There’s no doubt about it, blog content is king. And what better way to deliver content than by providing value-adding, informative blogging on your web site? Blogs will increase your website traffic, boost your SEO, position you as an industry leader and help you develop loyal, lasting relationships with your customers.
You may be wondering, can writing a few simple little articles really do that much for my company? The answer is absolutely, positively, yes. Read on to find out more about how blogging can help you.
Blogs Drive Traffic to Your Website
Blogs that offer valuable information will help bring people to your website. Let’s say someone has a question related to your industry. Where do they look for answers? Why Google of course. If you have an informative article on the topic that is properly formatted for SEO purposes, its likely your article will come up on the search engine. This will help you draw traffic to your website.
While customers are visiting, they may end up checking out your products and services increasing the chances of a conversion. Including Inbound and outbound links in your blog can also be effective. Inbound links will drive traffic to other pages of your website. Studies have also showed a direct correlation between outbound links and a web site’s search engine rankings. Taking advantage of natural linking opportunities can take your site to the next level when it comes to boosting traffic.
Increases SEO
Using keywords and phrases in your blog is a great way to boost your SEO and blogs provide a terrific medium for using keywords that are relevant to your industry. There are plenty of keyword research tools on the market that will help you find keywords that are best suited for your business. You can also get creative by entering keywords you think may be relevant in Google and looking at the related searches that appear.
Google and social media trends and industry book titles will also help you find the keywords you are looking for and while creating blogs with the right keywords will help boost your SEO, simply posting fresh content on a regular basis will also help boost your search engine ranking.
Well Written Blogs and What They Can do
If you write well, have informative content and post it on your web site on a regular basis, you will soon start to emerge as a thought leader in your industry. Customers, and even other companies will start turning to you first for the information they need. Eventually you will become more than a trusted resource, you will establish a reputation as an innovative thinker in your field. This will help you effortlessly squash the competition.
Builds Trusting Customer Relationships
Once customers realize your company provides information they can count on, it will establish a foundation of trust making them more likely to turn to you when it comes to buying the products they need. You can further enforce your reputation as a trusted company by providing excellent customer service and great products.
Do your best to interact with customers on social media by answering their questions and responding to their comments. This will provide a sense of transparency while showing them that you care about what they have to say. It will create a positive brand image for the people you are interacting with as well as those that are seeing these interactions.
Creates Opportunities for Sharing
To really make the most of your blogs, share them on your social media channels. This will ensure your blogs are reaching the people visiting your website as well as those that are following you on social media. What’s more, if you post a useful article, people may even feel inspired to share the link on their accounts. This will provide you with exposure to a whole new audience and best of all, the exposure you get will be completely free.
Why Blogs Help with Email Marketing
Some businesses add a feature to their blogs to collect customer emails. They provide a space or pop-up that allows customers to enter their emails to continue getting newsletters via email. Once companies have a customer’s email address, they can use it as another point of contact. They can email the customer to let them know about upcoming specials, new arrivals and events while continuing to provide them with valuable information.
Influencer Marketing
Sure, creating your own blogs will help boost your visibility, but what’s really impressive is when you are featured on someone else’s blog. This shows your brand has caught someone else’s attention and inspired them to take to their keyboard to publish a piece that showcases your products and services.
Influencers are people that typically have hundreds and thousands of followers. They reach their followers via blogs and social media posts. Getting an influencer to write a piece on your company will increase your exposure considerably. The best way to get an influencer to write up your company is to send them freebies. Send them items your company has created or offer them free services. If they take you up on your offer and are impressed with your company, they may just give you a write up that will provide you with exposure to all their followers.
Generates Potential for Backlinks
Earlier in the article, we discussed how including external links in your blog can boost search engine ranking. What’s even more impressive is when another blogger chooses to backlink to your blog.
There’s really no way to get another blogger to backlink to your blog, unless you ask them outright, but having valuable content on the internet will make this way more likely to occur. Once people start seeing that your content is being used for backlinks by other bloggers, it will further establish you as a thought leader in your industry.
Blogs Help Start a Conversation
Getting people to read your blog is great, but what you really want is to start a conversation. That is a surefire way to tell that people are interested in what they are reading. More than that, it will forge a connection between yourself and your customer base that will help increase loyalty.
If you find your blogs are getting comments, make sure to pay attention and respond accordingly. This will establish you as a company that listens to what its customers are saying.
Helps You Stay Ahead of the Competition
Research has shown that companies that blog on a regular basis are more likely to get conversions. A recent marketing study concluded that 55% of consumers are encouraged to buy from a business that has an interesting blog. This can give you an edge on your competition establishing you on the top of your industry.
It Has a High ROI
One of the best things about blogging is that its inexpensive. Many blogging platforms allow you to start blogging for free. Adding certain features will make expenses increase. However, even with these added expenses, blogging is a low-cost platform that has a high ROI. Although it is difficult to track exactly how much income is coming in due to blogging, research has shown that businesses that blog are 13 times more likely to experience a positive ROI. 79% of these companies have a positive ROI for inbound marketing and 79% of the industry’s top marketers say blogging is the most effective marketing strategy.
Answers FAQ’s
Blogging is a great way to answer FAQ’s. While several companies have an FAQ section, many customers still have unanswered questions. You can use your blog to really build on these questions to provide customers with the extensive answers they need. This will provide customers with valuable information while cutting down on the amount of time you spend answering questions via phone or email. To make sure customers are able to find the answers to their questions, provide inbound links in your FAQ’s that will take them directly to the information they need.
Blogging Writing Tips
Writing a blog is a great way to boost business, but blogs will only be effective if the blog contains the right kind of content. When creating a blog, here are some things you will want to keep in mind.
- Provide Value: Provide answers to the questions you know your customers need answers to. Provide them with useful and comprehensive information that won’t leave them with more questions.
- Make it Easy to Read: Include subheadings so readers can easily find the information they need. Avoid long blocks of text that will discourage people from reading.
- Include Pictures: Pictures will make your pages look more attractive. In some cases, they can also better illustrate the points you are making.
- Write Well: Make sure the content you are providing is clear, concise and grammatically and factually correct. Poor, unprofessional content will do more harm than good.
Now that you know how beneficial blogging can be, what do you have planned as your first topic?
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