Imagine you’ve just stumbled upon your blog. In fact, do it right now. “Stumble” onto your blog and scan the page with fresh, unbiased eyes. I know it’s hard. If it’s too hard, ask someone else to do it (someone who’s never seen it before) and have them tell you off-the-cuff what they see. What are the immediate responses popping into their head?

This exercise should inform you what could be wrong with your site, at least on the surface level. And surface level issues typically require surface level fixes, which are your low-hanging fruit.

Is your blog arresting the attention of your casual visitor? Does it provoke engagement and social sharing amongst your readers? If it doesn’t, it’s failing to serve its purpose as a content marketing initiative and component of your SEO strategy.

Is your writing turning people off?

Perhaps a quarter of the battle is visual. Your test visitor might tell you what they like and don’t like visually on your blog, which will inform you on some stylistic tweaks that you can implement with relative ease. But after that initial 10 seconds, what do you think they’ll consider next? Bingo—your headlines.

It’s a given that your company blog, depending on your industry, will have a tendency toward salesy roboticness, and it will be one of your greatest struggles to write in a compelling way on potentially wooden topics. This is where your intrinsic creativity as a writer should take center stage and stretch your blog to territories that will engage and captivate your readers.

Quick tips on effective writing:

1. Cultivate a simple, personable voice. Blog is short for weblog—a personable tone is expected.
2. Keywords should occur naturally and sparingly.
3. Pick your topics based on what you know, or have researched thoroughly.
4. Pick your topics based on what your readers know (or don’t know) they need to know. You’ll be the one to convince them of that “need.”

A Few Angles to Consider

As you’re considering topics or angles to liven up your blog, think of these techniques:

1. Interview posts are engaging and unique. Candidates could be experts within your organization or colleagues.
2. Tell a story about a client or personal anecdote that illustrates your product or services in action and the results.
3. Make a customer profile that hypothesizes on their likes, dislikes, fears, demographic, etc., and use it to inform your tone, topics, and style.

On a scale of 1 through 10, how would you rate the engagement level of your blog?

Sources
DeMers, Jayson. “Got a Boring Company Blog? Here’s How to Fix it.”http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2372579/Got-a-Boring-Company-Blog-Heres-How-to-Fix-It?utm_term=&utm_content=Got%20a%20Boring%20Company%20Blog%3F%20Here%E2%80%99s%20How%20to%20Fix%20It&utm_campaign=09%2F30%2F14%20-%20SEW%20Daily&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Daily. (October 10, 2014).