So, you’ve fixed your blog’s writing issues but there maybe deeper problems at play? Here are a few tips.

Identify an Audience

Not knowing who your audience is would be a bit like not knowing who your customers are. The blog you write for Zoomer and Millennial families looking for a good deal on wireless is going to be different than the blog you write for small businesses looking for a good deal on wireless, even these two hypothetical blogs are selling the same thing and would cover many of the same topics.

Figure Out What You Will (and Won’t) Write

Many company blogs began life as a sort of public HR newsletter about what’s going on in said company, or as an outlet for publishing press releases. Many evolved into loose collections of stuff the marketing team thought to be interesting. That’s not enough anymore. Your company blog needs to have a plan, strategy, and/or vision.

Basically: what is the point of this blog? Either come up with an elevator pitch answer to that question or rethink what you’re doing.

Figure Out Your Current Content / Evergreen Content Mix

Current content is time-sensitive and perhaps newsworthy. If you have a blog post about last night’s hockey game, a new bill from the government affecting your industry, or an internet fad, it’s current. If you want that kind of content on your website, you need a plan and process for producing it quickly. You also need to understand that it won’t be relevant after a certain amount of time.

Evergreen content is the opposite. It is not time-sensitive and can basically be posted whenever. If you have a list of your five favourite Friends episodes, it’s evergreen because the show is over, your list won’t change, and people will be interested in said list as much next year as they are now.

Figure Out a Schedule

Why should your blog have a set schedule? Chances are, no one is sitting around hoping that you’ll publish every Monday morning. No, your schedule is for you. By setting out a schedule, you’re forcing yourself to commit to building blog content. You’re also forcing yourself to go looking for ideas instead of letting them come to you.

Keep a Keyword List (But Use it Sparingly)

Your keywords will emerge out of your content priorities and what Google Adwords tells you about their popularity.

On the one hand, you should incorporate these keywords into your blog copy. But on the other, using too many makes copy read terribly. It’s called keywords stuffing and the Google algorithm punishes it.

When you write a post, pick one or two keywords and stick to them. Any more is overkill.