Why your blog isn’t getting traffic

Content creation can be time-consuming. Nothing can take the wind out of your sails quicker than launching your blog only to find a handful of people have viewed new content. The reality is that blog traffic is a combination of art and science. Additionally, search engines don’t recognize and/or value new content overnight. Hubspot has a number resources on how to set realistic expectations for increasing traffic after launching a blog.

A number of factors can influence whether the benchmark for generating traffic can be accelerated. One factor everyone agrees on is creating valuable content. Valuable and unique content creation is essential. The following article outlines 10 reasons a blog isn’t getting traffic (9 in addition to creating valuable content).

One area that I’d like to expand on, before linking you to the complete list, is “blog promotion”. Generating subscribers to a blog is one strategy, however, the reality is that many view social media as a mechanism to follow and connect with other people and brands. While some users follow blogs, for many social media is connecting people to people.

Furthermore, people are generally looking for information or solutions, and therefore interacting with a blog through its content. Users immersed in research mode, might not be thinking about subscribing to a blog longer term. A matter-of-fact, they might not consider directly subscribing to a blog until they’ve interacted with a blog multiple times.

Therefore, it’s essential that your blog is cohesively integrated with your social presence. Ensure you’re sharing content in each social channel, even if you have some commonality in followings across social channels. Exceptions to this rule of thumb include promoting a business blog to a social network dedicated to a hobby or vice-versa. Managing multiple social channels can be streamlined by leveraging a tool to promote content across multiple social networks (and also plenty of reviews on different social media tools).

If you’re managing a b2b blog then integrated promotion is critical while the blog gets search engine optimization traction. Cross-promoting content on the company’s website, e-newsletters, repackaging content as a sales tool or template as well as using paid search and other paid digital media. If paying for clicks is counter-intuitive reflect on the last time you were researching a topic and clicked on the content that sounded like it had answers, and de-prioritized product selling content. Paid search and content promotional vehicles such as Outbrain can help jump-start blog traffic and reevaluated as traffic reaches expected levels. Strong content promotion also amortizes the investment of content creation across a number of communication touch points.

The following article does a nice job at outlining a number of other factors and considerations in why your blog might not be achieving traffic goals.

Despite all your efforts, does your B2B blog get about as much traffic as a back alleyway? Low traffic is a frustrating challenge for any blog owner, and it might be tempting to throw in the towel — but hear us out first!

Don’t be too hasty to put the brakes on your B2B blogging efforts. Studies show that 69% of marketers plan to increase their use of blogging this year — because it is so effective. So let’s look at what problems may be keeping your blog from achieving a loyal following of readers — and how to fix them.

So…What’s Holding Your B2B Blog Back?

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