6 Tips to Prevent Failure of a Business Blog
Whatever these goals are they need to be defined, written down and agreed by senior management within the business.
Poor Quality Content If quantity wins over quality you will have a clear recipe for failure since reader credibility depends on producing consistently high quality content.
Based on the defined objectives, a content framework and an editorial calendar should be prepared.
One idea is to think of an eBook on your niche as the end product.
Then build a table of contents and identify specific category and chapter of topics and sub-topics to be covered.
Failure To Publish Regularly This along with poor quality content is probably the single reason for failure.
This can be avoided through using the editorial calendar as a checklist for completing each topic and chapter in the ebook.
Frequency is less important than predictability.
Frequency may range from daily to 2 per month.
In my opinion around 1 post per week should be the minimum frequency to reduce the risk of failure for a business blog Unrealistic expectations If failure is to be avoided the business must recognise that Blogging is hard work and not a spare time activity.
Not everyone is a natural blog writer and community builder.
For most small businesses, the owner or a senior manager may take responsibility.
There is a real risk of failure should the nominated person not have time to write quality material and achieve consistent publishing target dates.
One solution to this might be to hire a freelance writer.
Elance is a good recruitment source - they list over 24,000 writers.
If you use Elance be sure to get testimonials and sample material plus talk to a few previous customers about key performance metrics such as quality and meeting deadlines.
In larger companies, beware if the CEO volunteers to be a lead author unless you have a writer to produce material that he can edit and approve.
The CEO can be the figurehead and material can be produced by a ghost writer or PR executive.
Again planning and budgeting are key to success.
A content plan should be accompanied by a resource plan and a budget.
If you do not allocate a budget to the blog it will almost certainly fail.
It needs be included in the marketing budget as a specific marketing activity.
No Feedback Mechanisms.
Many business blogs do not provide for comments - this is a recipe for disaster.
Are they afraid of what readers may say? or are they simply not prepared to allocate a resource for response handling? Comments are the life blood of blogs and they turn the blog from a traditional one way communication channel; to a mechanism for two way dialogue taking feedback on board - both positive and negative.
Negative feedback may be a valuable alert or early warning system Lack Of Regular Readers This will happen if the blog is not promoted.
This can be done in loads of ways, online and offline.
You should check out Jacob Morgan's 11 ways you can drive traffic to your blog, The key to maintaining a base of regular readers this is by writing material that is compelling and makes readers engage in a conversation with you and other fellow readers of the site.
Poor Quality Content If quantity wins over quality you will have a clear recipe for failure since reader credibility depends on producing consistently high quality content.
Based on the defined objectives, a content framework and an editorial calendar should be prepared.
One idea is to think of an eBook on your niche as the end product.
Then build a table of contents and identify specific category and chapter of topics and sub-topics to be covered.
Failure To Publish Regularly This along with poor quality content is probably the single reason for failure.
This can be avoided through using the editorial calendar as a checklist for completing each topic and chapter in the ebook.
Frequency is less important than predictability.
Frequency may range from daily to 2 per month.
In my opinion around 1 post per week should be the minimum frequency to reduce the risk of failure for a business blog Unrealistic expectations If failure is to be avoided the business must recognise that Blogging is hard work and not a spare time activity.
Not everyone is a natural blog writer and community builder.
For most small businesses, the owner or a senior manager may take responsibility.
There is a real risk of failure should the nominated person not have time to write quality material and achieve consistent publishing target dates.
One solution to this might be to hire a freelance writer.
Elance is a good recruitment source - they list over 24,000 writers.
If you use Elance be sure to get testimonials and sample material plus talk to a few previous customers about key performance metrics such as quality and meeting deadlines.
In larger companies, beware if the CEO volunteers to be a lead author unless you have a writer to produce material that he can edit and approve.
The CEO can be the figurehead and material can be produced by a ghost writer or PR executive.
Again planning and budgeting are key to success.
A content plan should be accompanied by a resource plan and a budget.
If you do not allocate a budget to the blog it will almost certainly fail.
It needs be included in the marketing budget as a specific marketing activity.
No Feedback Mechanisms.
Many business blogs do not provide for comments - this is a recipe for disaster.
Are they afraid of what readers may say? or are they simply not prepared to allocate a resource for response handling? Comments are the life blood of blogs and they turn the blog from a traditional one way communication channel; to a mechanism for two way dialogue taking feedback on board - both positive and negative.
Negative feedback may be a valuable alert or early warning system Lack Of Regular Readers This will happen if the blog is not promoted.
This can be done in loads of ways, online and offline.
You should check out Jacob Morgan's 11 ways you can drive traffic to your blog, The key to maintaining a base of regular readers this is by writing material that is compelling and makes readers engage in a conversation with you and other fellow readers of the site.
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