Your Blog is Ruining Your Business

You’ve probably felt the pressure of blogging for your business. You’ve heard the numerous voices explaining how blogging can single handedly help build your business.

But I’m going to tell you a different story: blogging can ruin your business.

Let me explain.

Back a handful of years ago, I didn’t have a business. I did, however, have a love of writing. I blogged everyday, sometimes two or three times, about experiences and thoughts or quotes I had heard.

It was second nature.

These days, that blog remains neglected. I post perhaps 3-4 times a year. But the guilt I felt for the years in between then and now, it made me despise that I ever started the blog.

So what does that have to do with your business?

Create a blog that is unique, interesting, and provocative. Be a storm in a bottle, but be sure to not let that storm overtake your business.

I had ruined the fun because of my blog.

Here are three ways you may be ruining your business by blogging:

1) You are blogging because you feel like you have to, not because you care and want to help your audience.

When you write from a place of frustration, whether it’s internally hidden or quite obvious, your feelings and thoughts will translate to the page. You message will be delivered with frustration and annoyance.

And, honestly, do you want your audience, your market to think they annoy you?

Probably not.

So rather than forcing yourself to write every day, bogging yourself down, set some time once or twice a week, even once a month, to write something that comes from a place of compassion and helpfulness.

After all, every customer and client is on your page looking for answers or assistance.

Give them what they want.

2) You are blogging but not marketing.

What’s the old saying? “If you build it, they will come.”

Yea, that doesn’t work in the online world.

Truth be told, the market is absolutely saturated with business coaches, designers, consultants, you name it. And in this kind of marketplace, you must learn to stand out from the crowd.

Sure, blogging fantastic industry information that your client would like to know is fantastic, but simply because you wrote it does not mean visitors will come. You must publicize what you’ve done.

A free way?

Social media. Build a modest Facebook page, a LinkedIn profile, a Twitter feed. Send your blog link to those places with an interesting teaser that can be easily (and willingly) shared.

Regardless of how you choose to publicize, without it, you may as well not blog at all.

No one will notice either way.

3) You’re blogging so much that you don’t have time for anything else.

Remember that task we call prospecting? You call and email various potential clients to test your compatibility for an ultimately lucrative business partnership.

When was the last time you did that?

Blogging is an amazing thing.

It is in some ways a way to prospect however, unless you’re at maximum client capacity, you should always spend some time warm prospecting. Give a business a call and see how your relationship could really benefit both of you.

Set scheduled time for your blog every week. Treat it like a meeting you can’t push back. And once it is completed, take a step back to work the other angles of your business. If you finish early, plan future blogs.

Create epic content: write what your audience wants to know in a manner that is better than awesome.

But regardless, blogging is addictive once you see the followers add up and your business thrive. Just don’t forget your other responsibilities.

4) You’re not proofreading your work.

Before hitting that publish button, do a read through out loud. See if you misspelled a word, or, more often for me, used the wrong word that sounds an awful lot like the word I meant to use.

For some of us, it’s easy to miss a little typo but for your readers it make look blatantly obvious. With a typo like that, you could lose credibility or, worse yet, a potential reader and client simply because you forgot, or didn’t have time, to read it over.

So right now, I challenge you to go to your company blog and read the last three out loud. Change any misspellings, grammar mishaps, or awkward wording. Then update it.

You may thank me later.

Now, it’s your turn:

How often do you blog and how do you keep your blogging under control? What are some best practices advice for blogging that you use for your business? Let us know in the comments below.