3 Reasons Your Business Needs a Blog
When blogging first made its appearance on the internet, no one could have predicted how important it would become to marketing strategies. In fact, a lot of businesses believed it was just a passing fad that would fade with time. So, they ignored it and focused their marketing strategies elsewhere.
How wrong they were!
It’s safe to say that blogging has become an essential piece of any content marketing strategy today. If your business hasn’t jumped on the blogging train yet, it’s time to reconsider! Keep reading for three reasons your business needs a blog.
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1. A Blog Helps You Connect With Your Audience
In order to form a connection with your audience, you first have to identify who your audience is and the goal of your blog. If you’re a B2B business or are attempting to build influence and credibility in your industry, your audience may be industry peers. However, if you’re a B2C business hoping to convert traffic into sales, your audience is likely the customer.
For most businesses, the audience is the customer. While this may seem obvious, a lot of well-meaning businesses miss the mark. Rather than creating content that shows their target customer why they should choose their brand over another, their blog content is riddled with industry jargon that the customer doesn’t understand. In that case, you’ll miss the chance to form a connection with that customer.
To prevent that from happening, focus on creating content that not only resonates with your audience but that they find valuable. By thinking of your blog as an ongoing conversation with your target audience, you’ll have an easier time engaging with them. Use a call to action (CTA) like, “Have a question about XYZ? Leave a comment down below” to encourage your audience to interact with your brand or business.
As an added bonus, creating valuable blog content can convert your audience to email list subscribers; the bigger your email list, the more opportunities you have to sell a product or service.
2. A Blog Can Increase Credibility as a Business or Brand
It goes without saying that the primary goal of all businesses is to sell a product or service. However, selling a product or service requires a certain level of trust with your target customer; they need to know your business is a credible source for what they need. Having a blog can give your business a boost in credibility because it gives you the opportunity to position your business as an expert in your industry.
In addition to showcasing your products or services, make it a point to answer your target customers’ questions that are relevant to what you do and the service/product your offer.
Here are some easy ways to generate blog topics:
Compile a list of FAQs and create helpful blog posts around those questions
Poll your audience. This can be done by sending an email to your list, asking social media followers, or creating a customer survey.
Use Answer the Public to find out what kind of questions your target customers are asking.
In a nutshell, building credibility as a business is important because it inspires trust and can set your business apart from the rest. Customers want to know that your business is reliable and will add value to their life or provide a solution to a problem they have.
3. A Blog Can Drive Traffic Back to Your Website
True or False?
Everybody wants to appear on the first page of Google and increase their website traffic.
This is absolutely true! If ranking high in search engine results isn’t high on the list of your business goals, you’re doing something wrong.
For some, this task may seem pretty daunting. After all, there are millions of websites online so getting your brand or business to rank better than theirs may be easier said than done. However, it’s not impossible!
According to HubSpot, “Blogging helps boost SEO quality by positioning your website as a relevant answer to your customers’ questions. Blog posts that specifically use a variety of on-page SEO tactics can give you more opportunities to rank in search engines and get customers to visit your site.”
Your business needs a blog because it can help you increase your search engine ranking and drive more traffic to your website. The more people who visit your site and engage with your content, the more opportunities you have to convert them to a paying customer.
Using SEO to Increase Rankings + Drive Traffic
The key is to create content that not only resonates with or is helpful to your audience in some way but is written with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind. Not familiar with SEO? The gist of it is using the same words or phrases that your audience uses when searching on Google. Finding the right keywords and keyphrases takes a little research, but there are many free tools you can use like Moz’s Keyword Explorer and Neil Patel’s UberSuggest.
While SEO can have amazing results for your blog and business website, it’s important to note those results aren’t instant. SEO is more of a long game. It takes time for search engines to index your web pages and be recognized by Google. In addition, your domain authority plays a role in how you rank in search engines. As your domain authority grows, your Google ranking will improve.
Using Social Media to Drive Traffic
Though it will take some time for your optimized content to get picked up by Google, there’s another option to increase traffic: Sharing your content on social media, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
Once you’ve published a post:
Share it on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (or whatever social platforms you utilize).
Use Canva or Pic Monkey to create a pin graphic to share on Pinterest and in the blog post itself. (Tip: If you use WordPress, make sure you have a “pin it” plugin installed on your blog to make sharing on Pinterest easy.)
Publish the post on LinkedIn with a link directing traffic back to your blog.
It’s also a great idea to use a call to action at the end of the blog post directing readers to share. Then, make it super easy for them to do so by using a social sharing plugin like Grow by Mediavine.
Blogging is a Must-Have Content Marketing Strategy
All in all, blogging is an essential piece of any business or brand’s content marketing strategy. Not only does blogging help you grow your business, but it also:
A cost-effective marketing strategy.
Improves your website’s SEO.
Produces organic results that drive traffic back to your website.
Increases the number of backlinks your website receives.
Improves your brand’s credibility.
Makes it easy to engage with your target audience.
With benefits like these, it’s easy to see why so many brands are adding blogging to their content marketing strategy.
Have enough on your plate without adding blogging to the mix? It might be time to add a content writer to your team! Check out these tips on hiring a freelance content writer or get in touch to learn more about my blogging services.
