A blog is one of the most overlooked aspects of a business website. Yet, it is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your website and grow your business.
In fact, B2B marketers who have a blog generate 67% more leads than those that do not. In addition, 8 out of 10 marketers publish blog posts to help reach their overall marketing goals (Finances Online).
For these reasons – and more – blogging has become an essential part of business marketing.
In this article, you’ll find out why it’s so important to have a blog and tips to maximize its impact.
What is a Blog?
Before we get into how a blog can benefit your business, let’s chat about what a blog is.
Blogging started in the late ’90s and was originally a creative outlet or journal for those who wanted to share information or their opinion about a specific topic.
However, over time entrepreneurs discovered that blogs are amazing for marketing. As a result, the use of blogging among businesses rapidly increased.
Today, a blog is any regularly updated website or web page and can either be used for personal use or business. They are typically written in an informal, conversational style that readers can relate to.
And blogs have become a trusted source of information among readers. In fact, according to WordPress, as of February 2021, more than 409 million people visit blog pages monthly!
Now that we know more about what a blog is, let’s discuss why you need a blog for your business website.
How a Blog Can Benefit Your Business
One question many clients ask after launching their business website is whether having a blog on their site is worth it.
Short answer: Yes! And here are the 7 reasons why.
1. Drive traffic to your website.
One of the biggest benefits of a blog is that it helps to drive organic traffic to your website.
How does this work?
Search engines like Google aim to provide the most relevant, valuable content to their users. So, by having a high-quality blog your site is likely to rank higher in search results than your competitors.
Once a visitor finds you, your blog acts as a resource to them even if they are not ready to purchase from you. Yet, by taking the time to provide beneficial content for free, you are actually building loyalty among potential customers.
They will then become more likely to choose your company over your competitors when they are ready to make a purchase.
2. Become an expert in your industry.
No matter what stage your business is in, you can build trust within your industry by providing valuable, expert information in your blog posts. Over time, you will become a go-to resource for helpful, informative content. And this can ultimately lead to higher customer conversion rates.
This is especially important for small businesses looking to gain credibility and stand out among larger companies.
For example, a garden center blog like Wilson’s Garden Center features blog posts about container planting basics and lawn care. If a reader lands on their website and finds their content helpful they are likely to make a purchase or visit their shop as opposed to visiting a larger chain store.
Similarly, the law firm website, The Benkabbou Law Firm, provides articles relating to business law and intellectual property. When reading their posts you’ll recognize they are very knowledgeable about the law and you would look to them for law-related advice.
3. Improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Another way that a blog can benefit your business website is that it can improve your SEO. In simple terms, SEO means the process of improving your site so that it ranks higher when people search for products or services related to your business.
Why is this important?
Let’s say that you are searching for new tires for your car. When you go to Google and type “tires near me”, will you then select a website from the first page? Or will you start at the 5th or 6th page? If you’re like 75% of searchers, you will NEVER click past the first page of results.
So, the better visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you are to attract potential and existing customers to your business.
So how does a blog help with SEO?
Search engines do not like static websites. What they do love is to provide fresh, valuable content to searchers. By blogging consistently, you give Google and other search engines new content to index and you create opportunities to use important keywords to increase your visibility.
As an added bonus, you will benefit from backlinks as other websites begin to link to the articles on your website.
4. You can repurpose your blog content for social media.
Creating content for social media takes a LOT of time and effort. Yet, you can take a blog post you’ve already written and repurpose it for your social media posts. This will help you to reach more customers through social media and create content that readers can easily share.
It will also help you to stop stressing over what to write about so that you can devote more time to working on other aspects of your business.
So, how can you repurpose your blog post?
- Use snippets from your content and post them on Facebook.
- Create an Instagram graphic with key points from your blog post.
- Summarize key points in a LinkedIn post.
- Create images for your blog posts and pin them on Pinterest.
- Create a lead magnet based on the information.
These are just a few of the many ways you can reuse your blog post content.
5. It drives long-term results.
After publishing a blog post on your site you can continue to get traffic from that post for years to come. This means that you will be generating leads for your business without any additional investment.
For example, one of the blog posts that I wrote almost 4 years ago for Tons of Goodness, my wellness site, is still getting traffic every month. And it’s monetized using affiliate links, so I’m making money from that blog post four years later without any extra time or effort.
6. It provides a space to share news about your business.
Another benefit of a blog is that it gives you the opportunity to share news and stories about your business and team members. Sharing gives your audience a behind-the-scenes look. And it helps them connect with you and your brand.
You can share news like upcoming events, customer success stories, announcements of new team members, ways that your business helps the community, and much more.
7. It helps with link building.
One of the major factors that search engines consider when ranking a site is backlinks. A backlink is simply a link from one website to another. It signals to Google (and other search engines) that your content is trustworthy and that you’re an expert in your industry. High-quality backlinks can help to increase a site’s ranking position in search engine results (SEO).
41% of SEO experts say link building is the most challenging part of search optimization, so publishing high-quality blog posts that others find valuable is crucial.
What are the Cons of Having a Blog?
While blogs are pretty amazing for your business, there are also downsides to consider.
First, writing blog posts can be time-consuming. This is because writing content that will add value takes a fair amount of time and effort. Blog posts need to be well-written, contain information that is helpful to your readers, and should be optimized so that people can find it.
What you don’t want are quickly-written, low-quality blog posts that only serve as a place to add a large number of keywords. This is an OLD way to think about blogging that does nothing but harm your website’s SEO (and your reputation).
These days, high-quality content is king.
Based on a recent poll business owners also face challenges with driving traffic (47%), consistently creating quality content (38%), publishing a sufficient number of posts (32%), coming up with relevant topics (19%), and getting enough support from the organization (15%) (Orbit Media, 2020).
Blogging is Essential
If you already have a website for your business, a blog page can easily be added to your site. Blogging is an essential part of content marketing for every business. It builds trust, generates leads, and reinforces the value of your brand.
Send us a message if you have any questions about blogging for your business. If you’d like blog posts written for your website contact us to get started.
