If you’re a business owner, chances are you have at some stage pondered over, or are currently pondering the question – “Is creating a blog really worth the effort?” Well, if you haven’t figured it out yet… the answer is YES! We’ve all been hearing about this ‘blogging fad’ for years now, and while it’s easy to dismiss as ‘too much effort’; do you really understand the benefits of business blogging…?
Blogging has been proven to be a highly successfully inbound marketing tactic for many years now, with Hubspot’s 2012 survey of 972 business owners familiar with marketing strategy concluding:
“Businesses are increasingly aware their blog is highly valuable. 81% of businesses rated their company blogs as “useful,” “important” or “critical.” An impressive 25% rated their company blog as “critical” to their business.”
So… what’s so good about it?
Put simply, blogging is an inexpensive, long-lasting*, effective way to:
– Draw more traffic to your website
– Improve your search engine rankings
– Connect people to your business
– Build relationships with customers
– Establish your business as an industry authority
*It is important to remember when considering these ‘5 Reasons’ that the long-term effectiveness of blogging is an extremely significant overriding theme. Blog post don’t disappear down a newsfeed like social media posts, or stop suddenly when funds are cut, like paid advertising. A blog post can be a popular source of traffic to your website for weeks, months, or years after it was posted, and the benefits it can bring to your online rankings have no expiry date. Not to mention, the relationships, trust and reputation you build with clients through your business blog could last forever.
Blogging represents fresh content. Websites are generally pretty static forums. You don’t change the content on your website pages on a regular basis, do you? Blogs present an opportunity to add fresh, new, interesting content to your website on a regular basis and Google LOVES fresh content!
Good content also attracts readers/visitors, and if you’re producing new, good content regularly, not only will you attract new people to your website, but you’ll keep people coming back for more.
Of course, only a small percentage of traffic is converted to customers, but there’s certainly a positive correlation between the two. Importantly, unconverted traffic is still increasing rankings, promoting your brand and building/growing relationships with potential clients… keep reading!
*Don’t think your company could possible produce ‘good’ or interesting content?
Everyone wants to rank high on Google, and with good reason! The vast majority of Internet traffic originates from Google searches. Very few people are finding your website by typing: www.yourwebsite.com – and the ones that do are an audience you’ve already engaged.
Instead, they ‘Google’ words or phrases that relate to your website, and if Google (or other less dominant search engines) consider your page highly relevant, you’ll pop up in the first few results!
*How do you get in the top results? – Well, that’s the complex process of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which you can learn more about from one of our SEO Blog Posts, or our page on SEO here.
Importantly for this post, we know that Google’s algorithms (which determine the ranking value of your website) take in to account these 3 simplified components that are directly impacted by blogging:
Keywords: Every time you post a blog, your website grows with a new page full of relevant words, terms and phrases, which emphasises your presence in search engine results. Also, as mentioned earlier, it tells Google that your website is not dormant – its relevant, and producing fresh new content regularly; an important ranking tool!
Traffic: If your blog post is gathering hundreds/thousands/tens of thousands of views, Google recognizes that this must be a high quality page to be attracting so much traffic, which positively impacts ranking (as proven in Moz.com’s study on ranking factors).
Thus… traffic correlates to higher ranking – whilst higher ranking obviously correlates to more traffic…. TRAFFIC IS GOOD!
Links: Another proven ranking factor for Google is ‘links’ (considered the most influential ranking factor by 150 experts – Moz.com). Good blogging promotes other people linking to your blog from their webpage.
If you write quality blog content on a topic, people will inevitably create links to it from their related articles, just as this post links to trusted information from Moz.com’s articles. The more ‘trusted’ the source of a link is, the greater the ranking impact. E.g. – if a large trusted website like the Herald Sun links to your interesting new blog post from one of their articles, you get big brownie points with Google.
Having internal links from your blog posts to other relevant pages on your website is also a recognised bonus of blogging! as you might of noticed I have made use of this technique in the blog you are reading right now.
All of these positive affects of blogging (traffic, rankings, links…) help connect more people to your business, broadening your network, popularity and industry status. In this sense, blogging is effectively incredibly inexpensive advertising.
Throw social media in the mix, and your power to connect with people is through the roof! Every single day, an interesting/informative/well-written blog post or article is picked up by networks such as Facebook and Twitter (which are specifically designed for people to share information) and quickly spread to all corners of the globe.
Of course, you can’t expect everything you write to go viral, but if you write an interesting enough blog, relevant to your industry, it can quickly and easily spread amongst countless others with similar interests; advertising your brand and business, and helping promote your industry status.
TIP: Use your blogs to outline your businesses’ social media tactics and activities. Rather than flood social media with less-interesting posts – create links to your most recent blog posts, which people can then like, share and comment on, connecting you with more and more people!
Equally as important as connecting people to your business, is building relationships with those people. This is where blogs can play a very distinctive role.
A blog is a great way to express your business’ unique voice, and show your personal business style to existing and potential customers. It provides a forum outside of the traditional marketing-formalities of your website content, and allows you to interact with your readers on a more personal level – even directly through comments, replies and calls-to-action.
Giving informed opinions, sharing of important information and advice giving are all common themes of business blogging, and all help to build strong relationships with your current and potential clients… that leads to the final mentioned benefit…
No matter how small your business, there’s nothing stopping you from generating a massive industry authority in the digital era by utilizing blogging effectively.
Not every blog your business publishes needs to be selling your products or services. Business blogs can be used to provide valuable, expert information on relevant topics, which helps build trust amongst your readers (who are customers or potential customers), and establish your business as an industry authority.
Over time, your blog may become a ‘go-to’ resource for helpful information, increasing your status and presence as a business. Though these informative blog posts don’t provoke immediate sales, the reputation you build will eventually lead to a higher customer conversion rate.
TL;DR: If you’re asking yourself “why should my business start a blog?” Well, you’re already missing out! The benefits of blogging include website traffic, search engine rankings, networking and advertising, building relationships with your customers and establishing your business as an industry authority.
Best of all – all this is virtually free! The only cost involved with gaining all these benefits is your time and efforts in creating quality blog posts. Of course, time is a valuable commodity for many business owners/operators, and not everyone has an aptitude for writing…
If you don’t think you have the time, resources or expertise to get your business blog off the ground, contact our Melbourne digital marketing agency. Our experienced content strategist and talented copywriters can help you execute a successful business
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