I have a small business, do I need a blog? Word out on the internet today is that “content is king”. But is it really? What is this “content’ that everyone seems to have a craze about? Are the benefits of writing articles for a blog worth the work? There is only one way to find out.
About a year ago, I got an email from a colleague saying…
“My friend has a small business. Does she really need a blog?”
Well, you almost guessed how I responded. I said the same thing that everyone on the internet keeps saying… “Content is king.”
Obviously, there was more to my response than just those three words.
Businesses in this day and age operate in an ever-changing environment of technology and consumer demands. It has become inevitable for small businesses like yours to have a strong online presence in order for them to build a reputable brand.
Consumers are becoming increasingly tech-savvy especially with the new wave of smartphones that are very easy to use.
Blogging is one way of creating content online. Since almost every business is aware of this, most of them rush into bland, middle-of-the-road, and spun blog posts. This might have worked 5 years ago but with the competitive nature of the global economy, such content doesn’t cut it anymore. Your businesses need to go further. Blogging for businesses does not have to be expensive. At Content Clerks, we offer affordable bulk article writing services.
Now that you understand the basics of why you need to blog, let’s dive into the real benefits of having a blog.
Benefits Of Blogging for Marketing
Wonder why I say marketing?
Let’s face it, you are probably in business because you want to make money. You can only do this if you have customers and in order to reach people to buy your product or service, you need to market your business.
Here are some of the benefits of blogging for small businesses.
Blogging Helps Drive Traffic To Your Website
You have a business with a website in place. How will people who are not already your customers find your business? Let’s look at some of the options…
- They could find you on social media, probably by searching for a keyword related to your business. They could also have gotten referred to your page by a friend or could have just bumped into your social profile accidentally.
- They could have typed a question on a search engine trying to find a solution and since you might have written a blog answering their question or at least talked about a related topic in your blog post, it shows up as one of the results. This drives traffic to your website
- Looking at the second option, you can already see another benefit of blogging which is SEO… but we’ll get to that later.
We all want website traffic, don’t we? Well, blogging is one of the best ways to drive organic traffic to your website.
Every time you write a blog post, it’s one more indexed page on your website, which means it’s one more opportunity for you to show up in search engines and drive traffic to your website in organic search.
Remember when I mentioned social media as a traffic source? Blogging also helps you get discovered on social media since it gives a platform for your audience to share your content on the numerous social sites available like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
It also serves as a content repository. Instead of coming up with fresh content to post on social media, you can always use content that you previously published on your website.
Blogging Helps Convert That Traffic Into Leads
A blog gives people a reason to regularly visit your website, especially if you post frequently and deliver quality content that’s entertaining, useful or both.
Now that you have that traffic coming in, you can be able to convert it into leads. You just need to tweak your content a little bit by adding a lead-generating call to action to every post.
These are called lead magnets. For those who have might not know what a lead magnet is, it is a content asset that you give for free in exchange for someone’s information, say an email address.
Some of the popular lead magnets are free trials, free webinars, free whitepapers, and free ebooks.
It helps develop and strengthen relationships with new and existing customers
Blogging allows you to connect with your customers and by doing so regularly, you are able to build stronger bonds with them. These bonds are what make your customers buy from you over and over again.
You can start conversations with your site visitors by simply asking questions in your post and engaging with them further in the comments section.
An active comments section on your website automatically brings out the human factor of your business. In the end, we are all human beings and are wired to have conversations.
Blogging Helps Establish Authority
The best blogging practice is to create compelling content that also answers questions that your customers and leads might be having. When this happens, they tend to trust you.
If you consistently create content that helps your potential customer, you stand out as an authority in their eyes. Such supremacy in people’s eyes is a key building block to becoming a brand.
Establishing authority may certainly not be a quantifiable metric like traffic or leads, but make no mistake discrediting it. Brand authority is quite powerful
It Provides An Exceptional Boost To Search Engine Optimization
I saved the best for last.
Remember when we talked about traffic from search engines? Search engines remain among the leading traffic sources today. That said, ranking on search engine result pages for particular keywords is crucial.
All of the major search engines love fresh and relevant content. Blogging is one of the most straightforward and inexpensive methods for a business to create this.
The more you blog, the more you are indexed by search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
Conclusion
There you have it… If you’re looking to start a blog for your business you have enough reasons to do so.
Effective blogging will help you start attracting and nurturing leads, then capturing and engaging new customers.
Does blogging help your business?
Blogging has been statistically proven to improve businesses. It is proven to help businesses increase their leads. However, you must be good at blogging to achieve this.
What is the advantage of blogging?
One of the advantage of blogging is that it helps you build your online identity and people get to know you better.
How can I use blogging to promote my business?
You can use blogging to identify your target audience, know your purpose, write content that helps your audience and use it to grow your email list