If you have a small business, you might be wondering if blogging is really worth the time and effort. The short answer will be an emphatic yes. Blogging on a regular basis is an easy and inexpensive way of boosting your inbound marketing efforts, drive traffic to your website and attract the attention of potential customers.
Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing Report is full of statistics which highlight the importance of business blogging. The study found that 57% of companies state that they have acquired a customer from their blog. The same study states that marketers revealed that 81% of businesses say that their blogs are useful to critical for their business. This is why you need to know the primary benefits of having a blog for your business.
1- Boosting Your Search Engine Optimization
Fresh content is something that search engines love. The best way to provide this fresh content is through blog posts. When you blog consistently, you will be providing new content for the search engines to index. You will also be creating an opportunity to plug those important keywords to increase the visibility of your business on the search engine result pages.
2- Develop Relationships with Existing and Potential Customers
When you blog, you are creating a way to connect with visitors to your website. This can be done by asking your visitors questions at the end of the post to get the conversation started. You can also simply allow visitors to comment on your posts. When you do this, you can create a rapport with your visits, gain insights into what your customers are looking for and build trust.
3- Establish Yourself as an Industry Leader
Regardless of the size of your business, you will be able to build trust and authority in your industry by creating valuable and expert information which you post on your blog. Look at how nPower communicate on their blog for example.
Over time, you will find that you become the go-to resource for informative and helpful content. This will ultimately lead to better customer conversion rates and is something that any small business looking for long-term credibility should consider.
4- Connect People to Your Brand
Blogging gives you the chance to show the personal side of your business which customers will generally not see through other marketing techniques. Blogs will also provide a sense of your corporate standards, the personality of the business and your vision.
5- Create Sharing Opportunities
Every time you create a blog post, you will be creating an opportunity for your audience to share your blog with other people. This could be through liking the blog post, emailing it to others or tweeting it. This is important because it is free marketing and will further validate you as a credible business.
When looking at blogging from a practical standpoint, you will see that it makes sense. With minimal expense and effort, you will be able to boost search engine rankings, build credibility, increase traffic and create relationships with customers.
