Is your blog not scoring well? Revive it with these tips!

A lot of content managers put out strong blogs on their websites. But when you start looking in Google Analytics at how often and how long a blog is read by how many different people and through what channels, those results are often dismally low. Here are five common problems and corresponding solutions to start realizing the full potential of your blog.

Hearts from Peers.

Just because you've put your blog live doesn't mean it will suddenly be found and read by all your potential audiences. Ok, your colleagues shower the post with hearts when you share it on LinkedIn. That can give you as a content manager the impression that the whole world is reading along. But if you check your Google Analytics dashboards, you will see that the reality is less rosy and that your blog is often read a lot less than you thought. After all, being successful with your posts is more complex than creating and publishing them. You also need a strong distribution plan. A plan that does not ignore Google.

If you don't yet measure the performance and impact of your blogs, that's the first important tip: check how many people are reading your blog, whether your text has impact and whether they are clicking through, buying or interacting with your business. Only when you know that can you optimize your blogs. Or resuscitate them :).

And that's the second important tip: make sure your content marketing plan is not only focused on content creation. Figure out how to make your existing blogs more visible, so they get a much wider reach.

"Your colleagues shower the post with hearts when you share it on LinkedIn. That can give you as a content manager the impression that the whole world is reading along."

Poorly scoring blog? 5 diagnoses and corresponding remedies.

Is your blog well written? Did you use your storytelling skills to draw the reader in and did you work out your message in a structured and clear way? Even then, a blog can be invisible or unread. Making a poorly performing blog better can seem like a tough challenge at first glance. These five diagnoses and corresponding solutions will help you detect the problem and turn your blog into a good scoring page.

These 5 causes are often at the root of a poorly scoring blog:

• Did you write your blog for your target audience?

• Can your blog be found through Google?

• Does the layout of your blog make you want to read or scan it?

• Does your blog aim for a specific purpose?

• Does your blog visually make you want to read and share it?
  

"Make sure your content marketing plan is not only focused on content creation. Figure out how to make your existing blogs more visible, so they get a much wider reach."

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Problem: Did you write your blog for your target audience?

Did you write the blog for someone in your target audience? Or rather for your colleagues (remember hearts :) )? Put yourself in the shoes of someone in your target audience and then look at your blog through that person's eyes. What do you see? Interesting? Relevant? The right tone of voice? The right use of language? Were you trying to inspire a healthcare professional with language that fits the lifestyle of an accountant, then there is work to be done .

Check the following things:

• Tone of voice: What tone of voice do you best use to inspire people in your target audience? Informal? Or rather formal?

• Language: Although it is best to write as clearly as possible for each target group and to avoid difficult words, you can come closer to the living environment of your target group with your choice of words and language. Is that picture correct? Or do you still need to rework your blog a bit?

• Topics: Are there things that are missing from your blog? Perspectives that are very important and that you haven't covered yet? And did you approach the topic from the right angle? That should always be that of the person you are writing for and not yours. Instead of saying how great you are, explain the problem you solve with your product or service.

Problem: SEO. Can your blog even be found through Google?

As a company, you must have a very large reach, a strong social media network or large budgets for paid if you decide to ignore organic traffic through search engines. Do you still want to be found online by potential customers looking for your products and services with some fairly simple interventions? Then be sure to check out the following SEO tips:

• Keyword research: Find the relevant keywords and keyword phrases (long tail) that fit your topic. What keywords do people use to find information about your topic? Use tools such as Google Trends, Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs or Semrush to find keywords that are relevant. Choose your most important keyword and a few less important but still very relevant keywords that you include naturally in your title and subtitles and text.

• Competitor analysis: Research what others have written on the same topic and figure out how you can make your blog post unique. For example, add a new angle or offer more in-depth information than your competitors.

• Link building: In your blog, did you provide links to other pages on your website that deal with the same topic and are therefore relevant to the reader? Did you also add links to your new blog post on those other pages? And did you also link to external websites that contain interesting additional information on that topic? For example, government, universities, colleges and think tanks? If you don't, Google will see your new page as an orphan. Like a stand-alone one shot that has no connections. Google rates such a page as less valuable.

• Meta information: Make sure your most important keyword appears in your meta title. And in your meta-description. Make sure your meta title and meta description are not too long and that they make you want to click through to your blog. Where appropriate, add alt text to your images to explain to Google what exactly they are about.

• Sitemap and crawlability: Make sure your website has a clear sitemap and that search engines can crawl your content smoothly.

"You must have a very large reach, a strong social media network or large budgets for paid if you decide to ignore organic traffic through search engines."

Problem: Does the formatting of your blog make people want to read or scan it?

People want to know quickly if your text contains the information they need at that moment. If your page doesn't provide that at a glance, they'll drop out, so make sure the structure of the text is clear to them right away. You do this with a strong title, several subtitles that divide the text into manageable pieces, short paragraphs and bullet points that make summaries clear. If the text is long and requires some scrolling, provide a table of contents "above the fold" to give the reader an immediate overview.

Problem: Does your blog have a specific purpose?

Define your purpose. Do you just want to inform? Or do you want to inspire and persuade a potential customer toward purchase? A blog post or your time as a content manager to write that blog post is too expensive to just be deployed aimlessly on a website. In content marketing, a blog post is a means to an end. Not an end in itself. A format in the toolkit of a content marketer or content manager. So define what you want to do.

• Call to actions. Depending on that goal, your blog will look different in terms of call to actions (CTAs). Do you want to inform? Or persuade? Think about what a reader needs to take them to the next stage toward purchase. Build in the right call to actions. For example: a button that allows someone to click through to your product information. Or a button that allows a reader to register for an event. Or subscribe to a newsletter. But even if you are sending out a press release and merely want to inform and work on your thought leadership, it's a good idea to offer the recipient the opportunity to register to receive the press list.

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"In content marketing, a blog post is a means to an end. Not an end in itself."

Problem: Does your blog visually make your reader want to read and share it?

Never underestimate the power of images and videos. They add an extra dimension to your page and have the power to pull the reader into your message.

• Images: People must already be very motivated to read a blog of yours if you only offer text on your page. Add illustrations, photos and graphics to support your story. They offer an extra dimension and just make reading and interpreting your message a lot more enjoyable. They are also very often used to attract attention. So make sure your blog is supported in a number of places on the page with a photo, inforgraphics or a video.

• Sharing: Make your blog posts easy to share by adding buttons that make it easy to do so.
  

Do you know where the shoe pinches and feel like getting started with these tips? Top! Use analytics tools like Google Analytics to track and improve the number of visitors, read time and performance of your blog post.

Could you still use some help? Don't hesitate to get in touch. We'll put your blogs under the microscope together.

Let's talk!