Why should I blog for my business? Excellent question!
Perhaps you have an existing blog on your website, but stopped posting for one reason or another. Did ‘business as usual’ take over? Poor results? Maybe you think it’s a waste of time to blog because you’re another lost voice in the crowd.
Perhaps you feel you’re too busy to write or think it’s too late to get started. As business owners ourselves, we know it takes a considerable commitment to write in an impacting way
Contrastingly, some business owners think you write a blog and ‘voila!’, you’re at the top of Google SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages).
Either way, it’s a challenge to develop a loyal following, and it's hard to keep coming up with genuinely engaging business-related articles.
The big question is - to blog, or not to blog? Well, guess what... the answer is ALWAYS - without exception – blog!
So, Why Write A Blog?
Blogging is a tremendous asset for every kind of business, large and small. The benefits of starting a blog far outweigh the downsides. No ifs, no buts. If you aren't posting regular content, you should be.
Here are 7 reasons why:
1. Set Yourself Apart From The Competition
As a business owner you want to do more than just ok, right? You want to be more successful than anybody else. Well, starting a business blog is your chance to stamp out the ordinary and stand out from the crowd.
The first thing to do is to have a look at what your competitors are doing. Figure out what they’re doing well. Then figure out what they aren’t doing well. Then plan your strategy to do it better.
Take note of who’s repeating the same old tired information and what needs aren’t being met among your buyer personas. Remember, if you want to be more successful, lead the crowd, don’t follow it.
If your business is already established, but you’re in a market that doesn’t enable you to blog in a way that is drastically different, commit yourself to build a better blog.
Bigger companies may have access to better research tools enabling them to create data backed content; authoritative contributors and more skilled members of staff. While small businesses are able to get intimate with their customers, find out what their pain points are and address them with more care.
Whatever your business size, build a blog that oozes quality. Set the bar high and keep it there.
Be Different & Persevere
Remember, business people who get noticed are people who do things a little bit differently and push themselves further – it’s the same with content creation.
If you feel you’re unable to write to a high enough standard yourself, then hire a journalist, copywriter or content writer to blog for you. It will be worth every penny invested.
But whatever you do, never quit when you get busy. It’s the number one no-no for business owners. It’s the one sure way to lose your favour with Google and your target audience.
One of the best-kept secrets of a successful blog is never quitting. You must keep producing content, or you will vanish into the ocean of Google’s SERPS. There’s nothing more disheartening than seeing your Google rankings drop – make sure it doesn’t happen to you.
Start your blog as you mean to go on. Keep posting, regularly. Even better, keep posting inspiring content regularly. Dominate your industry by putting out regular posts, one quality article a week is enough, but the more the merrier!
Think of it as the place where your buyer personas can go for new, original, problem-solving content.
2. Business Blogging Lets You Target Buyer Personas
Here’s the HubSpot definition of a buyer persona:
‘A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.’
When creating your buyer persona(s), consider including customer demographics, behaviour patterns, motivations, and goals. Be as detailed as you can; buyer personas provide tremendous direction and insight for your company.
A detailed buyer personal will help you determine where to focus your time, guide product development, and allow for alignment across the organisation.
Bottom line: you will be able to attract the most valuable visitors, leads, and customers to your business.
The beauty of blogging is that you can tailor your content to your buyer personas. To ensure successful business blogging, make sure you don’t dive into your blog without identifying and defining your buyer personas first.
Knowing and understanding who buys or will buy your product or service is vital to ensure a successful business blog and return on investment.
Target Your Communications
As the online world has become more and more crowded, it’s increasingly important to have targeted communications.
If one of your personas is a small business owner, while the other is a large business owner, you can change the way you produce the content by speaking directly to each of your targeted audience, addressing and solving specific pain points they have.
Always write in the tone of voice of your brand and appeal to the buyer persona by speaking in their language.
You may base customer personas on your own opinions, but try to get a balance by conducting customer interviews or questionnaires.
Your personas will change as you discover more information about your customers and what motivates them. Remember, the more you learn, the more you can re-define your buyer personas to ensure your blog goes from success to success.
3. Business Blogging Builds Your Brand
When asking yourself why you should write a blog for your business, think of it this way: not only is starting a business blog a secure return on investment which is simple to set up, it can also be the ‘voice’ of your organisation.
That means your blog is a vital part of creating and reinforcing your brand identity. Your blog can tell the story of your brand, enabling you to connect with your people in the right way.
With relevant, engaging content, your business blog will resonate with your stakeholders by making sure you use a clear, consistent and familiar tone of voice to build long-term relationships.
It helps you stay in the minds of your audience, driving more leads, growing your email lists and contacts.
A business blog is a must for your brand, enabling you to provide timely content by responding to breaking news and market changes, so you can stay relevant.
It allows you to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise, so you can continually nurture credibility and trustworthiness among your buyer personas.
Every moment invested in your blog is worth it, and every engaging post you publish is a long-term business asset, building brand awareness and showcasing your product, service and expertise.
remember
Blogging is also a way for you to keep learning. The more you research, write and post, the more knowledge you will acquire. Inspire yourself before you inspire your customers!
4. Business Blogging For SEO Works
Yes, yes, and yes! Blogging is still one of the most effective ways of increasing your popularity with Google and boost your rankings, organically.
If there’s one stand-out reason to be convinced why you should write a blog for your business it’s this: Google rewards businesses that write active, engaging blogs.
To ensure your website is a business asset, people need to see it. That means people need to be able to find it.
Blogging is a low-cost way to ensure your site can be found easily by your buyer personas, generating new customers and leads.
The more indexed pages you have, the better chance you have to appear in search results.
So, by providing informative, educational and organic content, you will naturally draw more visitors and therefore potential customers to your site.
According to Hubspot: ‘Every time you write a blog and post it, it’s one more indexed page on your website, which is one more opportunity for you to show up in search engines and drive traffic to your website in organic search.’
What’s more, every time you publish an article on your blog, you also create an opportunity for someone to share your post on social media. If you’ve got a big following, you can get plenty of traffic.
Business blogging makes you more popular, full stop. Another unwritten blog is another missed opportunity.
You’re a business owner. You want to be successful. Why would you not start blogging? And remember – it’s never too late to get started.
5. Business Blogging Converts Visitors Into Leads
Fantastic! Now you have traffic coming to your website because of all those indexed pages, you have a golden opportunity to convert your visitors into leads.
Just as every article you post on your website is another indexed page, it’s also an opportunity to generate new leads – you need engaging content coupled with a clear call-to-action to do this.
That means you need to give your buyer personas special offers, such as free ebooks, whitepapers, webinars and fact sheets – you can offer them any content asset that is engaging enough to make someone want to exchange their information.
Your visitor should come to your website, already inspired by your content, and immediately see your free offer with the call-to-action.
The visitor will then click on the call-to-action. This should take them to a landing page, which should contain a form where they can type in their information.
Once your visitor fills out the form and submits their information, they receive their free ebook, whitepaper, webinar or fact sheet, etc. This turns your traffic into leads
Are you becoming clearer now on why you should write a blog for your business? Great! Just make sure you write relevant, engaging content and put calls-to-action on every blog you write.
task
Set yourself a visitor-to-lead conversion goal and strive to improve it every month. This will show you the value of starting and continuing with your blog.
6. Business Blogging Is A Long-term Marketing Asset
Imagine being able to generate new leads in your sleep. That’s what successful business blogging will do for you. The effort you put in today can generate countless leads in the future.
In traditional marketing, business owners would invest a set amount of resources and measure the results. A successful advertising campaign would generate a return on investment until the campaign period ended.
Blogging – as part of your content marketing strategy - works completely differently.
Through a long-term investment in blogging as part of your business’s content output, including engaging in social media, you can ensure continuous returns that add value to your business.
Say, for example, your new blog post is viewed by 100 people and starts ranking in search engines. That same blog can continue generating traffic and leads for years and months to come, earning you leads and customers at all times.
The fact is, the more articles you post on your website, the more likely you are to experience success.
Generating engaging blogs that solves the problems of your buyer personas will ensure you’re found by them – forever!
Once you publish a post, it will keep on adding value. This is known as a compounding blog, which currently makes up 10% of all blog posts and generates 38% of overall traffic.
An example of a compounding blog post? This one! They focus on answering questions such as why and how, and they’re always relevant so they can stay evergreen. An evergreen blog post keeps generating traffic because someone always needs it.
remember
You can update and republish blogs to add up-to-date information.
Isn’t it time you started generating leads in your sleep too? There’s no time like the present to start writing your business blog to experience long-term success.
7. You Can Host Various Types Of Content In A Blog
When you hear blog, what do you think? Words? Well there’ll always be words in most blog posts (unless you’re a vlogger!).
But it doesn’t have to end there. Your blog can become a ‘mini media centre’ that caters to everyone who wants to learn from it.
If your clients are visual learners you could add videos or custom graphics to your blog. You can even add calculators or quizzes. Don’t write 2000 words without anything to break it up, visitors will soon leave!
Ready To Start Your Business Blog?
So, now you know why you should write a blog for your business. Blogging is a must in any marketing strategy.
If you continue to blog consistently with high-quality articles, you’ll keep your SEO rankings up and your business enquiries coming in.
What’s more, if you continue to post quality content, those business enquiries should keep on coming months and even years after publishing the article.
If you’re currently spending a lot of money on paid advertising to get your website visitors, chances are you’re spending a lot of cash when you don’t have to. That’s not to say you shouldn't use it, just know when to use it.
Why not start blogging and upping your social media presence as well?
If you don’t blog, your website will have fewer pages that are rarely updated. This means you won’t have many pages indexed on Google, which means not being very visible on search engines.
Remember, every time you write a new blog, you provide a new page to be indexed by Google, and a new way for your customers to find you. The next step? Set up your blog!
