The answer to this question is YES, but only if done properly.
As someone who writes blogs and other online articles for a living, I know as well as anyone else that blogging is time-consuming and sometimes outright grueling. There always seems like something more interesting to be doing, and nothing kills that creativity than having to write; not because you want to, but rather because you need to.
Despite these struggles, having a blog is an extremely valuable marketing tool for your business. In fact, in a recent study by Demand Metric, they found that "70 percent of people would rather get information about a company or learn something from an article or blog post rather than from a traditional advertisement" and that "Content marketing generates over three times as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less." Those are big statistics and they show why having a blog on your website or a separate blog that accompanies your business site, is so important. In this blog entry, I want to dig a bit deeper into why blogging is extremely helpful and some tips on how to make a blog work for you.
Why must I Blog?
Content Marketing like a blog helps establish the character of your brand
One of the most important reasons to have a blog for your business is that it helps to define who you and your business are (Your Brand).
Readers can get a better sense of your brand, and ultimately if they'd like to buy from you, by the topics you choose to write about, the tone you use, and the level of expertise you might have. All this helps people to connect with your brand and start to build trust. A blog also gives you a platform to share important updates or news about your business or your industry. Continued posting helps to also form ongoing relationships with your audience. Of course, in order to first engage and then maintain an audience, you'll need to create interesting and original content.
Blogs can have a big impact on your SEO
Another very important reason that you should have a blog is that it will help people to find your business more easily when using a popular search engine like Google. Blogging is good for SEO because it helps with a number of things that are crucial when search engines are crawling through your webpages and ranking your website. Since search engines aim to provide users with websites that meet their needs and answer their questions, websites and blogs that provide consistently, reliable information will rank higher in search engine results. In addition, by targeting particular keywords in your blog entries, you’re able to increase your website’s chances of appearing in search results.
Finally, by posting engaging content in a blog, your chances of growing the number of backlinks to your website increase. A backlink is a link to your website posted on someone else’s website. When another credible or popular business links to your website, it’s very good for its visibility and search engine ranking. This often happens when someone reads something they find particularly interesting and posts it on their site or social media accounts.
Increase sales / more conversions
Quite simply, if more people trust your business and can easily find you online, the results will hopefully be an increase in sales or conversions. The key here though, is that your blog has to be done right for this to happen. Here are some quick tips on how to do that:
Post often - At least two a week.
Use catchy/interesting headlines (and sub-headlines) to draw attention to your posts.
Post interesting and unique stories - You want your content to have value and give readers useful information that answers their questions, teaches, entertains, etc.
Do some keyword interest - SEMrush or Moz are great places to do this.
Give video a try - You can read more about why videos are excellent ways to engage your audience in this earlier post.
Share on all your channels - Once you've written or produced some great content make sure you publish it everywhere you can to get as much engagement and participation as possible.
Encourage dialogue in your blog comment section and if people do comment make sure you respond.
Looking for inspiration? Check out some of these great blogs to see how other businesses have used their blogs to thrive:
For more assistance on how to create an effective blog for your unique business, a staff member at Fevens Content Design is always available to help.
Comments