Nearly 80% of companies that use blogging reported acquiring customers through blogging. The more content pages a site has, the more leads it gets (HubSpot, 2018).
Blogs should provide ‘added value’ to readers – meaning they will learn something relevant and useful to them, and realise you are an expert in the area they are interested in.
Whilst we all hate being sold to, free answers to questions bugging us is a whole different tea party.
Blogs must be well-structured, include images and keywords, and solve a problem for your ideal clients.
For example, a recruitment company may offer tips on retaining top performers; a commercial finance broker may explain how to match finance types to business needs.
Blogging Benefits
1.Brand Awareness
Brand awareness is vitally important – blog posting lets you show a human side of your business, and give a sense of your values and personality.
Blogging helps you develop a strong online presence, and engage with customers.
It provides a way for you to discuss issues concerning your prospects, and build up their trust.
For example, a car repair garage could post a blog on ‘What Your Mechanic Expects You To Know’, to remove any intimidation a new client might feel visiting their premises.
2. Search Engine Optimisation
Search engines love fresh, relevant content, and rewards it with higher search results visibility. Blogging is the most straightforward method of creating new online material.
Regular blog posts provide Google and the others with more pages from your domain to index, and more internal links for PageRank to crawl.
This gives your target market more opportunities to find you, and also for you to rank for your keywords.
70-80% of users ignore paid ads and only focus on organic results. (Search Engine Journal)
3. Customer Relationship Building
Customer engagement is a hugely important part of online marketing and branding.
Blogging lets you connect with existing and potential customers in a conversational way, and build interactions through relevant, quality content.
4. Expertise Demonstration
Blogging is a great platform to establish your credibility in an industry.
By providing valuable information and insights, customers see the knowledge and experience you have in your field.
This builds your authority and keeps you front-of-mind when prospects are ready to buy.
5. Sharing Opportunities
A really powerful benefit of blogging is the opportunity it gives readers to share the link to your blog with their contacts, both directly and via social media and E-Mail.
94% of people who share posts do so because they think it might be helpful to others. (Impact)
6. Website Traffic And Leads
Your blog helps you maintain an active social media presence and drive traffic to your website.
In addition, blog posts provide content for email newsletters, another excellent way to increase web traffic and sales.
Add a Call-To-Action (such as free e-book, webinar, factsheet) to each blog post to generate leads.
7. Inbound Links Generation
Having high-quality inbound links to your website is key for SEO success.
When you provide dependable blog resources, you naturally accumulate inbound media links, as authors and bloggers reference your content in their articles.
8. Compounded Long-Term Results
Roughly one in ten blog posts are ‘compounding’, which means that over time you continue to win web traffic from that blog (Hubspot).
Evergreen content is particularly likely to be picked up and scaled by search engines in this way, and continues to generate new leads without any additional investment.
SUMMARY
– Blogging is one of the best ways to differentiate yourself from your competitors.
– Blogging levels the playing field, giving small businesses the opportunity to compete with big businesses.
– Blogging increases your online exposure, establishing you as an industry expert whilst building customer relationships.
– An active blog sends a signal that you are open for business, and drives traffic to your website.
What are you waiting for? Get Blogging Now!
Sources:
- https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/the-benefits-of-business-blogging
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2015/05/28/the-top-10-benefits-of-blogging-on-your-website/
- https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/10-benefits-of-blogging-for-business-and-marketing-infographic/
- https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/what-is-content-marketing/
- https://www.semrush.com/blog/best-content-marketing-insights/amp/
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