Blog writing has become a bit of an art unto itself. It’s quite a bit unlike academic writing, definitely is not technical writing, and has only a little bit in common with fiction writing.

Nevertheless, if you are struggling with how to approach writing content for your business blog, stop and think about how your blog posts are making you look to your readers. If you are making any of these five mistakes, it can’t be good.

1. Your titles are weak – One of the most important elements to your blog is the title. Study the titles of popular bloggers like Darren Rowse and Jon Morrow to learn how to write great titles. If your titles aren’t capturing readers’ attention, then you’ll have a hard time growing your audience.
2. Your paragraphs are too long – You say you graduated summa cum laude and you’ve won 100 awards for your boring-ass essays? What you don’t understand is that people don’t read content online. They scan. Keep your paragraphs short and use bullet points.
3. You link excessively using anchor text – If you’re still linking in every paragraph using anchor text phrases because you think you’ll earn favor with Google, then you are stuck in the past. You’re more likely to get your content sent straight to the bottom of the SERP index.
4. Your images don’t match – You’ve gone through a lot of trouble to make sure you have images on your blog. Good for you. But if your images and your content aren’t in sync, you’ll just look like a putz.
5. Your content is way off topic – Keep it relevant. In other words, if your business is manufacturing tournament-play basketballs, then make sure you talk about basketball on your blog (and not vacationing in the Bahamas! Unless you went to the Bahamas to play basketball. 🙂 ).

There’s not just one way to write a blog post, but there are thousands of ways to look like an idiot trying to write a blog post. Take your time, give it some thought, and employ the best practices of the best bloggers in your niche.