix this by thinking about why people would come to their blog. They should have expertise in their sector: how can they use this expertise to educate others?

For example, a plumber can blog about how to fix a sink or other minor repairs. This would demonstrate his expertise whilst also giving readers a reason to return to his site. Then, when they face plumbing problems that are too big or inconvenient to fix on their own, they will think of his website.

They should also ask how the things they have at their disposal can be used to entertain others. The hypothetical plumber could build instruments out of extra plumbing equipment, posting time-lapse videos of the construction on the blog, as well as videos demonstrating the instruments’ sound. The point is to use products or services in a creative, unusual way, to give people a reason to waste their spare time on a site.

2. They don’t have a strong brand identity.

Many business blogs fear having a strong personality, lest they alienate any potential client. The problem with that approach, though, is that most people like to read articles or watch videos that feature someone with an interesting personality. It is more interesting to watch someone who is a bit larger than life than to watch someone who is perfectly middle of the road. The same can be said for blogs: people will click through more pages and stay on the site for longer if the content seems to come from a strong character.

The plumber could play up the gruffness of the working class stereotype, writing in a “straight-shooting, no-nonsense” style that is compelling and fun to read. He could also play against the stereotype, speaking eloquently and using flowery metaphors to describe his work. The personality could be pretty much anything, as long as it is not mediocre or small.

3. They don’t take a strong position.

Similarly, many business blogs refuse to have opinions in an effort to avoid controversy. But in the same way that people won’t pay attention to a perfectly ordinary person, they also will be bored and turned off by a blog that never takes a stance on issues that matter to their industry.

Our plumber friend will not want to post a blog about, say, healthcare reform, just for the sake of having an opinion. That would be off-topic, out of his area of expertise, and weird. He might, however, like to espouse one brand of piping over another. He might claim that a new product is a waste of time or is completely essential. He might even want to get a little political – criticizing or supporting some legislation relating to waterworks or small businesses.

Of course, taking a stance on any issue invites disagreement, but so long as the plumber is respectful of others’ opinions and – crucially – is quick to admit when he has made a mistake or was wrong, it shouldn’t affect his bottom line negatively.

4. They don’t have a plan of action.

Blogs need to attract and maintain an audience to be effective. They are in essence a microcosm of the publishing industry in that way. And like the publishing industry, they have to have a plan for building an audience and a plan for getting the audience to do what they want. For magazines, this means buying shelf space in corner shops and bookstores, paying distribution companies to get the magazines to the shops and encouraging readers to buy the products advertised in the magazine

For blogs, this means reaching out to the network of bloggers that exists in their niche, engaging the audience that their blog already has and testing which kinds of posts generate the best result. The plumber would need to contact other DIY and plumbing bloggers, seeking to get mentions on their sites to draw in parts of their audience (and to return the favour in kind). He would need to respond quickly to the comments his blog posts generated to keep regular readers and commenters feeling like he hears them. He would also need to use his website analytics package to see which posts led to more people engaging his services, so he could produce more posts of that kind.

5. They aren’t committed to it.

The HubSpot survey mentioned above found that not only are blogs effective at generating sales or leads, but they also become more effective the more they are updated. Of the businesses that blogged less than monthly, 43% gained leads from their blog. By comparison, 92% of those that blogged more than daily gained leads from their blog.

The plumber should have a plan to write or post videos several times a day, across several topics. A couple of times a week, he could post long, thoughtful opinion pieces or instructional videos. Those videos could be supplemented by quick reviews of products, reports from plumbing conferences,quick anecdotes and photos of the job he was on, updates from the company, or even posts that show what he had for a tea break. So long as he has a plan for regular substantial posts and how to fill in the gaps in between those posts, he should be able to hit a target of three or four posts a day.

Those five items are the main reason business blogs fail. The hardest part of running a successful business blog is not focusing on selling products or navel-gazing about the business. Instead, the people who run the business blog need to think very critically about who the blog should talk to, what those people want from it and how they want it to be said.

Once that has been determined, attracting and maintaining an audience that generates leads should be somewhat straightforward, and that will take any blog from the two-fifths that aren’t working and put it alongside the 57% that contribute directly to the business’s bottom line.

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