We converse with small to medium businesses on a regular basis about their marketing strategies and plans daily. A common question we hear is, “how can I improve business by blogging”. The importance having a blog on your business website can’t be overemphasized. When thoughtfully written and properly maintained, a blog page on your business site helps diversify your company, opens new lines of communication, improves your search engine rankings, and improves sales and performance. Blogging for businesses should be a core part of your digital marketing efforts and strategy.
Communication with Clients is Key
Maintaining an active blog is a personal and fun way to open a line of communication to your customers. Communication with customers, potential clients, and promoters is essential to any well thought out marketing strategy, and blogging fills the void nicely. You must have a business blog page if you want to appear empathetic to your target audience. By creating and curating thoughtful, helpful content you show that you care.
When customers arrive at your business website, the first place they go after looking at services is your blog content. They notice how active you are and if you have a blog with one or two posts written in 2014 you can be sure of two things: 1. You need to update your business website (Insert new update blog article link), and 2. They already think less of your brand. This may seem a little harsh, however, think back to a time you visited a website and noticed that the “hello world” blog was the only post. What initial impression of the brand did you conjure up? Odds are, that it wasn’t complimentary in the least.
SEO
Blogging gives you an opportunity to optimize your site for common phrases and words that customers use to find you. A single blog post has the power to obtain a monstrous amount of traffic and attention. If you thought that blogging was a waste of time or a joke, keep in mind that some of the most cynical companies towards blogging have increased their bottom line by tens, sometimes even hundreds of thousands of dollars by creating smart, well-formatted content for their company’s blog page.
According to a recent Hubspot study, companies that blog have 55% more website visitors than those who do not. Oh, and speaking of this study, ever heard of inbound links? Business websites that blog attract 97% more of them. They’re magic links on other website owners’ sites that take a visitor straight to your website, and they increase your search engine rankings like nothing else can. Maintaining a consistent business blog is a magnet for attracting backlinks.
Increase Performance
Do your employees consistently answer the same questions about your business? While customers can gather your hours, address, and similar basic information from your Google business listing, other specific questions tend to emerge in every type of business. Blogging offers your business the ability to answer those commonly asked questions in a special way.
One of the benefits of blogging for business is that the process can free up staff members who field telephone calls and emails about the same concepts or questions daily. It also allows you to add informative content to your website without taking away from the layout of your website’s primary copy.
Tell your story
Since the dawn of man people have enjoyed hearing stories they can relate to. Your business blog is a way to tell your unique brand story and allow your visitors to truly get to know you and your company. Yes, blogging can improve your business in several ways aside from the obvious bottom-line. By creating and maintaining a company blog you show your clients the personality of your business. Additionally, your blog allows your company to tell your business story; a matter which customers increasingly care about as the market becomes saturated with similar businesses. It allows you to break out and diversify your company in ways that no other firm can imitate.
Increase Sales
Increasing sales is at the forefront of every business owner’s mind. By running an efficient blog, you can promote specific products that have the highest markup or revenue realization. A blog also allows you to focus the client’s attention on promotions or new products and is a great way to obtain useful “insider knowledge” you might not have known.
How to Start Blogging for a Business Website
How do you want to improve your business? What does success look like for your individual company? Is it increased sales? Better public perception? Counter negative press? Increase social brand interaction? Increase pay-per-click revenue? Retain or hire new staff? Company blog sites have been used to achieve all the above and more in the recent past. Smart marketers realize that the return on investment for blogs have nearly unlimited potential if a tactical plan is created and followed.
Smarketing LLC offers you the ability to focus on your business while we blog in it. We handle numerous branding efforts as an outsourced marketing department and have the experienced writers to ensure that your blog is a success. Contact us today by clicking HERE to discuss what you’d like your company blog to do for you. Or call us at 865-963-0642.