The benefits of blogging for your business can be measured in many ways: from an increased bottom line to better-qualified clients and top-of-mind awareness to industrial authority. I cannot overstate how much a business can benefit by sharing knowledge in the form of a blog on its website.
Let’s touch on a few ways blogging for your business can be beneficial:
1. Search Engine Positioning
In general, Google, and any other search engine, prioritizes fresh, high-quality content on websites. By publishing consistently on your blog, you are signaling that you are a source of information on your chosen topic. The more credible you are viewed, the higher (and more frequently) you will appear in search engine results.
2. Personalizes Your Brand
The internet is a crowded place. Eventually, it is hard to discern one voice from another. With a blog, a brand’s “voice” emerges. This is even more true when you are a one-person brand. Your ideal audience will resonate with, not just what you are sharing, but how you are sharing it.
3. Establishes Authority and Domain Knowledge
The sales process has entirely shifted in the last decade. Buyers come equipped with information before the purchase and sometimes know more than the salesperson. As an expert in your field, you can leverage this and position yourself as the Go-To person for X. If you’re in beer sales, imports, or travel advising, your ideal customer is seeking information. Be their trusted source of information.
4. Pre-Qualifies Customers
Industries with long sales cycles, or specific products for specific people, can use their blog to discourage lookie-loos or tire kickers. By using industry jargon, not dumbing down content, or spelling out buying expectations, readers self-select or disqualify themselves. The opposite is true, by avoiding jargon and explaining complex processes, you open the door to novices and those just entering the discovery process.
5. Pays Dividends Over Time
Unlike traditional marketing, where once you stop spending, the results dry up, blogging serves as an ever-growing library of knowledge. Think of it as a slow investment over time rather than going all-in on red.
6. Inexpensive Marketing Strategy
Blogging is not free – I want to make that clear. There are some costs associated with it. However, it is an inexpensive marketing tool that, I believe, outperforms nearly any other approach over time. It can be started for under one hundred dollars, a couple of hours, and some industry knowledge.
7. Exposes Customer Insights and Intent
Perhaps most incredible are the insights you can glean from a growing blog. When a visitor or reader lands on your website, specifically on a blog post, you can learn their intent, where they are in the buying process, and understand market needs. For example, if you have several How-To posts, the more popular a particular topic is, the more demand the market is demonstrating.
8. Ever-expanding Entry Points
Each blog post serves as a gateway for potential visitors to “arrive” at your brand. Over time, as the number of blog posts increases, so do the doorways in which visitors can discover you, get to know you, and trust you.
Conclusion
If you aren’t already blogging, you are missing out. In fact, you may have competition either blogging or planning to start – this gives them the same competitive advantages I just outlined. If you would like help, please let me know.
I wrote a much longer blog post about the benefits of sharing what you know via a blog. If you’d like to read more, visit it here: How and When to Start a Blog for Your Brand.
Here’s to your blogging success!
All the best,
-Shaun