Blogs are a great tool to help grow your dive centres online presence, generate leads and engage with your audience. Blog traffic is usually driven organically – simply put, consumers will search for something in a search engine and click on your blog if it matches. If only it was that easy! So many other businesses are doing the same thing competing for your audience’s attention, so how can you stand out above the rest? Well it could be what you don’t do that gives you that cutting edge. See these six mistakes bloggers make and learn how you can avoid them.
Mistake # 1 – Not Writing for Your Target Audience
When blogging, you want to keep your target audience in mind. A common mistake bloggers make is brain dumping their thoughts onto paper without really thinking of their audience. So – figure out who your audience is and what their interests are. In diving, most people are ocean lovers so that’s a good start. If you offer dives with Manta Rays write 10 interesting facts about them. If you sell dive gear write some dive gear reviews. We are fortunate enough to be in an industry that is so diverse and full of interesting and cool topics to write about.
Mistake # 2 – Your Writing Is Stiff and Boring
Bloggers often make the mistake of writing in a way that reads rigid and boring which will not be appealing for your readers. Blogs are supposed to be more conversational than formal. They can be humorous, quirky and fun. If someone was to read your blog and it was more like reading an essay paper, they aren’t going to continue reading it! It should be a style that is effortless and enjoyable to read. How do you make your blogs not sound like it’s written by a robot? Try using contractions, be conversational, be concise, and avoid using passive verbs.
Mistake # 3 – You Ramble
Whilst it is important to put your own personal spin in your writing using anecdotes and analogies, we don’t want to overdo it. Some bloggers make the mistake of wandering off topic – stick to the point and restate your point in every section of the article. You may be writing a blog about cleaning your dive equipment and spend paragraphs rambling about how you didn’t clean your gear correctly and it rusted. Your readers are not sitting in front of you so you can’t guarantee that you have their undivided attention. If you begin to ramble too much, your audience will lose interest and tune out.
Mistake # 4 – Your Blogs Are Plagiarised
The old copy and paste didn’t work in school and it doesn’t work in real life. It’s obvious when you’ve inserted someone else’s copy as it suddenly doesn’t sound like you anymore and your blog won’t flow well. Plus, it’s just plain illegal! If you want to use someone else’s copy or images, you will need to give credit accordingly. Learn how to give credit when needed in this handy article.
Mistake # 5 – You Skipped Proof Reading
Your first draft should be just that – a draft. Although it seemed like it flowed well and sounded great in your head, doesn’t mean that it does on paper. Spend some time re-reading and editing your blog to fix typos, sentence structure, flow and to make sure you’re not making any of the above errors!
Mistake # 6 – You Stop Blogging or Inconsistently Blog
When you start blogging you may be a little overzealous and post a bunch of blogs only to burn out later on. This can be confusing for your readers and they’ll look elsewhere for their content. The best way to avoid this from happening is to plan ahead! Work out how many articles a month you can commit to posting. Plan out a number of topics you can blog about and create some kind of schedule. Just remember quality over quantity – if you struggle to come up with enough topics that would interest your readers and can only blog once a month, stick to that. If you don’t have time, why not ask your staff to try writing an article?
For some inspiration on what you can blog about, why not head over to the PADI Blog and see what PADI blogs about. Alternatively, if you have any questions, please email PADI Marketing.
