Why Blog for Business?
Are you thinking about starting a blog for business?
What’s stopping you?
According to a University of Massachusetts Dartmouth study conducted in 2019, 54% of Fortune 500 companies have a blog on their website that is updated regularly. That’s up from 23% in 2010, and the numbers continue to grow!
Why blog for business? In this article, you will discover the many benefits of a company blog.
The time to start is now.
Let’s begin.
Bring More Traffic to Your Website
Whenever you create a high-quality blog post for your website, you have added another page. The more pages you have, the more chances you have for potential customers to find you.
Be sure your blog post is SEO-optimized. This helps customers find you through organic (free!) search. Ditch the pay-per-click (expensive!) ads.
According to WordPress, 71% of bloggers agree that optimizing for search engines is the best way to increase traffic to their websites.
Strong SEO also helps search engines like Google find you. In fact, Tech Client states that having a well-optimized SEO blog on your website increases the chances of a high ranking on Google by 434%. A high ranking means your post will be placed higher on the page in organic search.
Optimize your reach by including links in social media back to new blog posts. Additionally, use your email list to send out snippets of new blogs that will intrigue your customers to click the link back to your website.
Find More Leads for Your Products or Services
According to HubSpot, businesses with blogs see 55% more website visitors and earn 67% more leads.
Once customers find your website, they can become leads or potential customers. You don’t want them to get away! At the end of each blog post, ask readers to join your community by signing up for your newsletter.
You can create sign-up forms with your email marketing platform, such as Mailchimp or ConvertKit. Customers simply need to add their email address to sign up.
Of course, you’ll need an automated email marketing Welcome Campaign to greet new community members instantly.
This is just the start. Think about crafting lead magnets with landing pages that offer your customers something of value for free. This could be a checklist, a guide, an e-mail course, or more.
Learn more about blogging with my FREE 3 part e-mail course Business Blogging for Profit.
Convert Leads to Sales
It’s time to convert your leads into sales. Blog posts are crucial to a customer’s buying journey. In fact, according to a Demand Gen Report, 60% of B2B consumers consider blogs especially valuable when they are beginning their quest for a product or service.
Statistics from DemandMetrics illustrate that 70% of consumers would rather learn about a company through articles than advertisements. In fact, 60% enjoy reading the content produced, 70% feel closer to the company as a result, and it produces more positive feelings about the company in 80% of customers.
Essentially, a blog is a way to build a relationship with your customers. The result is increased sales.
Establish Your Company as an Authority
Establishing authority means establishing trust with your readers. How is this achieved?
First, your blog begins with good writing. Be careful here. Companies can develop subpar content in a mad dash to build as many posts as possible.
According to SEMrush, 23.84% of readers admit that low-quality blog posts destroy a blog’s credibility.
A Blog Works for YOU 24/7
A blog works around the clock, continually representing your company. Let me give you an example.
Let’s say you own a cake shop. Your goal is to increase revenue in June by increasing cake sales by 10%.
Your content marketing writer creates a post entitled The Basics of Birthday Cake Decorating. The blog post has links back to your product page selling birthday cakes.
The post goes live on June 1. The same day, a three-day email campaign begins promoting the blog post.
Then, a social media campaign is set up for the week on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Some promote the blog post, while others go straight to the birthday cake page.
On the first day, your blog post has 45 views. On the second day, there are 25 more. By the end of the week over 200 people have read your blog post on The Basics of Birthday Cake Decorating.
Let the birthday cake sales begin!
This blog post now has a permanent home on your blog. Make sure it is linked to your other blog posts. That way, it will be easy to find and continue to provide value to your readers for days, months, and years to come.
Once search engines like Google find your post, it will be ranked for organic search so readers beyond your regular customers, email list, and social media will find it.
That’s the power of blogging!
Polish your blogging skills with my FREE 3-part email course Business Blogging for Profit.
Repurpose Your Blog
Bonus!
We live in a world of use, reuse, and recycle.
Like in the example of the blog post, The Basics of Birthday Cake Decorating. Once the blog post is written, you can cut and paste snippets to develop e-mail marketing campaigns and social media posts.
Collect blog posts to form a large lead magnet, like an e-book. Or use part of a blog post to create a free checklist for which customers will exchange their email addresses.
In Conclusion
Why blog for business?
A blog can bring more traffic to your website, help you generate leads, establish your company as an authority, and work for you 24/7.
Once you have written your blog, much of the hard work is done. Use it as a base to repurpose it into new content.
If you don’t have a blog, then you are missing out. Remember, customers can’t buy your products or services if they don’t know who you are.
Not everyone is a skilled writer, but I am here to help.
