If your blog is suddenly failing to bring in traffic or has begun to fall in search engine rankings, there are many reasons this could be the case. Recently, our Austin SEO company shared three of the most common reasons why blogging efforts fail: irregular posting, too much self-promotion and poor writing. But what if your blog is still failing, even when you are “doing everything right” – posting at least once a week, staying away from blatant promotion and writing as professionally as you know how? Here are some additional factors that could be in play, along with tips on how to address and correct each.
1. Writing for Robots
In other words, your blog posts are almost entirely keyword driven. Every astute blogger still uses keywords, and they should – but when a blog post is littered with keywords throughout and they are being used in an irrelevant way, Google understands that you are attempting to manipulate rankings as they would for any other instance of keyword stuffing. In that sense, “writing for robots” now defeats the purpose and will surely result in a failing blog. Always, always write for a human audience.
2. Too Many Guest Posts
As we told you recently, Google is contemplating the implementation of a guest blogging penalty in the future. That doesn’t mean you can’t have guest blog posts; it just means you should have more internally generated posts than guest blog posts. Additionally, it’s important to proof each guest post before it goes live. Low quality guest blogs are going to send up a red flag to Google about the quality of your site, with or without a guest blogging penalty.
3. Ignoring the Comments
For a blog with lots of comments, it may be impossible to respond to each one. But failing to respond to any comments ever is a good way to send your readership packing. No one wants to support a blog that doesn’t seem to care about its readers, no matter the industry niche. Taking the time to respond to reply to some of the more thoughtful, relevant comments on your blog is how you show readers your appreciation.
Improve Your Brand’s Blog
If you have noticed a downturn in traffic or rankings, take a look at these three indicators to see if any of them apply. If you are interested in a free website analysis, our Austin SEO blog will be glad to help.
No comments yet