Let’s face it—few things are worse than an outdated blog. If you go to somebody’s site and the last post was in 2013, you wonder if they’re still in business—don’t you?
So if you want to start a blog, this black hole must be avoided. You’ve gotta commit to the time it takes to write (daily, weekly, or monthly) posts, find images, upload and proofread. Time will vary by person, and if it takes forever, you might want to enlist some help.
If you’re going to invest the time to have a blog, why not supercharge it? To maximize your blog’s marketing-magnetism:
- Aim for your reader. A blog post should always be aimed at your reader, not yourself. You can absolutely give your opinions (you should!)—but you have to keep in mind what a blog post is: it is a bundle of words that can exist outside of your website and still give value. You want to teach your reader something new, reinforce information, or start a conversation. A blog post should not be used to say, Hey, look at me, I’m great!—(even though you are).
- Give it structure. You can blog to your heart’s content and put everything in one category, but it will help readers if you break up subjects into multiple categories. I like to talk about Web Design and Good Business Practices, among other things.
- Tag your posts. Tags are different than categories; they’re helpful because they create more linkage within your content, and support SEO. (If you’re writing about things you want to be found for, having tags with all those keywords can be helpful.) Remember, these tools aren’t there to be fancy—they have an important purpose!
- Let people subscribe. Since you’re great (like we established earlier!), your audience will get value from your posts. Make it easy for them to get more. (You can subscribe to my blog via by signing up below.)
Okay, the blog police aren’t going to track you down if you don’t do these things—but I might!
Ready to start (and keep) a blog? If you need help creating a marketing-smart home for your blog—let’s talk.
I hired someone to set up my WordPress Blog…and while I know how to write/edit via the wp-admin, that is my limit.. For example: my header seems way to big (necessitating scrolling down to see majority of info) and it was created via a theme called “Square”and uses the Warp framework, which doesn’t work like the WordPress’ child theme…that is easier (I am told) to edit. Do you skills include such edits as I need? THANKS
Hey Diane, yes, I can help. I’ll email you. Thanks! 🙂
Nice post Jill. I definitely agree that if I visit someones blog and they haven’t posted in a while then I start to wonder if they’re in business anymore.
Keep posting consistently, even if it’s just once a month. If you do decide you no longer want to run the blog then at least publish one final post informing visitors that their will be no future posts.