5 Compelling Reasons to Start a Blog for Your Business
With the arrival of the World Wide Web, businesses of all shapes and sizes were suddenly able to create markets and trade in a whole new way. The power of the internet radically expanded opportunities, particularly for small to medium-sized enterprises (SME’s), as almost anyone with an idea or a product could now launch their very own business online.
However, the slight downside to this new world of opportunities is that, since practically anyone can launch their online business website, the level of competition has also increased exponentially. To remain ahead of the game, businesses need to find something that gives them an edge over their rivals. This is particularly true of SMEs competing within smaller or more specific niches online.
One of the most effective ways in which your business can gain an advantage over your rivals is through the creation of a business blog. A few years ago, online blogs were mainly the domain of internet personalities, travellers, food and hotel critics and so on. However, as more internet visitors began to actively engage with bloggers (through following their blogs), their influence over their audience became very apparent.
Businesses began to notice the potential that blogging could have in attracting more traffic to their sites, and then converting visits into sales. Creating a business blog can be extremely effective in helping to build brand awareness and, at the same time, provide added value through the creation of user guides, advice blogs, and future brand developments.
As more and more online businesses adopt the blogging platform (studies show that over 80% of businesses now rely heavily on blogs), here are five compelling reasons why your business should start blogging:
1. Business Blogging Can Develop Strong Relationships with Your Customers
Creating an interesting and informative daily or weekly blog around your business is a great way to develop strong relationships with your customer base. Unlike your product pages, your blog will allow you to connect with your customers more informally or conversationally.
You can interact with your customers by allowing them to ask questions relating to your brand or specific products, which you can then answer directly. A good business blog that is engaging and filled with useful content, is also a great way to attract new customers who may be browsing your site, but not committing to a purchase, membership or other feature on your site.
2. Boost Your SEO
Search engines are designed to target the most relevant, content-rich pages when collating search results. Blogging is one of the easiest, most effective and inexpensive ways for your business to achieve excellent SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). This is especially true if you are diligent and create great blog posts consistently. Daily blogging feeds top search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and others, looking to index your content. Creating consistent blog posts is also a great way to add the most relevant keywords to your business, making it easier for potential customers to find you quicker.
3. Sharing is Caring
Successful bloggers will tell you, one of the biggest benefits of regular blog posts, is the opportunity that it creates to share links. By sharing links to your blog, you open up the potential for vast amounts of traffic to your site (viral marketing) and huge market growth. Creating a shareable link to your blog, which can be shared on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook or even just email, is easy to do and is an invaluable tool in your marketing.
4. Become a Leader in Your Field
No matter how small your enterprise is, creating a regular blog can elevate you to the top of your niche, by building trust within your community as an authority in your particular industry. Your blog is a great way to showcase your product knowledge and industry expertise by creating highly-informative blogs that your customers will value.
5. Getting Personal
While we’ve discussed how blogging can increase brand awareness, it also offers you the opportunity to show your customers a more personal side of your brand. By connecting directly to your customers, you’ll be able to give them better insight into your operational standards and business message. You may find that your customers are more willing to stick with your brand once you’ve engaged with them on a personal level, letting them be a part of your vision for your business.