In the marketing world it’s easy to make things too complex.
In an effort to have the perfect blog we often try to add as much as possible. We try to cover all the bases and make sure we’re taking in and using all of the best advice out there.
But as most of us know, complex is usually not a great thing. The more simple you can make something the better it often is. As long as it’s still valuable.
If you feel your blog is too complex, here are a few tips I think will help.
1. Cut Out Distractive Design
Lots of people are focusing on getting conversions right from blog posts. That really doesn’t happen. It’s more likely that someone reads a post and leaves. Then they remember your brand in the future, find your homepage and go through the sales process.
Or it’s likely that after seeing all of the helpful content you have that Google starts boosting your rankings for more sales-focused terms. And you never even realize that the blog is helping to do that.
But because of the belief in the direct conversions you see a lot of blogs with a lot of calls-to-action on the sidebars and stuff like that. Popups and all kinds of things that are basically ads that distract from the actual content.
To simplify your blog, cut that stuff out. Focus on the content. This frees you up to actually create better content because you’re not thinking about those quick conversions that probably aren’t happening anyway.
2. Cut Down On Categories
Categories are meant to make it easier for readers to find similar content to what they just read. Or it helps them find the content they are looking for. The best blogs I’ve seen usually have about 3-5 categories. These are the main topics that the business or blogger knows best. They keep a pretty tight focus and get better and better at these categories.
If you have more than 5 categories it’s time to cut down. Stop writing on certain topics. It will simplify things for you and it will simplify things for your readers.
3. Cut Down On Title “Types”
It’s amazing to me that after 10-15 years of blogging that the basic list post and the basic how-to post are still the most common. They still seem to be the most sought after posts in the blogging world.
I feel that it’s good to experiment with different and new types of blog posts. There are always new ideas for different titles that will attract attention and get people to click. Go ahead and try those once in awhile.
But keep a core of about 2-3 types of posts and focus on those for 80-90% of your blogging.
4. Cut Out Other Content Marketing
There is a lot of opportunity in the content marketing world today. That’s a great thing, but it can make you crazy also. It makes you crazy because you feel like you should be doing it all. But that spreads most businesses thin. Even medium sized businesses get spread too thing.
Identify the type of content you’re best at creating – video, audio, text – and stick with that. Go all in on it 100% for a long while and forget about the rest.
5. Create A Process or Schedule
In my very early days of blogging I would sit down every night at the computer, think of an idea and write it. After a few months I realized that this wasn’t sustainable. There were too many tasks to accomplish at once. Blogging was too complex of a process to handle this way.
So I started breaking it out into smaller tasks that I would schedule. I would brainstorm ideas for the week once a week. Then I’d schedule time each night to research and then to write. It helped a lot.
The more you can create processes and routines with your blogging the simpler the blog will be and the better it will be.
Conclusion
Blogging is often too complex for many businesses. There is usually more involved than you first realize. There is also the pressure to get direct conversions. I’m all about sales, but blogging is more about branding and building marketing for the long-term.
If you feel your blog has gotten too complex, focus on these tips to help simplify things.