Business blogging is a key marketing tool for businesses to gain more online visibility, and is primarily used as a kind of short-form piece of content to explain certain actions related to your particular industry. Your business blog will ideally always cover topics that have some relevance to your business – directly or indirectly.
Blogging benefits – a cheat sheet to understand why your business needs a well-written blog
What does a business blog do?
A blog enables you to get more traction online, so that you can be found on the Internet when users search for keywords related to the business you operate in. Your business could pop up in multiple places – on search engines, on blog posts, on social media and much more. Business blogging is one of the best ways to get your brand out to users looking for similar products and services online.
Different from personal blogs, business blogs are not hobbies and help your business make money. They are part of your marketing framework, just like emails, newsletters and social media to support business growth. This guide aims to help you understand why your business needs a well-written blog.
Directs traffic to your business website
The goal of creating a business website is to get more visitors to your page. While some visitors may directly type your brand name into a search engine, you naturally want to reach out to more people who don’t know you.
You could buy lists and blast out emails, but it can be expensive and won’t necessarily help you achieve you desired goal. You could even buy paid ads on search engines, which again can be expensive.
While these methods may work, they are not necessarily long-term solutions. On the other hand, blogging is a great long-term tool to help you drive traffic to your website. Here’s what a blog can do for your website:
- Every blog post can be indexed to different website pages, enabling your brand to show up more often on search engines – driving traffic organically to your web pages.
- Blog posts indicate to search engines that your website is active and constantly refreshing its content to cater to users.
- Blog posts enable your website to get traction on social media because you’re creating content that can be shared on networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest – giving you access to a wider audience.
- Blogs allow you to engage with influencers who can strengthen your brand’s offering by endorsing the content you deliver.
Blogs work closely with social media and search engines to help drive visitors to your website, making them an important part of your overall search engine marketing strategy.
Converts visitors into prospective leads
Once you get blogs to direct visitors to your website, you have the chance to convert them into genuine leads for your business. But for this to work effectively, you must have a clear call-to-action at the end of every blog post – so your readers know exactly what you’re expecting from them.
Call to actions could be anything from downloading e-books and signing up to newsletters to buying products and filling up database forms. Here’s how you convert a visitor into leads through your blog post:
- Write a clear call-to-action at the end of the blog post with a link to a specific page on your website.
- Readers click on the link, and are re-directed to your web page.
- Visitor follows the call-to-action instructions, which is then retained at the backend of your website for your future reference.
Keep in mind that not every blog reader converts into a lead for your business. But that’s just how it is. Even the biggest brands are unable to convert every reader into a lead. Make sure you get the basics of a good call-to-action right and you’ll notice an improvement in your lead conversion rate.
Business blogs are written to address certain needs that are identified within particular industries, which is why a great deal of research and thought should be put into them before posting them online.
Creating content that is helpful to customers will help position you as an industry authority in their view. Your blog also will increase the domain authority. This will lead to more shares and likes online –search engines love this level of engagement, which can push up your website rankings. So how can a blog post help establish you as an industry authority?
- Research the type of queries people are posting online about items related to your industry.
- Write content that addresses specific queries related to your industry. For example, if a customer is unable to understand how to use a particular product you sell, write a ‘how to’ post that tackles this query.
- Tie your content to a specific call-to-action that not only helps address a question, but also ultimately converts the reader into a genuine lead for your business.
Prospects whose questions are answered by a particular blog post are must more likely to trust your brand, and will turn into genuine customers for your business. They click on the sales process as more educated because of your blog and are well aware of what you have to offer in comparison to others. Building trust is the first step towards positioning yourself as an industry expert.
Delivers long-term outcomes
Blogs aren’t just meant to deliver short-term results. They are designed to build you as an industry expert for the long haul.
If you’ve published a blog post today, you’ll likely get a certain number of leads in the next few days. This may reduce over the next few days and weeks. But the blog post itself remains online for years, which means that you can continue to get leads and traffic from it – even if not in the same capacity as before. Why does this happen?
- Blog posts remain online, so users may find them every time they search for something relevant to your industry.
- A new lead or click through to your website will result in compounding returns even if the blog isn’t the latest one in your repertoire.
- Blogs that contain evergreen content tend to come up more than others because they don’t relate to specific timelines, and can address needs no matter when they are accessed.
This level of blog post engagement, months and even years later, proves the scalability of creating a dedicated blog post for your business website. But it is important to be patient, as you may not necessarily see results immediately. Over time, you may start to see traction through an increase in leads and traffic without investing in any new or additional resources. The blog post acts as the facilitator to undertake your lead generation work – well in advance.
Blogs are a great way to help people better understand what your business has to offer, so don’t shy away from writing about new product releases, events and other details that are relevant to you. So why would you communicate this important information?
- Allows you to deliver your key messages to relevant readers interested in your business offering.
- Helps to build a loyal audience on your own channels, rather than constantly having to pitch your story to external writers.
- Showcases your entire product range, so users know that you have more to offer.
- Offers an opportunity to display your personality and extend your brand value.
Starting a business blog will help you get more readers, followers and customers over time. Blogs can turn websites into valuable marketing tools by getting readers to actually visit them. Creating more web pages will help you rank more easily in search engines because you can create blogs that ultimately link to each of them through specific call-to-action statements.
Every new blog post is housed under a specific blog page on your website, so you don’t have to worry about them cluttering your pages. When you write a new blog post, you are essentially creating another opportunity for your website to rank on Google and other search engines.
There are plenty of ways to build your website’s SEO, but blogging is a great tool to add to your overall marketing mix. The best part is that it is a low-cost way for you to generate opportunities for your website to be found by your relevant target audience – putting you in a commanding position to build new leads and genuine customers for your particular business.
Ultimately, one of the biggest blogging benefits is the fact that you may be able to attract high-quality prospects even if you’re not actively trying at a particular point in time. If you are able to deliver valuable blog content on a regular basis, you’ll notice an upward increase in your lead generation efforts, which is exactly what you want for your business.