A Guide To How Small Businesses Can Benefit From Adding Business Blogging To Their Marketing Strategy
I sell products, not services. Is Business Blogging Worth My Time?
Over the past decade, blogging has gotten a bad name. Each month, more than 70 million blog posts appear on Wordpress alone. These blog posts aren't just angsty teenagers and travel writers. Blogging for business is becoming an increasingly popular tool for online marketing and more than ever before, business blogs are on the rise.
A blog is a valuable tool on any website that sells a product or service. It is a platform to connect with your target audience and attain website visitors from new places. With a little search engine optimization, your content will start pulling traffic in from search engines in addition to via social media. Once these visitors have found your blog, they can be turned into leads that you can eventually turn into new customers. Even if you are selling printed tees, I guarantee that there are multiple ways your business would benefit from a blog.
Blogging in business is about more than sharing blog content that people like. When used properly, it is a great form of content marketing that can be geared towards achieving your business goals.
Here are six reasons to start blogging for business now.
Rank on Search Engines For Your Target Keywords & Increase Your Website Traffic
You don’t need to be a marketing expert to know that content drives traffic. The mysterious Google algorithm crawls your site for relevant keywords and ranks your site accordingly. The more relevant content your site contains, the more opportunities Google has to rank you. If you landed here by searching for a term like "business blogging" or "blogging for business", it is proof that my content marketing strategy is working. Blog posts like mine are driving millions of website clicks per day by including the keywords and terms that people are searching for.
When it comes to keyword inclusion, it is often the case that there just isn't enough room on your website to write relevant content that contains all of the terms you need it to. Packing your home page with keywords often results in content that reads like it was written for search engines, and not for customers. Obtaining website visitors is great, but there’s no point in getting traffic if your copy is not powerful enough to convert site visitors into paying customers.
Instead of cramming your home page and "About Me" section, create a business blog where you can share great new content that is filled with the keywords you need to get your site ranking. A blog is a platform where you can include a mix of long-tail and LSI keywords without sounding copy hacked. Crucially, it is a chance to drive traffic without compromising the voice of your brand.
This is just one reason why business blogging ought to be an invaluable tool in your content marketing strategy.
Improve Your Social Media Strategy By Creating Content That Informs, Educates, and Gives People a Reason To Share
Writing a blog for a website is not like posting a caption on Instagram or a lengthy post on Facebook. When people are reading your blog post, they are already on your website. This makes them warmer leads than a person who reads and likes one of your posts while scrolling through their feed.
Business blogging also gives you unique, valuable content to share across your social media pages. Posting photos of your product or service can be a great way to showcase what you are doing. The trouble is, people do not tend to share photos of products if they come across like ads. People also won't share your new blog articles just because you have asked them too. It is far more likely that people will share a blog post if it provides them with great content that is genuinely educational or entertaining.
Effective social media strategy depends on a lot of factors, but one of the most important factors is whether or not the content you post provides genuine value to your audience. Sharing great content is how you start gaining fans of your online brand rather than collecting followers who are only interested in a follow back.
To write killer blog posts, it is essential that you first understand the interests of your target audience. If you are a fashion retail site, it is unlikely that your audience will respond well to an article about looking after rare and exotic plants, even if it's a key term you could probably rank for. Instead, you could post about the latest trends or share a guide to dressing for your body type. If you sell pet accessories, you could write about choosing products for your dog’s personality based on their breed. Effective marketing comes down to understanding your audience and providing them with something of value. This is true for social media, email marketing, and of course, blogging for business.
When developing blog content, engage your imagination and think about what your potential customers would genuinely benefit from reading. Great content inspires people to follow your brand, engage with your posts, and share your website with their friends. If your marketing strategy relies on social media rather than search engines, it is even more important that the content you create is truly great.
Grow Your Email Subscription List & Convert Site Visitors Into Warm Leads and Then Future Customers
If people land on your blog, more often than not, it is because they are interested in the topic you are writing about. Given that every blog post you write should relate to your business, you can be pretty confident that blog popularity equates to interest in your line of business and brand.
People that are interested in the things you are writing about are potential leads. By engaging with your blog content, whether they know it or not, these people have acknowledged that you are a brand that posts content they care about. That makes these people ideal candidates for leads that you can guide along the marketing funnel and convert into paying customers.
To convert traffic into leads, make sure that you end every blog post with a call to action (CTA). This is an instruction that prompts readers to take any action that moves them closer to the point of purchase. If you don't have a CTA at the end of your blog post, too much of the traffic you have gained will be wasted. Even if people are interested in you and your brand, they won't know how to follow up and find out more.
A popular CTA is a sign-up button for an email newsletter. If people love your content, they will probably be interested in receiving more of it. They are probably even willing to hand over their email address in exchange for the occasional email announce a new blog post or product launch.
Your CTA does not have to be linked to email marketing. You can create leads from your traffic by triggering any action that keeps people thinking about your brand. Common CTA's include options to social media shares, instructions to leave a comment in the comment section, or links to other parts of the website.
If you want leads that you can follow up on, however, make sure that email marketing is a component of your online marketing strategy.
Use Your Business Blog To Share Your Brand Message With Your Customers & Show Them What You Are All About
Blog posts are not just about sharing content that people are interested in. It is also an opportunity to share your brand message with your customers. Are you a sustainable fashion retailer because you have a degree in environmental science? Do you create mother’s day gifts because your own mother is your hero? Use your blog posts to share your values and build a little trust in your customers. If you are talking about something personal, encourage readers to share their experiences in the comments sections so that you can start a conversation.
Even if you take a less personal approach to marketing, you can say a lot about your brand through business blogging. The tone you adopt gives customers an idea of how you will conduct business if they decide to order your services. If you are selling products, the tone of your blog gives people an idea of what sort of people buy from your brand.
There is no doubt that business blogging is a great way to show your customers what you are all about. Business blogging can give customers more reasons to return to your site and move all the way down to the final stage of the marketing funnel. That's the part where you convert occasional customers into loyal customers.
Build Trust & Establish Credibility Over Your Competitors By Presenting Yourself As An Expert In Your Niche
Whatever your business is, being seen as an expert helps you move products and sell services. Take a look at the wild fashion choices on the catwalk during Fashion Week. High street retailers buy into the belief that these trends are fashionable because they are presented by experts. Expertise is something that can create trust and add credibility to your brand.
If you are offering a service such as consultation or in my case, copywriting, business blogging should primarily be about sharing expertise. Lots of people don't know what a copywriter is but blogging for business allows me to share blog content that proves I know what I am talking about. My business blog is a place where I can demonstrate content marketing knowledge so that when people check out my marketing services, they can trust I will deliver.
In a nutshell, blogging for business is an opportunity to share your expertise with potential customers. Addressing common questions site visitors may have shows that you care about them and are willing to help them out for free. Discuss relevant and trending topics in your niche to show visitors that your business blog, and by extension your brand, is a place they can trust to obtain valuable information.
And finally, if potential leads see you as an expert, they are more likely to choose you over your competitors.
Implement Ongoing Search Engine Optimization On Your Business Blog To Generate Traffic Forever
Once you have posted a blog, it will continue to generate traffic until it is deleted. You may post a blog about your thoughts on bow ties for chihuahuas today and receive one site visitor from Timbuktu. In three years, who’s to say bow ties for chihuahuas won’t start trending all over the internet? It seems far-fetched, but it could be that your obscure blog post one day generates hundreds of site views down the line, simply because trends have changed.
Better still, once you have written your blog posts, you can continue to optimize them according to popular searches in search engines. This takes minimal effort and will provide you with consistent site traffic when you implement a proper SEO strategy. Blogging for business is a long game and if you play it right, every time you create blog content, you are laying the groundwork for a source that will generate traffic forever.
Traffic may not be the end game, but it is a pretty important part of digital marketing.
Develop Your Online Presence & Take A Step Towards Achieving Your Business Goals By Starting Your Business Blog Today
To conclude, blogging for business is an excellent way to generate traffic through the key terms your target audience frequently search for. It is a way to create content that people will engage with, share, and remember. It can be used to obtain email leads, send visitors to your business page, and further your content marketing efforts. Blogging also allows you to deliver content that channels your brand voice and establishes you as an expert in your niche.
If web traffic and sales are a part of your business plan, business blogs are the way to go. You'll be sharing content that generates traffic and develops your online presence. Ultimately, the question is not why would you engage in blogging for business. The question is why are you not blogging for business already.
Want some help using blogging for business to achieve your business goals?
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