In my last post Reasons why I shouldn’t blog I outlined some of the excuses reasons that I have heard from business owners over why they don’t blog on their business website. As a follow on, and in order to maintain a balanced perspective, today’s post outlines some of the important reasons to blog for business and why blogging is a great marketing resource.
It allows you to have a voice
There are many things within our work that we are passionate about and want to tell the world about. Also, there can be lots of things that niggle at us about our jobs and our industry. A blog allows you the space to get off your chest everything that you wish to shout (or rant) about. The aim of a business blog is to highlight not only what your business offers it’s customers but the goings-on in your industry such as trends and new developments.
It shows your industry expertise
Most small business owners set up in business because they have a passion for what they do as well as having industry experience in the products and services that they want to offer. By providing advice, guidance and valuable information via a business blog, you are continually highlighting your knowledge and expertise to your target audience. This helps to build trustworthiness with your target audience and helps you become a ‘go-to’ person or a thought leader within your business industry.
It helps you connect with your customers
If you use your business blog to help resolve problems your customers may be experiencing – for example you may answer customer queries and questions, or you can deliver ‘How-to’ product guides, or perhaps highlight tips and tricks that will save your customers time and money – your customers will start to see you as a trusted resource for information. They will see that you genuinely want to help them find the best solution to their problem and this in turn will develop a loyal fan base on which you can continue to deliver your added-value customer service.
It’s good for your website’s SEO
Search engines like fresh original content. By publishing regular content on your website, your website will be trawled by the search engines more frequently. This will mean that your website will start to be seen as an authority within your chosen industry and so your website will start to rank more favourably within the search engines. This in turn will lead to more traffic on your website which equals more potential customers seeing your online presence.
It gets your business brand known
Following on directly from the point above, the more traffic that is attracted to your website, the more opportunity you will have of turning website visitors into paying customers. If you are creating content that is useful for your target audience, this information will be shared with other potential customers whether it be through social media or other means which will have a knock-on effect for allowing your brand to reach a wider audience through the powers of networking. Think of blogging as part of your networking efforts, albeit in an online networking capacity.
It’s an important part of your marketing plan
By creating content that’s valuable you are ensuring that this content is available for your target audience to digest, use and refer to, as well as ensuring that this content is on the Internet for it to be shared and seen by potential customers that you were possibly unaware of. As with all marketing activities, you have to deliver your key message to the right audience – your potential customers. And how better to do that online, than via a business blog that you control and maintain?
As with any marketing strategy, you have to consider all of the marketing activities that can be used to increase your brand awareness through your marketing efforts so remember, business blogging is only one part of your overall marketing plan. You can’t expect to rely solely on blogging to promote your business. I have heard many times a complaint of “Blogging? I tried it but it didn’t work for me. I stopped doing it, it was just a waste of time.” Only for me to discover that a few blog posts were written in a half-hearted manner with an expectation that one blog post would equal hundreds of new visitors. I can state right now that this expectation is unrealistic. This result is just not going to happen.
Blogging is one part of your marketing plan, and as with all marketing methods, it takes time and effort before you see your rewards. But implement the right business blog and marketing strategy for your business and the rewards will come. You just need to get started.
