When you’re told that your small business should be publishing blogs on a regular basis, your reaction is likely to be one of dread, and questions like: “But who will read it? Where will I find the time to write?” We’re not saying it’s going to be easy, but it will be worth it in the long run.
Your blog is like an online diary, showing your visitors who you are and what you know. It’s the best way to up your content marketing game. Content marketing involves creating original content with valuable information that’s useful to your audience. Sharable information; like answers to questions or product explanations will demonstrate to your audience your expertise and build relationships with potential customers.
Here are 20 reasons why your business’ website needs a blog:
1. Be Found Online
A typical website has 5-10 pages, and by adding a blog you can add more pages to be indexed by search engines, increasing your chances of being found online. Research shows that companies with 51-100 pages generate 47% more traffic to their site than companies with 50 pages or less. A blog will help to add those helpful additional pages as well as some valuable information. When internet users are searching for answers your website is more likely to show up if your blog is active.
2. The Best Kind of Self-Promotion
You don’t want to brag outright, but you can subtly promote yourself using your blog. Share your projects, successes, and what you’ve learned. Explain the methods that have worked and those that didn’t. This way you can provide your audience with real value, without being too over-promotional.
3. Get Visitor Validation
Sometimes visitors want a little more from a website before making their final decision. Your sales pages may be perfectly crafted, but visitors want to know a little more about your brand. A blog is ideal to connect with your audience and sway them between making a purchase and walking away. Well-placed links within your content also help drive traffic to the rest of your site.
4. Social Media: A Place for Sharing
Social media is the ideal platform for sharing interesting and valuable information. By posting shareable content with links to your blog, you can increase traffic to your site much more easily. With few pages on your site, sharing the same content continuously will become boring and stale. Share something of your own that is unique, answer frequently asked questions and add value to the lives of your audience. Fans will want to share your content and in return, send more traffic to your website.
5. SEO to the Rescue
A blog on your website means more content to be indexed, receiving more attention from search engines. By publishing to your blog on a regular basis, search engine crawlers will visit more often, and thus index future content much quicker. Regular updates to your website let search engines know that your site is active. This means your content is more likely to be presented to a visitor by search engines and more chance of being found.
6. Comment away…
Another channel for communicating with your audience is the comments section of your blog. It’s a great place to reach out and answer questions or start a conversation, showing that you value your customers’ opinions and are willing to help.
7. A New Networking Opportunity
Your blog is also a great platform for mentioning and collaborating with other industry leaders, validating your position in the market. It may even open up future opportunities to network with others.
8. Keep in Touch with Lead Magnets
Your website is the place where you want to convert visitors into customers while keeping in touch. An email newsletter signup is a great way to do that, and by adding custom lead magnets to suit your visitors, you can keep them interested with a free incentive for signing up.
9. Give Your Business a Voice
A blog is an ideal platform to give your brand a voice by sharing your ideas and opinions with your audience. You can also explain products, share reviews or demonstrations. A great topic for discussion is always the latest industry trends.
10. Be an Authority
Blogging allows you to share what you know, while subtly showing visitors that you know your stuff. With almost 81% of online customers trusting the information and advice on blogs you can afford not to be blogging. Consistently publish content that’s helpful to your audience to establish your brand as an authority figure.
11. Create a Conversation
Blogs are great to start a two-way discussion with both customers and peers. Encourage interaction by asking thought-provoking questions about the topic in question, or simply ask for feedback on certain products.
12. Create a Focus
Use your blog to create a focal point for your content marketing strategy. Stick to a schedule of when to write and publish posts and structure your strategy around it. This will help you keep up-to-date and give you great content to share on social media or with email campaigns.
13. Check your Analytics
Blogging helps you get to know your audience. Using analytics to track where your readers come from, what topics they like most and how many clicks, comments, and shares you receive. This will also help to determine the type of content to focus on in future too.
14. Story-Telling
A blog is a fantastic way to tell your brand’s story. Let people know where you’ve come from and how you got to this point. It will add a personal touch, helping visitors to feel a bit closer to you, thus establishing an attitude of trust.
15. A Cost-Effective Twist
Since it won’t cost you more than some of your time each month, adding posts to your blog will only build up long-term assets for your brand. This will help you with brand awareness, bettering your relationship with your audience.
16. Generate Leads
Blogs are a great source for lead generation. As much as 57% of companies with a blog have reported generating leads from the blog, while 81% say their blog is critical for generating leads.
17. FAQ’s Answered
Blogging is an excellent way to answer all those frequently asked questions you receive from your visitors. Plus, you can go into detail giving them the answers they are looking for with a little bit more.
18. A Creative Outlet
Writing for your website’s blog on a regular basis will also be a creative outlet for you. A place for you to do something different to your everyday routine.
19. You Don’t Need to be a Designer
You don’t need to be a professional designer to create a blog. There are plenty of platforms that offer user-friendly options to get you started without needing to design anything.
20. The Numbers…
The statistics speak volumes with 70% of consumers preferring to articles rather than seeing adverts. Businesses that blog have experienced a 165% growth in leads and nearly 60% have reported gaining new customers from their blogging efforts.
What are you waiting for? Start blogging!