If you’re unfamiliar with blogging, the term probably invokes the image of Carrie Bradshaw prattling away behind her keyboard about the mundane events of her life. Since it’s birth in the early ‘90’s, blogging has found it hard to shake the outdated connotations attached to it.
So, we’re making it our mission to give blogging the reputation revamp it deserves!
The thing is – it actually did start out as an ‘online diary’ of sorts. Writers would create dedicated, simple webpages to post their thoughts and commentary. This quickly evolved once business owners recognised the potential of informative pages to engage their audience.
Today, blogging has become one of the most commonly used tools in digital marketing, utilised by 85% of B2C companies and 91% of B2B companies.
Here is why so many companies rely on it, and why it’s crucial for you to be take up regular posting.
What is a business blog?
Rest assured, a business blog is not a ‘day in the life’ of your business.
A business blog is a regularly updated feed of content posted to your website that contains informative, often educational, information relevant to your target audience. For example, an online clothes marketplace may post articles on styling tips for particular fashion pieces. On the other hand, a carpet cleaning service might blog about DIY stain removal tips.
See where we’re going with this?
A key defining feature of a blog over a webpage is that it is consistently updated. We’ll get to why this is so important later.
A business blog should feed into your broader content marketing plan. In a nutshell, this is the production of informative, useful content to attract a high-quality audience.
What are the benefits to having a blog
SEO
Once upon a time, SEO was all about cramming keywords, but as Google’s bots evolved, this simplistic approach became penalised. Now, search engines rely on a complex interplay of algorithms to find high quality content that is deemed most relevant.
Blogging is now less about keyword density, and more about value-adding. Basically, the secret to improving SEO is to create informative, unique content that is engaging for the reader. This stems from your ability to organically incorporate keywords, increase visibility, increase indexable content, and promote audience engagement and time on page.
To put this into context, studies have found that 66% of businesses the use blogging as part of their SEO strategy generate more leads than those who don’t.
Position yourself as an industry expert
Providing interesting and engaging content that audiences can’t get elsewhere will quickly build your reputation as an industry leading authority. Being a reputable, reliable source of relevant info is good more wooing more than just the Google bots.
If audiences view your brand as a go-to guru for your niche, they are more likely to consistently seek out your platform first. Imagine having that kind of edge over your competition.
A highly successful example of this is River Pools, a US pool installation company. After a difficult period of business, the company decided to introduce blogging to their website as an innovative way to gain traction. River Pools sought to change their mindset from being viewed as simply ‘a pool company’ to instead being an ‘industry leading provider of valuable, helpful and remarkable content’.
The company’s first post simply answered their customers’ common questions.
Their breakthrough blog post ended up generating over $2.5 million in sales for the company.
Blogging also allows you to foster more genuine connections with your audience – particularly if you can employ a more conversational, less salesy tone. You may even consider adding a comments section to open a communication channel with your customers. A word of warning though – these can become rife with spam, so invest in a good spam filter if you are going to do so.
Why do I need to do it regularly?
We get it, blogging takes time and running a business doesn’t allow for much spare time. However, sporadic, infrequent blogging is unlikely to see the same results as a consistent approach would. Here’s why.
- SEO – each time you upload new content, Google’s bots will trawl through your site, and they favour fresh content, giving you a little boost in those rankings! Plus, the regular addition of fresh indexable content builds your authority while allowing your to organically target new keywords.
- Hold audience interest – once your blog gains traction, you’ll find readers coming back to scour your new content. If you aren’t proving fresh articles for them to read, you’ll find them quickly sourcing their info elsewhere. The key is to keep your audience hooked by giving them a reason to keep coming back.
- Social Media content – Blogs are an excellent source of social media content. It works as a great lead generator to your site, while providing valuable content to your social audience. If you can create a steady stream of blog posts, you’ve got a steady stream of social content too.
Note: the goal here is not to be your own biggest fan. Rather than post EVERY blog post, be strategic and space them out for maximum value add.
The golden question remains – how often should you be blogging?
Our generic formula is once a week. It’s enough to retain audience interest without being outweighed by the time required to produce a weekly blog.
And the best part – you don’t even have to do it yourself.
We at Wordly happen to know a thing or two about valuable blog post writing across an encyclopaedic number of topics. You can kick back while we get to work on enamouring your customer base and Google bots. Like where we’re going with this? Get in touch to find out more.
