Everyone is telling you that your small business needs a blog, but nobody tells you how to do it.

Truth be told, a bad blog can do more to hurt your business than an average one can do to help it. A bad blog wastes your time and resources, while it can sully your brand and turn off would-be customers or job applicants.

How do you avoid this? How to do you make the best possible blog, while tying up the least amount of your time, budget and resources?

Avoid these 3 common mistakes.

1. Going With a Free or Cheap Website Builder

You may take your first misstep before you write a single line of code. The marketing for free-or-cheap website builders make it seem like you can build a great website in the time than it takes to make a PowerPoint deck. This is rarely the case.

We highly recommend that you go with a more reliable and scalable option like a professional WordPress site. To guide you on this journey, we invite you to read these tips on starting your own WordPress blog and see how simple it can be.

Why is WordPress better? Simply put:

• Freebee templates often come with too much code, which kills your speed and your SEO
• It is harder to monetize a free site if your traffic starts to gain traction
• A watermark at the bottom of your site that says “Build By Wix” looks unprofessional

Get your blog running on the right foot. Pay a bit more money to get a lot more value.

2. Talking About Nothing But Yourself

Don’t use your blog as a place to post glorified ads and only write about your events and promotions.

Your blog is a chance to establish yourself as a thought-leader. So, show off your expertise by answering your would-be customers’ frequently asked questions. This also does far more to help your SEO, as these are the questions people are Googling. You want to be the answer they find and click on.

3. Using Boring Headlines and Cookie-Cutter Images

People will instantly write your blog off as boring if your images and headlines are boring. Earn their attention instead of asking for it.

You don’t need sensational or Buzzworthy-level headlines, but you need to put some thought into who you’re writing this for and what their pain points are. Now bring that emotion to your headlines.

Put some thought into your images as well. Yes, we know you likely can’t afford a subscription to Shutterstock or Adobe, but you can find lots of interesting images at free sites like:

• pixabay.com
• pexels.com
• getstencil.com
• unsplash.com

Data shows that blogs with interesting pictures see far more engagement.

By avoiding these all-too-common mistakes, you will be setting your blog up to succeed. You need to go with a reputable host/provider, while you use your blog as a platform to inform and not to sell. At the same time, you also need to give more thought to your headline and image choices to earn attention and engagement.

Good luck and happy blogging!