Blogging. Everyone seems to be doing it these days.
But why are we doing it? Well, for some, it’s simply for the writing and sharing pleasure, which is where blogging first began. But for those of us who do it for business, the story’s a little different.
Blogging for business is not just about spreading your voice and opinions (although that is part of it). It’s a nifty little marketing tactic that, when done right, can help you attract potential customers, grow loyalty, and ultimately sell more of your products or services.
But it’s only a blog, how can it do that, you might be asking? Here’s how.
1. Sends traffic to your website
Basically, the more often you upload blogs to your business website, the better your site will rank in Google’s search results.
Why? Because search engines like sites that are active, and they also like ones that have a lot of relevant, quality content on them. Blogging enables both, and there’s not really any other place on your website that allows you to do this as web copy is normally pretty static. If you’ve SEO’d your blog, even better, your blog post itself will rank high enough to be seen in search.
2. Increases your authority
What’s really great about blogging is that it gives you a way of boosting your business without the ‘buy from me,’ urgency of advertising, emails, or web copy.
How? By building trust through relevant content.
For example, if a potential customer is searching for information on a particular topic and they come across one of your blogs and find it useful and informative, they might think, ‘Hey, I like this brand.’ If they keep reading great blogs from you eventually, they’ll think ‘Hey, they know what they’re talking about, I trust this brand’ and become customers.
3. Turns readers into leads
If a reader likes your blog, it’s a damn shame if they get to the end and then immediately leave without clicking through to your website. But, if you know how, you can stop this happening and turn these people who like what you have to say into potential customers.
So what do you have to do, you might be asking. The answer is, make it obvious what they can do now to connect with you. And this means putting a clear call-to-action at the end of your blog. You could, for instance, add a link to a sign-up form where they can submit their details to receive notifications of your future blogs by email.
If your blog targets existing subscribers, then you might say something like ‘Contact us to discuss XYZ.’
4. Creates a two-way conversation
Blogs are great conversation openers – they start a discussion and attract comments and feedback. This is important because two-way communication is the backbone of any relationship, which, in this case, is between you and your potential or existing customers.
However, while most readers will have an opinion on your blogs, the majority won’t write anything when you upload your post and share it on social media. So how do you encourage them? It may seem obvious but ask for their opinion at the end of your blog, e.g., ‘What do you think?’ or ‘Feel free to share your experiences.’ It works.
5. Boosts your social media efforts
Gaining any traction on social media is a challenge for many businesses. You set up an account on Facebook, Twitter, or wherever, get an initial flurry of page Likes, and then it all goes quiet. Part of the problem here is that we aren’t sure what we should be posting.
Enter your blogs. They are the perfect content to post because they are ready-made engaging fodder for your social media followers. As such, not only can they help fill your social media calendar, but they also encourage post Likes and Shares, which in turn can lead to more followers.
6. Humanizes your brand
Other than through the copy on your website About Us page, there are not many ways in which you can actively humanize your business. This is another reason why blogging is worth it – it allows you to do just that.
Your blog is one place where you can write in the first person, share your thoughts and opinions, and bring your brand to life. People like to deal with people, not businesses, and by writing a blog, you can let your personality shine through and hopefully make some new (customer) friends.
You can even write blogs that provide insights into your company culture, people, and premises.
7. Makes you think about your industry and audience
This isn’t necessarily an obvious one, but a really important practical reason business blogging is so worth it is that the process of creating them forces you to learn more and think harder about your industry and your audience.
While you could just sit down and write a blog off the top of your head on a random topic – it’s unlikely to be very effective. To write awesome blogs that people want to read, you need to know exactly who your audience is, what topics they’re searching for, and what your competitors are doing. Because of this, the process of blogging can make you more business savvy.
So there you have it. Business blogging is definitely worth it; you just need to put the time and effort in.
If you’d like some help writing your business blog, get in touch.