10 Signs Your Blog Needs an Overhaul

A blog can be one of the most valuable tools in your digital marketing strategy. It drives traffic, builds authority and nurtures relationships with your audience. But over time, even the best blogs can lose momentum. Outdated content, poor design or lack of strategy can all impact how well your blog looks and performs, turning it from an asset into a liability. Here are some of the key signs you need to look out for that will signal a need to overhaul your blog:

1. Traffic has plateaued or declined

If your blog traffic has stopped growing – or worse, is shrinking – it’s a clear red flag. Algorithms evolve, user behaviours shift and competitors publish fresher content without updates, your blog may lose visibility in search engines. What you need to do in this instance is revisit your keyword strategy, update old blog posts and create new content that matches current search intent.

2. Low engagement on posts

Are readers skimming and leaving without commenting, sharing or subscribing? Low engagement signals that your content may not be resonating. Make sure you’re focusing on quality or quantity and add strong hooks, visuals and CTAs (calls to action) to fix the issue. Then write your content in a tone that is conversational to encourage engagement and to give the impression that you’re speaking directly with your audience to get the conversation started.

3. Outdated design or user experience (UX)

If your blog still looks like it belongs in the early 2010s, with clunky navigation, small fonts or slow load times – visitors won’t stick around. To mitigate this issue, you should invest in a modern, mobile-friendly design with clean layouts, easy navigation and fast performance. But you also need to make sure that the design is desktop and laptop-friendly, because screen sizes can differ.

4. Inconsistent posting schedule

Publishing three blog posts a week and then going down to one a month and then once a week, etc, etc, is confusing and inconsistent. Readers won’t know when to check back for new content, so they’ll become impatient and move elsewhere. It looks as though your blog is somewhat neglected, only ever having attention when you have the time or energy to deal with it. 

Rather than looking as though it’s a priority, it looks like a chain around your neck. Being consistent and enthusiastic about your blog helps to build trust and helps the search engines crawl your site. To make sure you’re publishing consistently, make an editorial calendar and aim to create one quality blog post a week as a realistic and achievable goal that anyone can achieve. 

5. Poor search engine rankings

If your blog posts rarely appear on the first page of Google, you’re missing out on valuable organic traffic that could be visiting not only your blog page but your website overall. They’ll be able to see your blog posts and your products or services. But if you’re not bringing in much traffic organically, then you’ll generate fewer leads and sales as a result. To avoid this issue, audit your SEO practices. Optimise titles, meta descriptions, internal links and on-page content. Refresh older posts with new data and keywords, also.

6. Your content is too promotional

If every single blog post reads as though you’re trying desperately hard to sell a product or service, then audiences won’t feel as though you’re being authentic enough. You’ll find that readers will just zone out and click off, raising your bounce rate, which is never a good thing. Blogs are all about delivering value, not pushing products and/or services. Make sure you strike a balance by educating, entertaining and inspiring simultaneously. Then weave your services and/or goods naturally into your content.

7. Lack of clear audience focus

If your blog covers a wide range of unrelated topics, readers may not know what to expect. To avoid this being a possibility for your blog and its performance overall, define your target audience and stick to themes that address their specific needs and interests for good measure.

8. Few or no conversions

If people are reading your blog but not subscribing, downloading or contacting you, the blog isn’t serving your business goals. This isn’t lucrative because you’re paying for a domain and possibly a writer to make sure you’re producing quality content consistently, but you’re not getting a return on investment (ROI). To make sure you’re increasing your leads and conversions, make sure to add clear CTAs, lead magnets and easy paths from content to conversion, such as linking contact pages or contact forms, for example.

9. Content isn’t shareable

If your content isn’t shareable, then you’ll notice a drop in traffic to your blog. That, and it could be a sign that your content just isn’t compelling enough. Content might not be shareable for a number of reasons, but the most common would be the low quality of content, low levels of readability and lack of mobile-friendliness. Mitigate all of this by creating content that is shareable (such as infographics and listicles) and that looks just as good on a mobile as it does on a desktop screen.

10. You haven’t updated in months (or years)

A stale blog can harm your credibility. When potential customers see outdated posts, they may assume your business is inactive as well, which often isn’t the case. To avoid people having this assumption about your website, you should do a content audit. Remove irrelevant posts, update ones that are still useful and relaunch your blog with a consistent publishing rhythm.

Kumo delivers bespoke digital marketing strategies to businesses across the UK. Based in the heart of Nottingham, our talented team brings expertise in SEO, PPC, content marketing, web design and beyond. If you’re looking to grow your business, reach out to our friendly specialists – we’re dedicated to achieving lasting, sustainable success for you.