Blogs help businesses attract more web traffic and establish companies or employees as thought leaders or experts in their field. But most business bloggers get too caught up in promoting their companies and products, forgetting that their audience wants more than just promotion from the blog! The rush to produce a large volume of content for blogs also sometimes pushes content writers to churn out poorly written blog posts on irrelevant topics.
Writing on the wrong topics can put off your readers and can in turn harm your content marketing campaign. So how can a content writer figure out what kind of topics to avoid when writing business blog posts? For starters, here are five types that every business blog writer must avoid:
Topics that have already been covered
When a company blog has been in existence for a few years and has a huge archive of blog posts, writers can get lazy and be tempted to repeat topics and content. This is a complete no-no! Repeating content is not only a bad SEO practice, it can also irritate your loyal readers. Your readers will definitely recall the original article and will be discouraged to continue visiting your blog for lack of new and interesting information.
Company press releases
There is no doubt about the fact that press releases are important for any company. Press releases let customers know what they can expect from your company and about new changes. However, press releases should never be published on company blogs. Press releases are purely promotional and they need to be distributed via appropriate channels. On a company blog, press releases can make readers think that the company blog is being used only to promote the company. Readers want valuable insights and information from company blogs, so don’t turn them away with press releases.
Same topics used by competitors
People almost always look for more than one source of information and your readers will definitely read your competitors’ blog posts too. If you are writing and publishing blog posts on the same topics as your competitors, readers will get the impression that you are copying topics and content from your competitors. You need to fill your blog with valuable, original and relevant content that cannot be found on other sites. Having such content is bound to give you an edge over your competitors.
Premature announcements
Many businesses make this mistake. When they enter into new partnerships or acquire big contracts, they make the mistake of announcing the news too quickly. Sometimes the news is announced when the deal is still being hashed out. If the deal falls through, then such businesses are forced to retract their announcements which can only make the companies look unprofessional. As a small business owner, you must make sure that all parties involved are okay with you making the announcement on your blog and announcements should be made only after everything is finalized.
Highly controversial or political topics
Even highly popular and established bloggers have faced severe backlash when they dared to tackle scandalous and political issues. People love discussing politics and almost anything can be blamed on the current political state of the nation. Stray away from giving your personal political opinions and blaming politicians. A lot of people have very strong political views and are very sensitive about the parties they support and an off-hand comment might stir-up a huge and ugly debate in your comments section. Unless you are a well-known political analyst, it is best to steer clear of political and controversial topics.