Is blogging for businesses dead?
Several weeks ago, I did a quick poll on Linkedin to see whether or not people thought blogging was dead. And I was super happy to learn that many still see the value in blogging. However, some participants weren’t sure or may think blogging is no longer effective. So in response to these results, independent businesses need to recognize the benefits of a blog and how blogs can be a powerful inbound marketing tool. At Sushi and Doodle Co. we offer blogging services for small businesses so independent business owners can focus on growing and scaling their business.
In this post, we’ll cover the benefits of blogging for your business, why your business needs a blog and the reasons why a blog can help your business.
What are the benefits of blogging for a business?
Businesses should take advantage of this inbound marketing tool to grow and scale their e-commerce site or web presence in general. If a business invests in a robust content plan for their blog, it will generate organic traffic to their website. In other words, it’s a strategy that brings your audience to you. The importance of blogging in today’s modern world is that consumers are always looking for answers. With the accessibility of search engine technology, consumers can access information that they want with ease. Search engines like Google are constantly crawling the web for results and answers to consumer queries. In other words, if you have answers to a consumer’s questions, they are looking for you.
Blogs generate traffic and boost your SEO
The advantage of a blog is that search engines never sleep, so the more often you create content on your blog, the likelier search engines will rank you, which means you stay relevant on the web. Suppose you’re a business that offers solutions in the form of authentic and straightforward content to your audience’s questions. In that case, the more reliable you become, the higher you will rank on search engine result pages. It means it becomes easier for consumers to find you, which means more visitors to your website and better conversions.
SEO Research tips
- Begin by doing a competitive analysis and figuring out what your competitors are blogging about in your industry.
- Look for gaps in their keywords and develop more robust content that can outrank their content.
- Create a list or collection of keywords that are relevant to your industry and business that are not too competitive, and start creating your content calendar
Nurtures your audience
Marketing, in general, is a holistic approach to generating revenue. In other words, there is not only one strategy that works especially well for an independent business. So business owners must consider strategies for both outbound and inbound marketing to create a fully activated and holistic sales funnel. The advantage of a blog is that it focuses on inbound marketing specific to nurturing your audience to educate the consumer about your product or service.
It provides a cushion to let the consumer learn more about how you can help or support them while they decide to invest in your business. It encourages relationship building between you and your customer through valuable content to serve your customer’s needs. This, in turn, enables you to build customer loyalty between you and your audience as they now trust you as a business that’s here to nurture them and listen to their needs.
Develops touchpoints for your sales funnel
The benefit of blogging is that this tool can become an evergreen revenue generator for your business. A blog can attract your customers, walk them through your sales funnel, and introduce your audience to your business by integrating landing pages, email sign-ups, and call-outs relevant to your business strategy. These integrations create touchpoints for your customer’s journey at every stage of their buyer’s interest.
You’re in complete control of the content you want to share and rank for
Another benefit of blogs is that you’re in complete control of the content you create. If you have a strong SEO strategy and have done proper keyword research, creating your business’s content is a rewarding and neverending process. On the other hand, you have the option to pick the voice you want to take on when you post a blog article. You can choose to take on the role of educator, friend, leader, or any voice related to your brand while developing your content for your audience.
You can reshare your blog content on all of your platforms.
Another benefit to blogs for businesses is that you own the blog articles for your business. This means you can choose to post and repost, share and reshare your content endlessly if you decide to within reason on any or all of the social platforms your audience is on.
The benefit of using social platforms is that you can share a small tidbit of the blog article with a graphic or video to draw your audience in and drive traffic to your website. Blogs can also help fill up your social calendar and streamline content planning and increase its longevity.
You can update and recycle your content.
You own your blog content, and like everything in a business, it requires regular maintenance to ensure that it’s performing and getting you results. Content can change and be updated based on the times depending on your topic. You can recycle your content to create a series of blog articles or create other blog posts that backlink to each other to keep readers engaged. Recycling your blog gives you a chance to reuse content that may need updating and lets you repost it, so you don’t need to create new content from scratch.
Consistently updating your content allows search engines to crawl your website for activity and keeps you ranking on the first page of search results. Updating content is a small amount of maintenance to ensure that your content stays relevant and does not get outranked by your competitors. On the other hand, it also lets you stay on top of the digital space of what is ranking and what your audience is or is not looking for and provides digital feedback on whether or not you need to pivot your content.
Blogs are measurable
One of the best things about inbound marketing strategies specific to blogging is that it’s a low-cost investment that can drive many conversions when done correctly. And because you are in complete control of the outcome of your content, it’s completely measurable, and you can see the results of your efforts free and clear through your analytics. Unlike traditional outbound marketing, you get to see the results of your blog posts and make changes, tweak, or updates for your blogs to drive more organic traffic.
Blogs bring value to your business and you as an expert.
Whether your online space is a blog, e-commerce business, or any other niche website, content that generates traffic and provides value levels up your business valuation as a whole, in other words, this is an opportunity for you as a business owner to think long-term.
For example, when it comes time to look for VCs to invest in your business or exit and sell your business, your web presence and the quality content you create become an asset. The time and money you’ve put into building your sales funnel through your inbound marketing strategies like blogging has become an evergreen revenue generator that can increase your business’s value by creating a branded customer loyalty that guarantees sales.
Leverages your expertise in your field
Besides the technical advantages of blogging for your business, it also creates credibility as a business owner. You share information to your audience that doesn’t have all the answers that make you an expert in your field.
Taking advantage of blogging as a tool for your business leverages your digital space as a credible part of the web that’s here to inform and provide relevant information. Especially if creating and generating ads are not currently available in your marketing budget.
Apart from sharing your expertise, it’s also important to note that you must also be intentional about your ‘call to actions’ for your business to leverage blog posts to drive conversions. It’s not enough to just pump out information; there needs to be an end goal involved with your blog post for your reader to stay engaged with your product or service.
The types of blog posts best for leveraging expertise
- How to’s
- Listicles
- Guides
Sushi and Doodle Co. Blogging Services
As a marketer and a blogger, I am biased towards the results and effects of blogging. However, as a consumer, I can confidently say that if I don’t know something, you best believe I will be “looking it up.” The first digital content piece that I find will be a site (most likely a digital/e-commerce business) that provides the answers I am looking for.
So, are you the one that’s going to provide the answer?
If you would like to learn more about utilizing blogging as an effective digital marketing tool, follow the page for more tips or book a call and find out how S&D Co. can help you with your content and digital marketing needs!