• Search Engine People , Wednesday, August 6, 2008 4:15 PM

For businesses that use their blog primarily as a sales tool, a lack of traffic (and conversions) can be discouraging--particularly if the Webmaster has been blogging consistently. But before writing the effort off as a failure, bloggers should check to make sure that they're not committing one of a dozen conversion-averse blunders.

For example, using extremely technical or "academic" language may alienate potential readers--even if the blog is in a niche vertical. "All too often bloggers try to impress others with their vocabulary, and lose their readers as a result," says Jeff Quipp. "It's also common to see writers using industry lingo and acronyms (which isn't a bad thing necessarily) if they're accompanied by descriptions."

Bloggers should also remember to keep the content scannable, avoiding large chunks of text and long paragraphs. Quipp sites data from Jakob Nielsen that found that only 16% of people will read every word of a blog post. So writing for the majority of potential readers means using bulleted lists, headings and subheadings, as well as italics and bold fonts for key snippets of info. Quipp also notes that many bloggers fail to add supporting images to their posts.

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