Creating, setting up and maintaining a blog will require time and skills, however, the importance and the benefits of having one should not be undermined. A blog can be hugely beneficial to businesses when it comes to SEO and increasing the traffic to your website. A blog can create a place where you can get the first interaction with potential customers.
Blogging should be a prevalent part of your marketing strategy. Good news - is easy to set up a blog. All you need is a platform for blogging and a hosting service that meets your needs. If you still have any doubts, here are the most important reasons why you need a blog for your business.
Introduce yourself
A blog gives you the perfect opportunity to introduce yourself, your business and your team. If you are a small business, then it’s important for any potential customers to get an insight into your business. In this introduction section, you can highlight your business mantra, what you want to achieve, how you want to run your business, how you want to make a global impact and the causes you believe in. If you highlight your business beliefs, this can even turn visitors into customers. For example, if you are aiming to go green and ditch single-use plastic, this may resonate with some audiences who would want to support your business.
Be an expert
Establish yourself as an expert in your field. Whether you are doing digital marketing or a graphics service provider, become an expert in your field and help solve problems for people. If you are running a business in a certain field, you likely have picked up knowledge that you can share. Therefore, a blog can give you an opportunity for content creation for your audiences, which you may be able to convert to paying customers.
If you are establishing yourself as an expert, you need to ensure that the content is informational and education rather than promotional. If your content is constantly selling your products, this will deter people from your site and blog. There is no harm in adding relevant links, however, the primary purpose of your blog posts should be to inform, educate and help solve problems.
Boost traffic to your site
A blog can help you bring in traffic to your website and this is by having optimised content. Blog SEO is the main key player in making sure that your content is ranked on Google. It’s great having a variety of content on your blog, however, if it has not been optimised you will have missed the opportunity to reach a huge audience. On-page optimisation is key, so you need to make sure that you are adding Meta keywords/description, title tags, subheadings, image names and ALT tags and internal links. These will all help get your content ranked on Google and be found by the right people.
Most importantly, it’s essential that the content you publish on your blog is easy to read and follow, unique, relevant to your audience and a good length (the minimum of around 500 words).
Marketing tool
A blog is a marketing tool and should be part of every business’ marketing strategy. A blog can also help you in other areas such as social media. If you are a small business, you might not have a lot of time for social media activity. Therefore, being able to share quality content from your blog will help you get active on social media, and share real content with your followers. Read more on social media marketing. The main aim is to stay active and be fresh on your audiences’ mind. Therefore, having a blog will help you keep active and play a vital role in your marketing strategy.
Get to know your audience
As a business owner and a business, the idea is that the more you know about your audience and customers the better. This allows you to cater to their needs and convert them into loyal customers. When you set up a blog and post content that is relevant to your business, you are attracting an audience which is interested in your field. So, you can use Google Analytics to find out who is visiting your blog, which will enable you to market your products to the target customers. The additional data from your blog visitors can help you target your sales and marketing campaigns towards them.
Build your brand
Building your brand is about telling a story and having that represent who you are as a business. A blog can help you do that. Introducing yourself and highlighting your beliefs and aims allows the audience to understand your purpose as a business. This can be great for your business brand, putting your business in a positive light and showing what you stand for.
There are a number of benefits of having a blog for your business. It’s important that if you do decide to set up a blog that you make sure you are consistent with it. Consistency is key and will help
