This is the first part in our series about blogging for small businesses. Continue reading if you’re not yet convinced of the importance of blogging for your business, or skip ahead straight to the second article in the series…
Has everyone been telling you that your business needs to be creating great content? Probably. But are you still to be convinced? For the first part of our four-part series on blogging for small businesses, we’ve put together the 8 benefits of blogging on a regular and consistent basis…
Freshly-updated content
This is perhaps the most minor of all the benefits, but it’s still important. Google favours fresh content. Everything being equal (which, of course, it usually isn’t), the most recent article about a particular topic will outrank an older one. What does this mean for your business? Well, update your site’s content regularly.
Targeting long-tail keywords for a boost in organic traffic
One of the biggest benefits of blogging in relation to SEO is that it gives you a way of targeting longer-tail keywords. Take an ecommerce site for example. While this would attract traffic for its products, this isn’t the only thing that people are searching for. People undertake various forms of research prior to making a purchase. A blog allows your business to produce content for the awareness and consideration stages of the buying process. An online nail varnish retailer, for example, might create articles about nail design ideas or caring for varnished nails. Why? Because search terms like ‘nail varnish design ideas’ or ‘how to care for varnished nails’ will attract a large volume of searchers that you can then work to turn into leads and sales.
Creating opportunities for sharing
Consistently writing blog articles gives you a database of evergreen content that you can later publicise and repurpose. It also gives you content that might be more shareable than the content on your main website. Having your content shared via social media is, albeit indirectly, a ranking factor for search engines.
Attracting inbound links
For any sales-based business – and local businesses in particular – attracting links can be difficult. Who, after all, would want to link to your products and services? Producing informative and entertaining content about – and around – your products and services is one way to attract links from all manner of blogs, resource hubs and industry news sites.
Allowing you to tell your own branded story
There are loads of places where people can tell their story about your brand – through social media, on review sites, on their own blogs. But there are limited places where you can tell your story. A blog is one of them. Your business’ blog gives you a great platform to be able to manage your own PR and reputation.
Establishing your brand as an expert in your field
Central to any business’ overall marketing strategy is establishing your brand as an expert in the services and products that you provide. Your clients and customers, after all, will be more likely to do business with a company that they can trust. And one element of trust is expertise. A blog provides you with a space to write with authority on the topics at the core of your industry, therefore becoming a leader in your sector.
Providing material to your sales team
This is sometimes overlooked in terms of being a benefit of having a business blog. But marketing and sales departments or staff members don’t always collaborate as closely as they could. Having a business blog gives further marketing collateral for your sales team, particularly if you include them in the publication process.
Giving a voice to your employees
Blog writing can – if handled well – give your employees a sense of inclusion in your business. What’s more, writing blogs on a regular basis can be hard. Crowd-sourcing this material in-house, from your own team, can make this process much easier (as well as streamlining your other online marketing activities and helping you with third-party, agency relationships).
To learn more about how blogging could positively impact your business, contact us.
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