Here’s Why Your Content is Going Nowhere

For some it takes a while to figure it out, and for many bloggers they get it right away. Your content is what it’s all about. You’ve read and heard about it a million times by now: People come to your site, return to your site, engage with you and others in your community, and share your website – all based on your content.

So, heeding the advice of the online blogging gurus, you’ve worked on your creativity, sentence flow, and grammar. You’ve crafted some excellent blog posts, and you’re regularly posting what you consider to be valuable, relevant content. You’ve seen a slow up-tick in your site traffic, but you’ve noticed your content isn’t really going anywhere – no one is tweeting about it, sharing it on Facebook, or sending it to their friends. So what gives?

There are a number of factors that can affect how and if your content is shared. It’s worth taking a look at these and making necessary adjustments, because sharing is what takes your site to the next level. It’s like having a whole bunch of little salespeople out there showing your stuff to everyone they know. And that’s a great way to build a following.

4 Reasons Your Blog Content Isn’t Getting Shared

1. Lack of Sharing Options – If you want people to share your content on social media and through email, you’ve got to make it easy. With so many great, free plugins available to help you present these options to your readers, there’s really no excuse for not doing it. Still, we see a lot of blogs where you have to hunt around for the re-tweet or like button. If it’s not super easy, people won’t bother.

2. Poor Site Design – Regardless of how amazing your writing is, many people won’t get as far as reading it if your site looks amateurish or poorly put together. Whether it’s fair or not, people actually do judge a book by its cover. They’ll assume the look of your site is an indication of your content’s quality. Also, keep in mind that when someone shares content with their networks, it’s an endorsement. They don’t want to send people to shoddy sites.

3. All About You – One of the most common mistakes we see bloggers make is writing content that’s 100% self-serving. You can be the best author since Shakespeare, but if all you talk about is your company, or why people should check out your products and services, no one will want to read, much less share, what you have to say. Giving in-depth information about your own stuff isn’t usually of any value. To provide actual value, teach people something they want to know about, solve a common problem, or at the very least, entertain them!

4. A Lack of Passion – Some people are great writers from a technical standpoint, but it’s clear that they don’t really have a passion for what they’re writing about. It could be that an English teacher could go through all of your posts and not find a single grammar or sentence structure problem, but that doesn’t mean it’s something people will want to read and share. If you dread writing your blog posts and treat it as a chore you “have to” do, chances are your writing isn’t very passionate. It might be time to really evaluate what you’re doing – versus what you really want to be doing.

A good idea for making your content more share-worthy is to look at the content you and others are sharing on Social Media. When you find a post you like and are going to tweet about it or post it on Facebook, take a minute to ask yourself what about that post made it something you wanted to send to your audience. Then remember that the next time you sit down to write your own post.

What causes you to want to share a post with your networks? Share with us in the comments below!