Get ready. I’m about to blow your mind with some outrageous blogging stats. By the time I’m through, the blogging benefits for business will be obvious!
* Companies with blogs enjoy 55% more website traffic.
* Companies with blogs enjoy 97% more inbound links
* Companies with blogs enjoy 434% more indexed pages.
* 81% of companies believe their blog is critical to their success.
* 57% of companies have acquired a new customer from their blog.
* 92% of companies who blog more than once a day have acquired a new customer from their blog.
Amazed? I know I was.
Given that I have committed myself to blogging regularly for my own business, I thought I’d dig a little deeper and figure out exactly what benefits blogging for business can yield. I figured I should know what the return on investment for my time is going to be!
1. Blogging drives traffic to your website. We all know that to woo Google (and its other search engine buddies) we have to have as many indexed website pages as possible. The problem for most companies (including my own) is that the majority of pages on their website, and the content within, are static. Chances are that your ‘Services’ or ‘About Us’ pages aren’t going to require regular updating. That means that Google isn’t regularly indexing your site, trawling for new content. So, you are less likely to rank in Google’s top search results. This is where a blog comes in handy. Every new blog post is another opportunity for you to appear in the search engines, and to give Google something to index. This drives up your Google ranking via organic searches and increases traffic to your website.
2. Blogging drives social media traffic. Every time you upload a blog post, you are generating content that can be shared on social media networks. If people find your blog posts informative, educational or entertaining, they will be shared across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. Your business will be exposed to whole new audience, to people that might never have heard of your business before.
3. Blogging can help position you as an ‘expert’. The key to a good blog is to provide useful content. The content must engage the reader and fulfill a need. The best business blogs tend to answer frequently asked questions from customers (and potential customers). What do you think is going to happen if you consistently provide accurate, useful, timely information? Solve real-life problems? Answer questions? You will become viewed as an expert, an authority. And really, who wouldn’t want to do business with an expert?
4. Blogging delivers long-term results. Blog posts are not a here-today-gone-tomorrow marketing tool (like print advertisements tend to be). Think about it. You publish a blog post today. It might get 100 views today and tomorrow. But that’s not it. Google (and the other search engines) have got a hold of it now. That means, for instance, whenever someone searches for ‘benefits of blogging’ my little post (might) appear. For one hour of writing, you can generate thousands of website hits and page views.
5. Blogging educates the blogger. If you are crafting regular blog posts, you may find that you have to really search for interesting, innovative subject matter. Or, you might find that you need to drill down to put a new spin on an old topic, to differentiate yourself from the rest of the herd. In researching blogging topics, you might even find that you brush up on your own skills and knowledge. Take this blog post; I had absolutely no idea that companies with blogs enjoy 55% more website traffic. I didn’t expect that number to be so high. As a result, I am now kicking myself for neglecting my own blog for so many months.
6. Blogging helps you connect. It’s time for the warm and fuzzy portion of this post. Blogging will help you connect with your customers, potential customers, thought leaders within your industry, your employees, even with the general public. A blog gives you the opportunity to give your business a voice, a personality. It offers you the chance to ‘humanise’ your company. People make deeper connections, and are more likely to trust, people they know and respect.
Sources:
http://www.impactbnd.com/blog/78-delicious-blogging-statistics-to-sink-your-teeth-into
