By now, everyone has most likely heard of blogging or even reads a blog regularly, but, if you’re running a business – is this something that you have considered?
Blogging is a wonderful digital marketing strategy that has many great long term benefits (which we will touch on shortly). Blogs, so long as they are in some way relevant to your brand, products and services, are great for customers and potential customers.
There’s just one catch with a blog though. It must be updated regularly and consistently. For instance, there’s no point in starting a blog and uploading a new post on a weekly basis but then stopping after just a couple of weeks.
Once you commit to a blog, you need to stay accountable. So you’re better off coming to one blog post every 2 weeks, rather than 2 posts ever week (which is much harder to maintain).
Having a blog is time consuming but so worth it, here’s why:
1. Increase Website Traffic
One of the best (and cheapest!) ways for your business to increase its website traffic, is to start and maintain a blog. Blogging is a great way to show Google and your blog readers that your website is active and helpful to those who are reading it – creating a positive user experience (UX).
The more helpful and insightful your regular blog posts are, the more word will get around the web that your blog is the go-to resource and will continue to drive your web traffic right up.
It goes without saying, but the more traffic you have coming to your website, the more opportunities you have to get new business.
2. Increase Visitor Engagement
Once you have done the hard part of getting readers to your blog, you just have to keep them interested in the content you’ve written.
Blogs should never be centered around a sales pitch, but rather a unique piece of information which informs and engages the reader. Engaging and helpful blog posts will ensure visitors will spend more time on your website, await your new and helpful blog posts, as well as share your engaging content with others around the web.
3. Increase Authority & Sales
Simply do a good job at point number 2. (above), and this will see your credibility as an industry leader soar! Through regular blogging, your business will establish itself as a credible, pro-active, industry leader that your blog readers (and Google!) will recommend.
Once your business has established a strong position in the online blogging world, it becomes easier for potential customers to do business with you as they already have that higher level of trust available to them.
4. Get More Love from Google (Enhance SEO)
For years now, Google has been highlighting the importance of producing and maintaining high quality content on our websites. Blogging gives your business the opportunity to create these high levels of relevant and unique content that Google will notice and start to factor in their search results. Keeping up with Google’s best practices is great for SEO and great for online success.
In fact, many of Google’s biggest algorithm updates (e.g. Google Panda update), continue to tackle the issue of poor-quality content and are penalising millions of websites as a result.
So, there you have it. Go forth and get blogging. We think the results might just surprise you!
