Why a Business Needs a Blog
Your website is the easiest way to tell your company’s story. A blog on the other hand, is the perfect way to convey your company’s personality. Running a business is complicated. Between marketing, strategy and sales, it may seem like you don’t have a spare minute in the day to devote to anything else; let alone a blog. But the benefits afforded by a blog are too great to ignore.
A blog turns your website into a living, breathing extension of your business. At times it may speak as part of your sales strategy and at others, it may factor into your digital marketing plan. Maybe it just reinforces your company’s overall message. At any rate, a blog is a versatile tool that gives businesses an inexpensive way to help build their brand and attract new customers.
1. It Shows You Care
An active blog shows visitors that you care enough to ensure your site is up to date. When a potential customer is looking for a solution, a website with a recently updated blog may make all the difference. Imagine if you were choosing between two companies who provide the same services. One site features a blog offering relevant, timely information that speaks directly to your business needs and addresses the problem you’re facing. The other presents a brief description of each of their products and services. And that’s it. For us, the answer is clear.
Trueline Tip: According to HubSpot, companies who create 3 to 5 original blog posts a month (or about once a week) receive twice as much web traffic as companies who don’t blog at all. So, in terms of blogging for business, the return on investment is huge.
2. A Blog Will Help You Engage with Your Audience
People read blog posts because they are interested in the business or industry being written about. If the content is useful, they will actively seek it out based on a genuine interest. These are your people! An engaged audience is the initiate a dialogue with. Ask a question, respond to comments and collect and build your email list.
Trueline Tip: When you engage with your readers, be sure to listen to what they’re saying. They offer valuable insight into what they are looking for and how they got to your site in the first place. These are tips you can use to craft future blog posts. By knowing what topics your visitors are interested in, makes it easier to write content that they find important—which will keep them coming back again and again.
3. It Allows You to Explain Your Products and Services
A blog allows you to explain in greater detail what your products and services are all about. For example, a standalone website will probably tell you what they do, but a blog can bring these services to life. Through case studies you can describe the user experience. You can make the reader see how others have used your product—and allow them to imagine themselves as the customer.
Trueline Tip: Create calls-to-action. You’ve put a great deal of time and effort into placing thoughtful CTAs throughout your website. Why not do the same with your blog? Present viewers with actionable steps to learn more about you or your company.
4. Fresh Content Helps Your SEO
The simple fact that blog posts give Google more indexable pages to display in search results, means that your audience has more ways to find your site. But there are other factors to weigh when considering why a business needs a blog. If your readers are already customers, consistently sharing product or services pages that promote a “buy now” message is a surefire way to get them to unfollow you. Well-written, targeted blog posts give you a means to speak directly to existing customers as well as new visitors to your site.
Trueline Tip: Keep people on the page as long as possible. Google is most concerned with providing people with the most accurate information as possible. If someone who performs a search clicks on the first link and then returns immediately to click on a different result, this tells Google the result wasn’t as useful as they thought. But, when someone clicks on a result and stays on a website for a long time, that tells Google that the content is useful are they are more likely to show that result higher on the page for subsequent searches.
5. It Can be Easily Shared
When people find your post useful, they’re more apt to share it with others. When they share a link to your blog from their site or on social media, it pays. According to Google, backlinks—links to your site from other websites—are one of its most important ranking factors. Creating interesting content that your users find valuable is the surest way to make people share your post.
Trueline Tip: You should always share your blog posts on your own social media channels. When you do, include a couple of sentences to summarize what the blog post is about. Be sure to include targeted keywords and hashtags when appropriate for maximum impact.
6. It Portrays You as a Thought Leader
Well-written and thoughtful blog posts that address issues pertinent to your industry show your customers that you know what you’re talking about. More importantly, it shows that their concerns are your concerns. The fact that you are willing to share your expertise to provide solutions to their problems, builds trusts and increases conversions.
Trueline Tip: Revisit topics over time. Is there a post that received a particularly good response when it was initially published? Maybe it got a lot of shares or maybe it spurred a lot of comments. Just because it’s no longer on the first page of your blog doesn’t mean it’s destined to be forgotten. If it’s still relevant, share it again through your social media channels and highlight a different section or aspect of the post. Maybe things have shifted in your industry and there are aspects of the post that need to be updated. By all means, edit, add to it and post it again. Include notations about what has been changed. There’s no reason lightning can’t strike twice.
Put it All Together
We hope we’ve accurately shown the wide range of benefits a blog affords a business of any size. A blog is not only a strong foundation on which to build your marketing strategy, but it also provides a platform to share and discuss ideas with people who share your passion. By now we can assume you know why a business needs a blog. Hopefully you’re excited to get started.
If all of this still seems overwhelming, we can help. Contact us to discover how Trueline can help kickstart your business’ blog.
