How to Recover a Struggling Business Blog

Business owners are increasingly relying on blogs to build and promote their business. With the help of a strong blog and content marketing, you can provide more information to your clients, you can increase your rankings in search engines, you can build a loyal audience, and you can even improve your reputation. Over time, blogs will help you not only attract more traffic, but consistently convert your visitors into customers. 

In many cases, high-quality blog work in combination with existing brand power can lead to a period of quick growth. But what happens when your blog begins to struggle? What if you notice a sharp drop in visitor numbers, or if your top posts are no longer converting like they used to? 

How can you recover a struggling business blog? 

Work With a Consultant 

Your first step should be working with a business and management consultant. An outside expert will be able to give you a much more unbiased opinion on the state of your blog (and overall business operations, if you’re struggling in other areas). They’ll work with you to implement the data analytics tools necessary to better understand your performance, and they’ll guide you to the solutions most likely to help your business blog recover. Just make sure you review your options and go with a reputable consultant you can trust. 

Analyze the Motivating Factors 

Before you can “fix” what’s wrong with your blog, you have to know what’s wrong with it in the first place. If your blog is struggling to grow, there must be something impeding your ability to flourish. So what is it? 

Oftentimes, it boils down to one of these broad categories of factors: 

  • Quality. Though it’s not pleasant to consider, the problem might be with the quality of your work. If you’re not consistently writing amazing blog posts that provide ample detail and eloquent wording, your customers aren’t going to stick with your brand. 
  • Competition. You may also be suffering from the influence of a competitor, especially if you’ve experienced a sudden plunge in traffic. If there’s another brand in your industry with better content, they’re going to win over at least some of your prospective visitors. 
  • Demographic interest. You could also be facing a problem with shifting or inactive demographic interest. Your core demographics might be uninterested in the types of content you produce, or you might be targeting the wrong people. 

You can get a better idea of what’s going on by using a tool like Google Analytics to better understand your user behavioral patterns. For example, are there certain blog posts that are bogging your overall metrics down? Do customers bounce when they hit a certain page? 

How to Improve 

If you want to improve, it’s important to experiment. Once you have an idea of the root causes of your blog’s underperformance, you’ll need to introduce new tactics and see how your readers respond. These are some of the best options to experiment with: 

  • Find out what your customers want to read. Are you sure you know which topics matter most to your target demographics? Find out what they’re currently reading, and conduct surveys to learn what they might be interested in reading in the future. 
  • Add new content mediums. Written blog posts tend to form the foundation of most business blogs, and they’re still a valuable medium to work with. However, if you’re struggling to succeed, you may consider adding in new content mediums, like photos, videos, and even audio content. 
  • Mix up the length and detail level. Similarly, you can change up the amount of detail and the length of posts that you provide. Some people prefer long, in-depth pieces, while others would rather get quick insights. 
  • Double down on quality. You’ll never regret investing in quality. It may mean hiring different people or spending more time on each post, but the better your work is, the more likely it will be to appeal to your audience.  
  • Differentiate your brand in new ways. If you’re facing a competition problem, you’ll need some way to differentiate your brand. Can you try a new angle or a different tone in your work? 
  • Change how you promote your work. Sometimes, blogs fail simply because they don’t have enough promotional support. The work is high-quality and potentially interesting to a large number of people, but those people never find out about its existence. Consider supporting your work with social media marketing, advertising, and other marketing channels. 

It might take some time to figure out what your readers want, and experiment with different variables, but the effort will be worth it. Over time, you’ll be able to guide your business blog toward a more stable, more rewarding position—and you can keep it there with ongoing data analyses and tiny subsequent adjustments.

Related Post