Why all (yes, all) companies should have a blog
A common question small business owners and entrepreneurs ask is: “why do I need a business blog?” The answer is clear and simple: to get more customers.
Establishing a presence online is something all businesses strive to do: growing a successful business comes from frequently attracting leads and converting potential customers to lifetime clients. When it comes to online marketing, one of the most effective methods to do this can be through having an online blog. The kicker is, having a poor blog can drive customers away if you don’t fully understand the reasoning behind having one. So, what do you need to know about effective business blogging?
Driving (quality) traffic
First of all, getting traffic to your website is easier when people have a reason to come: having relevant information for your target audience, such as useful tips and advice, can get you found online. This should ideally be an easy-to-use platform that offers regular, relevant, and reactive industry-focused content. They’re not coming to read about what you had for breakfast on your business blog. This a key thing to understand, it’s not a personal blog: keep it relevant.
Converting traffic to leads
By consistently producing relevant content, B2B marketers using blogs have found that they get 67% more leads than those without, you can begin to convert the visitors to leads. This can be done, for example, through a call to action: if you can offer something that the visitor wants at a reduced price – things like e-books, whitepaper, webinars, and free trials are all winners on a business blog – you will hopefully entice them in and gain their contact details (which you can use for more personalised marketing).
Brand awareness
You are 13 times more likely to get a positive return on investment by prioritising blogging, according to the Hubspot, State of Inbound report. A business blog will represent, day and night, a ‘face’ of the business: a bespoke, informational hub where potential clients and customers can go to get answers and information. By being at the forefront of your industry with quality content, you can build awareness of your brand quickly: content that impresses consistently will not only be shared more, but also become a trustworthy source of information – a priceless asset for any company.
You become an authority
Companies who blog receive 97% more inbound links to their website: blogging gets you recognised. Producing a well-received business blog can give you an edge that pushes you into realms of thought leadership, and in becoming an authority within your industry. Providing insightful news doesn’t go unnoticed, and when you become helpful and credible, sites will link to you and give you more customers, and more ‘link juice’ for search engine optimisation (‘SEO’): your websites ranking via unpaid outcomes.
It’s great for SEO
Links are great way to boost your SEO ranking, and, along with fresh and unique content, are what search engines feed on – they love it. If you can do the right sort of keyword research, and create quality content, then you will boost your rankings and become more likely to be seen in organic searches. It takes time, for sure (and not to mention certain levels of specific expertise!), but if you can find a consistent editorial calendar, and focus on exploiting niche topics through market gap analysis, you will be amazed at the difference.
Making other marketing efforts easier
Wondering how to deal with social media without spending all your time trawling websites? Well your blog is a wonderful place to start. From pinning an image to Pinterest, to attracting industry professionals by tweeting a URL to your latest blog, and updating your social channels, cross-promotion is much easier when you have content that’s actually worthy of sharing – it all comes back to that very important fact of content being relevant. Not only that, but you can build your email marketing list, too.
It’s cheap
Aside from your time, building a business blog is free: it requires no credit card details, you have an array of platforms to choose from, and pay-per-click marketing can cost hundreds of pounds per lead. Aside from that, it provides long-term benefits as well: companies may often find that as much as half of their traffic is from old blog posts, and when you consider that by 2020 it’s estimated that 85% of customer relationships will be made without human interaction, isn’t it about time you got started jumping on the blogging bandwagon?
Improving customer experience
As well as growing your brand, giving your company a voice, and a stronger SEO ranking, business blogging is also known to improve the experience of your customers when dealing with your company. Through having healthy conversations, you can develop a stronger relationship with branded storytelling. Being that trustworthy source of reliable information will naturally lead to recommendations for your company from existing customers.
Helping you stay ahead of the curve
A by-product of consistent blogging is that you’re always looking to find new, and engaging ideas for your audience. When doing this you are more likely to research and digest the latest industry information in a more analytical manner, through keyword and audience research, for example. This helps you to see what competitors are doing, where the trends are, and how you can innovate better than the competition: this is essentially what marketing is.
How do you get started?
There are two key benefits to business blogging, and these are building traffic and trust in your brand. When you do this, sales come easier and awareness can skyrocket. So, now that you know all about business blogging, where do you start? Take a look at our help centre to find out more information on expanding your business.