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The Purpose Of Inbound Blogging And 3 Major Pitfalls To Avoid

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Content, and blogging in particular, is one of those things that people often think they get when they really, really don’t. “I’ve read lots of blogs, I know how to blog,” is a very common, and highly detrimental misconception of the online marketing world. Inbound blogging serves a specific function and has a clearly defined purpose within the inbound methodology. Done incorrectly, and it’s easy for an individual to blame failure on the content process rather than themselves and their bad, bad blogging.

The Purpose Of Inbound Blogging and 3 Major Pitfalls To Avoid

Blogging is your top of funnel (TOFU) content, your tool for attracting the right people from all around the internet (wow!). An inbound marketing blog should contain educational, evergreen content that provides value to the reader––it answers a question or addresses a need. This way, posts you wrote a year ago will continue to bring you traffic and gain SEO dominance over weaker new posts for centuries to come! Or at least until the next major Google algorithm rewrite.

Now that you know the purpose of inbound blogging, let’s take a look at the 3 major pitfalls that will prevent your blog from being a success.

1. Writing About Yourself

You know that person who talks about themselves all the time and brags on their accomplishments? You know how no one likes them? Yeah. This is probably the biggest no-no. Your blog is an amplification of your company voice, don’t make it a self centered one. Readers subscribe to blogs to gain knowledge and stay up to date on industry happenings, not continuously read the same post about how well your company is doing. Provide value and people will keep coming back to your blog. Then, when you do post something about yourself they’ll be more inclined to actually read it.

2. Overcomplicating Things

Remember, the majority of your posts should be higher level, top of funnel stuff. You’re casting a wide net, then narrowing down your catch once they’re on your site. Even if your product is highly complex, that doesn’t necessarily mean the people who use it understand the technical ins and outs––I need to buy a car, I don’t need to read about how engines work.

SEE ALSO: What Is A URL And How Does It Work? 

Avoid talking yourself into the notion that “readers won’t think we’re smart,” if your posts heir on the simpler side. “Great Tires for Driving on Sand,” sounds simple, because it is. But as someone who lives at the beach and likes taking my car out on the sand this post is perfect for me. Don’t overcomplicate things. Write well, deliver a clear point or message, and provide value.

3. Overanalyzing

This is something even the most seasoned writer can fall victim to: thinking the post has to be perfect. In doing so, you end up slowing productivity and posting frequency, falling into a backlog of “almost perfect” posts that you never deam worthy of publishing. Just post them! Consistency is key with blogging. Note: I am not referring to typos or grammar errors. ALWAYS proof your posts, sloppy work is very different from an imperfect concept.

There you have it, the mysteries behind inbound blogging revealed. Now there's no excuse to sucomb to these pitfalls. Go forth and do the good blog bidding, spread these best practices far and wide, and make the internet a better place. 

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