Keeping an up-to-date blog is a critical practice for any business or organisation in today’s hyper-competitive digital world. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a budding local business or a multinational corporation – you should still be blogging. More than just a strong foundation for all your marketing efforts, it’s also an enjoyable and inspiring platform for sharing ideas that can spread like wildfire.
If you are not currently blogging, here are just a few things you are definitely missing out on.
Higher rankings in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) / better SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
A blog is essential for positioning your website as the relevant answer to your target customers questions. Blogs that strategically implement a variety of on page SEO tactics leverage both higher rankings in the search results page and higher customer engagement simultaneously.
Blogging tells search engines like Google how relevant you are to people in need of your products or services by increasing average time spent on your site, offering more placements for long tail keywords and keeping your website fresh and current; all indicators of a quality website in the eyes of the search engine algorithms crawling your content for data.
Increased web traffic
As highlighted above, better search rankings equal more website traffic. More website traffic equals more conversions. The more you blog, the more organic traffic you will draw into your website. Businesses that blog get 55% more website visitors than businesses that don’t. (HubSpot)
Converting web traffic into leads
Every blog on your website is a chance to generate new conversions. By including a simple call-to-action (CTA) in all your posts, you are guaranteed to build your emails subscriber database, generate more enquiries, build your social media following, bolster sales etc. Whatever the goal, your blog is the ultimate way to turn your website into a 24/7 sales team. Companies with blogs produce an average of 67% more leads monthly than companies that don’t blog (DemandMetric) and marketers who prioritised blogging received 13x more ROI than companies that did not in 2019. (HubSpot)
Brand visibility/Brand awareness
Your blog allows you to provide relevant content that also includes your vision, objectives, personality and ethics, underlining your own uniqueness in not just your products and services, but your overall brand. 70% of people would rather learn about a company through articles rather than advertisements. (DemandMetric)
By offering free information resolving conflicts, answering questions and showcasing the goals of your organisation through regular blog posts, you are also generating backlinks (directly or indirectly) and engaging both potential and existing customers for longer durations.
Establishing yourself as a thought leader and building trust
Unlike the rest of your website (which should be minimalistic on the content), blogs offer space for in-depth teachings and explanations. Whether it’s a case study, a ‘how to’ guide or an opinion piece, the more insightful content you produce, the more you will be viewed as a leader in your industry. Not only does this build trust, but it also breeds innovation and inspiration.
When people have confidence in a brand, the brand reputation spreads quicker. Frequent blogging is the simplest way to build that trust.
Social exposure
As an explanation for not having a blog or social media presence, we often hear clients and potential clients say, ‘my customers are not on social media.’ But with 4.55 billion people around the world now using social media, and 400 million new users joining within the last 12 months alone, we can categorically guarantee they are. The trick is finding and engaging with them.
Consistent blogging is an excellent way to be noticed on social media channels. Every time you publish a new blog you are creating content that is incredibly easy to share on social giants like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. This gives you the chance to introduce your organisation to audiences even you may not yet know are there. You are both strengthening your social presence and bringing in even more website traffic. Two birds, one stone.
Link building
As mentioned above, link building is a key factor that search engines consider when ranking a website for the results page yet link building can also be one of the most challenging parts of SEO.
By creating articles that are valuable to both customers and other businesses, it’s much easier to gain relevant links. Links from websites with more clout (such as well-known newspapers, membership organisations, directories, etc.) serve as a vote of confidence for recommendation and tell Google that you are trustworthy and an industry expert. HubSpot has found that companies that have a blog on their website earn up to 97% more inbound links. It just makes sense that the blog you wrote about keeping slugs and other pests from destroying your garden will be far more helpful and shareable to a third party source than just a link to your homepage.
Having a blog is not just a strong foundation for all your marketing efforts, it’s also enjoyable and inspiring. A blog is a great way to share ideas, generate new suggestions and build a community of engaged people. But it can also be time-consuming and understanding the perfect balance between appealing content for humans and optimised technical signals for search engines is a skill that takes years to understand. If you are in search of new audiences and want to stand out from your competition but struggling to implement regular blogs into your marketing schedule, the experts at teclan can help.
