How to Bring Your Dead Blog Back to Life

After an enthusiastic launch, your company blog has lost momentum and faded away into a digital orphan.

Between projects and deadlines, the once coddled company blog may go by the wayside. This usually begins innocently enough. First, a post is skipped one week, and then blogs are posted once a month—And before you know it,  the company blog has become a cemetery for long-forgotten articles.

How to Bring Your Dead Blog Back to Life

What does a blog do for your company?

• Drive traffic to the site: Each time you write a blog, you’re increasing the chances of popping up in a search engine, therefore increasing your SEO a bit.
• Helps convert traffic into leads: This can be done with a call to action, which can be an incentive (free trials, a free webinar, etc.) for customers to provide their information in exchange for some digital gems.
• Establishes authority: Blogs are an excellent way to answer user questions and strengthen relationships between the user and the company.
• Obtains long-term results: What many people don’t know is that 70% of a page’s traffic comes from older blog posts. This is yet another reason why it’s so important to carefully select the optimum keywords to hail the best results.

So, why do blogs fail?

• No engagement: The main purpose of social platforms such as blogs is to engage your readers, so if readers are leaving comments that harbor no response, what incentive does that reader have to return to the site? Readers want to know that their comments have been heard, so think of a blog as a social community of shared interests.
• It doesn’t answer the “so what?” test: A writer’s voice and content essentially make or breaks a blog, so if a reader finishes reading and asks themselves, “So what?” then the blog has failed in enticing the reader and creating a lasting impact.
• You don’t love your blog: While I’m not talking about a “till death do us part” type of commitment, you have to be passionate about your blog—and this will be reflected in the quality of your posts.

How can you revive your blog?

1. Plan posts: Have a handful of blog posts handy so content can be posted on a regular basis. If you’re stumped for ideas, try putting your own spin on a relevant topic, or go into further detail on another issue previously blogged about.
2. Cover trending topics: This is also known as newsjacking. When current events and topics dominate headlines, it’s the perfect time to take advantage of a particular topic—Hence the #Hashtag.
3. Boost Page SEO: This is a no-brainer, but here’s a few on-page SEO tips:

• Use a URL that includes your keyword
• Use the primary keyword in the blog title
• Use the keyword in an organic way
• Link to relevant, authoritative content
• Have an engaging, informative meta description