Established businesses have a well-designed content team constantly keeping up with trends, gathering resources and developing content. As a small business or a start-up, you can maintain a blog too.
The blog space is crowded. So why should you, create a blog strategy when there is already so much content out there? Creating a blog can help with search engine traffic but it can also be used to keep your users up to date with information, help them gain knowledge, and for you to keep in touch with them passively.
Here are some major reasons a blog adds value to your business.
- Keeps your audience updated about the business
- Builds email list
- Helps rank on search engines
- Builds digital exposure
- Helps convert traffic into leads
1. Keeps your Audience Updated about the Business
Your website is the first place a user lands on to learn the latest information. While a website does a pretty good job of giving the required updates, it portrays mostly business. That’s where a blog comes in. Through a blog, you have the flexibility to mention other important information relating to the topic, include your personal experiences, and stats and figures.
Look at your blog like a direct channel to your audience. You can go wild here and talk about all the things relevant to your business and your audience.
2. Builds Email List
Email is one of the oldest forms of communication, if we don’t take pigeon messengers into consideration, and is still one of the most solid ones. An email is the easiest way to stay in touch with your audience and keep them updated. Having a subscriber list is a great achievement for a business.
However, building a subscriber list is not easy and with so many emails these days, users are careful about who or what they subscribe to. Producing valuable content is the key to getting your users to subscribe to your email newsletter, and blogs are an amazing hook for that! At the end of the blog, ask them if they’d be interested in receiving important news and updates so that they do not miss out on anything. Creating that fear of missing out (FOMO) works.
3. Helps Rank on Search Engines
There are 100s and 1000s of pages for every piece of information on search engines. When you need information, how many pages do you check? First page? Second page? Third page? You don’t go beyond the fifth page, perhaps, right. That’s the goal, to get your blog ranking higher on the initial pages.
To do that, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) needs some attention. To give you an idea, you should include long-tail keyword search terms in your blogs to help bring up the blog’s rank and drive traffic to your website. Internal linking and external linking are other important activities you can do to help with your site's optimization.
4. Builds Digital Exposure
Blogs are versatile and can be used as a multipurpose piece. You can break down a single blog and make videos from it, turn them into social media posts, and add them to your email newsletter. Also, they are easily shareable across social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and others. Sharing them, or when a user shares them, automatically puts you out there and has the potential to gain more traffic to your site.
It’s a win-win situation, where you are building your blog, strengthening your social presence and reaching a potentially new audience.
5. Helps Convert Traffic into Leads and Potential Customers
Blogs equal visibility, meaning, the more blogs, the more opportunity you have to show up on search engines. This would in turn drive organic traffic to the website and help you get leads for your business.
Once your blog starts gaining traffic, you have the chance to convert the traffic into potential leads. Call-to-actions (CTAs) are one of the easiest and most effective ways to do this. Add one at the end of each blog that will redirect them to a contact form. This way, you will receive their contact information to keep them updated about your business and current trends in the industry.
By now, you probably know that having a blog for a business is essential. It is a strong base for content marketing, provides the necessary information to your audience and builds credibility. If you are looking for a way to get started with marketing for your business, we offer a free consultation to start-ups and small businesses. Contact us today! We’re always excited to learn about new businesses.
