Five reasons why your business needs a blog

Business

Deciding whether or not you should start a blog for your business? Here are five reasons why you need to get writing!

When you take into account that there are over 360 million blogs on Tumblr alone right now, you’re probably wondering whether you should even bother opening up your laptop and begin typing up your thoughts. 

But don’t let that put you off. Writing a blog for your business can bring in some powerful benefits that you were probably unaware of. Here are five of the most important.

1) You’ll become an expert in your field

Okay, so you won’t become an expert overnight after writing just one blog. Nor will you by publishing a random blog every three months or so. But if you consistently publish and share intelligent, well considered blogs, you’ll gradually earn yourself a reputation as an expert in your field.

As a result, you’ll be someone your customers and connections turn to for advice, wisdom and, inevitably, business.

So think about what problems or worries your target audience may have (related to the services or products you sell), then plan a content strategy that allows you to demonstrate your knowledge while answering their questions through your blogs (here’s an easy four-step formula to writing your own content strategy).

Mix this up with case studies, testimonials, opinion pieces demonstrating your passion, and behind the scene glimpses into what you do and you’ll have a rich content mix that establishes you firmly as the go-to expert in your field.

2) You’ll build stronger relationships with your audience

Another important benefit of business blogging is enabling you to build new and stronger connections with your website visitors and social media followers.

So encourage engagement by asking your readers questions at the end of your blog posts, to continue the conversation in the comments section.

And don’t just leave it there. Try to review and respond to comments that readers leave on your blog. Encourage them to share their opinions and experiences, ideas for future blog topics, and even ways you can improve or add to your offering.

This will enable you to build a rapport with your audience, and learn more about what they want from you. It also demonstrates that you genuinely care about your customers; building stronger emotional connections between your business and them.

3) You’ll increase your social presence

So, we mentioned social connections in the post above. Every blog you write is valuable new social content for you to publish – and your readers to share. Get your blogs right, and your customers and social media fans will willingly promote it to their audience, in effect giving you free marketing. 

And don’t be shy about asking for feedback here too. Just as you’re asking for comments or questions at the end of each blog, encourage engagement on your social channels by asking people what they think of the blog, or whether they have any experiences or questions they’d like to share.

The more engaged your social community is, the more you’ll build that all-important know, like and trust factor. And the easier you’ll find it to convert social fans to loyal customers.

4) You can target potential customers

Your business blog should never be used as an overt sales tool. But it’s one of your best covert ones. 

What do we mean by this? Basically, you should never see your blog as a chance to obviously try to sell, or to brag. To simply tell people how fantastic you are and about your wonderful products or services.

That’s the business equivalent of walking up to someone and telling them how amazing you are. And unlikely to win you many fans.

But you can achieve the same result simply by demonstrating to your ideal customers that you understand the problem they are trying to solve, and are the ideal expert to trust.

How can you achieve this? It’s easy, just follow these steps:

  • Identify your ideal customers (your avatars).
  • Make a list of their problems, and the things they need or want to know.
  • Plan a series of blogs that answer these questions or problems.
  • Start writing and sharing your blogs.

The more targeted your blogs are for your ideal customers, and the more they demonstrate that you know about the problems your customers are trying to solve, the more you’ll convince them that you understand them. And the more they’ll trust your expertise.

And of course, the more they trust you as an expert in solving their problem, the more they’ll be inclined to buy from you.

Finally, and importantly, by blogging about topics your ideal audience care about regularly, you’ll ensure you’re never far from their thoughts. So when someone is looking for a recommendation, or they need to purchase what you sell, you’ll be the first business they think of.

5) You’ll increase your search engine traffic

You know what Google really loves? A website with regularly updated content that has the right keywords in it. And a blog is the easiest way to tick this off your website to-do list. 

When thinking of blog titles, consider what your ideal customer is typing into Google to find a business like yours. Then write a blog around that question or search term.

The more you blog, and the more your blogs are tuned to what your customers are actually searching for (assuming you’ve got the rest of your SEO right), the higher your chances of ranking for the right search terms – and the more traffic your website will get.

As you can see, blogging regularly about relevant topics your audience cares about can result in huge rewards for your business. And yes, it does take some effort on your part, but the business benefits more than outweigh the time spent.

Need help writing a blog for your business?

You’ll find plenty of practical advice to help you get writing in these articles:

Photo by David Iskander