6 Awesome Benefits of Blogging For Business

What are the benefits of blogging for business and should I do it?

The foundation of any small business’s online marketing strategy is getting more enquiries and sales through making sure that when people look for your product or service online, they find your business.

Learn the benefits of blogging for business and why blogging regularly will give your online marketing a big boost.

1. Blogging Boosts SEO

You already know how vital a good search engine ranking can be for the success of your small business. However, if you’re anything like many small business owners, you probably don’t truly understand what it takes to rank well, and why you aren’t on page 1 of Google for your targeted search term.

Your web copy may be expertly crafted- artfully packed full of highly relevant keyword phrases, but still you don’t rank anywhere near page 1 on Google.

This is because Google ranks pages according to how “authoritative” they are. This essentially means that to rank well your site needs lots of inbound links coming from relevant pages on other websites.

There are lots of spammy “black-hat” link building services out there, however, if you use these spammy tactics you open yourself up to the possibility of getting penalised by Google-which is that last thing you want to happen. Google has been penalising a lot of websites over the last year.

It’s also important to note that not all links are created equal. A link from a well-respected page, for example a big newspaper or a .edu site, carries a lot more authority than a link from someone’s personal blog which hasn’t been updated in two years.

The best way to build good quality links is to create great content which gets organically shared and linked to by people interested in your industry or niche, on the merits of its quality. Your blog gives you the perfect platform from which to publish this killer content.

2. The Power of Long Tail Keywords

Lil Shepherd

If you have attended our Online Marketing Masterclass at the British Library, you’ll remember me talking about the importance of long tail keywords and how they can help more people find you online. This is one of the best benefits of blogging for business.

“Long Tail Keywords” are keyword phrases which don’t get as much search traffic as more generic terms, but are easier to get to the top of Google for, and more relevant to your target audience.

For example, let’s say your business runs Mandarin Chinese classes in London. Obviously, you’d want to rank quite well for terms such as “London Mandarin Classes”.

By doing some keyword research, you’ll see that there are lots of monthly searches on Google for this term, but the competition is also quite fierce. This means that it would be difficult to get on the 1st page of Google for that term.

Blogging for business with long tail keywords allow you to reach your same target audience by going after less competitive terms that they’ll also be searching for. For example, you could target the phrase “how to write Chinese symbols” and write blogs about how to write Chinese.

Although this term gets less monthly searches than the broader “London Mandarin Classes” term, it’s much easier to rank well for on Google, as the competition is low. As well as this, people interested in how to write Chinese characters are more likely to be interested in learning Chinese.

By creating engaging, useful blogs, videos and other content, it could be quite easy to rank very well on search engines for that term. This would mean that people who were interested in learning to write Chinese (and therefore more likely to purchase your service) will be able to easily find you when they search for that term.

So, although each long tail search term gets much less traffic than broader, more popular search terms, you are only reaching people who are already interested in your product or service and are much more likely to buy from you!

3. Blogging Builds Your Brand and Company Voice

Everyone’s always going on about the importance of branding in marketing. Images, the tone of copy and the feel of your website are all important aspects of a good, memorable brand.

However, blogging is an oft-forgotten way to develop your brand whilst also giving your brand a voice.

The style of writing, the sort of images you use and the layout of your blog are all things you can tweak to suit your business.

Perhaps you run a funky and fun fashion business? How better to establish your brand and voice than by making a funky, fun blog? Your blog will be full of great content which is written in a way which reflects your company ethos and brand voice.

4. You Can Position Yourself as an Expert in Your Field

©20th Century Fox

Whether you sell leather sandals, or professional services, it’s important to be seen as an expert in your field.
These days, if someone has a problem, the first thing they usually do is search Google for a solution.

If you have the expertise to answer people’s questions and provide solutions for problems specific to your industry or sector, write about it.

This means that not only are you targeting “long-tail” keywords, and reaching an audience specifically interested in your product or service, but you are also establishing yourself as an authority on your subject.

People prefer experts who can demonstrate their expertise, and well written content about your industry can be the factor which will help a potential customer choose you over a competitor.

By regularly blogging on relevant “hot topics” surrounding your industry or service, you can build up your reputation as a thought leader and expert in your field.

If you do this well, over time you’ll become one of the go-to-businesses for potential clients and an established authority in your field.

5. Blogging Increases Your Inbound Traffic

Research has shown that businesses which blog more than 10 times a month get 5 times as much inbound traffic as those who don’t blog at all.

If you are publishing quality content which is highly relevant to your industry, you will encourage other relevant industry websites to link back to your blog. Because most of the visitors to these relevant sites will be interested in the industry, it’s much more likely that the people which follow these links to your site will be interested in your product or service.

This means that many of those who blog regularly, also see a dramatic increase in their sales and conversions, as a direct result of their blogging: 60% of businesses who blog acquire more customers.

This graph demonstrates how blogging for business can impact your inbound traffic.

6. Setting Up a Blog is Easy, Anyone Can Do It

Thanks to Content Management Systems like WordPress, setting up a professional looking, updateable blog is easier than ever.

If you are new to blogging and find the task to be quite daunting and overwhelming, take a look at this resource here. It’s great for beginners who need to learn the fundamental elements of how to make a blog successful and profitable for their business.

We love and use the Genesis Studiopress Theme. We not only used Genesis to create our blog, but to do our whole site too! It looks great out of the box, and thanks to WordPress’s user friendly interface, you don’t need to know any coding. We highly recommend you demo the Genesis theme here.

Even if you already have your own website set up, it is easy to integrate a blog with WordPress and other CMS systems. This step-by-step video is easy-to-follow and takes you through all the steps needed to add a WordPress blog to an existing site.

If the idea of WordPress doesn’t appeal to you, you can always ask your webmaster to build you a blog for a nominal fee as well.

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