Here are 4 things that could end up killing your company blog

You can’t get at least one post published each week.
Blogs need fresh content in order to survive and help build your online brand. I’d rather one of my SEO clients not even bother with a blog if they can’t commit to at least one post a week, and it’s no secret that I am a big proponent of business blogging. New blog posts not only tell the search engines that they need to come back and re-crawl your site, they also help keep your brand involved in the online lives of your target audience. One haphazard blog post every now and again isn’t going to help build a loyal readership.

You’re relying too heavily on guest posts.
This is still your company’s business blog; shouldn’t you be the main voice your readers are hearing from? Guest posts are a great way to supplement your own writing, not replace it entirely! Even if you are closely monitoring what kind of content is going live on your blog, if you are just serving as the curator and not the actual expert responsible for producing great content, you are missing out on some of the long-term value of business blogging.

You’ve thrown SEO out of the window.
Even great blog posts need a little help in getting found and read by searchers. While you don’t have to optimize every word of every blog post, incorporating elements of SEO into your company blog and new blog posts is going to go a long way in helping them rank well.

All that matters is monetization.
If you’re a professional blogger or just writing a personal blog for fun, there is nothing wrong with trying to monetize your blog. However, a business blog should not be slathered with ads. Every one of those ads acts as an exit point from your blog (and your brand) into the great unknown of the Internet. Your blog should focus on keeping your readers engaged for as long as possible, and eventually pushing them over to your company website. Is potentially losing a customer to an ad worth the few bucks that click will get you?

An easy to solution to your content marketing woes is content recycling.

Content recycling (or repackaging) is when you take a piece of content, say a new product page on your website, and repurpose it to fit different platforms. Unlike article spinning, you are not taking the same piece of content and submitting it to dozens of places without changing anything other than a few keywords. Content recycling involves rewriting/reformatting the content so it is unique, but holds onto the same key points and message as the original piece of content.

Here are a few ways you can recycle your old content:

Turn “Top Ten Ways to X” posts into 10 unique posts.
Each of those bullet points can probably be expanded upon in a post of their own. A strong business blog needs to be consistently updated with fresh content to keep both the search engines and your readers interested. You could be sitting on dozens of potential blog posts when you start digging into your lists!

Turn presentations into webinars.
Remember that PowerPoint presentation you gave at an industry conference in the summer? Why not use it as the backbone of your company’s winter webinar? Provided that the information is still relevant, use it to your advantage and save yourself the trouble of preparing a new webinar on the same topic.

Embed videos into blog posts.
The search engine spiders can’t watch a video in the same way a person can. And if you are only posting your company’s videos to video sharing sites like YouTube you are missing out on a huge segment of your audience. You probably get far more visitors to your blog than you do your YouTube channel, right? Take your latest video and embed it into a blog post for your loyal readers to see. Write a brief description or full transcript so the search engines can “read” your video as well to get added SEO benefit.

Add press releases to your website
Create a company news section on your website and post tweaked versions of the online press releases you send out through paid PR distribution websites. It’s news about your company, which is great for branded keyword searches, and can help drive traffic to your site. Why let the distribution site get all the visitors?

He recently wrote a blog post that talked about what Occupy protestors should do in case they were arrested during a protest. It got picked up by some of the bigger Occupy Facebook pages and received 1,000 Likes in the process! He explained that the information was pretty basic, but that it was repackaged for the right audience at the right time. Dave found a way to create content that would get people’s attention and was still in line with their brand.

Content marketing isn’t as hard as you think it is!

The number one problem most of my clients (and a lot of businesses in general) have with content marketing is that they don’t think they don’t have anything to say. First off, if you’re not passionate about the industry you’re in, it might be time to find a new job! Secondly, there are fascinating aspects about every industry that the right audience is eager to hear more about. Many of us know our industry inside and out and we forget that our audience isn’t privy to that same insider information. What you consider common knowledge might be a eureka moment for one of your readers.

A lot of B2B marketers understand the value of a strong content marketing campaign, but don’t think their products/services are as glamorous as some B2C products. Sure, it may be more fun to blog about expensive cars or designer handbags, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to make a blog about personal finance more interesting. Just look at what Mint did! You don’t even have to step that far outside of your niche to create engaging content that will not only help you connect with your audience and build your online brand, but that you’ll actually enjoy writing.

If you are really stuck for blog topic ideas, check out this content marketing topics post over on the Brick Blog.

1. Share the comment love.
Even if they were just doing it for the link (although we all hope it’s really just because they love our blog), everyone who leaves a comment on your blog posts took a few minutes of their day to do so. Repay the favor and leave a comment or two on some of their blog posts. I can’t say I know many bloggers who don’t like seeing new comments! That kind of back-and-forth commenting is a great way to build a real relationship with your readers.

2. Invite top commenters to become guest writers.
If someone has been a regular reader and commenter on your blog for years, why not invite them to become a guest writer for your blog? Everyone is always on the lookout for new places they can post their content and fuel their own content marketing campaign. Plus, you get to benefit from their experience in your industry, provide a new point of view to your readers and maybe even attract new readers who are loyal fans of your guest author’s blog.

3. Feature their blogs.
Here on the Search Engine Optimization Journal, I publish SEO News posts a few times a week highlighting some of my favorite Internet marketing related blogs I’ve recently come across. I found the information in them valuable, so I know my target audience will to. This kind of content curation is a good way to build a stronger rapport with your blog readers and give them a quick shout out. Try writing a similar recap post and link to some of your readers’ blogs that you enjoy.

4. Connect with them on social networks
I do my best to thank and follow everyone who retweets my blog posts (and I’m sorry if I accidentally missed someone!). I want readers to know that I appreciate them taking the time to read and share my content. Your readers don’t have to share/tweet/Like/post your content so take the time to thank those that do!

Is your website making these content mistakes that can hurt your SEO?

1. No call-to-actions
Is no one filling out your contact form or signing up for your company newsletter? Have you tried asking them? Too often site owners worry about creating the perfect lead form, hoping to find the magic word count that will inspire thousands to fill it out. If you aren’t incorporating call-to-actions in your content, how will your visitors know what you want them to do? Ask and ye shall receive!

2. Too many ads
There is nothing wrong with trying to monetize your site, but please don’t stuff it with ads to the point where it looks like one giant classified. No one wants to read around a dozen ads when visiting your site to find one piece of information. It looks incredibly spammy, pushes your own branding below the fold and has a negative impact on the overall user-experience. Your content and messaging is much more important!

3. Unfocused content
Step 1: Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Step 2: Tell them. Step 3: Tell them what you just told them. This classic approach to public speaking and presentation giving should also apply to your webpage content. Stick to as few main points as possible on each page of your site. You don’t want to overload your visitor with irrelevant information. Plus, since keyword research is conducted on a page-by-page basis, unfocused content means too many keywords. Don’t worry about hitting a word count; just get the message across as best as possible.

4. Thin content
On the flipside of unfocused content you also have to be wary of thin content. Are there any pages on your site that you can condense or consolidate so relevant information is all in the same place? You don’t want to make your visitors hunt for the information they need. It’s better to have a few well-written pages with flushed out ideas than a dozen pages with only a few sentences on them.

5. Stuffed with keywords
Rule one of content marketing—write for humans first! You never want to write for the search engines because chances are you’ll be guilty of over-optimizing your content, which includes keyword stuffing. While it’s important to optimize your content and target related keywords, you don’t want to overdo it and make your content unpleasant to read.

SEO is like a Michael Bay movie. It can look pretty, but if you’re just throwing a bunch of crap at your audience, they’ll just shrug and walk away.

I think Stoney hit the nail on the end with that one, especially when it comes to content marketing, a critical component of SEO.

Michael Bay isn’t a director known for his poignant and gut-wrenching plot lines or character development; he’s the guy you call when you want to blow stuff up. And while explosions can be incredibly entertaining, there isn’t much depth or value of them other than being fun to watch.

You do not want to pull a Michael Bay when it comes to your content marketing! Fluff and promotional content may look pretty, but it isn’t going to do any good for your brand or your audience in the long run.

Here are 3 rules you should follow to create great content that is both entertaining AND useful:

1. Strive to teach your reader something
It’s not about you, you brand or your products. Your content should focus on the reader and what they need. Do they have a question you can answer? Can you teach them something new? Is there a problem you can help them solve? Don’t just churn out content that shows off how great your products and services are; make sure you focus on what’s in it for your target audience.

2. Simple is good
Ever come across the phrase “too long, didn’t read” (also shown as TLDR) anywhere in the blogosphere? It means that the reader didn’t bother to read the entire post/article because it was too much to handle at once. You don’t want to throw pages and pages of text heavy content at your readers; most won’t take the time to get through it. Bullet points, lists, infographics and so forth—anything that can break up or condense you content into manageable chunks is useful for your content marketing. You don’t have to be afraid of the long article, but you don’t want to intimidate your readers either.

3. Keep it focused
Sometimes your content marketing cup runneth over and you’re brimming with ideas. Don’t throw them all down in the same piece of content, especially for your blog posts. Pick one idea and flush it out completely. It’s more valuable as a reader to get all the information about one thing than it is to get snippets from a dozen different ideas. By focusing your content on one main idea, you make it easier for your target audience to find the information they are looking for.

There really is no “right” answer for how much it costs to outsource your content. Factors like the length of the post, amount of research needed, the writer’s experience and skill level and deadlines all play a part in how much you could end up paying. In my experience, most companies should expect to be paying anywhere from $50 to $200 per article.

Now, $200 an article might be a little much if you’re looking to outsource your business blog entirely. At one post a day that’s $1000 a week just to keep your blog supplied with fresh content! If you have $1000 a week to throw at your business blog, by all means do so! If you’re operating on a smaller budget, I’d recommend taking that $1000 and hiring an SEO firm to handle your content marketing as well as the rest of your SEO. You can stretch that budget a lot farther and get more bang for your buck. For instance, not only would the SEO firm provide the content, but they would also handle the content promotion aspect to get more exposure for your content and drive links.

You could also take that $1000 (which is $4000 a month!) and hire a full-time employee with the writing skills and experience you’re looking for. You could also invest in a few writing courses to enhance your own writing skills. The point I’m trying to make is that you don’t have to be shelling out the big bucks for great content if you can’t afford to do so.

A few things to remember about outsourcing your content:
1. You never want to send your content overseas . It may be the cheaper option now, but it’s very unlikely you’ll get great content that can actually provide value for your brand and your readers.

2. Don’t rely on interns to write your content. They don’t have the in-depth knowledge about your business and industry to produce quality content. A professional copywriter will immerse themselves in your business until they know just as much as the rest of your employees.

3. You get what you pay for! A $5 article is a $5 article. How much effort would you put into something if you were only getting $5 for it?