Marcus RichardsLarge businesses in the past had only billboards, radio, and TV to advertise their services. When it comes to marketing, things have changed a lot. Whether it’s a small business or a larger company, affiliate marketing and blogging are among the top options to advertise products and services. However, you can only do so much on a website. Sometimes, the customer needs more information, and what a website can’t provide, a blog certainly can.
Blogs are often written in a much looser format, making them easier to stand out. Websites can get too technical or legal, and they must drive straight to the point instead of offering long answers to the most burning questions. On the other hand, blogs can be very informative. While large companies usually don’t have the time for blogging, it’s proven an effective tool in the development of smaller and larger businesses.
While many consider it a preferable and optional investment, this article will show you why it’s an essential strategy instead.
What is Blogging?
We’ve all heard about blogs or follow a few that cover our interests. Blogs are usually tied to sports or entertainment, but they’re also a great way to keep customers updated on the latest developments for a business or company. Blogging is typically periodical, with new blogs written daily, weekly, or monthly. For full customer engagement and constant updates, weekly blogs are recommended.
Companies rarely have the time to write blogs. They’re too occupied with updating the website and focusing on social media to deliver updates to their customers. However, blogging is a much more comprehensive solution, allowing customers to be constantly kept in the loop about the latest developments.
These informal articles can also help a company connect with another type of audience. The language on a website is too formal for it, but hire a creative blogger to advertise your product or services, and your company or business can shine in new areas.
How Blogging Helps Your Business Grow
Company blogging can be as simple as sharing news about the business itself. It can also be a way to share upcoming plans, a stream of how-to guides if you’re offering a service, or it can serve as a channel for link-building. This is another important marketing strategy that can help a business grow, just like SEO techniques and affiliate marketing.
It all starts with blogging, though, as a few creative articles could be what your customers need. Expertly written and fun blogs will almost certainly drive great traffic to your website, and it’ll hopefully be the traffic you were looking for. Inbound links, also known as backlinks, are an essential piece of strategy that could help your business grow in the long term. If you’re looking for better online presence, link building on blogs is among the top factors the Google algorithm considers.
That’s how blogging can improve your company’s or business’ presence online, but it goes even deeper than that.
Reasons Why Your Business Needs a Blog Right Away
As we mentioned, blogging can be quite diverse. Whether it’s a casino looking to explain how to win at online blackjack or a telecom provider explaining how the VoIP service works, blogs are an excellent source of essential information.
They can engage new audience in many ways and keep your customers updated at all times. That’s before we even mention the constant engagement, since blogs will keep your site live day by day or weekly, depending on your preferred schedule.
Here are other ways it can help your company grow.
Keeps Your Customers in the Loop
Even if you don’t have anything to write since your website is filled with information, you still update your products and services. In this case, it would be wise to keep your customers in the loop. Large companies often run simple blogs that update their customer base with information on the latest developments. These are written in a user-friendly and informal way, so they often have positive feedback from the community.
While websites can be more practical for the same purpose, blogs are more informative and flexible. They can connect with customers (and potential new fans) in a way a website can’t. It gives them a chance to learn who you are instead of what you do. It’s a direct communication channel with your audience and a more comprehensive solution to describing your services or advertising your products.
Excellent Channel for Link Building
We already mentioned that link building is among the 200 factors Google’s algorithm considers most important for ranking websites on its results page. Backlinks are among the crucial factors for proper search engine optimization. In combination with proper on-page SEO, it could convert traffic to leads for your company.
Link building is an important part of search optimization, but also the most challenging one. If you manage to create articles that are valuable for your customers and other companies too, you’ll get backlinks easier. These valuable links are essentially a vote of confidence from bigger businesses. At the same time, top backlinks also give Google information that you’re among the most trustworthy businesses in the industry. Backlinks also build domain authority, which will improve your website’s presence in search engines. In short, it’ll be easier for customers to discover your brand.
Drives a Lot of Traffic in the Long Term
If you’re running a business, you’re probably looking for long-term results. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and if you want to pass the finish line first, you need long-term strategies. Blogging is definitely one such strategy. In the short run, it can generate a bit more interest in your company. In the long run, you can expect to establish your brand as an industry leader, which is just what you’re looking for.
To do that, you’ll need regular valuable content and articles for your target audience. For example, a how-to blog post provides educational content to confused customers. Most importantly, valuable blogs and content will establish authority, which isn’t a metric you can measure, such as traffic, but it will translate to more sales in the long term.
- Your blog posts can improve the sales funnel as your customers read valuable content that has helped them in the past
- Additionally, when your blogs establish you as an industry leader, people will end up entering your channel funnel as they have more knowledge of your services and products
- In the end, your valuable blog content builds trust, meaning your customers use it as a valuable source of information they can believe
With Proper SEO, it Can Lead to Great Results
Each blog post is an opportunity to generate new leads. All you need is proper on-page SEO and fun, valuable content, and that traffic coming to your website will convert to leads. Of course, this is easier said than done. The art of blogging is hard to master, but you can always hire a popular blogger who knows what needs to be done to convert that traffic.
Calls to action and freebies such as ebooks, fact sheets, or whitepapers are a great strategy that can help besides blogs. Visitors will read your article, see the CTA or get the freebie, and become more interested in your product or service. The best blog articles always end with a CTA, and so should yours.
Of course, not all readers will convert to leads, and that’s fine. Still, if you manage to convert most of your blog readers, you’ll do great.
Repurpose Blog Content for Social Media
Have some old blogs that are not generating leads anymore? No need to delete them. If you’re trying to promote your brand from scratch and help your business grow, old content can be repurposed and posted on social media for leads.
It’s a highly effective solution that has worked wonders for many businesses. If you’ve been blogging before, but those posts are old now, you can update them accordingly with SEO and get nice traffic. Some of your older readers might also return when they see an updated version of blog articles that have helped them in the past.
That’s the beauty of blogging. You can edit and update any article to generate more leads. Social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Linkedin are powerful tools that can get a lot of traffic to your site with the right content. If you have old blog articles, dust them off and repurpose them for the new era of marketing.
Conclusion
So is blogging an investment you should consider or an essential strategy? We’d go with the latter. Many ignore it thinking that their websites already have enough information, but the informal nature of the blog can tap into a new audience.
More importantly, you can repurpose existing content for social media and convert that traffic into leads. Blogging has always been a powerful weapon in the marketing war, especially with some modifications. Use it to your advantage and your brand will surely grow.
