Are Your Blogs Boring?

Blogs Are Not Dead

The major­i­ty of the con­trac­tor web­sites I see today have a blog. Many of these blogs are not active. I’ll see just a few post for awhile and then noth­ing for months. I under­stand this prob­lem as it is very dif­fi­cult to keep up on a blog. Typ­i­cal­ly a busi­ness own­er is ask­ing him­self things like: 

What should I write about?  Will peo­ple read my content?  Will they even care that I have a blog?  Will it dri­ve more traffic?  Will it bring me more work?

All are good ques­tions to ask, but per­haps one of the best ques­tions to ask is this, ​“Are my blogs bor­ing?” Blog­ging is still very much alive and well. Blog­ging, if done right, can still be a very effec­tive way to dri­ve traf­fic and more leads to your busi­ness. It takes time. It takes a com­mit­ment to be con­sis­tent at writ­ing qual­i­ty and help­ful con­tent. Here are a few quick tips to keep your con­tent alive. 

• Change The Name of Your Blog: Instead of call­ing it a blog, maybe call it a ​“Learn­ing Center.”
• Don’t Be So Wor­ried About Sub­scribers: Let’s face it, your blog may not get a lot of sub­scribers. A lot of prospects don’t go to con­trac­tor web­sites and sub­scribe to get updates about projects, help­ful tips, etc. Instead they will spend time on sites like Houzz or Pin­ter­est. The only way to real­ly get sub­scribers is to cre­ate a blog that is 100% about help­ing and edu­cat­ing peo­ple. This would require a lot of work on your end; lots of plan­ning, con­tent, videos, guest posts, and more. If you are not com­mit­ted to doing this, sub­scrib­ing to a blog should not be the focus.
• Keep It Inter­est­ing: Write as though you were hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with a friend who does not know any­thing about what you do. Write con­tent that you think he or she would like to read. There is a young woman, who just 3+ years ago start­ed a blog called FOOD BABE. She was inter­est­ed in what was real­ly in the food she was eat­ing. So she start­ed blog­ging about just that: edu­cat­ing her read­ers on what is in their food: good and bad. In just a few years, she has per­haps had more pos­i­tive influ­ence on the food indus­try than any oth­er blog­ger. Large com­pa­nies are lis­ten­ing to her: McDon­alds, Sub­way, Chic-Fil‑A and so on. Check out her bio and accom­plish­ments here.
• Blog About Your Projects Using Qual­i­ty Images: Hav­ing qual­i­ty pic­tures of your work is per­haps one of the best ways to keep your blog from being bor­ing. The key­word here is ​“qual­i­ty”. It is easy to snap a few pho­tos and post them. How­ev­er, I know how it is work­ing in the field and try­ing to get good shots from your crews. 9 times out of 10, the pic­ture qual­i­ties are junk; poor light­ing, blur­ry, or not the right angle. Your read­ers don’t need to see 60 pho­tos of a project. Real­ly all that is need­ed might be 4 – 6 of your best pho­tos. Show them a before and after of an entry door that went from white to a rich rasp­ber­ry col­or. Show off a plain white room with a new col­or scheme. I call this type of blog­ging, ​“Project Blogs”. You’ll nev­er real­ly run out of blogs to write if you can get a few good pho­tos and say a few things about the project: col­ors used, how long it took, the cost, and location.
• Edu­ca­tion­al Video Blogs: For those of you who are not writ­ers, try doing a few video blogs. Make them edu­ca­tion­al and infor­ma­tive. Maybe do a few tips such as, ​“Clean­ing Gut­ters” or ​“Prepar­ing Your Home for the Win­ter”. You can also use videos to get tes­ti­mo­ni­als from your clients or to give a quick sum­ma­ry of a job you have com­plet­ed. The same rule applies here though: Make sure the videos are not shaky or corny. To avoid this, use a tri­pod when you can and do a lit­tle editing!

Hope these few tips you find help­ful. Don’t give up. Keep up the blogs and mar­ket­ing even when you are in your busiest sea­son: win­ter is com­ing again!