Why is Nobody Reading My Blog?!

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

A business blog can be a very useful tool in your online marketing arsenal. They are a great way to promote your business as an authority in the industry, start conversations with you consumer and other industry professionals, post company news and help with online branding and presence. Since a business blog is produced in-house, you and your marketing department (or whoever is writing the blog) have complete control over the information being produced, the writing style and tone and who the blog is trying to connect with.

So why isn’t the blog doing its job?

Here are few of the most common reasons a business blog is failing to connect with your audience:

1. You missed the mark while defining your target audience

Say you’re a B2B company that sells wholesale school supplies. It wouldn’t be odd to assume that your target audience is teachers. After all, aren’t they the ones who use school supplies? But are teachers the ones actually buying those supplies? You’re target audience is more likely those who work in the administrative side of education, those responsible for the day-to-day operations of schools, and less those who run the classrooms.

2. You’re not writing about current topics

It’s important to stay, if not ahead of the curve, at least with the rest of the pack when it comes to choosing blog topics. If there is serious buzz regarding something in your industry, it’s best to write about it while it’s still a hot topic. Even if there are a lot of other blogs writing about the same situation, you can take a new spin on it to make your blog stand out. The last thing you want to do is write about old news.

3. You’re not giving the readers what they want

In theory, if you write the blog, you should be able to write about anything you want. But if you want people to read it, you have to write about what they want. Look at some of your older blog posts and see which ones got the most attention (page views, comments, shared on social networks) and try to incorporate a few more posts that focus on that topic or use that format/tone. Something about that particular post clicked with your readers, so give them more.

These are just a few of the reasons that your blog isn’t getting the attention that you think it should. But businesses also have to remember that blog writing is a long-term commitment. You have to give the blog time to age, so that old posts get indexed by the search engines and start showing up in the results. You also have to allow for time to pass so that you’re blog earns loyal readers who will always come back for new posts and help spread the word about your blog. Neither or those things are going to happen overnight.