Business blogs are great. Not only do consumers get information on company's marketing campaigns, successes, and industry news, but also insight on the company itself. Blogs used correctly will draw people in, and create a great business-customer relationship. Those blogs which fail at creating this relationship and are used incorrectly could prove detrimental to your business. There are a few simple things that your business blog can do stop your blog up for business failure. Do you want to run your business into the ground?

Don't Include RSS Feeds

"Who cares about making it convenient for those who are following you? If they want to find your blog, they will. What's the use for an RSS feed?"

RSS feeds are a great way for your loyal readers to receive updates immediately each time your blog is updated. These people could include employees, customers, potential customers, competitors, or random people on the internet looking to gain information and insight to your company. Whoever is following your blog is following for a reason. Make it easy for them to keep updated!

Missing or Out of Date Contact Information

"Well, I have my email address listed on the contact page, so I figured if anyone wants to contact me about my blog, they can from there."

Contact information on your blog after each post is crucial. Have a small "contact" button with an automatic link to email to contact the author immediately. Also, keep your business contact information (address, phone number, email) at the bottom of every single page of your business website. That way, the information anyone needs to contact you is available at all times.

Avoid Reaching Out to Readers

"I write the blog, so I'm going to write about what I want to. My readers should have no say, since I'm the one writing!"

Reaching out to your readers via posting questions or comments on your blog is important. You need to have the attention of your readers, and a great way to do that is to interact with them. Do they want more information on any topics? Have industry questions? Need advice? Dedicate a blog post to your readers and ask them what they want from you. Encourage comments from your readers. Reach out and help your readers. In return, they will help you!

Get Very Creative with Keywords

"I want my blog to be found online, so I can use any keywords I want, right? Business, economy, other big buzz words will get my blog found. I can even include popular words to get my blog found in meta tags, like Lady Gaga!"

Keywords are what gets your business found online in search engines AND give the reader an idea of what the article will be about. Keywords should be in all important areas linking your blog to the world wide web: domain name, title, headings and tags. Meta tag description and keywords should also not be forgotten. They MUST be relevant to the information in your blog. Spamming your tags and keywords with buzz words will cause the opposite reaction of what was intended. Instead of search engines appearing higher in search results, the search engines will recognize the spam and your article will appear lower, or not even included in the results. Is it worth it?

Every Post is Written by "Admin"

"The blog is the blog by OUR business, and multiple people contribute. Why put a personalized face to the name?"

Every blog post has an author, and each author has different writing styles, preferences, and techniques. Whether it is the same author every time, or multiple employees contribute, you need to distinguish your authors for each post. Create different settings so each author can post their own blog. Include a small "about the author," as well as a picture and a link to contact the author directly. Putting a name and face behind each post gives readers a personalized feel for the blog.

No Comment

"I appreciate feedback, but I don't want negative comments, just positive ones. To avoid this, I'm leaving off the comment box. I don't care what people say, anyways."

As stated before, interacting with your readers is crucial to finding out what they want to know, what they like, and what they don't like. Face it - you're NOT perfect; no one is. Any comments, positive or negative, generates a follow up conversation and additional interaction with your readers. Any comment deserves a short, "thank you," and a follow up statement. Think of negative comments as constructive criticism. Address them appropriately, and do not attack the commenter.



A business blog is an exceptional tool that must be used properly and effectively. Do you know of any ways to run your business blog into the ground?